Seed

This Memento has taken the shape of a seed. Small though they are, seeds are far from simple. They are precursors of things to come—they feed the dreams of fertile minds, shaping and inspiring their mental landscapes.

A seed can hold many things within. Its purpose not always clear at first glance, yet through growth, it is shaped and developed towards its final form. Whatever hides at their core, each holds power–the power of creation.

In a way, we ourselves, as well as the thoughts that form in our mind, are seeds—planted in this world, growing and leaving traces of our existence throughout our lives. Yet with every choice along our branching paths, we are judged. Scrutinised by a world that thrives on control. A world filled with the entitled opinions of those who hold no true authority over the course of our lives, yet who feel a need to burden others by trying to bind them and restrict them in such a way as to force them to grow in the direction they impose upon them. Thus we've become surrounded by a public opinion that swiftly executes that which they deem out of bounds, or could provoke any sort of "negative" feeling in others. They prefer to cut out creativity and free thinking, and to hide behind walls of the false reality they build with their dogmas.

I feel the time has come to judge them in return, before our world's balance keels over irreparably towards over-sensitivity and censure.

You open your eyes.

Darkness.

You reach out—your hand extended into the blackness, hesitantly trying to feel that which cannot be seen. Almost immediately, you feel hardened knots and tangles all around you. Your mind’s eye paints a mental picture of a small chamber—weaved with strands of solid wood—as if you were secured in an earthen cocoon.

A notion fills you. Reminds you that you cannot be reminded. That you have forgotten. The before swept away from your memory like a leaf plucked from a branch by autumn winds—

Then, a faint strand of concentrated light pierces through the veil of darkness. As your eyes adjust, you start to discern the details of your earthen enclosure. Roots endlessly entwined in one another form a round chamber.
At first you feel peaceful, protected among the bark, rooted in the soil.
You imagine yourself the core of a seed—planted in dark, rich earth—waiting not for death, but to be reborn.
But not long after this initial calm, dread and panic surface in your mind.

You are trapped. No way out, nowhere to go.

Then, everything around you rumbles and shifts. As if the world itself yawns. You brace yourself, expecting your imposed sanctuary to cave in on itself, and you, any second. The quake stops, you remain unscathed.
You take a deep breath and regain your composure. As if calming your mind sharpens your senses, you notice an opening that wasn’t there earlier. You shift yourself to look inside. You squint your eyes to make out anything in the sparse light beyond the passageway, but you only see a tunnel leading further away. It seems just wide enough to squeeze through.

With no alternatives to staying put or braving the tunnel, you decide to opt for the latter. You crawl, and crawl—just as you start to wonder if this claustrophobic ordeal will ever end, there is light at the end of the tunnel.
As you spill out of the passage into a grand underground chamber, you are witness to a strange and confounding spectacle.

You hear their clamour before you see them—a rabble of gaunt, corpse-like figures, murmuring and groaning before the elevated thrones of two stately shapes. Lords with skin of bark—one wielding a gavel, the other motionless in stoic contemplation, one hand resting on the pommel of a grand executioner’s blade.
The first bangs his gavel now and again, the murmurs dying down as he decides who gets to plead their case. More husks are brought in, hands bound, their guilt decided by the judge. Some are set free after the pleas are made, others cut down by the sharpened steel of the second lord. As soon as the gavel strikes anew, the clamour swells into an indistinguishable mass of voices once again.

Then, they notice your presence. Dozens of heads turn, one by one. With their eyes fixed on you, all husks point their finger. The gavel echoes throughout the chamber. You have been judged. As if possessed of a single, shared impulse, all husks turn toward you, swarming over you. Countless hands grab you, hold you. They pile upon you, suffocating and blinding. The last thing you see before blacking out, the executioner slowly rising from his seat, pointing his blade towards you, and approaching with solemn tread.

You awaken in the meadow.
Sitting in the soft, green grass of spring, the book still open in your lap, your back against the tree—you must have dozed off.
Lodged between the pages you notice an envelope—weathered with age and bearing your name.