TFAMM: “Sowing the Seeds of Love”

[Ben]

“Sowing the seeds of love”

Man, maybe it was the baijiu I had last night, but I woke up from a dream..

I’d seen this lady, a baker, being chased by a crowd.. I tried to stop em, but my feet were stuck in the mud.

Nothing I could do did nothing..

And now I wake up, and back to wandering..

Finding myself at the gates of a city in the Baahir Republic.. Casaandhir, by name. Vast and multilayered man, like a lotus flower. Opening to the sun..

You’d think that’d be beautiful duden, but beauty is judged by the presence of its opposite. And this city, it’s got beasts, family..

I sauntered in to town, and laid my rug down, thought I’d see what the city would have to be found.
What I found, duden, was a gritty city, bound to be ground down, man. See, the people here feel worn out and played. When you lay your head to the ground, it ain’t hard to see what’s up, man..

Soon though, I saw a woman steppin outta my dreams.

I woke up from my rug with my face down on a plate. I nap different, duden.
There she was, a lovely Dwarven woman, ambling through town, carrying a basket that smelled like heaven, and handing out bits of something from it to children, the beggars, and the poor.

Seeing me, she plucked off a bit of it, and tossed it my way, with a grin.

⁸Sweet bread, with a touch of cinnamon. Delicious, man!

She walked down the way, and me, bein the curious sort, (my name ain’t George, duden) I grabbed my stuff and followed.

Eventually, she tucked in to a shop, opening a door with a key from her skirt, and there it was. Her own bakeshop!

Man, the smell from that place! It’s even better than brewing baijiu, duden.

From the behind the shop counter, she smiled and said “did a taste have you craving more? I’ll bake some more of my “plucking cake” to share around later my friend!”

“OH, no worries my lovely dudess”, I replied with a bow. “I just, kinda wanted ta see what you were about, y’know? Don’t meet a lotta people who share kindly with others that ain’t up on their luck, is all. Seeing as you got ya’s a business concern going, I thought I might patron it, even see how I might help! One good deed deserves a whole bunch more, if ya get my meaning..”

She smiled, and I bought a few pastries, and spent part of the day in a lovely conversation with her. Don’t know what was better, the smell of the baking, or the smile that beamed through her beard, man.

By the afternoon, I had shared some local herbs to introduce her to her bakery, let her taste some baijiu (which, she said was palatable for dwarves, but not fit for HUMAN consumption.. fine here, duden, more for me!), and consented to a little help from me with getting deliveries made to the upper houses of the city. Climbing is like walking to me, gang. Ain’t no thing!

As I left outta her bakery, sack loaded with baked goods, I noticed a fella staring hard at me and her shop, from out of a stall of his own.

That look, it wasn’t exactly friendly..

I took the parcels up to all the areas she asked. Sometimes I was greeted kindly, many times, in the houses of the high and mighty, I was barely greeted at all. Folks here aren’t used to beast folk. Especially not a monkey, who dresses like street “trash”.

I’m just using their words, man..

2 days of this, and my friends shop got visitors. Not the good kind, that were there to patron, the bad kind.. there to patronize, or worse.

The fella I seen before, he was at the lead. I was scaling down the walls, and missed the start of the squabbling, but I caught enough to hear “giving away good food to the street scum”, “drawing in undesirables”, and “giving work to outcasts while better folk are struggling”.

My friend was trying to say something, when the first thing was thrown at her. At first, it was refuse, then bricks and cobblestones. She ducked, turned, and ran. I dropped to the streets and chased after.

I caught up to the crowd, vaulted over the backs of two of them, got beside her, and pushed her aside just in time to avoid a brick to the face.

Telling her to run the other way, I turned to the crowd, and showed them my finest “assets”..

They ran at me, leaving her forgotten.

I ducked down streets, and along the sides of walls. I kept ahead of them for a time, but numbers make a difference, man, and they had ‘em.

Eventually, I ended up cornered in an alley, with no time to scamper along a wall.

I’m not proud of that fight man. I’m not gonna recount it. 1 against 1, or 2, or even 7, well, that can be art.. but against 30. Uhh.. well..

I’m tough. I took some of em on, and they’ll remember I gave back what I was gettin..

But I nearly died.

I came to in a refuse pit. Sunk in the mud. Buried in trash. Covered in about every bodily fluid you don’t wanna imagine..

I’ve been through worse, and of my own actions.
One of the street people pulled me outta the muck, led me to a reservoir where I could wash the detritus out of my fur. Helped me to where I’d stowed my pack, and helped me administer “jow” to my wounds to help them heal. I’d been helping him and his friends in prior days.

When I’d healed enough, he and some other of the street people went with me to my friend’s shop.

I kinda expected what I found, duden.

The windows were busted in. Stuff I won’t honor with repeating was written on the walls. All for harboring the downtrodden. For helping those other folks’d rather ignore.

But,

My friends then led me further into the underbelly of the city. After a long journey, I started to smell a familiar smell, made more out of place by it’s surroundings. The people of the lowest castes, and the street dwellers, the downtrodden, they saw what was happening. They whisked my friend away to safety, and built her a new home. A heart and hearth, in the middle of darkness.

You noticed I ain’t said her name, yet?

I ain’t gonna, man.
Nobody needs to know her name, it’s enough to know her by her actions..

…
I been lying to ya, duden.

I said this here story happened yesterday.

Actually, it happened over a year ago.

What happened yesterday, was I made one of my trips back.

Even with the changes I’ve been through, man, I can’t really change hearts and minds..

Or can I?
Can we?

Every few months, I make a trek up north to the city.
I swing into her window, late at night. She knows to expect me..

She has the plucking bread ready.

I climb the towers, and make my way stealthily along the streets, traveling rooftop to rooftop.

I hand out the plucking bread to the needy, and to one other group.

One that still has open ears, eyes, and a heart.

The children.

High class and low caste, they know to expect me when the moon is right to see the crater they call “obez’yana”. The “monkey’s tail”.

That’s when the monkey man hands out the sweet bread they call “monkeybread”, an he tells ‘em “Be kind, spread sweetness. The world can be bitter. We can be the honeybee, and spread the seed of love”

And they, bein’ still willing to learn.. they might just be the change of the season needed, to blow away the stale leaves of neglect and prejudice that bogs us down.

That ain’t a hope, duden. That’s a prayer.

An open mind sees
All the colors of the world
So it becomes known

Brilliance is not
A powerful mental state
But, experience

Showing us the way
That the one light touches all
Yielding true colors

Beautiful

Signed Sheng Wu, on the burnt corner post of a once thriving bakery.

[Author]

Posts