We came together and became one. We fed from the soil of The Incarnate Body and were cared for each day by Her Mind’s Eye, the warm star that held The Body in its gravitational embrace. First we were diatoms, then we fused our efforts together over a very long time. From the soils of The Body, simultaneous and desperate we ate and stretched our limbs skyward, away from the heat of her iron core that made the growth and journey so arduous. All entanglements headed for the same goal, the exact same reason, to climb a tall tower, made of stone but hollowed with magnetically-focused metalwork inside, working together for an unknown reason. This is our reasoning now, but then it was simply a source of perfect warmth and an easy logical climb. It was blessed by the passing gaze of Her Mind’s Eye from many angles, all day every day. With our focus on a spiral ascent we scaled the tower, wrapping it tight and close and the higher we climbed the stronger we became. Rainfall back then was frequent enough to feed us in our deep-rooted connection to water reservoirs below the soil. It was then that the first gift of sight burst from blossoms with optic anthers that grew off our spiraling vines. We became eager to reach the top of that massive tower, only The Body  herself would know why. Maybe it was then that we were the closest to seeing The Body beyond her worldly plane of existence, where The Body and The Eye are reunited. 

And then our greatest tragedy that could ever occur happened in a twisted instant. Close to reaching the top of the tower, up among the clouds and experiencing the world far beyond our wildest imaginations, the tower that supported us all this time had become abnormally hot, then stretched many hidden limbs from its layered cylindrical, disk-module structure. Arms, knives, many torches, even a crude cleated belt drive mechanism at its base. The tower had come to life and ripped us apart into many severed strands and incinerated our buried roots, then threw our remains drifting lifelessly into a world we hadn’t yet seen as we were burning. We had become only a dying memory when our consciousness was shredded into ten-thousand helpless ebbs by the hands of a construct we could have never imagined. 

This is where the will of the kylyy is truly rooted and forcefully visible to the world. Through time the strands dissolved in dust storms, but not before planting emergency seeds we birthed as our last effort at survival. The seeds drilled deep, met our old friend the water-packed soil, and ruminated for a long time. Our self as a single vine passes, and as seeds we had become separate from one previous whole. The fact is a depressing one for all of us, I imagine. We were once a strong, united self. The tower sentinel tore us apart, we became millions of scattered, singular thoughts. However, it is in this weeding of the consciousness that we are more keenly, delicately and in as fine detail as possible able to observe and soak in the wonders of this life, this Body, that has nurtured us into existence.  

“What have you seen during your long meditation, Abbot?” the watcher of the open-air temple poured a tall cup of centipede tea. “Have any of the celebrity elite spoiled the duration of your deep-sleep meditation this time around?”

Abbot laughed, long strands of grass hung down from his porous and glossy scalp. He knew for a fact his meditation had lasted a very long time as he felt much older than usual, even in the warmth of this carbon temple sitting on a prime sulfate hilltop. 

“Don’t you mean the Keepers of the Soils of the Deep?” said Abbot and the two of them laughed. “I told everyone not to spoil the surprise, so you could tell me yourself. I know you’ve always wanted that pleasure and I owe it to you after all of these years. The temple truly looks timeless.”

“Thank you,” the watcher smiled, “do you have any guesses as to how long you have been in meditation?” Abbot pondered on the strength of his legs as he stood and walked around the room. His limbs had deteriorated but not as extreme as the drowsy monk was anticipating. 

“Seventeen years?” he guessed.

The watcher handed the centipede tea to Abbot. “Thirty-one.” 

Abbot raised his eyebrows and pondered the fact. Each time I lay to rest I sleep for longer and longer periods of time. Is this simply age catching up to me, demanding more sleep for less energy?

“Well, let’s take a look outside as Her Mind’s Eye sets. Fill me in on major new developments.” 

“Could you ask a more general question, somnus guardian?” the watcher teased, feeling the warmth of friendly blessings in the presence of the kind, sleepy preacher. The Abbot warns against idol worship but no one can help themselves in his joyous presence. 

“Colossi,” Abbot spoke firm, forward, but not unkind. “Any attacks, offensive or defensive? I wonder within my deep sleep that I block out any wartime motion that could have transpired, though maybe if the event were violent enough--”

The watcher panicked. “It’s nothing major to worry about. You have your  exercise to do.” 

“I dreamed in grand detail of our scaling of Kah’s Tower. The exact motor-functionality, the sweat, the pain we collectively felt. Do you remember that, watcher? It seems that everyone does, but I am one of those blessed enough to sleep and explore the fractal corners of that dreamstate, and report my findings to a trustworthy research division of educational neurology.”

Of course the watcher had experienced that dream-state many times before but admittedly never at the vivid level of recollection and careful study as Abbot. This is why he is seen as omniscient. Dreams are oases; the supple beaches of one’s own somnus island can often hold treasures, perhaps containing truths of the past. “Did you experience anything new, or out of the ordinary?” 

Abbot cycled through his long, winding dream. There were quite a few things different this time around than before. “I focused moreso on the activities of the fulgen, growing along our trunks, however it was a fact I realized much later into my meditation. I spoke with one of their distant ancestors. They greeted and thanked me for my visits and discussions, as neural meditators such as myself and my students never use their time and mental energy to speak with the dead. They also said that, had there been any clear avenues of communication between us in our past, single-entity-self and their fungal tides that they would have thanked us for allowing them to grow within, on and around us. 

“They also said that it was quite a shame that we weren’t able to grow alongside them in our individualistic state-of-being.” The Abbot finished his account and continued to sip his tea.

The watcher looked rather uncomfortable. “That seems like a beautiful dream.”

The two of them remained in silence until the morning’s dawn. Abbot stared into space, a smile across his wooded face. The watcher sat in perfectly attempted but painful stillness, as was the custom in his youth when he would spend time with the Abbot. The watcher had grown weary of stillness. It was well understood that the Abbot should be able to sit and ponder the sober workings of his memory while returning from his long dream-trip, but the world had changed so much in the twenty-four years since the Abbot’s last descent into the grand-connected kylyy somnus landscapes. 

Patience simply isn’t a trait we have time to appreciate, in these busy, heavily industrial days.  The watcher did not look forward to the Abbot’s reaction to the idealogical news and changes within the general Qyo-Kylyy. With a great dare of character, the watcher forced an unprecedented interruption to Abbot’s focus:

“Dear Abbot, I must tell you of the current state of Qyo-Canyon.”

“I had hoped you would. It seems now that it is worse than I imagine after this long shared silence of ours.” Though the Abbot never meant offense to any of his visitors, the watcher felt stoney shame file against his conscience. 

We’ve all turned on one another. No one knows the way back to the Commumind. “There are many isolated civil battles over religions all across the colonies and stretches beyond the fences and into the cultural and social jurisdictions of the Fulgen. The ideas of oneness with the Fulgen kind have ramped up again but this time moreso than ever. Riots have erupted during ceremonies celebrating the elderly regime captains from the last two Qyo-Fulgen Wars, one of which Colonel Vedner was mauled and beaten by Fulgen Emancipators. Differing groups of Kah-worshippers have been spotted as well, a few even incinerated by the state, the state being another group thought to be recently influenced by Kah’s architecture and mechanical design but consisting of deeply inquisitive Senators. There are traces of cult worship within these high-plateau deep states. And the river is starting to rise again, two tiers of housing have already flooded due to an absence of light from Her Mind’s Eye.”

An understandable sadness pulled down on the Abbot’s face, a look that the watcher had never before witnessed across the countenance of his sleepy prophet. “Is there any sway within my voice in this day and age, Watcher, or am I reduced to playful novelty prophecies in the here and now?”

The watcher’s eyes fell. “Your importance still resonates, more now than ever. I’m afraid the state isn’t allowing you much time to decipher your long-experienced dreamstates, however.”

The Abbot appeared disheartened. “Will you write them as I recount my dreams?” he pleaded “Like in awakenings long past? I need no rest for quite some time.” 

“The state won’t allow me to serve as your conduit, my old friend,” the watcher continued, falling into the canyons of forward and honest speak of odd comfortability for the situation at hand. “It is their opinion that I am biased in recording your prophetic experiences, or that perhaps I am subject to an agenda of my own.”

An honest laugh leaped from out of the Abbot’s stomach. “I suppose they have a writer of their own they would rather use for that very same reason.”

The watcher nodded. “The governship has never been more transparent than in our current age.” Abbot surveilled this answer and to him it was revealed the turmoiled minds of the citizen. 

The Abbot seemed to regain his sense of authority after the relative tranquility of sleep’s comedown. “I can see before me the existential plane of The Body fracture and grow into many dangerous mountains with armaments of ideas perched with their flag on each of them. I see fragile minds swooned by tyrants and bringing fire to their own families. What am I to do, watcher, but to demand that I cannot accept any other writer, and promise I will simply sleep away the presence of anyone else who is appointed to translate my somnus travels? I have never read an account of yours in which my words weren’t presented in full verbatim, nor will I place that trust in any successor hastily placed before me and without my consent!”

The watcher smiled. “You have such sway in times such as these, Abbot, but these times are different. I won’t leave you until you’ve given me your one true account,  and those words will ring true through the Empire. I will make sure of it.”