Wellspring Wandering

Bailey Merlin

When I am born from mud, I know that to mud, I will return. But for now, this moment, I am the lotus bursting from a pool crowned in gold. You know this when you’re born, about the crown, I mean. You know that you are an extension of some larger murmuring that speaks everything else into motion. You forget that fact in exchange for speech.

Language doesn’t come as quickly when you emerge alone, so you hold onto that ancient knowledge longer.

I live in a desert but know that I will not die because all that I need is here. Clean water to drink, lotus flowers to eat, palm leaves for shelter, the lifegiving sun.

If the trees of my home can flourish, so can I, for we are made of the same things. We were all born to what we need.

Maybe it isn’t true to say that I am alone. That is a lie, after all. The trees speak, and the sand has much to say. When the sun is at its highest, I like to lean against the palm and chat about things that I don’t understand. Like: Why does the pool never empty no matter how much I drink? Or: How do the blossoms grow in the place of the one I have taken? There is always more here, except for me. The trees assure me that I am enough company in myself, the sand forever in agreement. When we talk of such things, I can’t help but look at the two other pools—the ones that didn’t feed me into this world—and wonder who else might live inside.

Maybe there was only enough in those waters for me.

I will confess that there is a light in the distance. When the sun sets, and the air begins to cool, I see it. A faint glow at first, it blooms into a radiant blinking star. Come the day, I can’t see it through the heat haze. Is it there at all?

Twice, I’ve walked towards it in the night, but the light has never gotten closer. This night is different. After stuffing myself with lotus blossoms and saying goodnight to the sand, my gaze is caught. There is the light. Then I am walking. My pools and my trees stay behind. I walk on and on, never wavering from that star until the light pinken, and away goes my guide.

Now though, there is nowhere to go but forward. Finding your way home in a daylight desert is about as bright as drinking water with your feet.

Where my arms and fingers can’t cover, my skin flushes then sizzles. I have never been out of the shade for so long, have never been so bare. My feet begin to blister against heated sand, and my lips crack without water. I keep walking. What would happen if I stopped? There’s no extra water to cry.

I persist, and the sun begins to sink. Something shimmers in the distance. At first, it is shapeless and shimmering. Then, form. Something tall and three squat things. As we grow closer, I see: a tree and three raised pools. A home, not home.

Too thirsty to think much, I scramble on hands and knees to the pool and shovel water into my mouth. It tastes different than I’m used to, but water is life upon life upon life.

On my fourth or fifth handful, a voice says, “Why have you come so far?”

I sputter and fall back. This voice is not one I know, different and familiar as this water. In the dimming light, I can see nothing but shapes. “I didn’t mean to get this far. I was following the light,” I say.

“What light?” It is the tree that speaks.

“That—” I look up and find that there is no light, just an endless open blackness full of points of stars. “There was a light.”

“I believe you,” the tree says. When I step closer, I realize that it is bigger than mine. The tree sighs, branches brambling together. “Why have you come so far? Weren’t you happy?” it asks.

“Yes, of course,” I say, kneeling in the sand. My lips begin to smooth. “I was curious.”

The tree pauses, then says, “Curiosity can lead to us things that make us unhappy.”

My head hurts. I am still thirsty. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve come all this way. We should talk.”

“What will we say?”

“Well, you’re my guest, and you’ve walked a long way. How about this? You drink from my pools, then rest against me. When your breath has been caught, ask me three questions. I will answer them honestly, and then you can be on your way in the morning.”

This sounds like a much better way to spend my time than wandering the desert. I agree and slake my thirst with fistfuls more of water. Belly full to the point of bursting, I settle back against the tree and stare through their branches to the sky. The stars are different here.

“How long have you lived here?” I ask.

“This is a stupid question,” my host says. “What is time to a tree? What is time to you, for that matter?”

My cheeks are hot though there is no sun. I am determined that my next question will be better. “Why can we understand one another?”

“I guess you are better at understanding than I first supposed.”

“You’re not very nice,” I say.

The tree is quiet for a few moments. “I am sorry. I cannot remember the last time I had a guest.”

I stare at the three raised pools and think of home. “Has anyone else lived here?”

My host grumbles then sighs then says, “You are not the first. You are not the last. There is not much more to it than that.”

I think about that for a while as I drowse against the trunk. The sand here is not chatty, though it does still sing. Soon, I am asleep.

The next day, my host is good enough to share some of their lotus flowers with me (the petals back home are better, but I don’t say this. I’m not sure what “rude” is, but I’d rather not be it). I wonder in the tree’s shade and investigate the pools. Only one still holds water. Though my host doesn’t say anything, I can tell they don’t want to speak about it. I don’t press.

Without noticing the weight of the day, the sun settles in favor of the moon. Leaning against the tree, I see glowing in the distance.

My heart flutters. “What’s that light over there?”

“Don’t you recognize it?” the tree chides. “Have you forgotten home already?”

So far away, so close. My cheeks strain. “That’s my home?”

“Of course. Don’t you remember?”

A whole lifetime without seeing such a marvelous thing. It doesn’t seem possible. “I’ve never seen it before. There can’t be a light there.”

“You mean you never noticed.”

The longer I stare, the more I know home is but a wander away. It can be nothing else but my tree, my pools, my sands. “I guess I didn’t.” This time, there is enough to spare for tears.

“Do not cry, little one. You can still go home,” my host’s voice says in their gentlest tone. “I will help you. Here, climb into the largest pool and take the lotus bud you find at the bottom.”

Eager to go home, I scramble to obey. The pool is shallower than I thought and wetter, too. In the darkening hole, I find the heavy bud and smile. It is soft to the touch.

“Pluck it,” the tree says.

I look up and frown. “Pluck it?”

“Roots and all.”

My gaze returns to the bud. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“You have eaten the blossoms before, yes?”

“But those were flowers.”

“As will that.”

“How?”

“You will take it with you. Do as I say, and I will tell you how to get home.”

My hands shake as I dig deep into the sand. This does not feel like it should be done. Gently, the roots come from the earth and dangle from my hand. “What now?” I whisper into my palms.

“Come out of there.” I listen, carefully clamber out with my companion, and stare up at the tree. “Listen to me, it is time for you to go home. Follow that light you saw, the one you know to be yours, and no other. You may suck on the roots for water but do not bite the bud. If you bite the flower flesh, you both will perish. Do you understand?”

My body faces the light. “Yes.”

“When you get home, and you will if you listen to me, I want you to swim to the bottom of your largest pond and plant the lotus blossom. That is how you give thanks.”

Looking at the lotus plant, it does not seem much. But now, I am counting on it, and it on me to see our way home.

“Leave while you can still walk without pain,” the tree intones. They sound a little sad.

“Thank you,” I say and start on my path with the lotus clutched to my heart.

“Until we meet again,” my host whispers, words almost lost to the singing of the sand.

Interview by L. Valena

March 4, 2022

Let's start from the top. Can you first describe the prompt that you responded to?

I received a photo of a sculpture titled Oasis. It was a figure coming out of a pool with gold on its head, with a tree on top of a square of sand. And in the distance is this wormy tree coming out of it as well.

What was your first reaction to that?

The first thought was that I was not expecting a sculpture, which was neat. And then I thought, "How on earth am I going to write about this?" But then I sat with it for a while, and talked about it with my partner, and was just kind of throwing ideas out there.

What was that first conversation pointing towards?

I think the first question was, "Is this figure lonely? Or are they whole?" At first I thought it was so strikingly lonely, to be the only humanoid figure in a desert. But then the longer I looked at it, the more I considered the tree color, and the glaze that had been used, which was this nice rich green, I thought, no. This person has everything they need. They are in an oasis. How lucky are they, to have this for themselves! I had gone from this lonely place to a oneness place. Which was a really nice thing to consider as the world was kind of falling apart while I was writing this.

What happened next?

I had established that this person wasn't lonely. I had just read Anne Sexton's Transformations, which is this fairy tale retelling. The way she spins the myth -- there's something in that. So what this piece ended up looking like to me was a creation myth. This person popping up out of the sand, out of seemingly nothingness, into an oasis of their own. I didn't want to tell a sad story that says that if you leave the oasis, you're banished. I wasn't vibing with that idea anymore. It's okay to be in an oasis, and to be happy, and also to be curious.

So I decided to make a creation myth of some kind. We don't know who made what, and it doesn't matter. This person exists. They have three pools that feed and water them. They have a tree that shades them and talks to them, and also they have this sand, which is billions and billions of companions.

But even if you're happy all the time, your human nature is going to make you curious about what's out there. What is that light? Where does it come from? I pace around my room a lot when I'm writing, and I thought, what would I do if I saw this Fitzgeraldesque light in the distance? Would I go towards it? Would I stay? And I think that, eventually, I would go. It might take me a long time to get up the courage to leave, but one of these days, you just have to go.

You're so right, that is such a deep part of human nature. No matter where we are, we always want to know what else there is. We're so curious. It's pretty beautiful.

I wanted it to be beautiful. Because even though this character starts out in the night, by the time the sun rises there's no way to get home. There's nowhere but forward, and it's the first time their skin is burnt by the sun, because they're alone. There's nothing to shield them. Instead of going back, they're cognizant of the fact that they are liable to get more lost. Might as well keep going forward.

And eventually they do arrive to this other, perhaps older, oasis. I really didn't want this to be a punishment. I didn't want this story to be about, "You left your oasis, and so you must suffer." As soon as they came into this new oasis, they drank from the pool, and this grumpier, older tree is like, "You left your oasis, huh? Weren't you happy there?" Which is an honest question. If you were happy, why did you look further? Why did you go out? Why did you explore? And the answer is, "What else am I going to do? I had to."

And tree is like, "You came all this way, you might as well have a drink. You might as well rest a little bit, and ask me three questions." Which goes back to mythology. If you ask questions, you'll get honest answers, even though this tree is clearly a jackass. "How long have you been here?" "I'm a tree. What is time?" "How many people have come here?" "You're not the first, you're not the last. You're mid. You're a mid person." And that childlike person is sitting there thinking, "Wow, I can't believe I left home. This is awful. I want to go home." And the tree has sympathy for the person. "You're not as bad as I thought you were. My bad. Apologies. Do me this favor, go into this seemingly empty pool, and take the lotus pod that's growing in there." For me, I thought maybe people are growing from these pools? And by taking the lotus, it's like taking a person out of it. The tree tells them that they can suck on the lotus roots, and have the water, but to not eat the bud. I think the main character understands that it's precious. The tree tells them to take the pod back and plant it in their oasis, and that's where the story ends. The tree is giving the main character some of their life, so they can make more life somewhere else. In that is this unity, of one oasis to another oasis, and how no one person is truly an island. By being curious and making a connection, you can take that connection back to your home, plant it, and let something new grow. Who's to say what grows out of that lotus flower? Maybe it's another person, maybe not. But that was the idea behind it. I was so grateful to have had that sculpture plant this seed inside me, so that I could make something else.

Man, you went really deep here! That's very admirable. It can be hard to go there, and it takes a certain amount of vulnerability and courage to dig that deep. Is that something that you tend to do in your other work? How does this piece relate to the rest of your work?

I adore human relationships. I think they are so astoundingly complicated. I also think that there are some fundamental truths about people, and some of them should be praised, and some of them fought against. I write a lot about interpersonal relationships. I just finished working on a novel about a group of people living in a communal household during the pandemic, which is based on my own living situation, and how that brought out the best in people. Which was more or less true about my experience living with 11 other people during the pandemic. Without that community, I would have been a mess. I also like to write about mental illness, depression and anxiety, because the more we talk about it, the more we reduce stigma. But, when you also write about characters with those attributes, in a communal setting, and see how they are supported, it's clear that people are built to do this. They are built to be together. Writing a story about a person by themself, being content alone, more or less, was really strange for me. To not have a built-in community. "You are friends with this tree. You are friends with these grains of sand. They do not interact with you the way another person would interact with you." This was a challenge to write, and it makes me think that I should write more stories about people by themselves. So I'd say that it related and did not relate to the rest of my work in a very cool way.

Your novel sounds great. When is it coming out?

I'm currently looking for representation, but always looking for beta readers!

What haven't we talked about?

I was surprised by how much I wanted to read after I saw this picture of a sculpture. It made me want two things. It made me want to read, and it made me miss museums, because there is something beautiful about sitting in a space surrounded by art, and working on something that is unrelated to it. Should I go to a museum? I don't know. I think I should just go sit in a sculpture room. But I also have never really had an appreciation for sculpture before. It's because I'm more inundated with paintings than with anything else. I was struck again by the fact that anything can inspire you, which is why after I wrote this piece, I started thinking... What else in my house can I use to think about art differently? And I challenged myself to write a short story every day in March with a tiny plush that I made as the protagonist. I decided to just see where it takes me. Let's get surreal! Let's get weird. I think this whole process has challenged me to think about art differently. For anyone who is a writer in particular, this is a bigger challenge because unlike paint, it's hard to communicate with words what I'm experiencing sometimes. This is a myth! How can I convey that with words? But also not too many words! But not too few. It's absolutely bizarre.

Do you have any advice for another creative person approaching this project for the first time?

Sit with what you're given. Don't react immediately. Have your initial human thoughts, but sit with it and appreciate the work that went into the piece that you've been given. I really wanted to know what the sculptor was thinking, and how long the process took. That helped me really access how much I appreciated it on a deeper level.

I think more artists should collaborate, even if it's not in this context. Art can be lonely, and even if you are collaborating with someone who's not in your medium, all the better. When two artists who aren't in the same media get together, they make something completely different. So make more art friends!

Call Number: Y73VA | Y79PP.meWe

Bailey Merlin holds an MFA in fiction from Butler University. Her work has been published in The Lascaux Review, ellipses..., Dime Show Review, Streetlight Magazine, Into the Void, Crack the Spine, among others. She writes in Boston, MA where she lives with 9 other humans, a toddler, a cat, a dog, and a friendly ghost. Find more of her work at baileymerlin.com.