The Forsaken Wilderness, page 21
I lie in bed all day, surrounded by ferns, cacti, conifers, touchmenots, money plants, and the ivy creeper which now extends to the neighbouring bedroom. I speak to them, tell stories, ask them questions, plead with them, even eat them sometimes; sometimes I regret to mention, I even become violent with them. On many an occasion a visitor to my room has found a smashed flowerpot next to the toilet.
These peculiarities of behaviour are a cause of much alarm to all those around me, who by now are convinced that the ailment which plagues me is a strictly psychological one—and after having observed my recent incivilities towards the plants, are quite sure of their supposition.
I speak to a psychiatrist from New Delhi, every now then, over the phone. It is in these long phone conversations that I am able to open up about my fixation on the new discovery disclosed by National Geographic in their previous issue, with which the doctor is currently unfamiliar. He did not take it seriously at first, and when informed of my part in that discovery—considered it to be a delusionary lapse of reason, because as one can rightfully imagine—instead of paying attention to the matter of what I was saying, he was placing more emphasis on the manner, which was by any means—far from normal.
What was that tree? Where did it come from? When did it begin, can it ever end? To what does it owe its existence? And what do I owe it?
I pondered many a night upon these questions, wondering constantly what duty I still had towards the Tree. Whether I ought to go back? A proposition unthinkable now. I have spoken to numerous experts in the field of botany, and have managed each time to alienate rather than interest them with my observations. But I know one thing for certain. It is growing at an alarming rate and might even one day cover the peak of the mountain, doing the government’s job for them to seal off the secret buried in the earth’s bosom.
Was it the face of God? An arrow-glance at the heavens. Or was it the face of Satan? All that is unknown and unthinkable, the hideous aspects of humanity from which one’s eyes automatically avert. Death, delirium and the dance of the Grim Reaper! What lies beyond that unreachable gulf? I find myself down a horrible vortex of thought. The incurable incomprehension of those that know. Down the sordid crevices into the uncharted regions of the psyche. I find the brain itself imitating the motions of the Tree, with roots extending as far underground as they can go.
Perhaps, it was some hitherto inextricable life form from another, inconceivable universe, obstructing the march of any mechanical invention that could possibly conquer it. Or perhaps it was simply Mother Nature’s answer to the wheels of progress that are constantly trying to overtake her and leave her behind, stranded on the washed-out shores of the cosmic race against time.
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Simar Puneet for being a constant source of encouragement and support, and for putting me in touch with my dear friend and editor the brilliant Sayantan Ghosh, who I would also like to thank for his belief in this book.
I would like to thank Jahaan Subrahmanyam, Divya Jagdale, Jaimini Pathak, Joy Fernandes and Denzil Smith for being such magnificent sources of inspiration to me, and for being kindred spirits and fellow travellers in the land of Edgar Allan Poe and Ambrose Bierce.
I would also like to thank the wonderful and brilliant writer Indrapramit Das who had worked on an edit of a previous incarnation of this story in novella form that was to have been published in 2016 under the title ‘The Whispering Skull’.
And finally I would like to thank my good friend the amazing writer Carlo Pizzati who took the time out to read some chapters of an early draft of this book and was kind enough to give me feedback.
First published in India by Simon & Schuster India, 2023
Copyright © Vivaan Shah, 2023
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Vivaan Shah, The Forsaken Wilderness
