We run to a tree.
Why the hurry?
The guide stays near it.
Not too close.
But he does doesn’t move away from us either.
The bark…
It’s affected.
P:”What’s this?”
R:”I just arrived.
As you did.”
P:”You must know what the problem is.”
R:”Can you tell there’s an issue?”
P:”The bark is…”
R:”It is?”
P:”I don’t have the words to qualify it.”
R:”Meticulous…
You can be rather surprising.”
The alterations suggest it was done by an animal.
They’re too superficial.
He stays away from it.
Does he observe us?
How we interact with that tree?
P:”It was an animal.”
R:”An animal?”
P:”It’s too haphazard for a person to do that.
And it’s too fast for a plant.”
R:”Anything else?”
I knee to see it better.
P:”On the floor…
In the floor around the tree.
There are traces of…
Digging?”
R:”Digging?”
P:”The vegetation is withering.
It must be chemical.
A substance diffusing in the floor.
Acidic maybe…
Corrosive.”
R:”Maybe?”
P:”I don’t know what it is.
That’s all conjecture.”
R:”Don’t say I don’t.”
P:”I don’t.”
R:”Even so.
It won’t make us progress.”
P:”Right.”
R:”…”
He watches behind his head.
He face his turned at me.
Can he see both?
P:”…”
R:”What are you doing?”
P:”Checking.”
R:”Remove this hand.”
The afternoon ends.
Soon there’s little light.
P:”Can I crack it?”
Guide:”?”
R:”What are you asking?”
P:”Making a fire.”
He plants a knife into the ground.
Light flows from the handle.
R:”Here.
You won’t burn anything.”
P:”…”
R:”You should leave it alone.”
P:”I know…”
The guide stays by the tree.
He never approaches it.
Nor does he touch it.
He just looks at it.
Apart from the bark’s alteration…
It doesn’t look different from the other trees.
To us.
R:”What’s you Insight?”
P:”We need to rest.”
R:”Regarding this situation.”
P:”They’re closer to trees than to people.
People from outside.”
R:”You have some common sense.”
P:”Common sense?
What’s that?”
R:”With these walls…
What were you experimenting?”
P:”They’re discontinued.
They’re not meant to enclose their village.”
R:”They’re not meant to protect them?”
P:”They are.”
R:”Then…”
P:”Not physically.”
R:”Pursue.”
P:”It’s the same as this bone-wall.
That’s a facade.”
R:”To hide them?”
P:”No.
He won’t speak?”
R:”I think not.”
P:”The way the walls are dressed.
The way they use it.
And now.
The way he looks at that tree.”
R:”…”
P:”The vines.
The flowers.
The bones.
It looked like a memorial.”
R:”…”