The Mushroom Project

Chapter 2.1

2010-01-24T10:25:00.001-08:00

Stuart's mother, Lily, was exactly that--A lily. She knew that she had been taken in by kindly, simple people, but even they were not sure who her real mother and father were. Stuart's mother's mother, Stuart's grandmother, Rose had found her years ago in the forest when she was no bigger than a s bud at the tip of a green-spring sprout.

Lily's real mother, the one she never knew, Cali, came from a very wealthy and prominent family whose descendants have long moved out of the shadow of the mountain to expand their wealth and influence.

Cali had everything she had ever wanted in life with in her palatial home. Servants waited on her hand and foot, and her father had even employed a master toymaker to guarantee that Cali was never without while he was at his business and her mother was at her social obligations. They were very important people, as mentioned before, and it was not uncommon for them to leave for weeks at a time to keep their reputation in good repair by staying with other influential people far and wide, and when her parents were home they were always with the tailor or the jeweler.

Cali soon became tired of toys. She had dolls, doll houses, music boxes, jewelry boxes, horses, tea sets, and anything else she could imagine that the toymaker could make. But what Cali loved the most about having a toymaker had nothing to do with toys; it was Tom, the toymaker's son. He was her best friend, but for all her toys, it was Tom who made her happy, and she would keep the toymaker employed at any number of ridiculous requests just to keep Tom around, for fear that the toymaker would leave taking his son with him if she ran out of ideas. So she ordered fully working stables with fully articulated wooden horses and little leather saddles for the tiny riders, and when they were finished, she needed a castle with a working moat and a princess, and of course, the princess would need her subjects, and the subjects would need rustic farms, and farms need goats and pigs and cows and so on and so on.

For years she and Thomas played, and soon she had outgrown toys, so she frantically came up with new and beautiful things befitting a teenage girl. The toymaker made ornate an chest with inlaid scenes of unicorns and fairy queens, a mechanical chiffarobe that organized her clothes for her, and a bed covered in pink drapery that tucked her in at night and played a lullaby, but none of it mattered as much as Thomas; she pretended to love the creations, and by all rights she did love them, but not just because of their novelty and beauty, they were a means of keeping her friend in her life, and she knew that each invention would buy her time. As long as the toymaker proved his worth, as long as he had work, Thomas was going nowhere.

Thins had changed from early on when they spent hours surrounded by the dolls and trinkets of the toymaker as small children. As they grew older they explored the grounds with the toymaker's spyglasses, adventure shoes and memory compasses; they discovered new places, they discovered friendship and freedom, and as they matured, they eventually discovered they were different--as Cali grew older and was torn away from time to time, as she was groomed to be important and renowned; when she was forced to leave her childhood friend behind, she knew it would only be a matter of time. She continued to dream up new and elaborate ideas for the toymaker, but her parents began to tell her she needed to leave such childish things behind, and that included the lowly toymaker's son.

Thomas spent his time in the apprenticeship of his father, and he dedicated himself to carving and inlaying his innermost feelings into everything he built for her, imbuing them with with his longing, sadness, and love. His father, and experienced artisan, could see it, could read his son's inermost feelings through delicate ferver with which he shaved away the excess wood revealing elegant swans in sunrise streams, the woodland scenes and starlight dreams--it was everywhere, and his father became wary; the young woman was out of his star, and this could only mean trouble.

And it was trouble, depending on your idea of trouble--some people call it romance, others call it foolishness, and some call it true love, but if you know anything about true love, then you know that means trouble. The kind of trouble that made Thomas awake at night and stand under Cali's window, and the kind of trouble that made Cali sneak out that window and go with Thomas, the kind that made them both steal away into the shadows holding hands, and the very same that grew into long ebmbraces and longer kisses. The same-said trouble that makes the flame in the hearts of the young lose track of time and sneak back in their windows at dawn as the dew settles on the meadow. Trouble.

The toymaker knew and had their bags packed before Thomas slinked back into their cottage.
"What have you done, young man?"
"Father, " he pleaded, "you don't..."
"Don't tell me I don't understand! She is out of your star! Do you know what this means?"
"She has been my life for as long as I can remember, and now you expect me to not--"
"I expect you to pack your things. We must fly at once. The tools are on the cart. Our life is loaded and ready for the road, but you, you must gather your things at once!"
"I will not go! You can't make me. You dont--"

In a whirlwind of sparkles and slumber, his father regretfully blew a handful of sawdust from the boughs of the sandman's tree into his son's eyes, gathed the rest of their things and they were soon off. As the reluctant mule carted them into the morning sun, his father rubbed his sleeping head.
"But I do, Thomas. I do."

When Cali crested her window and saw her mother in her room, waiting in her braiding chair, she tried to explain, "I was looking for--"
"Don't lie to me. You don't think I know where you were. This was on your bed!" she screamed holding out in her hand an ornately carved cherry and oak heart-shaped box surrounded with tendrils topped with tulips and humingbirds. "And this was inside!" she clenched the parchment in her hand, crushed in her cruel and boney fingers. "He's a toymaker, Cali, a toymaker!" Cali heard nothing, but stared at letter in her mother's talons, wondering how he had put it there without her knowing.

Ch. 1.3

2009-10-19T11:23:00.001-07:00

Stuart Pardibble lived in a tree with his mother. Or under a tree, rather. The great pine towered like a great steeple above the earthen roof, and the roots columned around their dwelling, covered above with the thatch of thousands of fallen needles that constantly renewed itself. The ground, peppered with pinecones, provided for the birds of the forest that would scatter into the crisp mornings when Stuart would emerge dewy-eyed and fog-brained from sleep to gather kindling for the morning fire while his mother would gather everything needed for a healthy breakfast.
Stuart and his mother, Lily, had, for as long as he could remember, sat after breakfast and talked about the upcoming day--he with his milk and she with her coffee. At the age of five, she began to give Stuart a splash of coffee with his milk, just enough to change the color and the taste. As Stuart grew older, his milk became stronger, but not quite as dark as his mother’s, and she, in order to preserve some priceless part of her, never took her’s black, but always with a playful splash added a bloop of milk and smiled.
They shared a simple life at peace with their surroundings, taking only what they needed to survive and giving back to the forest and mountain whenever possible. The forest was their garden; everything was taken only so much as to be considered good pruning, and the plants like cats would stretch into the sunlight happy to be taken such good care of. The animals, a cow named Myrtle and a handful of anonymous sheep, on their little farm in the woods were their family and needed no fences to keep them tame; they stayed of their own accord and were all to happy to spend their nights in the small barn, protected from the wolves and other creatures that meant them harm. And if harm did happen by, Stuart’s dog, a ferocious, fuzzy little mut named Bristle, who, although no bigger than fire log-- had a tougher bark and hardier constitution than most of the wilder creatures that stalked the night--would ward off any danger prowling the dark emptiness and shadows with the yap and a belch of his tiny, mighty jowls.

Ch.1.2

2009-10-14T05:21:00.000-07:00

Underneath its frosty crown, and parapeted with great cloud-shrouded spires chanelling the dome of the world deep into its ancient and wild heart, the mountain of the mushroom kingdom rises high above the world and decends in crumblling crags and cliffs. Thick elderly trunks grip the softer, lower climes and plume high into the mists that craddle the mountain in their arms. All the rain, light and ether that trickles, gathers, and cascades through its scarred, cracking hide pools in the humming foothills; pebble by pebble the mountain of the mushroom kingdom resigns itself to the earth-- but there is magic here.

In the distance, on clear days, on the opposite horizon from the great mountain, a vast city continually grows out of the earth and comes to a great peak spreading out from the center and disappearing into sprawling habitations just below the surface of the treeline. For years its skeleton has risen, ossified, and crusted over with glass and stone and steel. The roads are busy with matters of great consequence and urgency, and those about it are occupied with tasks of great importance. The dark, armored shell of the city glints in the setting sun and eagerly awaits the industry of a new day. It strenthens irrevocably of its own merit. There is no magic here.

Chapter 1.1

2009-10-11T20:16:00.000-07:00

The mushroom, while ephemeral, is eternal, popping up here and there; it is the husk of something fundamental from the beginning of life on Earth as we know it, but when it was as we did not know it, when things were quite different and mushrooms were the most advanced life form in the world--in many ways, they still are.

They gather in the middle of the night, sometimes on business, sometimes for pleasure, leaving only remnants in the morning dew to whither and wrinkle in the sunlight, but, every now and again, if you look in the dawn shade, where often, just before the sun rises, and especially after they have gathered for pleasure, you may find one still coporeal and dozing before the full light of day. If you lift ever so gently--if you pull it as a dandelion or crab grass, it will start and be gone--but if you lift ever so gently, more like lifting a four-leaf clover for fear of ruining your luck--if you lift it like that it will not wake, and it will be yours, never having known it was a mushroom, and you may raise it and love it and feed it and wrestle or dress it up as you please until such a time when you must, you absolutely must return it! Or it will be lost forever in the flesh and will inevitably die. No one knows what happens after that.