An Ode to The Beasts (part II)- Brushing Feathers

It was a time of industrial revolution and noisy factories. Of gold mines and massive logging of ancient forests. My poor ancestors... With every tree they killed, life on the surface was slowly dying and the spirits went further and further away. You humans had long since stopped seeing us as relatives and Our memory was  being suppressed in the underground... That's why places like Mutant Fest, your favorite festival, exist. It's an underground scene because you know that the underground is where you come to remember. And you must remember.

On a cold December night in 1897, the Earth came between the sun and the crimson moon. The crickets and beasts of the night were eclipsed, and in the stillness and the death of the world, the cry of a baby girl broke. Opal Whiteley was born.

They say that children born during a lunar eclipse are doomed to feel orphaned for life, because they are born at the moment when the Earth is left without its father Sun, and its mother Moon. But in return, the Earth grants them a gift: the gift of communicating with nature and with some entities from distant dimensions.

During the first years of her life, even though Opal grew up with her mother Lizzy and her father Edward, what she remembers is her Angel-mother, Marie, and her Angel-father, Henri d'Orleans. And that her name was not Opal Whiteley, but Françoise D'Orleans. Henri was a naturalist from the French royal family who often went on expeditions to distant lands. And Marie was a French princess who took Opal on walks. She would ask her to listen to what the wind, the trees, and the animals were saying to her, so that later she could write all those things down on her journal. From her Angel-father Henri, she remembers the stories about the colorful birds he had found during his expeditions. Those were happy days for little Opal, but one day, Angel-Marie and her got on a boat with other people and the boat drawned. Opal was said that her mother was now in heaven and it wasn't long after that her Angel-Henri died on an expedition to India.

And that's how Opal's sentence begins. She was only four years old when they took her on a long journey until she arrived in Oregon, in the logging and growing manufacturing town of Cottage Grove. There she was adopted by the Whiteleys, who named her after the girl they had recently lost: Opal Whiteley.

No one ever thought she was adopted, as she looked a lot like her father Edward, who was a French Canedian and Native American descent. And Opal was a dark-skinned girl with two long pigtails that were black like obsidian and like her eyes.

But Opal never stopped writing down on her journal, which she kept in a hollow log in the nearby forest.

Her best friends were trees and animals, who she would name them after some French and mythological names that she found on the two books her Angel-parents wrote for her.

On one of her walks, accompanied by her friends Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus (that most dear velvet wood-rat); Lars Porsena of Clusium (that very wise crow) and Brave Horatius (such a lovely dog) she wrote:

“Between the ranch house and the house we live in is the singing creek where the willows grow: We have conversations. And there I do dabble my toes beside the willows. I feel the feels of gladness they do feel”.

It is at that precise moment, in a dimension with no name, in the year 2323, that a young woman is dreaming of a beautiful sunset on a paradise beach. But suddenly, a large wave crashes over the dunes and sweeps the young woman away. The hand of an old woman reaches out to her and saves her. “Did you hear that?”, askes the young woman “Of course, young lady. What did you hear exactly?. -“The water was singing!” The old woman smiles and says:  -“Water holds the deepest secrets of the Earth. You must Listen carefully!”

That morning, the young woman woke up with an unusual feeling of peace. In the dimension where she lived, things were not named. Centuries ago, people got rid of the books because they firmly believed that naming things was synonymous with hiding the true meaning of those things that were named. To name was to forget. Thus people comunicated telepathically, accompanied by a few body gestures. They had no ears, they didn't need them. But they needed mouths to let their emotions come out. In the nameless dimension, the norm was Beauty, a deep connection and harmony with all the things. It was so much connection they acquired during the day,  that they had to unload in their underground houses they built with large windows in the roof. Which they also needed to protect themselves from the creatures of the chaos that came from the dense forests. All of those who were victims of curiosity never returned. There, telepathy died, and when a telepath loses their telepathy, they go mad! The chaos creatures from the forest had names. The most seen one was the kunkubus.

But let's get back to the young woman (whom we’ll call her Ptricia). Patricia was not part of that Beautiful order because she had the misfortune of being born with ears, thus without the ability to telepath. She let her hair grow long to cover her ears, but it was of little use, since everyone could read her or see her (depending on how you look at it). She rejected the world around her. Many had tried to approach her but Patricia's initial reaction was always violent.

She could not understand how those people could not sacrify a little bit of their harmony to be able to connect with her with the ancient language. How could they be so scared of it? Was it really that dangerous?

In Patricia’s village, the concept of father and mother did not exist, either. Their deep connection to eachother made everyone a father and a mother and at the same time they were not.

One sunny spring afternoon, Patricia wandered away from people and took refuge in her favorite place, a spring surrounded by mugwort. It was near the forest but far enough away so she could escape if any chaos creature appeared. There, since she was a child, she began to create her own language. Or was she remembering it? Most of the words were insults for people: “undstudojjjjjjj” (asshole), ‘fufangtum’ (imbecile), “ajutantolo” (fucking retarded). But it never occurred to her to give herself a name. What Patricia wanted most in the world was to be able to talk to another human being like her. To ask all those unanswered questions that had made her feel that deep existential loneliness. Why had she come into the world?

It was during that twilight sadness, that a lanky creature appeared among the fresh mugwort, wearing only a black robe, measuring about three meters tall and floating a short distance above the ground. Patricia stood petrified, thinking that this was the end.

Meanwhile, in Cottage Grove, Opal was writing in her diary:

"Today I didn't go to school. For a long time after breakfast, my mother had me cut potatoes into pieces. Tonight and tomorrow night, the grown-ups will plant the pieces of potatoes I cut today. Then, after some time, the pieces of potato with eyes on them will have baby potatoes under the ground. Above the ground, they will grow leaves and flowers. One must leave an eye on every piece of potato one plants in the ground to grow—it won't grow if you don't. It can't see how to grow without its eye. All day today, I did be careful to leave an eye on every piece. I have thinks they do have seeing of black velvet moles, and large earthworms that do get short in the quick way. And potato flowers above the ground do see the doings of the field, and maybe they do look away and see the willows that grow by the singing creek. I do wonder if potato plants do have longings to dabble their toes. I suppose they do, just like I do. Being a potato must be interesting, especially having so many eyes. I long for more eyes—there is so much to see in this world all around. Every day, I see beautiful things everywhere I go. “

Even if she had that wonderful capacity to see and hear all of those beings that most people didn’t notice, Opal had some melancholy days when she would think of her Angel-parents. But on those days she realized that when she made others happy, she also felt that way.

And that’s how Opal started taking the school children on field trips. She thought that the teachers at school were making children’s life miserable, and they were not learning properly. On those walks, the children were amazed at how the butterflies rested on Opal. There were days when they simply remained silent.The president of Oregon Christian Endeavor found out about Opal’s classes and that's how she began as a representative of the fundamentalist organization and traveled throughout the state teaching children about all of the specimens’ personalities, naming them with their common and Latin names, and the lessons that one could learned from them. She soon gained a reputation as a teacher of the forest and its ways.

When Opal was thirteen years old, after one of those trips she did, Opal had found out that her sister Faye had found the diary and torn it to pieces. That same year, the books her Angel-parents had written for her had also disappeared. She began to slowly forget them.

Meanwhile Patricia, do you remember her? She was petrified in front of the kunkubus!

Legend has it that kunkubus are hermaphroditic creatures that seduce their prey, both men and women, and after a night of passion, the men become kunkubus and the women become pregnant. No one has ever seen a kunkubus baby. Some believe that they are the spirits of chaos that come to bring disease while sneaking into people's dreams.

-“Please don't kill me! What do you want?”

-“Kill you? What fun would that be? I've been listening to you all this time in the corner, and it seems like you need some answers, don't you?”

Patricia was flooded with confusing feelings of terror, curiosity, distrust. She stammered a little and replied, “Um...eh...yes, I guess... What was I asking? Why is that you speak my language? Where did you learn it?”

-“I can speak your language because you want it so badly that I also felt the need to talk to you. Who are you? Why are you here? You have very beautiful ears, btw…

It was then that Patricia's heart opened wide and tears couldn’t stop streaming down her cheeks. But it felt so beautiful and natural! Patricia had never experienced anything like it. It was a true connection! One of those that endure in time and space and in the infinite galaxies of the mysterious universe. The colors of twilight were alive, and the kunkubus' voice evoked a tenderness that melted her soul. The love she was feeling was so pure that she was overcome with the urge to take off her clothes. She was eager for that intimacy and connection that everyone in village seemed to know inherently. -“Now you!” Patricia suggested to the kunkubus. The kunkubus removed his black tunic, and what she saw blinded her with burning passion. She looked at his four large, firm, dark brown, silky breasts with black nipples pointing at her with intensity. Its face was that of a goddess of fertility, and its hair was curly and black like the waves of the sea on a moonless night. She looked down and discovered a dripping vagina, the flow descending like a subtle waterfall between her long, fleshy legs. The kunkubus saw the sparkle in Patricia's eyes and the member next to the vagina began to grow and grow. “Come...” said the goddess while laying down. They spent a joyful and pleasureble night while saying beautiful things that she so badly needed to hear. Patricia finally knew the meaning of Beauty.

The next morning, Patricia woke up alone and naked in the reeds. She hurried to get dressed and to head to the sorceress house. She could feel the Kunkubus inside her body and the feelings of gladness they both felt had now become an invasion of Patricia’s spirit and body.

The sorceress was still asleep when Patricia desperately arrrived screaming for help. When the old woman appeared, dressed in a white robe with her gray hair tousled, she said: - “A little early, isn't it?” “How do you speak my language?” “Darling... I'm a witch... where do you think I come from?” Patricia didn't quite understand what she meant, but she didn't have time to ask any more questions. “You're not exactly pregnant, young lady... although you will go through a type of pregnancy.” “A type of pregnancy? What kind?” “You'll find that out for yourself. I have no way of knowing. The first thing you need to do is calm down those nerves. You’re in the grip of chaos, my dear. It's the consequence of having known Beauty, the seeing of another soul. Since you have ears, Beauty is ephimeral for you, and the reason it’s making you suffer and be scared”… Let me give you a potion for those nerves. Come here." The witch took her to a room full of jars and plants hanging from the ceiling. She gave her a potion and told her to drink it all immediately. Then she opened a trunk of magical objects and told her to choose one with her eyes closed. She picked up a book. When she opened her eyes, she read: The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow, by Opal Whiteley. It was then that Patricia remembered the dream in which the water sang a song.

Opal studied biology at the unversity of Eugene. People remembered her as a shy but friendly, refreshing young woman who liked ruffles and full dresses, but who had a disconcerting tendency to dash out of the classroom in pursuit of butterflies. She focused on creating the Children's Museum at the University when she left for Los Angeles to try her luck as a writer of children's books. Opal's health was deteriorating while writing her first book due to her poor diet and the long hours she worked and studied. But she still managed to finish “The Fairyland Around Us.”  No publishers in LA would take her book so she left for New York.

There she met Ellery Sedwick, the editor of the prestigious Atlantic Monthly magazine. Sedwick was not very impressed with the book, but he realized that Opal had a very enigmatic personality and asked her if she had a journal. She said yes but that it was torn into pieces. When Sedwick read some of the pieces of the diary, she made Opal spent the next nine months reconstructing it. During that time Opal remembered moments from her childhood and also of her Angel-parents. Once finished, the chapters were serialized in Sedwick's newspaper for two years and it was such a success that in 1920 it got published as a book, under the title of “The Story of Opal: The Journal of an Understanding Heart”. The Atlantic labeled it “a revelation of the spirit of childhood.” And it became the most talked-about book of its time.

But nowhere was it talked about more than in Cottage Grove since Opal included the story of her adoption and her Angel-parents of the French Royal family. Rumors began to spread throughout the country that her story was a lie. Followed by articles by the most skeptical, who questioned the veracity of the diary having been written by a child. Opal's books began to be returned to bookstores, and the children who had read them were told that Opal was a fraud. She was persecuted so badly that Opal had to flee to England.

Soon after that, she traveled to France, looking for Henri d'Orleans' mother. But Opal did not dare tell her that she was her grandaughter. She was afraid of losing the opportunity to finally learn more about her Angel-parents. Instead, she told her that she wanted to work on a book about Henri. The mother, curious about the cause of her son's death, agreed and financed a trip to India for her.

Patricia read the entire book in one day and one night because she couldn't sleep and because it was the first book she had ever read in her life. How could words make you forget the meaning of things?

When she looked in the mirror, she saw that her breasts were considerably larger, as was her belly. That's when she heard a knock at the door and the woman who gave birth to her came in with a backpack. In a very low voice, she told her that the only way to save herself was to go to the chaos world of the Kunkubus. Patricia flew into a rage when she realized that she could speak her language and pushed her out, screaming. In a fit of anxiety, she broke everything in her room until she collapsed from exhaustion.

What was inside her was growing very fast, so on the next morning she got dressed, grabbed the backpack and the book, and headed for the forest. People looked at her with concern and Patricia left shouting and insulting everyone. “Fucking hippies! Fuck off!” It was that anger that drove her to embark on the most dangerous and important adventure of her life. Perhaps, on the other side of the forest there would be books and people to talk to.

So while Opal was in India, following the steps of her Angel-father, travelling nearly nine thousand miles across India by train, camel, ox cart, horse and elephant, steping on places and ceremonies that no other Western woman or man had ever been before, Patricia spent days walking thru the forest and sleeping in the giant trees to protect herself from the chaos beasts. She discovered birds and insects that she had never seen before and, copying Opal Whiteley, she sometimes would talk to them. They didn't answer, of course. But she kept trying.

Patricia couldn't shake the feeling that she was being followed and watched by the Kunkubus. She sometimes thought that it wasn't her who was choosing where to go, like Opal did, but the Kunkubus.

At night, despite being safe among the trees, she would wake up from constant nightmares of all kinds of monstrous babies. And every day she was fatter and the pain in he body made it harder to walk. Her breasts were dripping with milk and in the rivers, she learned to hunt fish to save herself from drinking her own milk.

While Opal had finally arrived at her destiny, a place high up in the hills of Rajputana, surrounded by a country as arid and barren as the drier parts of Oregon, Patricia saw a bear walking towards her direction and she ran to hide behind a tree to watching the bear's footsteps. But the bear started to follow her smell and she frozed, not knowing what to do. The bear stopped next to her and smelled from her feet to her face until it realized that she was a human and it got scared and run away. It took Patricia a few seconds to exhale all the air she had held in, and then she let go a long laughter. She felt alive! She intuitevley started to follow the bear’s tracks from where the bear had come from. And that's how she found what it felt like her destiny: the sea.

That afternoon is when Opal introduced herself as Françoise d’Orleans to the ranking prince of Undaipur, who had known and admired her Angel-father Henri d’Orleans. He let her stay in the guest house and she was treated as the princess she always knew she was. When Opal became close friends with the maharan’s daughter -who showed her the palaces situated on the amidst of three artifical lakes- Patricia saw the most austanding sunset on the beach untill she felt asleep.

But it began to rain torrentially and Patricia had to ran in search of shelter when she heard moans. They were moans of pain. At first she was frightened thinking it was a beast of chaos, but they were the moans of a woman. It was a young woman giving birth on the shore. Patricia ran to help her, but when she got there, the young woman shouted at her to go away. Patricia stood there stunned for a few seconds and realized that she also had ears. She moved far but close enough to keep an eye on her. The woman's moans echoed across the sea. It was as if the waves and the wind were sending the sound, which crossed the entire beach and bounced off the rolling mountains, which in turn sent the sound back to the sea. Patricia thought it was the most powerful song she would ever hear. But when the woman gave birth and the moans ceased, the sound of the rain and the sea seemed the sound of silence. Illuminated by the crescent moon, the woman took her baby, tiny as an apple, and ate the placenta with the other hand. Her baby was not crying. She held her child for a long time, and from time to time, a lullaby note reached Patricia's ears. The woman stood up, walked with her eyes fixed on her baby, then bent down, placed her baby on the sand, and began to dig a deep hole. She picked up her baby, kissed it, and buried it.

The next morning, Patricia woke up on the sand with the first light of morning. She looked at her giant breasts and her belly and realized she couldn't see her feet. The feeling of chaos came back. But it was then that Patricia remembered Opal Whiteley’s quote that if she took care of the someone and made them feel more at ease, she too was going to feel like that. So she spent three days taking care of the woman who did noye yet want to talk.

Patricia would forget so she could remember.

Meanwhile, Opal’s funds were running out, so they organized a farewell party in Undaipur and her friend gave her a bracelet that she wore until the end of her days. In 1925, before she returned to Europe, Henri’s mother died and when she arrived in London Opal felt increasingly depressed. She could not be Françoise d'Orleans anymore and she could not live off her books because no one would publish anything from her. She felt that the only way she had now to hold on to her Angel-parents was by buying books on the French Royalty. London used-book sellers remembered her as a strange, lonely woman who searched obsessively for volumes about it, paying a few pence for each. During the Second World War, she was often seen scavenging for books in the rubble of bombed buildings. No one took care of her and she could not take care of herself. How did the world came to be such a sad and ungly place?

While Patricia took care of the woman, she thought she was very beautiful. Her hair was shaved. She wasn't ashamed to show her ears, and Patricia admired her for that. She felt an enormous curiosity about her and her story. But all of those questions were about to be answered. The woman called Patricia for the first time. Patricia got up with difficulty and began to walk toward the woman. She had never had the opportunity to talk to another human being like her before. She became very shy. She didn't care about the people in her village, and she realized that when you care about something and want everything to go right, that feeling takes over. But it is a necessary one to keep one from looking like a complete lunatic!

“What's that you've got there, four dinosaurs? Damn girl! I’ve never seen anything like it. I should be the one feeding you!”

Patricia let out a nervous laugh and didn't quite know how to respond. She thought the woman had a funny accent and a very sweet voice.

“It’s a complicated situation, do you want to hear it?”

“Tell me!”

And there they were: a woman that the only reason she was still in this world was because the idea of becoming a mother saved her from killing herself -and now that she gave birth to her dead baby, she sat next to a type of pregnant woman that was terrified of her phantom baby and of dying; where do phantom babies come from? And where do those dead babies go?

As of orphan children, how can they feel closer to their Angel-parents?

In 1948, authorities found Opal starving on a squalid basement bed-sitting flat filled from floor to ceiling with wooden boxes holding an estimated total of ten to fifteen thousand books, many of which were said to contain underlined passages and notes in Opal’s handwriting. She was taken to Napsbury Hospital, an aged, rambling public institution, where she spent the rest of her life. Or was she in the world of fairies, princesses and animal friends? On February 16, 1992, Opal died at the age of 94. She was burried in London, where her tomb reads Opal Whiteley and Françoise d’Orleans.

At 23:23, Patricia woke up with a start. She could hear the baby crying under the sand. She wanted to wake the woman, but she was sleeping so peacefully... “What if I'm crazy? What if I'm imagining things?” Just in case it was true, she got up impulsively and ran to where the baby was buried. She saw the crimson red moon and realized it was a lunar eclipse. At the exact moment she reached the baby’s grave, the earth shook and opened like a giant vagina and swallowed Patricia. She fell and fell, until she reached the womb of the Earth, where there was the baby girl. With a voice from the underground world, it said to her: "Tell my mother that I had to come here so that she can become her own mother. Tell her she must remember so she can forget.”

The baby disappears into the darkness and an otter arrives in its place. “Hello!” says the otter. “Your name is Henri d'Orleans and your friend's name is Marie. Bye!”

It is then that the Earth expels Patricia, now Henri, and returns her to the surface. Henri wakes up in MArie’s arms. She looks at her body and sees that it has returned to normal and celebrates it by hugging Marie.

“Now your name is Marie and my name is Henri d'Orleans. An otter told me so.”

“What are you saying?”

“The Earth swallowed me and then gave birth to me. That's why I'm fine now. I found my destiny. I'm Henri d'Orleans and you're Marie. I still don't know what all this is, but I'm fine now! What your baby girl told me made me understand my type of pregnancy a little better. “

-Did you see my daughter? What did she tell you?

-She told me that she had to go there so that you could become your own mother. That you must remember so that you can forget.

Marie opened her eyes wide and covered her mouth with her hands. Tears rolled down her cheecks at the certainty that words can transform. Words are as magic as this poetic life of ours.

The next morning, while Henri was fishing, she heard something from inside the forest. It was a song she had heard before. It was the one from her dream! Henri took Marie by the hand and run into the forest. She could hear it too. They followed the sound and there it was... the singing creek where the willows grow. There was an otter in it that talked to them and that Henri replied with her most excited tone.

But the song wasn't coming from the river. It was coming from one of the willows. They approached it and passed through the elastic branches with thin leaves that dobbled their toes in the river. Inside they realized that the song was coming from a hole in the willow's trunk.

They peered into the hole and discovered a fairy writing on a willow leaf and singing.

“Opal?” asked Henri.

“Françoise d’Orleans.”

The End.

An homage to Nature and to the forgotten Opal Whiteley <3