Hikkaba ~ (Part 1 of 3)

Hikkaba  ~  Part 1 of 3

By Len Morgan

   The Hikkaba tree had been there forever.   Five acres of woodlands had grown up around it, cushioning it from the world outside.
   There was a time when magic was everywhere, in the sea, the air, the land, every stone, and grain of sand.
   Then, about a hundred and ninety-five thousand years ago, a small biped called man started building an empire.  He built farms, storage facilities, and workshops.  As they built the land around them slowly lost its magic, and the building continued unabated.   Hamlets, villages, towns and ultimately cities grew up and with each additional expansion, more of the magic dissipated until it now resided only in that one small area of woodland surrounding Hikkaba.   Men had changed the world forever.

.-…-.

  If he’d been a millionaire, Ferlin Varaski would have been considered eccentric.   But he wasn’t, so his neighbours just referred to him as the nut at 24 Hickory Close.   His garden was an overgrown extension of the five acres of woodland he’d inherited from his father.   It had been in his family forever.   A distant ancestor had settled there when it was miles from the tiny hamlet of Berlington.   Berlington was now a sprawling city, ringed by tall buildings erected in the fifties and sixties.   His grandfather and father had both been pressured to sell the land to development companies, but they steadfastly resisted the lure of instant wealth.   It was their link to the past, they were its guardians, they would maintain it and pass it on just as they found it.   Unable to acquire the land, developers just built around it.   At some stage, a council official assumed it was a public amenity and erected gates at the end of Hickory close, between No.23 and 24.   From its entrance, Hickory Park looked to be a model well-managed wildlife sanctuary.   A little overgrown but, giving the impression of being in regular use.   Except for one thing, nobody ever entered it. Many times, people reached the entrance and remembered a more pressing engagement elsewhere.  Where it abutted with the cityscape, the light was occluded, and the woodlands were dwarfed.  But, in sunlight, the trees reached for the sky without let or hindrance.
Ferlin was not a young man; he had no heir and worried about what would happen to the woodlands when he died.   Because it had been treated as a public amenity the five acres had for years been exempt from local taxation, however, nothing lasts forever.  Ferlin reread the official tax demand he’d received from the city council two days earlier. 
 

.-…-.

Alan Fry took a furtive glance over his shoulder. “Damn!” they’re still following me.   It was Billy and Jack, the Hanson twins, and their cousin Roland, not his favourite people.   Alan was in foster care.   To the Hanson’s that was like having a disease, like measles or mumps; ‘fostered’ ugh!   They decided it gave them the right to bully him at every opportunity.   It didn’t help his situation when he scored higher than the Hanson's in the 11+ exam.   Today, he’d committed the ultimate sin; he’d taken Jack’s place on the Daventry Junior School football team.   Since then, they had hassled him at every opportunity making his life a misery.
He turned the corner and ran.   He looked back at the street sign—Hickory Close— “Close,” damn, no way out and nowhere to hide.   Then he saw the gates, at the bottom of the close, his spirits rose.   As he drew nearer he became less sure of his actions, then Roland rounded the corner and Alan's doubts were dispelled.   He dashed into the park and down the path.   It stopped abruptly thirty yards inside the entrance.   He hid behind a tree so he had a good view of Billy, Jack and Roland as they approached the gates and peered in.  

.-…-.

Ferlin was taking his daily stroll through the woods.   As guardian, this was one of his more pleasant duties.   As he walked he thought on world events he’d seen on the news.   He liked to think out here.   But, that tax demand for a thousand pounds a year, backdated ten years drove everything else from his mind.   “Ten thousand pounds, where can I get that sort of money?”
“Uh?”  Said Alan, startled by the voice from the woods.   He would have run, but the Hanson’s were still lingering just beyond the gates.   He stepped through the hedge and found himself gazing into the quizzical green eyes of a slim bespectacled man in his forties.   Ferlin sported a shock of wild frizzy ginger hair and sparse facial chin hair.
“Uh!” gasped Ferlin, roused from his thoughts by the unaccustomed sight of an eleven-year-old boy with dishevelled blonde hair and green eyes that mirrored his own.
“Who are you,” they said as one.
“If your hiding from them, don’t worry, they won't come in,” said Ferlin.  “Nobody ever does, there’s an enchantment on this place that keeps people out.”
“You’re here, and so am I, so maybe your spell has worn off?”
Ferlin considered it, “Mmm, I think not, there has to be a good reason.”   As they watched, the Hanson's moved away.   “My name is Ferlin Varaski,” he offered his hand and a generous smile.
“Alan Fry,” their hands pumped vigorously.
“Hikkaba has been protecting these woods since the dawn of time.   How else could a privately owned five-acre plot of prime land remain undeveloped in a city the size of Berlington?”   
“Then how did we get in?”
“Well, I’m its guardian by birth and at a guess—since I have no heir—you’ve been selected to be my apprentice.”
“At a guess?   Surely a guardian wouldn’t need to guess.   So, what would an apprentice be expected to do, and isn’t it customary to ask a person if they would like to be apprenticed?”
“Woa woh, so many questions.   Before we do or say anything more I think you’d better come and see the Hikkaba tree.”
“You what?   Surely you could think of a better name than that?   Where is it from anyway, outer Mongolia?”
“Alan, just hold the questions and follow me.   Maybe we can provide you with some answers,” he led the way through a tangle of branches that seemed to move out of their way to create a path.
 It was a circuitous route Alan judged, from the positions of the surrounding buildings, would bring them to the centre of the park.  They entered a clearing the air filled with the scent of summer flowers, the drone of bees, the gentle burbling of a stream and the air was alive with birdsong.   Alan pinched himself it was hard to believe it was the 20th of November.
“It’s good to see you again,” said Ferlin.
“Who are you talking to, I can’t hear any voices?” said Alan.
Ferlin took a step closer to a gnarled and rather dumpy little tree with sparse star-shaped silver leaves.   “Alan Fry, this is the Hikkaba tree.”   He leaned forward and plucked one of the star-shaped silver leaves and handed it to Alan.
He tentatively took the offering.  “Hello Alan, I have…”  The greeting ceased abruptly as he threw the leaf away in shocked surprise.
“You can’t converse with Hikkaba if you break contact,” Ferlin retrieved the leaf and offered it to him again.
“How do you converse then, you don't have a leaf.”
Ferlin lifted his thin knurled black cane.   Oh, I have contact!” he smiled, "the handle is of Hikkaba wood."
Alan fingered the small seven-pointed star, it was leathery but pliable, he rubbed the tiny ribs on its reverse, that tickles, said the voice in his head,
“Uh!   Sorry,” he said.  
Ferlin was smiling and he knew it was okay.  Close your eyes.   Alan closed his eyes.  The glade did not disappear, he could still see it in his mind.   It shimmered, as happens on TV, to depict a period of time passing.
The trees were all changed and the buildings were gone, the sounds and smells were different, yet Hikkaba looked the same, unchanged.   This is how it was ten thousand years ago.
The scene shimmered again.   The vegetation was lush and greener, the air was thick and balmy.   As he watched, animals both familiar and strange came and went.   Sounds were eerie and discordant, but Hikkaba seemed no different.  This is how it was a hundred thousand years ago.
As he watched the scene changed a third time.   The greenery was low and fern-like, growing taller and more substantial at a distance of half a mile.   Scaled slow-moving creatures cropped the ferns with beak-like mouths; Alan realized at once, they were Dinosaurs.   The air smelt sulphurous like the chemistry lab at school.   The atmosphere was hot and clammy and shimmering like a steam room.   There were deep sonorous calls and grating sounds like a badly fitting gate.  Occasionally high ululating sounds pierced the mist, echoing long after the sound ceased.   There were sudden wild gusts of wind, bringing unfamiliar aromas.  Decaying vegetation and, other unimaginable, stomach-churning, aroma's assailed his olfactory senses.   There in the midst of it all stood the Hikkaba tree, just as he remembered.   He forced his eyes open and felt nauseous as all his senses became disoriented at the same instant.   He was back in the present.   I am the only one, I am Hikkaba, I have been sentient for more than five hundred million years.   I arrived when Earth was a turbulent and barren place, long before life existed on the land.   I first became aware, when tiny things crawled in the primaeval soup.   I have observed life in all its diversity.   I have become the consciousness and conscience of this world.   I cannot move but through my contact with others, I have witnessed the progression of life on Earth.   I have experienced and can recall several billion years having never moved from this spot.   My knowledge comes from the minds of others.   I see through their eyes, without bias. My leaves have been widely distributed throughout the world, they do not perish and have been passed on.   Since the advent of radio and television, I get even wider exposure to global politics.
“Do you make Ferlin watch TV all day?”
I have no influence over higher forms.   They live their lives and I observe. 
Alan turned to Ferlin.  “What about private things, you know, like girls.  You know, sex and stuff.   Isn’t it awkward?”
“The tree is just an observer, non-judgemental, whatever I get up to is probably boring and old hat to Hik but, I can always break contact if I choose,” he stabbed his cane into the ground and stepped away from it. “But, I have always sensed Hik withdrawing at such times.”
“So, he never intrudes when he’s not wanted?”
“Hikkaba’s sex is not determined, but we can call it ‘he’ if you wish.”  He chuckled inwardly, “there was one time in my reckless youth Heh heh!   I persuaded a girl to hold a leaf, told her it was to concentrate her mind.   We had a three-way love-in.”
“How was it?” Alan asked.
“Quite disappointing actually, her anticipation caused her more excitement than the act.   I tried to find out how to turn her on, and discovered she was more aroused by other women, than by men.”
“Are they all like that?”
Ferlin shrugged, “Who knows, that was the first and last time I tried.   It was so deflating.   She said I shouldn’t feel bad, that was the best she'd ever experienced.”
“And?”
“I asked her about other women.   She slapped my face and looked at me with disgusted.   ‘Do you think I’m a pervert?’  She yelled and stormed out.   It was several years before I saw her again, and she had a female partner with her.   She kissed me and thanked me for opening her eyes.   When she'd thought about it she discovered another person inside waiting to be let out.”
“I see,” said Alan "She was gay?".
“Yup.  But, this isn’t the kind of conversation I should be having with an eleven-year-old…”
“Why not?   Mr Truman my English teacher says we can’t write about life without experiencing it.” 

To be continued/...

Copyright Len Morgan