I woke up with the rising Sun. Since I didn’t even have a bed, I slept on the floor, lying over my coat. At first, I didn’t know where I was. And, for a brief moment, I forgot everything about myself. I just sat there, listening to the birds, empty, relaxed. Slowly, memories, thoughts, layers, started pouring in. But they were now distant, as if they didn’t belong to me, anymore.
I looked at the Green Book that was lying there, on the table.
An Empty Book.
I am an empty book, now.
My stomach rumbled. For the first time in years, I didn’t even think about writing or creating anything. I walked past the book, outside, and stopped on the rickety porch. Closed my eyes and listened to the myriad of birds, from the nearby forest. Hundreds of melodies on unison. All together, they created one Song. The Song of that Forest. The same Song day after day. Year after year. Century after Century.
My eyes, then, started to look around that field, that abandoned property. It was much bigger than it seemed the day before. All around, bushes and thickets, and the corpses of many trees. At a first glance, I saw some apple and pear trees. Plum and cherry. They were placed in rows. Many years ago, they must have looked beautiful, especially on Spring. But now they looked like a ghostly procession.
I walked around the field, among those trees. Bees, birds, grasshoppers. Vines filled with flowers, climbing the dead trees. The land is pulsing with life. There is no nostalgia, no mourning in nature. Everything just blooms, sings, withers, dies. And, then it is reborn. And the cycle stars again.
I know it sounds simple, but immersed in the jungle of my stories, I had forgotten about it.
For an hour, I had been walking round and round the field. Just enjoying that emptiness. Without being aware of it, I had been walking clockwise, in a spiraling way, around the center of the field, getting closer and closer to it.
I only stopped because I tripped and fell on the floor. The root of a tree. Swearing, I got up. Out of that trance, out of that emptiness. I looked in front of me. At the center of the field, there was a small grove of trees. Oak trees. The trees were quite big, as if they were an off-shoot of the nearby forest. I could have sworn that, when I came here the day before, it wasn’t here. But that wasn’t possible. Maybe I was too tired.
From within, I heard the sound of running water. I entered the grove and, suddenly, it seemed that I entered a totally different place. I am not in the field, anymore. It was dark, humid, moss covered the stones and trunks. The sound of running water was getting closer. And, finally, I got to a sort of basin made of stone. At the center, there was a stone with a phallus shape. From the tip, water was pouring and falling all over the basin. I was quite puzzled at that. It certainly looked like the water started flowing not very long ago. Probably that same day. Because there were only a few inches of water covering it.
That strange block of stone, with that phallus shape. Since I saw it from the first time, only one phrase came to my mind over and over again.
Prima materia.
Something is about to burst, to Become something else.
But what, exactly?
My stomach grumbled again.
I looked at my hands.
And smiled.
Well, I guess it is time to get to work.
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