Dreaming Beneath the Snake Tree
"Look, Nara! See how high I can swing? Bet you can't get as far up as I can!"
"James, what are you doing? Get down from there before you break your neck!"
My brother always had a talent for inviting trouble. On this occasion, he had found a length of rope and somehow had managed to tie an end to one of the topmost branches of the Snake Tree. He now was swinging before me like an orangutan, hands twisted and clutched onto the rope, laughing all the while as his friends cheered for him to swing higher.
"C'mon, Jimmy, you can do better than that!"
"Yeah, one more time before your sister gets mad!"
"Naw, it's my turn now, let me get a turn!"
The nerves in my arms twitched every time James floated back and forth over the twenty-five-foot precipice on which the Snake Tree leaned. The tree was our getaway as children, and as far as we knew, no adult minded that an old twisted hardwood served as our favorite gathering place. At least adults on Venus, anyway. The cliff on which the tree stood was still dangerous, we knew, and usually we stayed away from the edge. No wonder it shocked to me to see James engaged in such a reckless activity.
"James, I said get down from there!" I attempted to be as strong as possible, as demanding as our father when he chided us, but with the hollering of the boys it was useless. I now knew why James was late for dinner tonight, and for the past few nights. He and his friends had conjured up a bold new game. I felt angry because of the danger he put himself in. Even more so, I was angry that he hadn't told me about this game sooner…because I always accepted any challenge that he proposed.
"I can't hear you!" he laughed at me. "The wind rushing past my ears is too loud!"
James was nine years old, headstrong and energetic like most boys we knew. I was about twelve then, a few years older than everyone gathered there, but not so much older that I didn't have a daring side to me as well. The fact that I was a little older, however, meant more responsibilities around the farm and less time for me to do daring things. I envied James and how it must have been such a thrill to dance at the edge with death. I've experienced a few close calls before in my life, often when I went exploring the Venusian wilderness on my own. Of course, those narrow escapes were never intentional. I imagined the exhilarating rush he must have felt; clearly, he could have been swinging like this all day.
But as his older sister, it was my responsibility to get him home before my parents became even angrier. I moved forward to catch the rope, ignoring the moans and jeers of the boys, but James only started swinging harder.
"Please, sis, just a little bit longer!" he pleaded. "I'm about to break the record!"
"Record!" I looked at him grimly. "For what? You've been at this long enough…Mom and Dad are already furious at you—"
The incredibly loud snapping of the branch above us cut me off, and before I knew it, the tied end of the rope went whizzing by my face. My heart nearly burst out of my chest as I realized what could have happened—the unthinkable—nearly did happen. But fortunately, James had been swinging inward away from the cliff. His upper body crashed onto the edge, while his lower torso slammed into the rock wall. Without thinking, I grabbed his arms and pulled him up before he could slip off to his death.
"Oh my god, James!" I screamed as he stood up. "You almost died because of that! I told you to get off that rope and you didn't listen! Why didn't you listen to me!"
James only brushed the dust off of his hunting garments, while the others snickered among themselves. "Nara, I knew what I was doing," he said calmly. "I felt the branch giving way, I really did! That's why I leaned in like that at the end—"
"You shouldn't have been swinging on that rope in the first place!" I shouted at him, and the boys around us looked stunned. I was hardly known for raising my voice, but at that moment I felt enraged—and scared. I had nearly lost my only sibling.
"I'm sorry, sis," James said simply. "We were just having a little fun, that's all, like we always do."
"That's enough! Come on, let's go." My cheeks burning, I grabbed James by the arm to lead him home. He offered little resistance, as if he suddenly understood the gravity of the situation, but I didn't care whether he resisted or not. What words could describe how I had felt then? I wanted to scold him, yell at him, cry in front of him—anything to get James to realize what a foolish thing he had done.
But a part of me knew that I had to accept some responsibility for how my brother had grown up. James often walked away from such perilous exploits with a sense that he had learned something, that he would be more careful next time. I knew that James, as a small boy, had learned this attitude from me--the girl who always had a brave adventure to embark on. I—that is, we—never seemed to learn from the previous lesson, ironically, when faced with a new impending danger. So how could I have scolded him? To do so would have been hypocritical of me; if anything, we both needed a good scolding. It's comparable to a mother chiding her son to stay away from the cookie jar, only to realize that she herself has been unconsciously eating the cookies all day. Looking back now, I only wish that I had been a more prudent and sensible role model for James while he was growing up. I was to later realize, however, that we can never deny the human nature breathing, waiting, and yearning within us.
The Snake Tree was about a mile and a half from our farm, and to get there faster we took a path through the Sadie Woods. I didn't say much to James for much of the way. I had calmed down a bit, but the terror I had felt remained. I knew that I would never forget what had just happened, and the episode is still one of my most vivid memories from childhood. I recall wondering to myself what made us children do such dangerous things, but being an adolescent I couldn't have possibly understood.
James walked ahead of me in silence, his face hidden by the wide brim of his hat. All I could see was the piece of straw that dangled from his mouth, twitching every now and then. I felt that he must have hated me, for embarrassing him in front of his friends. I saw no alternative for me; instinctively, I had wanted him to get away from that precipice, because I have always looked after him, as long as I could remember. Walking behind James, I wished that he realized—that he could realize—how much I cared about him, and that he would understand that I never meant to hurt him at all.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you," I said after a time. "You know how I've always looked after you, James. I just don't want you getting into trouble. You could have died back there."
He didn't say anything at first, and that made me feel somewhat miserable. I felt certain that he would never speak to me again, but then he looked back at me. "You were wrong, sis," he said finally. He slowed his pace so that I could walk by his side. When I asked him what he meant, he simply shrugged. "No one can die falling off that cliff," he said. "Grady's cousin fell off there once, and all he had was a broken leg."
I couldn't help but smile at him. That was typical of James. "That means you could have ended up with a broken leg, too."
"I can handle a broken leg, Nara, I'm no wimp!" The sheer confidence in his voice reminded me how his words were true. James was healthy and particularly vigorous for his age. Yet he was still missing the point, that I didn't want him to get hurt in any way. I loved James; after all, he was my flesh and blood, my brother, my only sibling. But being twelve years old, summoning enough courage to tell your little brother that you loved him was no easy task. For me, at times, it was downright impossible. However, I did know how to express my feelings to him subtly, at least.
"I know you can, James. But…I still don't want you getting hurt. I can't stand the thought of you in pain." I paused, wondering if I hadn't just embarrassed myself. "And besides, with your leg broken, how do you expect to help in this year's harvest, hmm?"
James looked up and smirked. "Ok, sis, I know what you're trying to say."
"You do?" I felt hopeful and humiliated all at once.
"Yeah. Next time we get a rope, I'll invite you along too." He then winked a devilish brown eye at me.
I laughed and punched James lightly in the arm. It's still one of the best feelings of my life, knowing that I had finally gotten through to him.
My memories of the Snake Tree didn't always involve such nerve-racking episodes. I remember when James and I first discovered the old tree, many years ago as small children. One afternoon we had decided to explore the Kilgaarde Hills for ourselves, looking for caves, rabbit holes, and other such places. I had known the areas immediately surrounding our farmlands well enough, but then I was determined to expand my boundaries. Eventually we stumbled upon a large clearing in the middle of a wooded thicket. A limestone wall stood at one end of the clearing, with a large cavern entrance gaping from its base. The wind made all sorts of eerie sounds within that dark hollow, and certainly that was not a suitable place for children to play. It was then that we spotted the large tree that grew atop the cliff above, its many blooming arms outstretched over us. Some of the roots of that great tree draped over the side of the wall, twisting and winding even through the limestone itself.
I first tried to climb those roots and up the cliff, but my hands were too small to grasp them. We then made our way around the wall and climbed a hill to the very top. The ledge looked out over the thicket, and we could see the countryside for miles around! I pointed out to James the spaceport city of Vesta, far off in the distance, and to our east the shimmering waters of the Amon Sea. The vast plains of Venus dominated the rest of the landscape, with scattered farmlands here and there. We were so awed by the scenery from that cliff that we hardly noticed the great tree that had beckoned to us in the first place. The tree grew on this dusty hilltop, old and alone. The gray trunk curved and the branches twisted and sagged; this was why we called it the Snake Tree, because of the way its branches seemed to coil toward the sky. The Snake Tree certainly distinguished itself from the common myrax trees that populated Venus.
How it could have grown in such a harsh location? Later we would hear a legend told by the older generations, saying that the Snake Tree was the last survivor from the time humans first introduced life to Venus. They say that the Snake Tree refused to give up living when it found itself growing on the crag, all alone and in desperate conditions.
No matter the reason, I felt that this tree would be special to us, and almost instantaneously it had become our favorite place to play. Its branches could be climbed easily, and it had a breathtaking view of the world around us. We agreed that our parents would never know of this secret place. It was a place where we could forget the worries of the day, where we could find peace and solitude, where we could dream of adventures and of the future. Perhaps the tree knew this fact as well, for although it continued to age with time, it never left us. The endurance of the Snake Tree inspired us, made us admire its longevity and persistence. Other children soon heard about the Snake Tree and they came to play here as well. They would claim it as their own, but the tree would always be meaningful to James and I.
"Nara, what do you want to do when you grow up?" James had asked me one night.
It was the middle of the rainy season. We were reclining lazily against the old tree, counting down the last seconds of sunlight as we usually did. I was sixteen then, still concerned with the responsibilities in my life that never went away.
"Why do you ask?" I sat up and glanced at him. His question caught me completely off guard, and it unnerved me a bit. James had never thought about the future before.
He simply shrugged, keeping his eyes on the slowly descending orange sun. "I don't know. Grady told me today that he wanted to leave his family and move to Vesta to be an aircar racer. When he asked me what I wanted to do, I didn't know what to say." James then looked at me, his face quivering with uncertainty. "But you know what you want to be, don't you, sis?" he continued. "You're always so grown-up, and you always have a plan. I just wanted to know, that's all."
I knew then that I couldn't give him a definite answer. Being the eldest child of frontier settlers, it was probable that I would end up taking care of the farm. I had never wanted to disappoint my parents. And I did love our life; the hope that accompanied the planting, the awe we felt during the growing season, and the joy we experienced when we finally harvested the literal fruits of our labors. I would never for a second wish that it be taken away.
But…our life was still not enough. I knew even then that I wanted something more.
"I'm really not sure." And I truly wasn't. "I mean, we're still too young to know right now." Feeling that it was an inadequate response, I added, "Besides, what's wrong with staying on the farm?"
My brother only rolled his eyes at me. "I knew you'd do this," he scoffed, and turned away.
"Do what?"
A sigh. "I knew you'd give a me a boring answer like that."
"Well, Mister Danger-is-my-middle-name, what do you want to do then?"
The sun by now had already dipped below the horizon. James pulled his hat over his eyes, folding his hands over his chest. "I think I'll join the ExoFleet," he stated matter-of-factly. Even under his hat, I knew his face wore an expression of smugness, judging from the confidence in his voice.
I couldn't help but laugh. James had enough trouble following orders from my parents, let alone from officers.
"You don't think I could do it, sis?" James asked, his voice containing a hint of impatience. "At least I have hopes and dreams beyond what's here. You're always talking about leaving Venus to do something else, aren't you? Whatever happened to you wanting to see the stars, to visit other planets, to see the sun without the clouds?"
I knew he was waiting for a reaction, but I had none. I sat speechless; I never knew that James wanted the same things I had always dreamed of.
"I still want to do those things." My reply sounded feeble, much more than I wanted.
"Then you should join too, Nara. It'll be good for the both of us."
I laughed again. The very thought of joining the ExoFleet seemed ludicrous to me. I did want to see the stars, but flying around the solar system in an Exocruiser had never seemed appealing.
"Oh, I could never join the ExoFleet," I said, half-believing it. "I don't have the right personality to be a soldier. Besides, there are other ways to travel around in space, you know."
James only shrugged. "Suit yourself, Nara. But someday, while you're still stuck here harvesting the grain, you'll look overhead and see me zipping across the sky in my brand new E-frame. Zoom! And then you'll wish you had listened to me all those years ago."
"Ha! Only in your dreams, James." I elbowed him in the shoulder, to which he responded with a chuckle of his own. I knew he was now lost in his own reveries of space travel.
The sky began to darken, but we always found our way home in the night. What did our futures really hold? I wondered. Was it even possible for a wild colonial girl like me to serve in the greatest military force humanity had ever known? Only if I was lucky. But like my father always said, people make their own luck. And with that being the case, the future, at least for me, was never certain.
I lied back down against the Snake Tree, imagining what it really would be like to fly an E-frame, high in the Venusian sky.
~