“Miss Palomar, do you remember the stories he told you of his trips?”
“Oh, yes, I remember many of his stories but I am tired now and will tell them to you another day.”
“Thank you, Miss Palomar.”
As the sun sets and the jungle cools, the young parrots fly off to find their own branches for the night.
# # #
Alonzo's Tale
I liked the Orca. That is what the men on the ship I was on called the ship, Orca. He also told me that an Orca was a sea creature that was very large and fearsome. The Orca that we rode on was large but it was not at all fearsome unless you were in a small boat that made the mistake of being in front of the Orca. To a man on a small boat our ship was like a real orca. Tuno, the man who told Orca what to do always made a loud noise when we came to a new place or if he saw something in front of us. Then the men in the small boats would move there boats out of our way. After all, we were very large and everyone knows that in nature the large and powerful tell the small and the weak what to do.
One day it was late and very hot so we were all tired and uncomfortable. We were moving near the coast from one place to another when we all saw a boat in front of us. Tuno made Orca make its loud noise but the man in the small boat for some reason did not want to move out of our way. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe he did not have good food. Maybe he did not like the Orca. It made no difference. Orca roared many times very rapidly at the man in the boat. He raised his arm and shook it at Orca but the rules of nature say that the small should give way to the large. Orca knew the rules. The men on Orca went to the front and waved their arms at the man and made loud noises. He just shook his arm and made his own noises. He did not move. Orca went on top of him. I flew up from my perch to see what happened. It is like when a parrot in the jungle does not flee from a large cat. All that is left are pieces. I did not see the man but I did see many small pieces of his boat on the water. The smart survive, the stupid are destroyed.
The life of Orca was not as pleasant as that of a jungle parrot. Even though Orca would sleep next to other large creatures like Orca, I never saw them show any affection towards each other. On a few occasions when one large ship would touch another ship the men on the ships would become very excited, shouting and waving their arms, like two male parrots when they both wanted the same female. Once when two ships touched each other,. the men on both ships began throwing things at the other men. Juanito and I both moved to a safe place until the fight was finished. When two ships touch, it is not soft and pleasant like when parrots touch. I believe parrots are much nicer creatures than ships.
I do not want to give the impression that parrots are always soft and easy-going birds. When we are required to act, we act very forcefully. Sometimes it is against other parrots but usually it is against another creature which attacks us. My beak is large and very powerful. Any creature who thinks he can easily overcome me will learn that I can do considerable damage with my beak. I fly very rapidly so after I strike a blow, if the enemy is larger and more powerful than I am, I fly away quickly. I respect the rules of nature. I know a larger bird can destroy me even if I try to escape, so I do not fight with anything which I believe can destroy me. I fly away before I fight.
Orca's life had a set pattern. It – I don't know if Orca was a male or female – went from one place to another on the water. When it reached a place, it stopped next to the land. The men on Orca would move large objects from Orca to the land, then they would move other objects from the land to Orca. I think the objects must be food for Orca. Like bananas for parrots. When Orca eats what is inside the objects, it discards the skin of the objects at the next place and takes new objects for food. When I fly near Orca I frequently see the waste of Orca floating on the water behind it. Orca is always warm so I know it is very much alive and has a healthy system. When the weather is very bad, the men take us inside Orca to protect us. I prefer to be outside where there are more things to see and where I can fly around. The inside of Orca is not like the inside of a tree or a cave. Everything is very hard. I have tried to bite the inside of Orca but it is much harder than my beak.
The places that Orca goes for its food are not very far apart. Orca must need to eat very often, like a parrot but not like the large snakes or the crocodiles. Those creatures can go for many days without eating but Orca never goes for more than a few days without stopping for more food. The one object that I do not understand is the cages with animals in them. The animals and birds in the cages are all alive when they are put on Orca and the men do not feed these creatures to Orca. At some other place the cages are taken off Orca with most of the creature still alive. The men on Orca take very good care of it. They are constantly cleaning it with water. Juanito and I always move away when the men shoot the water from large serpent skins. The water is from the sea and it is not good for us to drink.
I rode on Orca for many seasons. It was a much more pleasant life than staying in the jungle. When Orca was at the land to get its food, we would fly into the jungle nearby to visit the local parrots. They were always very friendly. We saw some of them many times. Some of them were our children or our children's children. We told them stories about the things that we saw. Many of these parrots did not ever want to leave the area were they were born. Sometimes, however, we would return to a place where we had been before and there had been a lot of change. Everyone we had known had left. The trees where they had lived were gone. We flew around the area to try and find them. Sometimes we found them nearby but many times we did not. Often the parrots who we met told us disturbing stories of what had happened. The men came and destroyed the jungle. They killed many creatures and took many others away in cages. There were other disturbing things we saw.
Orca went along the coast where there were small islands brought by the men. There was a lot of noise on these islands. The men lifted large trees with no branches and made them go down into the water. Later we saw the trees were all gone into the water and the men had left the islands. The water around the islands was shiny and it had a strange odor. We did not want to go near these small islands. The men had larger islands in the water where they put trees down into the water. When all the trees were in the water, the island had a tree on top of it that had fire always burning like a volcano. The men stayed on these islands to make the fire burn. The water around these islands was usually shiny. We did not fly close to these islands for fear of the fire.
I asked Juanito if he ever flew very far from Orca. He said it was risky to do so because Orca might be far away when he returned. But one time he had made a long flight from Orca.
# # #
Juanito's Tale
One clear morning we were moving along the coast with our ship full of cages and boxes. It was a large load for Orca to carry. Maybe it was too large or maybe Orca had eaten some bad food. The next thing I knew Orca made a loud noise from its insides. Smoke came out of the holes in Orca. There was a very bad smell. Orca was very sick. It stopped moving and lay in the water. The men ran out of Orca, rushing around wildly. A few put a boat in the water, climbed in the boat and went away. I flew around Orca to see if some creature had attacked it, but I could not see anything bad on the outside of Orca. It was a problem inside Orca. We did nothing. The next morning another ship, smaller than Orca, came. It was there to help Orca just like good parrots will take food to a sick parrot. The men took a vine from the good ship and brought it to Orca where they attached it. Then the good ship pulled Orca. It pulled Orca very slowly for a few days until we came to a large city near the water. There was no longer any smoke coming from Orca. I feared maybe Orca had died but that was not the case.
Men from the land came with bags. It was strange to me that they would want to stay on a dead ship. Then I realized they were there to help Orca. They went into the holes in Orca. When they came out they carried large black piece
s. These were the sick parts of Orca. They brought shiny pieces from the land. They took these into Orca. I understood that Orca was not going to move for some days so I decided to take a flight up a river to see this area. After a few hours of flying I decided to rest in the shade, but not where I would be in danger. I did not know the jungle well here so I wanted to stay close to the water. At the same time you must always be careful when you fly in the open because there are other birds which like to kill parrots and eat them. I flew above the water high enough that no creature from the water could reach me. I was close to the side of the river where there were trees that made it more difficult for the killer birds to see me.
When I landed on a branch of a tree to rest, first I checked that there were no threats visible near the branch or in the water directly below it. I saw a crocodile lying in the water near the side of the river but I was certain he could not reach me. He was very old. There were a lot of marks and damage on his skin. One of his eyes was missing with skin in its place. Reptiles in general, and crocodiles in particular, are stupid creatures. It is easy to outsmart them but they are quick so you must be careful not to be close to them. They like to eat a lot at one time then rest for many days with a full stomach. Their ability to communicate with each other is very limited. With other creatures it is even worse. This crocodile realized he could not reach me. He seemed more tired and old than he was hungry. I decided to try to communicate with him on a basic level where I would ask him very simple questions and he could give simple replies. He seemed to understand this.
“Hungry?”
“No.”
“Comfortable?”
“Yes.”
I could tell this would be a very slow conversation but I had plenty of time as I did not want to fly in the heat of the day.. I rested there for a long time with no fear of the crocodile.
# # #
Storm clouds were appearing in the sky. I did not want to be flying in a heavy rainstorm. Orca could be healthy again, preparing to move to the next place. I said “Bye” to the crocodile who drowsily raised his head a bit and made a deep sound that I understood to mean “Bye.” I flew down the river towards the Orca. When I arrived Orca was still being treated. The crew greeted me and gave me good treats which I gladly accepted. After a couple more days of treatments Orca was well and made the smooth sounds it had made before its illness. We left the place and moved on to the next place.
The End
But They Don't Listen To Me
The lifespan of living things varies greatly. There are insects with a normal lifespan of only a day or two. There are trees which can live a thousand years.
Living things have a great variety of senses. Some of these are well developed and essential to one species and yet non-existent in other species. Worms that live below the ground have no need of vision in their dark world. Arctic terns and other species of both birds and fish have the ability to navigate vast distances through some innate sense of direction and location.
Some creatures live in more than one medium. Crocodiles and other amphibians spend time both under and above the surface of the water or on land. Ants, rabbits, and snakes live part of their lives above and below the surface of the earth.
Most creatures live in a single environment: under the earth or in the sea, on the surface of the earth. To them there is only a single environment. Just as with a person who knows only a single language, other languages sound strange and difficult
Plants live in even more worlds. Like most living creatures there is the internal and external life. Only the external life is visible to simple observers, but with the right instruments and techniques a specialist can sense the internal workings. Plants also have the subterranean and the life above the ground. The part of the plant above the ground collects light and air. It spreads seeds, provides flowers and fruit to propagate itself. Below the ground the roots collect water and minerals that are used to provide the solid substances for the plant. Some plants also propagate below the ground by the development of root systems, fruits, and nuts which are the basis for other surface plants.
# # #
The Sequoia tree living in northwest America has lived almost a thousand years, outliving many of its offspring and most other species in the area. It has been in the same general location all its life but the setting has changed over the centuries due to both natural and human intervention. The tree seems to an observer on the ground to live above the surface. This is misleading.
The tree starts its life as a seed that sprouts below the surface and breaks through in search of the warmth of the sun, of air to breath. In the meantime it grows even more rapidly below the ground, developing a vast network of roots.
These roots do more than just collect the moisture and minerals that feed the tree. The roots are embedded in the soil in such a way as to provide physical structural support to the tree growing above the surface. Trees which grow in areas where there is abundant water near the surface do not have the necessity to develop as deeply into the ground. This can pose a problem for them if the soil moisture content declines substantially. It also deters the tree from growing a deep root system to provide support for the tree developing on the surface. Behavior of the tree which enables it to grow and reproduce is reinforced in subsequent generations. The tree develops skills which enable it to grow and reproduce. These skills include the penetration of the subsurface earth to extend its root system. Better absorption, filtration, and storage skills aid development both below and above the ground surface. These skill are carried in the genetic memory of the tree.
# # #
What does the tree sense?
Each species develops senses which promote their survival and regeneration. Birds which migrate vast distances between continents are able to navigate precisely over these long distances. Salmon leave their home waters after birth and travel far in the ocean but are able to find their way back to their birth place. Species of living beings have different senses and similar senses developed to different degrees.
An attack on a plant by another plant, an insect, or an animal can trigger a defensive response in the plant. The attack may not involve direct contact. Another plant may diffuse a chemical in the air which causes the reaction. A plant may block the sunlight from another plant. The blocked plant may "sense" this blocking by the reduction of light falling on a part of it and react by trying to grow into a brighter area. The reaction is just the natural growth of the plant into the most resource-rich area.
Large creatures have more difficulty responding to a stimulus with the same speed as a smaller creature because it takes more energy for the larger creature to move a large part of itself. Cows and horses are adept at flicking their ears and tails to drive off insects. The tree may emit a chemical substance to drive off an attacker. This requires much less energy and is an inbred ability developed in the tree's evolution. Newer attackers imported into the area may not trigger this inbred response and subject the tree to indefensible attacks.
The sequoia hears vibrations in its structure. The sounds if strong enough may cause it to lose needles, seeds, and pieces of bark. Long term strong noises or vibrations may cause it to grow on the far side away from the source of the noise as from seismic activity. When subsurface motion loosens the soil around the roots it permits growth of the roots into the voids but this must be supported by the presence of water in or around the voids.
The tree feels pressure on its surface both above and below the surface and responds by moving away from the pressure as the pressure reduces the flow of nutrients through the fluid transfer mechanisms in its skin or bark. It also feels temperatures and reacts in whatever way is advantageous to it just as some small plants close up when it becomes cold or dark.
Taste is a result of a chemical reaction in the tree's structure caused by substances which are inducted by the skin or roots of the plant. The tree reacts positively to good tastes
by absorbing more of the substance and negatively by stopping absorption if it is possible. A poisonous substance will damage the components of the tree not only at the site of the ingestion but internally if the roots or skin/bark pass the poison to other parts of the tree. The poison may "taste" good to the roots or the bark but in fact be harmful to the tree.
The tree sees only shades of light and dark. It will grow towards the light because the light gives the plant the energy it needs to grow.
In conclusion, a small, young tree may listen to your singing if you regularly sing very close to it so that it feels the vibrations while absorbing chemicals, moisture, and warmth from your breath. Don't block its sunlight when you sing.
A plant is not a very good audience for an aspiring singer.
# # #
About the Author
In his first life Max E. Harris was a computer system specialist living mainly in Houston but for periods in Scotland, Holland, Brunei and the even more remote wild lands of Sacramento, California. In his second life he moved to Como, Italy, where he walks in the woods with his dog Orso wondering what happens next. Harris wonders, Orso knows.
Harris can be contacted at
[email protected].
Other works by Harris include:
Confessions of a Drone Pilot, a collection of short stories,
The Jeweler's Loupe, a long screen play and two short screen plays.
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