Mangrove God

I drove down a country road. It was paved with the rough black bitumen that endures every storm. I passed houses on large properties that were once fine. Now, they showed the wear of years in their flaking paint. In their yards, rusting cars were overgrown with grass and old sheds showed distinct leans. Large gum trees dotted the yards too, casting long shadows in the warm, afternoon light.

I drained the last drops of my cheap coffee, then rolled down the window and threw out the cup. It bounced and caught the wind, coming to rest in the ditch that ran along the road.

There were no people in sight.

I arrived at my destination and rolled to a stop, pulled my handbrake and turned off the car. Everything was silent. I opened the door and stepped out.

Trees flanked the cul-de-sac, with a path leading to parklands on one side, and a long boat ramp on the other. It led down to the river. Where I parked, the ground was gravelly, with old rubbish mixed in and strewn around. I wondered who left it there as I stepped over pieces with my bare feet.

I popped the boot of my car and got out my inflatable kayak. It was bright blue and green, currently rolled up in a black mesh bag. Old river water dribbled from one end as I lifted it.

I rolled the kayak out on the ground and started inflating it with a small, black hand pump. The air whistled as it rushed through the tube with each pump, mingling with the soft whisper of the wind across my shoulders. Fluffy white clouds looked down on me from all across the sky, waiting.

The fully inflated kayak was light as I picked it up, hooked over one arm. I locked the car, then walked down to the water with the paddle in my other hand.

The boat ramp was old, old concrete, long since stained brown by the changing tides of muddy water, but I only had eyes for the river. It was narrow at this point, only a dozen meters across. Tall trees grew all the way over, making a leafy tunnel and casting the water into a murky gloom dotted through with filtered sunlight.

Across the water was a mud bank, raised nearly a meter above the current water level, where mangrove trees grew. I could see their roots poking from the mud, illuminated by a ray of orange sunlight. I smiled at it, closed my eyes and listened to the soft sound of the water lapping on the ramp.

I placed my kayak in the water, then sat in it with a small splash, drifting.

The sound of the river soothed me as I paddled. Left, right. Left, right. I visualised using the paddled to pull myself forward with each stroke, gliding along the top of the water. The bank slowly slid past me, like the worries I hoped to leave behind.

I rounded a bend and saw something ahead.

A huge tree had died and fallen into the river. Its limbs stretched out of the water, forking and solid, as though pleading to the foliage above for help. As I drew close, I stopped paddling to drift past, and saw the wood soaked with water and gone slimy. Colourful ropes bound each limb where someone had set crab-traps. It was hard to imagine anyone else coming to a place like this. I felt like I was the first person to see; to witness.

I paddled on, hearing only the sound of the water and the wind. I passed more trees succumbed to the tide, sliding into the watery depths. I saw sharp mud banks dotted with holes where mud crabs made their homes. Old bottles drifted with me on the current and industrial rubbish watched us from the bank. Evidence of our sacrilege, I would learn.

Ahead, I saw something jutting from the shallow water by the bank. I drew closer, feeling my brow furrow. It was a ragged pillar of some dark stone, covered in symbols that continued down below the surface of the water. The top contained part of a carved image, but seemed broken off or worn away, higher on one side. What remained was the bottom third, showing a set of huge crab legs and a single, vicious claw on the higher side. A row of tiny carved people bowed down in worship for it. I let out a breath.

I looked around me. Another piece of dark stone peeked out from the muddy bank, mostly buried in the brown sludge. Further along the water, the wind waves made ripples over something else just below the surface. On the other side of the river, the mangrove trees had grown around another pillar, clutching it, and several rocks seem too square to be natural. Bits and pieces of dark stone were all around me, taken by nature eons ago, long since become one. I found myself in a cathedral to the power of the mud and trees and waters; an altar to the never ending tides.

But I did not have eyes to see.

The wind shifted and pushed me forward. I held out a hand and steadied myself against the pillar, feeling something change in the air.

I turned to look back the way I had come. The once peaceful river glade became haunted by my thoughts of what could wait for me, out of sight. I looked back to the stone and quickly pulled by hand away.

Snails and snails and snails were crawling up the pillar, dripping salt water as they made their way to the image at the top. Below, fish swarmed, frantic, and an eel writhed in the mass. The wind gusted through the tunnel, casting a shower of dead leaves across the rippling surface of the river.

A feeling radiated from the pillar; something ancient and unknowable. I paddled back, breathing hard and careful not to touch it again.

I fought against the wind as I paddled the way I had come, desperate to get off the water and back to my car. The rattle of leaves above me covered the sound of splashing water from my passage.

I rounded a bend and saw the fallen tree where it had always been; rotting and ancient. The colourful ropes that were tied to it swayed in the wind. I did not slow to glide past, thinking only of home.

A dozen meters past the tree I rounded a sharp bend, head down and trying to ignore the otherworldly place that had me in its grip.

I looked up and saw the fallen tree several meters ahead of me. Its colourful ropes still swayed and filtered sunlight from the trees above shone dully on its sodden surface.

I breathed out in disbelief and looked back the way I had come, but saw only the bend in the river. I shook my head and kept paddling, unsure how I got turned around. When I passed the tree again, its wet branches felt like they were reaching for me; gnarled, ancient fae fingers eager to feel my flesh, tied back by the colourful ropes of men. Blasphemous ropes, I learnt. Ropes to disrespect the power waiting in that place.

The water splashed from my paddle as I rounded the bend at a frantic pace, leaving frothy salt water in my wake. The fallen tree was a dozen meters ahead of me, coloured ropes still swaying in the wind that pushed me back as I slowed my strokes.

I yielded to the wind, turning and paddling back the way I had come.

The fallen tree waited for me as I rounded the same bend. Again. I let out a moan of frustration and terror at the soundness of my mind. The trees were witness as I turned around again, paddling back.

I saw the fallen tree ahead of me, the same as it had always been.

Slowly, I looked along the bank and through the trees, desperate to make sense of where I found myself; How I was here, if I had lost my mind.

The fallen tree waited for me as I hesitantly drifted closer under the force of a few strokes. Close, I saw the water soaked grain of the branches. It was so old that the colourful ropes had marked the wood with the friction of their swaying.

The wind seemed to hold its breath.

The entire tree slowly lurched to the side. A spray of bubbles rose from the depths as waves pushed me back. Something massive moved under the surface, vast and solid. It was the colour of mud and salty river water.

I screamed, paddling for the shore. My inflatable blue and green kayak bumped against the muddy bank as I scrambled out. The mud was viscous, slimy. It slid in between my fingers and toes as I clawed my way up and away from the water.

At the top, I risked a glance behind me. The river was in turmoil, roiling and turbulent. Water streamed off something as it slowly rose to the surface. I ran.

The mangrove was bathed in golden light, reflecting off puddles of water left by the high tide, glowing through the green leaves all around me. It made the wet bark and poking roots sparkle, alive and excited. A few dozen steps from the water, the trees opened into a large clearing. I saw them there.

Bodies were in rows. Some knelt, torsos upright. They were clean skeletons of sun-bleached bone. Ancient wooden beads of red and blue hung around their necks, and tattered rags of ceremonial robes garbed their gaunt forms. In their hollow eyes sockets, some deep acceptance seemed to bloom as they stared ahead toward the mangrove and setting sun.

Other bodies joined them, sprawled on the ground in failed flight. Their back was to the sun, but it reflected off their teeth and bloated, wet skin. They were muddy, decaying, nearly become one with the landscape as it consumed them. Their clothes looked modern, sodden and nearly rotting already.

I ran past, stumbling as my foot landed on an arm the mud nearly hid. The bone snapped under my weight, like a sodden twig left too long in the water. I felt nauseous; the mud squelched up to my calves as I ran. Water splashed and trees cracked behind me.

I ducked into the cover of the mangrove trees on the other side of the clearing. My breath came raggedly, my legs ached. Tree branches slapped at me as I ran.

I lurched to a halt, balancing on the edge of a drop into the water. I was back at the river. It churned with waves that rebounded off the banks and back into one another as though something massive had just left its depths. My kayak was caught in the chaos, popped on one side and thrown this way and that by the water.

Across the bank, I saw a tree lurch to the side. I turned and ran again. I felt lightheaded as I fled through the trees. The sound of something massive moving through the mangrove came from all around. I didn’t know where to run. I didn’t know why I was here.

I burst in to the clearing again, stumbling to my knees in the mud amidst the corpses, exhausted. I stared at the mangrove trees across the clearing, which I knew the river lay beyond, just as it was behind me, and behind me again. Again. Again, and again. Hopeless tears made runnels down cheeks, warmed as I faced the sunlight.

I saw it emerge.

Mangrove trees bent to make space for it, pushed aside by legs thicker than their trunks. It was tender, careful not to damage them, placing its steps so as not to crush their roots. Yet, I saw the tide puddles ripple as it moved. Powerful, almighty.

I could not turn my eyes away.

Its body was wide and heavy. Sunlight reflected off its still wet carapace, muddy brown on top with hints of colour swirling through. Its eyes locked on me, dark as a mangrove night. Long antenna stretched from its face, tasting the air. Water droplets flicked off them, catching the light. One of its massive claws gently pushed a branch out of the way while the other clicked together once, twice, thrice.

The fallen tree was fused to the top of its shell, looking like a broken crown. A relic from ancient days when it had still been a god.

The wind gusted, howling through the mangrove and making the trees thrash. It stood taller, taller than the treeline, and watched me, waiting. In that pose it was framed by the light, giving it a saint’s golden halo. The wind sung a worship dirge as leaves flew through the air, like angels in supplication to its might.

I looked around me, seeing the fetid corpses laying in the mud. I saw their rotting eyeballs seeping slowly into the salt water, and their arms outstretched away from the god. The flesh on one of their fingers had fallen off and was being devoured by a little mud crab hiding under the mud-stained hand bones.

Mouth open, I turned to the clean corpses, kneeling before the sun and their mangrove god, and chose to worship too.

Slowly, I placed my hands in the muddy puddle, feeling its gritty slime slide through my fingers. I lowered myself until my forehead touched the water.

Through my whole body I could feel something. My mind cleared for the first time in my life, and I saw what I really was. I saw the minor place I deserved in this nature palace. I saw mankind's pride as we thought to profane the ground of this holy place. I saw the world as its could have been; if we had the humility not to spit in its face.

I saw the rubbish on the muddy bank; I saw the bottles staining the river. I saw fish driven to extinction, choking on poisoned waterways we made. I saw birds covered in oil. I saw wildlife caught in nets not cast for them. I saw our pride; pretending we owned the world. I saw mankind, and what our actions have cost.

I wept then for what we had lost.

I heard it move and looked up with tear-blurred eyes. Slowly, the forgotten god reached one massive claw toward the sun. The world dimmed as it closed over the golden orb at the pace of eons sliding by. Darker, darker. The mangrove turned to night, then faded into the blackness of nothing. Nothing but memories of our divine, forsaken charge to care for the rivers and trees. Nothing but the stench of missed sacrifices to ancient gods, and the holy retribution that waits, just around the next bend in the river.

Unless we are willing to bow.

I opened my eyes and saw my hand resting on the pillar of dark stone, carved all over with strange symbols. I pulled it back, panting, and looked around me. A calm breeze made its lazy way through the mangrove and soft golden light filtered through gaps in the trees. Tiny waves lapped on the muddy bank, as crabs scuttled along, oblivious to me and my sins.

I started paddling, as though in a dream.

Soon, I rounded a bend and saw the fallen tree waiting, colourful ropes screaming blasphemy each time they swayed in the wind. As I drifted closer, I stared into the water’s murky depths for the massive claw or the swirling colours of its carapace, but saw only my reflection, humble and reverent.

The wood of the fallen tree was not so decayed as it looked, as I reached out a hand to steady myself against it. I untied each colourful rope, winding them up and storing them to take away. My wet fingers felt the groves the ropes had left, sorry it had taken so long for me to realise.

I pushed away from the tree and continued paddling.

Around each bend I saw sacred beauty, heard the wind and water, smelled the salt and mud. The mangrove welcomed me as part of it, if only I could see my rightful place and agree to worship its god.

When I arrived at the boat ramp, I hesitated to leave the water. It felt wrong.

As my feet touched the old, old concrete, I felt like I traveled into a land not meant for me. I knew I belonged in the mangrove.

I stood, ankle deep in the river, torn between two worlds.

I looked up and saw a kingfisher sitting on a branch. Its eyes were too knowing as it watched me, blue feathers shining in the dim light: A god’s prior, come to see a new disciple off on their pilgrimage.

Slowly, I bowed my head.

Kayak over one arm, I turned and walked to my car, ready to search for the coffee cup I threw on the road.

Behind me, I heard the kingfisher calling farewell.