The Eclective: Time Collection

by The Eclective

  That night, after the moon had risen high above the branches and Pablo had finally finished carving out a home, the little bird nestled down to sleep.

  And then Manuel heard the predatory screech of the toucan. He felt the giant bird’s wings whoosh by his branches as he dove on top of the mangrove. Pablo cried out before the toucan snapped his neck. Manuel roared, but it was too late for him to plead for his friend’s life.

  Manuel’s branches shook with sorrow.

  “If you had remained a watcher,” the mangrove scolded, “you would not feel loss now. You knew better than to care for the jungle creatures.”

  Long after the toucan discarded what was left of Pablo’s broken body, Manuel wept, and wept, until the sorrow nearly rotted all of his roots.

  Despite the warmth from the sun’s rays, Manuel’s branches dropped and his leaves thinned. Many years had passed since that day the woodpecker had been killed. Other walking trees had come to the crest. Their branches grew taller as they towered above Manuel and blocked out his sunlight.

  Feeling friendless and alone, Manuel did not care—until the day the young sloth had sought sanctuary on his branches. Her mamá had been killed by poachers. Alone and afraid, she wept while Manuel sat in stony silence.

  “Have you no feelings, tree?” the sloth had cried. “Do you not understand the sorrow that has robbed all joy from my heart?”

  “I do,” Manuel answered with emotion.

  “Then why do you not show me comfort?”

  “I am a watcher.”

  “You are what you wish to be,” she answered.

  Manuel’s branches softened as he recalled similar words once spoken by his dear friend. “Then I wish to be your friend.”

  “Thank you, tree.”

  Over the years, the sloth grew stronger and happier and then one day she answered the call of another. Not long after, she nestled among Manuel’s branches with a babe in her arms.

  “Isn’t he beautiful?”

  “He is,” Manuel answered truthfully.

  “Do you mind if I name him Manuel?”

  For the first time in ages, Manuel’s branches shook with joy. “It would be my honor.”

  And so for this little sloth, this very special babe, Manuel was willing to tear out his roots and sacrifice himself so that the little one might live. Manuel only hoped he wouldn’t be too late.

  The babe’s cries died down as an ominous hush fell about the jungle. The only sounds now were the soft patter of Mamá’s feet slipping down the Mangrove and the slow, painful ripping of roots from soil.

  Manuel tried his best to ignore the eerie silence. He could feel the trees around him holding their breath. Even the pesky monkeys stilled.

  Something was coming.

  “We must hurry,” Manuel cried.

  “Is it The Gato?” Mamá’asked through a shaky whisper. “Can you feel it?”

  Manuel tried to block out all other sounds as he shifted his entire focus on searching out the reason for the change in the air. The tips of his branches all the way down to the cracks in his exposed roots buzzed with a nervous energy. The call of evil snaked around his limbs and coiled around his trunk.

  The Gato was coming.

  “He is near,” Manuel hissed. Using all of his might, he ripped several roots out at once, ignoring the searing pain that coursed through his frame.

  Mamá quickened her pace down the trunk of the mangrove. When she’d almost reached the bottom, she let go and dropped with a thud. Manuel could feel the pulse of her agony permeate the soil around her soft body.

  The cat let out an ear-piercing growl while Mamá was struggling to sit. She pushed herself forward and scooted toward her child, then she scooped the crying babe against her chest.

  The Gato’s ominous glowing eyes appeared from behind the shadows before his sleek black body came into full view.

  Mamá clutched her child tighter while she warily eyed the circling cat.

  Manuel pulled and pulled, heedless of the pain that lanced through his splintered wood. “I am coming,” he cried.

  Manuel felt the last root give way just as The Gato was about to pounce on the sloths. Heedless of the other trees shouting and hurling insults, he pushed his heavy limbs forward with all his might as he came crashing down on top of the predator.

  The mamá sloth turned her head while shielding her child as the tips of Manuel’s leaves brushed her soft body.

  The monkeys erupted into squeals overhead.

  Mamá scooted toward Manuel and nestled her head against his trunk. The little sloth reached out and wrapped a tiny fist around Manuel’s leaves.

  “Manuel, your roots,” Mamá sobbed.

  “Do not worry over me. Get your child to safety.”

  “What will happen to you?”

  “I shall go to the limitless light,” he spoke with a smile in his voice. “I shall go to my friend Pablo.”

  * Socratea exorrhiza, the Walking Palm or Cashapona, is a palm native to rainforests in tropical Central and South America. It can grow to 25 meters in height, with a stem diameter of up to 16 cm,[1] but is more typically 15-20 m tall and 12 cm in diameter.[2] It has unusual stilt roots, the function of which has been debated.

  #

  Tara West writes books about dragons, witches, and handsome heroes while eating chocolate, lots and lots of chocolate. She’s willing to share her dragons, witches and heroes. Keep your hands off her chocolate.

  Find her at her website tarawest.com or follow her on Facebook

  Curse of the Ice Dragon

  If you enjoyed Tara’s story, check out her best-selling fantasy!

  Born with mark of the Mighty Hunter, Markus has the skill and strength to feed his people, but not to confront his own tyrannical father. Shamed by his cowardice, Markus releases his frustration on the forest creatures.

  The village prophet warns that Markus's reckless ways will bring down The Hunter’s Curse, and for every animal Markus kills, his loved ones will suffer the same fate. When the warnings go unheeded, the Sky Goddess unleashes her ice dragon. Now Markus must flee the dragon without killing it or his beloved brother will die.

  Markus's flight takes him to the lands of the mysterious Ice People. There, the beautiful maiden Ura helps Markus learn the compassion and courage he needs to face the wrath of the Goddess, but the final confrontation will not be without price, as Markus must choose between the life of his brother and the fate of the girl he loves.

  The Bus Shelter

  G.R. Yeates

  The bus shelter stood barely upright. Its supports were buckled and corroded. Its panes of protective glass were shattered. Rain came in through the gaps, defeating the idea that this was a shelter of any kind. The bus timetable was bleached illegible by sunlight that I could never remember shining. I could only recall the rain, the relentless rain and the interminable grey skies rolling overhead.

  I could not tell you how long I had been waiting at the bus shelter but I am sure it was a very long time. I could not tell you where I was intending to go once I had caught the bus and was on the move again, but I am sure that it was to somewhere of great importance. I also could not tell you what was inside the package that I held in my hands, resting gently on my knees, as I sat on one of the shelter’s cracked plastic seats, but I knew that it was also of great importance.

  The package was a curious thing. It was a plain cardboard box with no markings, labels or stamps upon it, heavily-sealed with industrial tape and with a dampish texture. It was as if whatever was inside the box was sweating a substance of some kind, but the actual nature of that substance was beyond me. I was left with no clues at all, except that I had been entrusted with this package and I had to take it with urgency to its destination. I was sure that I would know when I got there. Places of great importance were most astute at communicating their significance to the layman. And I was most definitely a layman.

  The bus came out of the rain, its windsc
reen wipers methodically thudding back and forth, back and forth. It came to a stop by the kerb and the boarding doors hissed open. A few hunched figures in long grey coats with sallow faces disembarked and shuffled off into the rain. Though I noted, as I was boarding, that one of them took my seat in the ineffectual bus shelter.

  I boarded and paid for a standard pass. I could travel as far across the city as I needed to with that in my pocket. Even if the bus broke down, as they were wont to do, I could board the replacement and continue my journey onward. I took my place on the bus. A window seat where the glass was as cracked as the plastic seat in the shelter. The window threw back jagged reflections that made my sallow face seem as angry as it was sad and as beaten as it was tired. I had not shaved and rubbed at my stubbled chin ruefully. I also noticed the grey hairs creeping out of my scalp in the hollow reflection. I was sure that they had not been there the last time I caught a bus like this. Yes, I was sure. Certain. Almost.

  The bus went on its way through the city and I saw the people outside go by. All of them, men, women and children, wearing the long grey coats with detachable hoods that dragged along the pavements and hung heavily with the incessant rain. Though there was light in the city, burning from windows and shop doorways, there seemed to be no way for it to alleviate the darkness that shrouded every street, alley and major road. It was not just pollution, you see, it was a poison in the air that one seemed to not only breathe in but to breathe out as well. It was something dismal and symbiotic buried deep in every one of us. I found myself gripping the package hard as this knowledge passed through my head. I found myself wondering if the package itself was something that could ease or even banish what was hanging over the city, making every person within its limits walk with a downcast head.

  But I did not know this for sure and so could only go along on my journey, peering out of the cracked, rain-streaked glass, searching the buildings that rose out of the gloom for a sign of great and key importance that would tell me that I had arrived at my destination.

  * * *

  They embarked several stops after I had taken my seat. These were the Inspectors. Dressed in more formal and cleaner trench coats than the rest of the populace, they also wore masks with circular eyeholes of opaque glass and beak-like projections that were supposedly stuffed with sweet-smelling herbs and spices to protect them from the stench and disease that was one with the city. Each of them held a hypodermic needle in a gloved hand. The metal was rusty and the glass was dirty and cracked. Each of the passengers, myself included, knew the procedure and we began the earnest job of rolling up our coat-sleeves. To demonstrate even a moment’s reluctance would have been to brand ourselves with suspicion. Looking down at my forearms, I felt my stomach turn in a familiar way as I eyed the numerous puncture marks mottling the pale flesh, and the brown trails of dead veins running out from them.

  The wrist of a woman sitting ahead of me was seized harshly, as was the norm, and the rusted needle was driven into her forearm. I saw her shoulders sag and shake a little from the sensation as her blood was slowly drawn. She gave out a gasp as the needle was removed and its dark contents held up to the eyeholes of the Inspector’s mask. I watched her blood, how it was so filthy and heavy, so slow, almost coagulating, and how it seemed to glisten in ways blood should not. We all took our government-issued medication. It was a crime not to. Though how many took other substances to ease the daily pain those drugs induced was impossible to know. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath as they waited for the Inspector’s pronouncement. It would decide whether the woman sitting ahead of me continued her journey on the bus, or whether she would be taken away for purification. The voice of the Inspector finally rang out, releasing us from our unwanted tension.

  “You are clean.”

  I heard the woman choke on a relieved sob as the Inspector approached me. My fingers tightened around the box in my lap. The Inspectors did not always board the buses and, when they did, it was because there was suspicion surrounding someone on board. It had to be me. It could be no-one else. This box, unmarked, with its strange, cloying dampness marked me out as guilty though I had done nothing, and did not know what was contained within it.

  “Your arm, sir.”

  The voice made me hurriedly thrust out my arm for inspection. I felt the fingers bite into my soft skin so hard I wanted to weep there and then. It took out the same needle it had used on the woman sitting ahead of me. The Inspector jabbed at my arm with it. The Inspector took some time to find a vein that was neither dead, nor broken, and I was gnawing hard on my lip the whole time, trying not to cry out. My free hand clutched at the box, fingertips stroking over it in fitful trembles. The Inspectors had not asked about it, not yet, but soon they would and then this charade of checking my blood would end. They would take me away, ask me questions, hurt my mind and my body, and I would never see the grey skies again.

  The needle went in and drew blood. I waited and waited. The needle was withdrawn and the blood inside held up to the dull light. Watching my blood mix with that of the woman, I waited some more. This was it. The moment had come. It could wait no longer. I closed my eyes and prepared myself for what was to come.

  The Inspector spoke.

  “You are clean.”

  He moved on to the next passenger, and I slumped down into my seat, sobbing hard.

  * * *

  It was later and I realised, much to my distress, that I had fallen asleep on the journey. My fear and then relief at not being taken away by the Inspectors had exhausted me. Looking around, I could see that there were only a few souls remaining on the bus and that the lights outside had grown less and less. Surely, there should have been more light as we came towards the heart of the city, not less. Grasping the package in desperate, sweating hands, I sprang from my seat and ran to the back of the bus. I pressed my face against the long horizontal sliver of glass that formed a rear window. I could see faces turning to look at me in my periphery but I paid them no heed. There was no threat in their eyes, just a dull, somnambulant interest that would soon evaporate along with their next breath.

  But surely ... surely this was where I had been meant to go to. A place of great importance would be in the heart of the city and, doubtless, someone was there now, waiting for this package to be handed to them. Over a desk, perhaps. Passed across a table in one of the less salubrious cafeterias. Left for them to collect from a pigeon-hole box in one of the train stations. But it was so dark outside. I could just about discern the shapes of buildings and the many shuffling forms of people but that was all. Nothing was clear. All looked to be one and the same. So many, had darkness and disease undone so many?

  The bus went on its way and I returned to my seat where I slumped in a dejected state. The package with its strange, damp texture and lack of identifying marks rested on my knees. I stared at it, wondered at it and wished I knew more about it. And about myself. Flicking a lock of greying hair out of my eyes, I returned my gaze to the passing tower blocks, hoping to catch a glimpse of some sign to indicate what I should do next. Though I felt a tight clutching sensation inside that told me I had already failed at what I was supposed to do and that there was no good fate awaiting me.

  What a wretch!

  How could I have fallen asleep?

  But as I looked around, a thought occurred to me. The few people who were left aboard. Their eyes staring off to here and there, never meeting, always avoiding contact as one does in the city.

  What is not seen, nor heard, nor felt, cannot send your soul to Hell.

  The words of the Worship-Men sounded in my ears as I got to my feet. These few, these unhappy few people could be the key. With the box in my hands, my breath catching in my mouth, I went up to the nearest person and asked the question.

  “Have you seen this box before?”

  He was an overweight man with a bullish, raw face that sweated an oily sheen. The squinting eyes of a pig stared back at me as his hands closed tightly around the small
burlap sack balanced on his bulging knees. The sack seemed to writhe as I spoke and I thought that I heard a child’s cry from within. The overweight man smacked a fat hand down on the sack and it became still and quiet again.

  “No, I have not seen that box. I have my sack. It is all I need. My sack and what’s in it is all I will ever need.”

  I didn’t like the way he smiled at me as he finished speaking.

  So I asked the next person. A long, thin woman with her hair drawn up in a tight bun and her son sitting next to her. They shared a complexion of sour butter and eyes that were hard flint marbles. His forehead bore the mark of an iron needle puncture. It had become law a few years ago that any child known to suffer from excessive thought and imagination would have its brain cauterised. A thin line of drool ran from the corner of his mouth and I could see that his eyes saw and focused upon less than most.

  “Excuse me, Miss, have you seen this box before? Or, perhaps, your son-”

  “Perhaps my son what?”

  “Well, has seen this box before, perhaps?”

  She turned her eyes on her son, who continued to stare sullenly ahead as the bus rocked along the uneven road. Then she turned her eyes back to me.

  “No. He hasn’t seen the box. He hasn’t seen any boxes ever. None at all.”

  “Perhaps, if I could ask him-”

  “No. He hasn’t seen no boxes. None. Not ever. Why you asking? You an Inspector? You want to be one? Do you?”

  The colour drained from my face as I shook my head vigorously, realising what I had done. What an admission that gesture had made. I backed away from the woman and her hard stare. Her son’s dull eyes were also looking at me now, at a man who had shown public dislike of the Inspectors.

  My fingertips were almost piercing the card of the box as I approached the third and last person aboard. He was sitting at the back, by himself, in the far corner seat and I had to duck to squeeze into the shadowy compartmented space. He was old and frail, picking at the fraying grey wool of his fingerless gloves.

  “You want to know if I have seen this box?”

  My mouth worked dumbly as I processed the man’s words. Eventually, as I sat down beside him, I found my voice.