Fantasizing,Fotos,Fridays offer pictures chosen to stimulate our imaginations, awaken inspiration & allow creativity free rein to invent theories or micro-stories based on what we see
I just found this photograph by way of a Huffington post. The URL will be all the way at the bottom of this entry.
~~~~~
Remember to think about the picture and imagine what is going on
before looking at what I wrote. No two people will imagine the
same thing.
That would be weird.
~~~~~
I haven't been thinking much about Fantasizing Fotos entries recently--being focused instead on a series of trial book covers for The Last Battle. The thumbnail with the link leading to this photograph was too small to make out details. And the title made no sense.
"The Plan" was to click over, click back, and close the original email. How many times have you assured yourself that that's The Plan, only to come out of a twenty minute reverie with no idea how--or why--you've traveled from wherever you started to where you are now. Assuming you remember where you started. Or why you were there to begin with.
A word of advice for those who use Chrome. Never try to satisfy your curiosity about your more random internet trips by holding down the left-pointing arrow up in the top left corner of your screen. One twenty minute reverie an hour is enough.
(Chrome, upper left corner, left-pointing arrow, hold down)
Anyway... I looked at Jovell Rennie's photograph and knew at once what had happened.
The largest (lowest) part of the structure was built by the oldest family members. Maybe they are still living there or maybe they died a century of more ago. I'm betting on the latter.
Descendants continued living here until the lowest floor was becoming uncomfortably cramped. No one had much privacy unless they went outside and began walking. You noticed how thin and straight these trees are, right? Look at the numerous small clearings. This is un-forest-like tree behavior if the trees have been left to their own devices. Anyone who has ever walking in a forest-- especially those who have gotten themselves a bit lost--are familiar with the dense growth. Just plain walking in your intended direction can be a challenge. Soon you're resigned to taking detours to find a way through and then maybe detours from the detours.
But I'm d/e/t/o/u/r/i/n/g/ digressing. What I intended to say next (several paragraphs above), is the over-crowded members of this extended family would naturally yearn for a bit of privacy now and again. Privacy that's impossible to find in their house. Privacy that's impossible to find outdoors because anyone can find you in minutes by looking through the trees.
What to do? First, climb a tree for your guaranteed alone time. Someone in the family was the first to practice tree-climbing. When they came home a few hours later, a worried grandpa or great-grandma asked where the wanderer had been. The next thing anyone knew, nearly everyone in the family took some alone time in a tree.
In the meantime, the more practical members added a wing to the house. Or rather a full attic. More room! More family--because there was now room for more family. Except there wasn't, so nearly everyone continued to tree-sit.
But this was no ordinary forest. How could it be when these were no ordinary trees. Look again at that photograph. Every tree stretching straight up as if reaching for the sky.
No ordinary trees those, as the family discovered about the time that the attic had become as cramped as the original house. The family had a meeting. Not inside but with several people perched in each of dozens of trees, barely close enough for everyone to hear everyone else.
The meeting wasn't really necessary: build a super-attic members outnumbered build a true wing members ten to one. For the first time, family members left permanently rather than on a mission to find a spouse.
Losing poor-loser members (if you will) proved to have little impact on overpopulation and under privacy. The super super attic was no more than three months old when the family thought it best to get a bit ahead of the overpopulation curve and add a super-duper attic.
No one thought much about it but the old house itself no longer held its quota of inhabitants. Everyone wanted to live on the highest available floor. Tree-sitting for privacy was as popular as ever. Perhaps more so after one ingenious parent suggested that each couple in turn should go off to the trees for some shared privacy while the other parents and the grandparents watched their children.
Couple privacy was very popular of course. And hard to maintain since everyone in the f/l/o/c/k still wanted to sit in a tree at least once a day. Couples soon learned to call out a warning if someone began climbing "their" tree. They had no desire to be rude. Everyone understood the situation. So couples learned to sing out a warning, lest they hear about how disagreeable they had been when they came back inside.
No one thought much about it but over time the trees were not only affecting everyone's behavior but also their bodies. Especially their skin. The older family members were troubled about this but who didn't love a new baby covered in soft down?
Not so long ago--perhaps in your mother's father's mother's father's time--the family stopped adding to the house. You see, each generation of younger children were becoming more uncomfortable than the last when they were confined indoors. Finally, in your mother's father's mother's time, some children outright panicked indoors!
That was the end of that. The building stopped. Probably it would have stopped soon anyway. Over time building permits became the norm in the outside world. Their house had been rapidly doing the opposite. Why even pretend that they still enjoyed living in their
"100 Birdhouses in the Sky!
Two tours every day!
Tweet for times!"
as they named it.
~~~~~
Link to the original article: House in Willow, Alaska
If you enjoyed reading this, please check out an older entry with the first two scenes from my fantasy novelette, "The Last Battle" The full novelette will be available on Amazon as soon as we have a consensus on the cover. Maybe next year. ;-P
