Sugarcane

<<timedinsert 1s>><<display "I am here">><<endtimedinsert>>

\n<<if $south5>>I own this air and I need it.<<endif>> <<if $south3>>Here I was born and here I'll be taken back<<endif>><<if $south4>>, one of these rainy days<<endif>><<if $south3>>.<<endif>> <<if $south2>>Damp like this, paper-skin could tear under a stray fingernail.<<endif>> <<if $south1>>I need this air and I own it.<<endif>>\n

\n<<if $west1>>No more flies about the town's baked corpse, not today.<<endif>> <<if $west5>>The clouds have taken mercy.<<endif>> <<if $west3>>Dripping and panting,<<endif>> <<if $west2>>I touch my arms and shoulder blades to<<endif>> <<if $west4>>brand new<<endif>> <<if $west2>>mud.<<endif>>\n

<<display "Truestart">>

in wet strings

<<if $east1>>Rain's too late to save the grass<<endif>><<if $east3>>, parched and yellow<<endif>><<if $east4>>, clinging to the soles of my feet<<endif>><<if $east5>><<display "Wet">><<endif>><<if $east1>>.<<endif>> <<if $east2>>Nature demands to be felt.<<endif>>\n

<<set $west3 = true>>The Opal England Foundation wants to protect the soil, and the young trees growing in it, from sulphuric and nitric acid in the sky. There is such a lot of soil, and such a lot of sky, and such a lot of acid; they might be happier if they set themselves more achievable goals.\n\n[[East >|West 2]]\n[[West <|West 4]]

<<set $west2 = true>>At one point, there is a man (age: __1000 years or less__) who used to come and spend time with the tree. He brings some sandwiches and maybe a newspaper to read as he sits on one of its lower branches. Nobody asks him to, but he does - only every now and again, you understand. It reminds him of his mother.\n\nHe hasn't been back for about sixty summers, but maybe tomorrow.\n\n[[East >|West 1]]\n[[West <|West 3]]

<<set $west1 = true>>The grass is overlooked by an oak tree and by a small girl who used to hang from its branches, some decades from here. She sees her own life, tiny and soft and new, caught in the varicose limbs of this ancient wooden monster.\n\nShe knows that when she has children <<if $west5>>(Opal: after her favourite horse) (Mark: after the boy she likes at school)<<endif>> then she will teach them how to climb trees and surround them on all sides with weather.\n\n[[East >|I am here]]\n[[West <|West 2]]

\n<<if $north1>>Stretch out.<<endif>> <<if $north4>>A<<endif>> <<if $north5>>human<<endif>> <<if $north4>>sacrifice of gratitude.<<endif>> <<if $north2>>Welcome back the<<endif>> <<if $north3>>squatting, seething<<endif>><<if $north5>>, pissing<<endif>> <<if $north2>>sky.<<endif>> <<if $north1>>It's been a long summer, but<<endif>> <<if $north5>>now<<endif>> I'm here.

<<set $south1 = true>>Maybe the grass is dead, but there's life yet in the dessicated earth. Worms push their way up, drawn by the rain that's filtering down.\n\n[[North ^|I am here]]\n[[South v|South 2]]

<<set $south2 = true>>Down - through the softening husks of once-living creatures, where it's cold as the grave and airless. Sheltered from that sun. Still too far from the other, the one that boils at the centre of the Earth.\n\n[[North ^|South 1]]\n[[South v|South 3]]

<<set $west4 = true>>The factories that used to stand here have long since been pulled down. People back then are too concerned with the movements of wheels, and of //things.//\n\nToday's factories criss-cross the GreenSpace as thick, churning streams of information. Benches fill with humans on their lunch breaks. Uniformed rangers take turns at tending to an oak sapling.\n\n[[East >|West 3]]\n[[West <|West 5]]

<<fadeoutsound "https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/167918054/cantrunbut.mp3">>\n//"When you've gone a long, long way down to the sun and touched it and lingered and jumped around and streaked away from it, where are you going then? When you go away from the heat and the noonday light and the laziness, [[where do you go?"|Pause]]//\n\n— Ray Bradbury / //The Golden Apples of The Sun//\n\n<<set $north1 = false>><<set $north2 = false>><<set $north3 = false>><<set $north4 = false>><<set $north5 = false>><<set $east1 = false>><<set $east2 = false>><<set $east3 = false>><<set $east4 = false>><<set $east5 = false>><<set $south1 = false>><<set $south2 = false>><<set $south3 = false>><<set $south4 = false>><<set $south5 = false>><<set $west1 = false>><<set $west2 = false>><<set $west3 = false>><<set $west4 = false>><<set $west5 = false>>\n

<<fadeinsound "https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/167918054/cantrunbut.mp3">>\n<<timedinsert 1s>>written by [[lizzie smyth|https://twitter.com/untiltheygo]]<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 2s>>macros by [[leon arnott|http://l.j-factor.com/gmhtml5/]]<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 3s>>music by [[paul simon|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0bjMnGQDt8]]<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 4s>>interdimensional support by [[maxamillian john|https://twitter.com/maxltj]]<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 5s>>— start [[over|Truestart]]<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 6s>>— play [[another twine|http://philome.la/untiltheygo/small-things/play]]<<endtimedinsert>>

<<set $east1 = true>>Somewhere, in a less probable universe, (my body is two and a half million pounds of timber) (I have beaten summer nearly four thousand times) (but it keeps coming back for more) rain means nothing to me. Until it's in the ground, how could I feel-know-use it? My fingertips are for sunlight only.\n\n[[East >|East 2]]\n[[West <|I am here]]

<<set $south4 = true>>Maybe there are other worlds out there that could support a tree. There was water on Mars, once; its alien trees might be good for shade on stifling summer days, or they might not.\n\nYou could navigate for the nearest forest planet, and it could wither and die long before you arrived.\n\nIt's getting warmer.\n\n[[North ^|South 3]]\n[[South v|South 5]]

<<set $east3 = true>>A hundred times I have comforted myself with the idea that somewhere, there's another me. A me who's always happy, who's got it all under control. //That's the real me,// I say, //that's the one who counts. The stuff happening to me here, none of this counts.// If I didn't believe it, sometimes, I wouldn't cope.\n\n[[East >|East 4]]\n[[West <|East 2]]

<<set $east2 = true>>Elsewhere, I tear my roots from the Earth and plough off into infinity. A meat-sack and its space-boots, defying the laws of matter to chase stars.\n\nElsewhere, I just lie still and let the vaccuum lift me off the planet.\n\n[[East >|East 3]]\n[[West <|East 1]]

<<set $east5 = true>>In an equally probable universe, a hundred and twenty pounds of flesh and water seems a poor vessel for a rain-god. Vestigial paper-skin peeling back, swirling away down the drain.\n\nA being unwrapped, I have invented a better word to describe what it is to feel-know-use something, to surround and be surrounded without assigning a name; I have no direct/conscious interface with the physical, so these memories will fade if I don't chart them.\n\n[[West <|East 4]]

<<set $east4 = true>>In a more probable universe, this was the last summer, and the last first-rain. The last relief until the Big One.\n\n[[East >|East 5]]\n[[West <|East 3]]

<<set $south5 = true>>//One planet may look like another and occupy the same coordinates in space-time, but what coordinates it occupies in probability is anybody's guess.//\n\n— H2G2 / S5E1\n\n[[North ^|South 4]]

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<<set $west5 = true>>Zie thought it was an acorn when zie pushed it down with per thumb into the ash and rubble. Who would have guessed that two and a half million pounds of timber would be so easily mistaken?\n\n[[East >|West 4]]

<<set $south3 = true>>Deeper, where the roots of the oldest tree fan out like divine plumbing. It's been plugged into the planet for thousands of years after your death, and will continue to be so thousands of years before you're born.\n\n[[North ^|South 2]]\n[[South v|South 4]]

<<if $east1>><<display "East">><<endif>><<if $west1>><<display "West">><<endif>><<if $south1>><<display "South">><<endif>><<display "North">>\n\n<<if $north5 and $east5 and $south5 and $west5>>[[###]]<<else>>[[North ^|North 1]]\n[[East >|East 1]]\n[[West <|West 1]]\n[[South v|South 1]]<<endif>>

<<set $north4 = true>><html>varicose</html> //adjective//\n\nswollen, twisted, and lengthened, as a result of poor circulation\n\n[[North ^|North 5]]\n[[South v|North 3]]

<<set $north5 = true>><html>compass</html> //noun//\n\n1. an instrument containing a magnetised pointer which shows the direction of north\n2. an instrument for drawing circles and arcs and measuring distances between points\n3. the range or scope of something\n\n<html>compass</html> //verb//\n\n1. go around (something) in a circular course; surround or hem in on all sides\n2. contrive to accomplish (something)\n\n[[South v|North 4]]

<<set $north2 = true>><html>vestigial</html> //adjective//\n\n1. forming a very small remnant of something that was once greater or more noticeable\n2. degenerate, rudimentary, or atrophied, having become functionless in the course of evolution\n\n[[North ^|North 3]]\n[[South v|North 1]]

<<set $north3 = true>><html>acid rain</html> //noun//\n\nSO<html>2</html> + OH· → HOSO<html>2</html>· / HOSO<html>2</html>· + O<html>2</html> → HO<html>2</html>· + SO<html>3</html> / SO<html>3</html> (g) + H<html>2</html>O (l) → H<html>2</html>SO<html>4</html> (aq)\n\nNO<html>2</html> + OH· → HNO<html>3</html>\n\n[[North ^|North 4]]\n[[South v|North 2]]

<<set $north1 = true>><html>desiccate</html> //verb//\n\n1. remove the moisture from (something), typically in order to preserve it\n2. [as adj. //desiccated//] lacking interest, passion, or energy\n\n[[North ^|North 2]]\n[[South v|I am here]]