Humans, their cringy problems and how I stopped to care
(A Novella)
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“Technology is not neutral. We’re inside of what we make, and it’s inside of us. We’re living in a world of connections — and it matters which ones get made and unmade.”
⠀– Donna Haraway
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Spring
“We don’t deserve this planet and yet, here we are. Green girl power forever!”
Last post from @mackaron1_xoxo
Eury told me later that it had already been there when she woke up. She had felt an intense sense of dizziness, had literally stumbled out of her raised bed and had stuck her head into the bucket of fresh soil that her parents only keep in the house for emergencies. But she just hadn’t been able to contain herself any longer. She had been miserable for the previous day and, in fact, for the whole of last week. But just a few moments later, she scolded herself: she just had to get through it, she told herself, and then it would soon be over. Just like all the times before. For this reason, she didn’t startle when she looked in the mirror, when the branches of her hair stood out brittle as straw from her head, the blossoms hanging down from them withered, the bark of her skin even more furrowed than usual. It was nothing new. Once, when she was still small, she had gone with her parents to a doctor because of it. He had examined her and finally said that this was quite normal for dryads of her age and no reason to worry at all. In fact, she had always recovered quickly from it. That morning, however, it was particularly bad. She even had trouble tying her braid. At any moment, her entire head of hair seemed on the verge of crumbling between her hands. She had never had that before. To calm herself down, she recalled the doctor’s words in her head, “It’s probably just a little infection. You know how strongly you react to temperature fluctuations.” She had patched her braid makeshift and gone to school. Eury wasn’t one to worry unnecessarily or get doctor’s notes early. Not this morning, and not ever. In fact, her thoughts were pretty much immediately occupied with other things again – Paul, her tablemate and “friend,” in fact, decided promptly at a quarter past eight to wander his disgusting, thick sausage fingers up her thigh. While the teacher was reporting some tanker accident at the local port, she had eyes only for Paul. And I (two tables over, in shock) could see: they were not nice eyes. But as usual, he didn’t look at anything. Half an hour before, on the way to school, she had told me about the plan he had served her the day before. I had just stared at her and she had then asked me how her hair looked. “Could be worse,” I had replied, completely perplexed, “looks like a bird’s nest” would have been closer to the truth. But Paul would see for himself that she was in no shape to go through with it, I told myself, but I was hoping for the wrong person: When they met in class, he didn’t seem to notice anything (or at least he covered it up very well). He didn’t even ask how she was doing. In a flash, they made out in front of me and then sat down on their chairs with their legs together. What went on between the two was very, very strange. Also generally considered. But more about that later. First, I have to come back to what Eury had told me on the way to school. First as background info: the two had been together for some time, but had never really become serious (Eury had always told me everything, which I was happy about, only so far I had been able to save her from worse). But now it was so far: on this evening they apparently wanted to go now really and all serious the further big step: Their first time, or as I teased them right away, “When he picks your flower.” I had been worried – normally you can talk to me about serious things too, but there I just hadn’t known any better way to help myself. If I had been more empathetic, I might have been able to change her mind. But I also didn’t think that he would take advantage of her promise as shamelessly as he did in the classroom. Whereby, probably he was really just ignorant. His fingers were still fiddling with her leg. Almost outrageously far they wandered upwards. Didn’t he see how bad she was? He always acted so thoughtful, but actually he was quite an asshole. He was vegan, by the way. For what felt like forever. But I think from the beginning mainly to impress Eury. Though anyone could see she didn’t give a shit. I had always suspected a penchant for double standards in him. He was the type of vegan who, when someone is cold, asks if he should fart because his farts don’t stink. Let’s just say he didn’t do it just for nature. Anyway … at least he did something at all and if it was only carbon-reduced farting. One could not exactly say that about Eury. Maybe that was the only reason she was with him. Out of a guilty conscience. It would make sense, I can still see her in front of me, lolling in the sun with her eyes closed, eating a curry sausage, simply because she can’t help it, because it’s “just too good”. Actually, she was already quite an environmental sow, come to think of it. I mean: she basically didn’t need to eat anything. She just did it for fun, I guess. Maybe her guilty conscience wasn’t sooo pronounced after all. And even if it was, that would be a totally questionable motive for a relationship anyway, wouldn’t it? In general, I sometimes thought to myself that the fact that Paul ate exclusively plants didn’t really make a sweet impression on me, but rather a latently aggressive one. The vegan and the dryad. To me, that just screamed toxic relationship, but I didn’t dare say it. Everyone talked about the dream team, the perfect couple, the “couple of the future” and so on, but all I saw was how he had once picked a daisy outside and secretly let it disappear between his teeth. He was still a predator, just with a new prey scheme. Just as he also stuffed heaps of these substitute products into himself. But no one in the class seemed to notice except me. Even Eury didn’t realize it. And I don’t think even he did. They also never had any beef, of course, just on principle. It was so damn frustrating. Or was I just thinking too unromantically again? Eury had told me this in all seriousness when I told her the daisy thing: “You have no sense of romance.” As if that had anything to do with it. Eury was special, unique, so special that Paul, in his self-absorption and hypocrisy and creepy vegan gaze, could never have appreciated her in all her facets as she deserved! And apart from that, Paul’s sense of romance was obviously more than questionable! In these situations, when he wandered up her calf, everything in me contracted. The same thing happened when I saw how gracefully she came forward, stretching her back and letting herself grow a few more inches, or when she ate her food without inhibitions. There are simply people who make an art out of eating spaghetti unattractively, and Eury was just such a person … In the meantime, Paul’s fingers had advanced to depths that were simply sickening for all present, but of course I could hardly intervene in the middle of class, and I don’t know if I would have done so in any other situation. Either way, it was almost unbearable. The distaste in Eury’s features was now so unmistakable that even the boys were looking elsewhere who had just been grinning and wide-eyed. At last Eury pushed him in the side to make him stop, but little did he know that the boys had let go of him and continued. With a jerk, Eury suddenly stood up. All eyes of the class on her. “Sorry, hay fever,” she said hastily, waving her hands around in front of her face and walking toward the door with her chin up. I was impressed, as always, by her quick wit. She didn’t have hay fever, was usually more the cause of it. Getting off the hook with a joke. Typical Eury. But, and as I said, she told me this only later, when she took out the used handkerchief halfway to the door to bring it to her nose, she saw black, oily sprinkles in it. In the midst of sneezing, she stopped like that with her mouth open for a few moments until it was impossible to finish believably. When she looked up, she was looking into the eyes of the entire class. “They’re especially bad,” the teacher came to her rescue, “the ones who announce themselves and then don’t show up.” The boys in the back row snorted and Paul ran quite red. I could see immediately that something was up. I could see in Eury the urge to bolt for the girls’ room (at least I would have), but she has always been as strong as a tree. She just sat back down and acted like nothing happened. I think it was that moment that I fell in love with her. But there was Paul again, possessively putting his arm around her shoulder. She probably still had a black drop of oil in the corner of her mouth, and he was already starting to wander up her calf again, while she just stared into space, as if she had been knocked on her head. I wanted to scream, to do something, anything. But I remained sitting motionless and the lesson continued.
She didn’t feel much better the rest of the day. She wrote Paul that she wasn’t feeling well and they had to postpone their special evening. She wasn’t really mad about it. They had a lot to talk about. “Do you want to come over to my place?” he wrote back. Eury thought it was sweet, thought he was trying to comfort her. Maybe everything will be okay after all, she thought, and went over. I had advised her against it, of course, as I had advised her against being with him in the first place, but she simply ignored my last messages. And when she told me the incidents that followed, all I could do was bite the inside of my cheek and suppress yelling at her, “I told you so, I told you so!!!” I’d rather be the world’s worst romantic! But all I could do was listen and scream inside. So when she was with him, he still wanted to get into bed with her. “No, Paul.” He later said he thought she was just shy. Anyone who knew her even a little bit would never have thought anything like that. I think he had already announced it big time to his buddies and now had to deliver. Eury didn’t mention it, but I guess he had a drink and I bet he didn’t care if it was vegan or not. I think they were already sitting on his bed, maybe it was clean, but I don’t think so. Had he sprinkled it with rose petals or put a layer of soil on it? I don’t know. She never went into that much detail, and after all, I’m not romantic enough to imagine it. “Why is that? Are you on your period?” He really didn’t have a clue how that went down with dryads …. “No … Paul. I don’t want to, okay?” She was already pretty weak at this point. Her okay? hung between them like rotted mistletoe from last Christmas. For a few awful moments, she looked into Paul’s eyes without finding an answer in them. Then she threw up crude oil all over him from top to bottom.
Paul immediately got the ambulance (at least in one thing he showed the minimum amount of courage that could be expected) and then drove with her to the hospital. But all she thought about on the drive were his eyes and how she could get away from them the fastest. But her dreams, inhabited by doctors in shining white coats, came to an abrupt end. As soon as they reached the hospital, the paramedics simply pushed her into Paul’s arms and roared off with warbling sirens. Without wasting any time, Paul carried her through the front entrance, past a long queue directly towards one of the nurses, saying it was an emergency, but they paid him no attention. Puzzled, he stopped and Eury, who by now was taking everything in stride but was now wondering why things weren’t moving along, looked around. The hospital was crowded. Everywhere it was full of patients. And they were all dryads. Seized by sudden panic, she wriggled out of his arms, pulled herself forward with her hands across the linoleum floor, and responded to any help from Paul with fierce kicks. Finally, she crawled onto one of the benches and turned her face toward the glaring neon tubes on the ceiling, which she mistook for the sun. She couldn’t breathe calmly again until Paul was asked kindly but firmly by a nurse to get off of her. “We can’t treat her friend right now. You can see what’s going on here. Hey, they don’t look too good either. Did they get some of that stuff too? Come on, this way. We have another regular room for you.” We can’t treat your friend. Eury heard the sentence too, but it didn’t bother her in the least. She was away from Paul, basking in that glare above her. And all that was a tremendous relief for now.
A short time later, a stressed nurse appeared in her field of vision. He told her that they didn’t know what to do with her and whether she had the strength to call someone. She had. She called me, and the very first thing she told me was that she was no longer Paul’s girlfriend, and then the nurse took over that she needed to be picked up from the hospital, and quickly. “I don’t have time to explain this to you. All hell is breaking loose here. Can they notify her parents? Okay. Thank you.” And that’s exactly what I did. They answered right away, asking me what was going on, but I was just as smart as they were. They decided to leave right away. I wondered if they should give me a ride. I denied that too, I don’t remember exactly why, got into my parents’ car and drove to the hospital myself, although I wasn’t actually allowed to drive unaccompanied … I got there even earlier than they did, but waited to go in. When we entered the foyer together it was a pretty bad sight. We had trouble finding Eury at all. The whole hospital was littered with dryads vegging out, huddled in the potted plants, half-buried themselves in the hospital’s front bed, or even just lying around in regular hospital beds in the hallway. All rooms with intensive sunbaths were completely occupied, in some rooms they tried desperately to artificially revive dying dryads, but had far too little soil. We rushed through the corridors, not yet daring to fear the worst, even though it seemed increasingly inevitable. When we finally found her, there was also another overworked orderly. Much of his clothing was smeared with soil. I even thought I could make out something on his lips. But behind him we saw Eury lying in a conventional sunbath. She seemed so far well, I was so happy that I could not believe it at first. Eury’s father wanted to thank the orderly, but without a word he put a half-full bag of nutrient-rich fresh soil into his hand and left at a run, without somehow finding out whether we really knew Eury or not. We took Eury two at a time, her mother and I, and rushed to the car. We didn’t think to ask anyone what the hell was going on.
10 minutes later we were standing in front of the family’s small front garden, her mother with the bag of fresh soil in her hands, her father with the now unconscious Eury in his arms, and me somewhat uncomfortable with a spade. We looked into the small bed, which with its one meter width and two meters length would be just enough for them. Luxurious was different. But I didn’t dare suggest anything else. Bringing them into our garden, for example. Instead, I was annoyed with the hospital. I thought it was crass. That they just assumed that if you were a dryad parent, you had a garden for emergencies. But I didn’t say that either. After all, they hadn’t known it had been unplanned …. So together we dug a pit and laid it down, tentatively sprinkling it with soil that it didn’t even go ahead. It was difficult for all of us, I think. Each of us had practiced something like this for driving school, of course, but never in real life. Especially with the face, we all hesitated. I was afraid she wouldn’t be able to breathe, although of course that made no sense at all. But in driving school, when you’re shovelling dirt into this plastic doll, it doesn’t occur to you that it might feel quite like a funeral on a real person. Or that it might be hard for you to bury someone like that, alive, so to speak, and that you’re permanently terrified of making a terrible mistake and killing them. You just think to yourself: yes, okay, but it won’t happen to me anyway, and if it does, I’ll manage it somehow; and the doll is already in the ground. But in reality, when you have a breathing person disappear under the ground … at some point I just couldn’t do it anymore. You know those memes: when you emergency-bury a dryad alive, you look at the world differently afterwards. And it’s true. It wasn’t until that moment that I understood how much it was true. I know that it was weird that I thought of it in this moment. It certainly was a good thing that Eury’s father was there, that he still knew that it was essential to have the face pointing upwards, that he soon began to really shovel earth when I already could no longer look. When it was finally done, we were relieved to see the earth slowly rise and fall. She was breathing. The sight was almost peaceful now. It was just her withered hair pointing outward like early bloomers that would soon come up and show their blossoms to the world again. Seeing her like this, it might as well have been that she was just taking a little nap. Once again, her father carefully wiped aside the top layer of soil so that her face could be seen again. Then he bent down and kissed her earthy lips, smeared by his tears and already providing some moisture, drop by drop. Then he opened her mouth wide, held her nose and breathed into her, as recommended by the official Federal Institute of Botany and Dryad Medicine. Afterwards he went in briefly to get a watering can and I covered her face again in the meantime. I didn’t know if it was all right with him, but I just didn’t like to see her motionless, pale face like that among the masses of earth. She had always been so beautiful, especially through the different seasons, combining her different looks with the latest fashion trends. Each of her outfits had been more spectacular than the last … she had been perfect without consciously trying to be, seemingly without any effort. It had just been in her nature I guess …
We tried for an hour to get him back into the house. But he didn’t want to leave his daughter alone there underground, out there, so alone in front of the house right next to the street. “Nothing will happen to her. You can’t even see it,” we talked at him, but he would not be swayed. “What if she wakes up? In the middle of the night?” It soon became apparent that there was no point. He would stay by her side all night. At least I was actually quite happy about that. For a while longer, I stood inside by the window with her mother. We watched as he crouched there in silence, watching the earth still moving gingerly. “Who do you think is going to the hardware store tomorrow to get more soil when he’s lying here in bed dead tired?” She said this to herself rather than to me, so I didn’t have to answer. Still, I considered saying something like “everything will be fine” and “that I would be there for them if they needed me.” Empty words. I wasn’t good at that sort of thing. I had never witnessed this kind of sickness before. So I kept silent. “You have to change the soil three times a day,” she calculated to herself next to me, “that’s €9 a day. That’s an extra €280 a month. It has to be good quality. Not cheap stuff. Don’t cut corners. But if it doesn’t work at all anymore, we’ll have to … no, if we just save a little more on food over the next few months, it should work even then … It can take a little while before she’s completely healthy again, as you hear …” I had known for as long as I could remember that they had money problems. It had never been a secret and yet I never dared to participate in conversations along those lines, even when, as here, I felt it was required of me or at least as condescending not to say anything. Wouldn’t health insurance pay for it, I asked cautiously. “No, they say they wouldn’t cover something like that. They don’t cover cases of illness generated by climate change. That has never worked. Not in our rate, it’s a wonder we didn’t have to pay for half the bag from the hospital ourselves. Although …” she laughed bitterly, “I’m sure the bill will come.” I was going to suggest that simply I could buy the bag of composted soil if that was what it took, or more, four, five, a whole truck if necessary, but then left it. Not I would do it, it would be my parents’ money. I also didn’t want Eury to wake up in my soil instead of her parents’. That they hadn’t even been able to raise enough soil for her to repot temporarily. So I preferred to keep silent. I had already made a good contribution to the conversation. Next to me, she continued counting while her husband kept watch outside. I felt increasingly out of place, but at the same time found myself unable to break away. Now, somehow, we were all keeping vigil for her after all. The thought appealed to me. It was comforting in a pleasant way. I looked forward to being able to tell her about it later. If there was a later. Her face had looked so terrible … I eyed her mother from the side. Her features showed concern, but not despair. I didn’t resent her at all for calculating Eury’s illness so thoroughly. If anything, it had a calming effect on me. As if the whole problem could be solved if only the calculation worked out. Her lips were now murmuring silently to herself, and I don’t know whether I would actually have liked to know whether the calculation had worked out or whether I preferred this uncertainty even then. In the meantime, her husband had closed his eyes and leaned forward slightly. I realized all at once that he was doing this for his wife. Not for Eury. That there was some power play going on here, the extent of which I could only guess at, and with which I had nothing to do. I wondered for the first time if she had ever forgiven him for having an affair with that dryad. Eury had heard her argue about it many times. How many times had she come to me afterwards and I had comforted her? He had said that it had all been quite different. That he had gotten the pollen in his nose “purely by chance”, that he had never wanted it. But let’s be honest: they all say that … no wonder she didn’t believe him. At some point, Eury confronted him too, and he told her the truth. That it wasn’t true, that it hadn’t been an accident. That her mother had been unique, a willow dryad with long hair that had reached her feet, but that she had wanted to stay in her forest and he could hardly have lived with her in the forest (I suppose she was some kind of old-flower-power-hippie or something), and that he also loved her other mother and therefore it was not possible. She had cried her eyes out. I had never seen her so weak. She had put her flower head in my lap and I had stroked her leaves. It had never occurred to me to take her mother’s perspective. Once in the swimming pool I had seen the scars on his chest. And it had also been, I think, a home birth. It was amazing what he had taken on for her. And they were still not even for their mother? No, I could not and would not understand that. No, never ever! What a terrible, terrible mother! The “terrible mother” now went outside and put a blanket around her husband’s shoulders, came back inside, stood next to me at the window, and I felt bad. It didn’t feel like I was part of anything now. At some point I just turned away from them and left them alone at their daughter’s bed without saying goodbye. At home I searched all evening on the Internet for potting soil. Because of 3€. The prices had exploded. The thought of arriving at her doorstep with a completely overpriced bag of potting soil just seemed embarrassing. I finally ordered nothing and looked until the morning hours Friends.
Summer
“Trying to make omelette while watching princess charming. Didn’t work. Now my kitchen is ruined. Anybody knows how to clean these things? I usually only go out to the solarium … no better place to grab a bite of light and smell baked meat.”
Last post from @breath_taker123
“Skipped through the new poison ivy comic: human gaze all over the place. Can’t they keep making sequels for their own dump stories?”
Second last post from @breath_taker123
“What we SHOULD read in school: HAN KANG’S THE VEGETARIAN; what we ACTUALLY read: PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER. This society is beyond help.”
Third last post from @breath_taker123
Yesterday, I took a look at my old social media profile. There, I found posts like these: “Climate change is peanuts. It’s not even the main problem. It’s only a symptom. The problem is the system. When people start buying overpriced coffee by a dumb American franchise with their names printed on their cubs and feel no regrets whatsoever, you know the end is truly here. Once, I thought about walking into a shop and instead of saying my first name, saying: “Fuck capitalism” and then to pour the coffee over my face. But then again, instead of going viral, I would probably only lie there on the floor, screaming with a glowing red face, without anyone taking notice. Attention is the true currency of our time. But the thing is: only attention doesn’t get shit done.”
These were things I posted at the time. I used to worry … about humans … and their cringy problems. They even became more important to me than my own wellbeing. But on the flip side: thanks to them, I got everything. Thousands of Followers, loads and loads of attention … but why does it now feel like I overdid it a bit? Why do I feel calm and relaxed against all the problems our world currently faces? Well … as a good friend taught me, let me tell you a story …
Only a few weeks ago, in the heart of Solarfurt, where humans scurried around in their usual caffeinated frenzy, and the smoky aroma of cars mixed with the alluring fragrance of suffocating flowers, there I was – yet another young, lost dryad. The name is Eury, by the way, which is like me, a relic from some forgotten era, trying to navigate the chaos of modern existence while pursuing an illustrious career of illuminating the unknown depths of German language. Ah, yes, a truly thrilling pursuit, I assure you. And so useful in life.
My days were spent observing the world through the lens of my favourite ancient oak tree in the park, a quiet existence amidst the high-pitched cacophony of smartphones, social media, and the incessant, unnerving chatter of digital connections. It all felt as foreign to me as a language from another planet. There I would sit, with a pile of books next to me and my gaze in the distance.
Beneath my serene exterior, however, anxiety brewed like a storm. Blame it on climate change, they said, but in any case, it was draining my energy and leaving me feeling like a wilted flower. Or perhaps it was my secret indulgence in the forbidden fruit of Curry Wurst that led to this existential crisis. Who knew, right? But how could I resist the temptation? Curry Wurst was, after all, a tantalizing siren luring me to the dark side. The struggles of a dryad trying to maintain a healthy diet, truly a tragedy for the ages. And then there were the news, in which the mystical fungi-people with their oh so radical ideas and grand plans to save the world with fungi-glue appeared on and on. They were soon to take over the world. Or at least, that’s what my flatmate claimed after reading one too many internet stories. Probably chronically unrequited horniness and boredom – a match made in … well, not heaven, that’s for sure. But just when I thought life couldn’t get any stranger, along came the day that changed everything.
So yes, I was buried alive by my third best friend and my estranged parents, but they only thought they were doing what was best for me, so I guess I can’t complain. What I can complain about though is that I woke up in the middle of the night and that nobody was there. I had to dug myself out, scratching and pulling myself up to the top, in the process getting my fingernails dirty, which I hate and, to clean them, walked to the next Späti to get me some handkerchiefs and while at it, also bought a bottle of wine for the way home, having by now realized that it was dark, so could as well make it count. No one turns away a just-woken dryad. Especially not in these times.
So, I was walking the streets at five in the morning, half-drunk thinking about why humans had made it their thing to bury people in the earth after they die (are they hoping that they come back again too?), when a peculiar mushroom, glowing with an otherworldly light, caught my eye. Should I have been terrified? Probably. Did I care? Not particularly. I devoured it without a second thought, and suddenly, I was in the Fungiverse. A place where people communicated in ways that made human social nets look like child’s play: everybody could communicate with everybody, but it wasn’t like on the social media that I knew. It was much more dynamic and open, with people grouping together in so-called myzels and then building connections to other myzels. The Fungiverse even reached far into the web of humans and plants, connecting everything with everything. Human social networks seemed like walled gardens in comparison and now I had reached the forest. Ah, the wonders of psychedelics, or so I assumed. But then I looked down at myself and found, that my vision and overall senses were in no way altered if you count out the alcohol.
And so, I wandered around, looking at all the connections that I hadn’t seen before and were suddenly opening up everywhere in front of me, connecting people across house walls, neighbourhoods and city districts, crossing all borders I thought in between. And soon, through this newfound magical sense, I realized that many people in my city were also linked to the Fungiverse, forming communities that I had never heard of or seen before.
Inspired, I joined one of these communities and, in the process, found love in the arms of Lamella, a fungi-woman whose heart pulsed with the same passion as mine, even so she belonged to a different myzel. Her vibrant and life-confirming nature seemed to glow with an inner light. Lamella was a stark contrast to me. She embraced the world with open arms, her positivity infectious. Lamella and I became inseparable, exploring the Fungiverse together. She showed me communities of mycelia, interconnected networks of fungi-people, dryads like me and human allies, all banding together to combat the looming threat of climate change. And even though some of their ideologies clashed like thunder in the distance, mirroring the conflicts of the upper world; yet, here in the Wood Wide Web, battles were fought not with weapons but with spores and symbiotic relationships. And so, I joined their cause, finding purpose amidst the chaos.
Our love blossomed amidst the mycelial threads that wove us together. In the quiet intimacy of our moments, we explored the unique practices of our kind – the gentle exchange of nutrients and the harmonious dance between plants and mushroom-people. It was a profound connection, one that transcended the boundaries of our physical forms and even the fact that she found my occasional craving for meat appalling couldn’t forfeit. Also, I had arranged myself there: once in a while I now switched to plant-based alternatives and we laughed together at the absurdity of it.
“It’s one of my main red flags now. People telling me they are vegetarian as if they do ME a favour. As if it weren’t threating at all. And now look at me! Who is the predator now? But you know who is the worst? Humans that claim to want to help you to save the world. Yeah, right. Avoid those people. Cut them out of your life. Get out of there as quickly as possible, because they want you only for themselves. They want literary to eat you alive.”
Lamella then said she thought of the good in the heart of everyone and that after all she was still a strong advocate of the universal declaration of human rights if you applied it to all humanoid beings. And that she also pitied them: they were way to self-conscious for their own good, she would always say. She really had to mention this at every possible opportunity. Sometimes I also found this a bit annoying, but I also wasn’t anti-human, of course, even so I just as well could have been after all …
Anyways …
I left my other social media profiles behind on that same day. As breath_taker123, I had amassed thousands of followers, laughing about my dump jokes about human world problems and making fun of sapiens quirks. Afterwards, I felt no regrets. In the Fungiverse, I would create a new social net that would actually mean something to me.
Yet, as our community grew, so did the challenges. Horrible things began to happen to plant-based people. Members continued to fell ill, succumbing to the consequences of climate change, even if some tried everything to hide it, their bodies betraying them in public or live on social media (which served them right, given queen bees as they were).
But I’m too mean again. And after all, even if it was discussed much more openly in the Fungiverse, I, too, was not spared. And maybe it even served me right, too. Once again, I became dreadfully ill, thanks to the poison that humans had spread all over the place. My body was a battleground, fighting off the greed-induced sickness. It reminded me of Paul, the perverted pig. Seemed like I couldn’t escape it so easily after all …
And the drama! Oh, the drama. There were these myzels over myzels, all caught up in their little alliances, changing like the wind. There was my gang, the TerraForce Mycelium, all gung-ho about radical climate change action, ready to transform the upper world ASAP. On the other side, you had the GreenTech Mycelium (Lamellas crowd, boring af, boo!), preaching caution, scared that rushing in might mess up their precious little ecosystem. Picture this: we’re all in this cosmic play, blind to the real tragedy unfolding before us — climate change, the ultimate villain in our messed-up story and what are we doing: we argue about it. But I was, after all, just a sassy gal caught in the middle of it all, and I couldn’t help but mock those myzels bickering over nonsense while the world crumbled beneath us.
“Bravo. Bravo, almost as good as humans,” I’d say, my voice as dry as the world forest’s soil. But Lamella, my ever-hopeful fungi-girl, would chime in with her melodic voice, telling me to quit being a dick and see what humans had done for the Fungiverse, too and that all would end well. Sometimes she was positive toxicity personified.
But at the end, she convinced me with an idea to make the myzels overcome their petty fights and face the more pressing problem. For that, Lamella first told me some juicy gossip about some of the biggest myzels. Apparently, just recently, Tech guru Lysandra Nguyen of Green Tech and evangelical myzel Creationist’s Covenant heartthrob Aiden Pilates were sparking more than just debates! Their intellectual clashes had turned into electric touches and stolen glances, leaving the myzels buzzing with anticipation. Could their passionate connection bridge the gap between the factions, or would it ignite a new rivalry of desires and secrets? The Fungiverse was on the edge of its mycelia, waiting for the next chapter in this tantalizing tale of forbidden attraction! And while the myzel’s leaders of the Creationist’s Covenant, Reverend Miriam, seemed oblivious to the budding affair, yet their followers couldn’t help but wonder how this entanglement might reshape the dynamics between Green Tech and the Creationist’s Covenant. But as of now, nothing had happened … but something in the Fungiverse was in the air … a tension that seemed like it could tear the Fungiverse apart at any moment … and apparently, TerraForce had sensed this weakness in GreenTechs stance and exploited it immediately. It was the root behind it all. The whole conflict was based on petty love affair. But on the other hand: when are they not?
We decided to take a leap of faith and lead the negotiations between the myzels. In the midst of our careful discussions, Reverend Miriam emerged as a crucial mediator. Astonishingly, we unearthed a hidden truth about Aiden, the staunch evangelical: he was secretly fungi, a fact he had concealed his entire life from his family and his myzel. This revelation put Lamella and me in an incredibly difficult position, given the evangelicals vehemently denied the existence of fungi. But after intense discussions, we managed to negotiate a deal between the myzels. In the agreed-on arrangement, GreenTech granted the Evangelicals unrestricted access to their aroma spas. And so, with the Reverend’s blessing, Aiden left the myzel and joined his new-found love in GreenTech.
For the moment, everything seemed harmonic again and even I couldn’t help but feel optimistic and light-hearted. The wedding ceremony was broadcasted live in the Fungiverse, and the Evangelicals, famous for their extravagant gospel shows, made a grand appearance, though, I couldn’t help but find their performance a bit too well-meaning for my taste. The ceremony wasn’t even finished when I already joked about it.
“Wow, maybe we should do something like that more often”, I teased Lamella, “seems like there lies much potential for building a following here. Maybe Taylor Swift will come out as fungi, too, just as her fans always suspected. That would be really something for the Fungiverse, wouldn’t it?”
“She would first have to join it”, she replied with a smile on her face and after a while, added, almost annoyed, “if you would just read her latest posts, you would see it, too. It’s so obvious by now, there are connections everywhere.”
“The most obvious here is that it sounds like a cult.”
“If so, in the best sense of the word.”
“I stand speechless. Watch my tears ricochet.” I made a playfully sad face, “Look what you made me do.”
“I forgot you existed.”
“Bad Blood?”
“Karma.”
But against all the bickering between me and Lamella, the wedding had reminded the myzels for what they had been formed in the first place: to help and support each other, and to, like the gorgeous strings of the cellos of the orchestra in the big church of Solarfurt in which Lamella was playing, to create a beautiful woven melody, free styling to the pulse of the Fungiverse.
And after the weekend, when the dust settled, and the myzels refocused their efforts on saving our world, I couldn’t help but smile. Lamella and I, we had resolved the differences and maybe even made the world a little bit better. I even felt a little proud of myself.
And in the quiet moments, away from the world’s demands, we found solace in each other’s arms. Lamella’s delicate spores caressed my skin, sending shivers of pleasure through my floral body. I, in turn, tenderly traced my fingers along Lamella’s mycelial tendrils, marvelling at the delicate textures that made Lamella unique. Lamella’s soft whispers, akin to the rustle of leaves in the wind, echoed sweet promises and declarations of love, filling my heart with an overwhelming sense of belonging. And then, she started to enter me with her thoughts, merging our streams of thought … every touch of mine was mirrored in my mind and so were her fingers running over me … We shared stories, dreams, and whispered promises under the starlit canopy of the Fungiverse. Our love, like the mycelial threads that connected our worlds, grew stronger each day. As the sun rose on this Sunday, which could as well have been a new era, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long, long time — hope. I hadn’t puked oil in over a week. Leaning against Lamella in our favourite ancient tree in Solarfurt, I lit a cigarette, just holding it, watching the tip glow. It felt okay, better than okay. It felt like a tiny victory in the face of chaos, a moment of peace and hope on our little, suffering planet … and then, I even felt a little bad for the humans again as they hurried past in their caffeinated frenzy …
Autumn
“Every time you see the sun, another person is seeing the moon.”
Last post from @sunny_lamella
We should have known when she said her favourite season was autumn.
But for real: is Taylor Swift secretly fungi? If you have read her last posts, you might know what I’m talking about and like the rest of the swifty parts of the Fungiverse, think about nothing else at the moment. But before we get to that, I need to tell you something else (little side note: I have ADHD, so bear with me if it gets a little all over the place if you know what I mean. I know it’s a Fungi-cliché, but here we are … and it’s already happening.
But see: I like conversations, because just like mushrooms, they can sprout in all kinds of unexpected places. It may sound weird, but it’s my favourite thing to do: talk to people or listening to people talk. Sometimes, I would get on the train just to listen to the stories from the cities the train took me, getting off at a stop where the stories where the most interesting and carrying on from there. And now before you say it’s weird: Lorde does it, too.
While this occasionally brought me in one or the other tight situation, it also broadened my horizon like I would never have imagined. As a child, I always wanted to travel the world, now I travel the communities in my neighbourhood and feel like I’m learning just as much (although I also do like traveling).
I think there is no being in our universe that I can’t feel empathy with. It’s my favourite thing about me. Once, this eagerness resulted in something completely unexpected. If you are interested, I can share the story with you. Then you become a part of it, if you want it or not. And who knows what will develop from that … so hang on, because I’m about to take you on a ride on which you will hear about silently roaring battles, unexpected friendships, and big-time Fungiverse drama. But first, let’s rewind to where this all started … and it starts as it always does … with drama in the Fungiverse … because a big darkness loomed on the horizon, the Fungiverse was about to face its biggest challenge yet.
It all began with a rumour, or no, I need to be much more specific: Its last year. And in the chill air of autumn, a certain melancholic Taylor Swift-in-a-sweater-vibe just swept through the Fungiverse. Yes, I’m speaking folklore, witchy-vibes, cats on the stove, all of that. And, well, given it was my favourite of all seasons, my threads got caught up in the whirlwind.
But then, seemingly out of nowhere, a dark thread had appeared, on which members of two myzels battled each other fiercely in never ending lines of conversation. It was rumoured that it came from a myzel that the other myzels had excluded years ago from their community, because of its problem to control its more and more radicalising members. The other was the myzel of me, GreenTech.
But apart from that, everything seemed all right. I went to bed as usual.
The next morning, the Fungiverse was ablaze with discord. I woke up, expecting to be greeted by the morning greetings of my friends and community but instead only heard deafening silence and even someone screaming.
It had started at around 11 pm, I heard from the occasional whispers from my deserted communities, with the myzel’s notorious trade-mark memes of teared-apart baby dolls. But a new line-crossing had been a meme, which depicted the equation of the wedding of Aiden and Lysandra with the red wedding in Game of Thrones, which had gone viral first in the Grimscape around 6 am and then also other myzels.
I made my breakfast in a frenzy. So far, the hype had not erupted into any real violence, but they had broken into public buildings, posting their crimes live all over the Fungiverse, especially targeting myzels of floral and fungi humans for their attacks, who fought back fiercely, their thoughts causing heavy shudders that rippled through the Fungiverse …
They hated humanity with every fibre of their bad morels and it was even too much for Eury and for that I’m glad and to be honest, also a little bit relieved. I almost thought she had lost the ability to feel anything for them anymore. But luckily, in this case I had been wrong, which doesn’t happen often.
But I knew that the next times would be tough. Fighting Grimscape would be much harder than fighting Nazi-myzels that occasionally popped up, because Grimscape had sympathizers all over the Fungiverse and even in my myzel. I even considered changing my myzel, because the leaders were taking a too light stance against Grimscape in my opinion.
And so, I did it, finding shelter in the myzel of my hometown. It was nice to be among them after all this time, but I also made sure to tell them it was only temporarily.
Eury, on the other hand, had remained in her myzel, which made me a little nervous to be honest; I had also repeatedly sensed her scrolling through old social media again yesterday … although I promised her to stop doing that, too – perhaps we all were falling back in old behaviours again … In any case, I hoped that I would find out more about her stance on the matter at the meeting of our closest myzels that hadn’t radicalized themselves yet. It had been quickly arranged and took part on the same day.
At the diner before, I slurped my protein drink nervously and Eury ate a extra-huge steak. No one of us spoke a word.
And then it began. First, all leaders of the myzels recalled what had happened the last weeks: members of Grimscape had multiple times harassed people from other myzels, culminating in attacking members of Eurys myzel the day before.
Eury, my fierce night-flower, spoke with a clear voice but I could hear her emotions roaring underneath. “Well, friends, it appears our little paradise isn’t as immune to toxicity as we hoped, isn’t it? I spent my morning eating bowl of bowl of fungi-muesli to block out half of my part of the Fungiverse. It’s so horrible what they spread … I woke up this morning and half of my mind was full of these horrible images, smells and visions … also from myzels with people that I had hold so high opinions on … I immediately knew that something was off … but I had never seen anything like this … I never thought they had so many sympathisers here … I hadn’t felt like that for a long time … like they had reached for something deep in me and tried to tear it apart … but I’m certain that we can heal, if we only act quickly.”
Dimmed by the encroaching darkness, I nodded and stepped forward. “I agree. We can’t let this Grimscape tear apart what we’ve worked so hard to build. We must find a way to counter its negativity and restore balance to the myzels.”
Now, Typhon, a member of the Nightingale-Myzel answered: “But this time, it’s different than with the regular clashes between us and radical renegade Myzels. It’s not enough to block them out of our fungal channels one by one; even if we have enough block-mushrooms to do that. Grimscape wants to make trouble, they consciously want to drive us apart. We need to isolate them. We may even need to think about severing the link between them and the other myzels entirely … that is, if we can convince them to do so.”
I decided to answer him: “Then let’s first talk to the other myzels and we will see what they think. I can tell you: this happened before. If we do it wrong, they will just join our other Myzels and sow diffusion there; only then we can fight them less effective.”
Eury agreed: “I understand. You’re right. Let’s not act too quickly. Maybe there is even still room to keep the conflict from escalating.”
The question was debated in each of our myzels, and all agreed that we should try to make Grimscape a last peace offering. Until now, nothing really bad had happened. We asked Grimscape if they could keep themselves together and stop harassing other myzels, but in response, they flooded our myzels with more poisonous imagery. And so, we decided that we had to cut off their ties with them. But for that, we had to convince as many other myzels as possible, some of which Grimscape had already began to tear apart. Had we bothered too long? Should we have acted earlier? It didn’t matter. Now what we had to do was to stop more damage from happening.
First of all, all leaders of the friendly myzels, each concentrated and severed their ties with Grimscape so that everyone of their myzels would no longer receive anything from them.
But there were still many myzels left who were connected to Grimscape and to who we were connected to. We spoke about on how to proceed and quickly found a solution: we would go into the myzels and try to win them for our cause.
And so, with determined hearts, we embarked on a quest, seeking allies from different myzels whose positivity and strength could counter the Grimscape’s malevolence. Along the way, we encountered Lumina, the bioluminescent fungi-people whose light pierced even the darkest shadows; Zephyr, the wind-loving myzel with the power to carry messages and warnings across vast distances; and Tessa, the Turkey-rooted fungi whose grounded nature provided stability in the face of chaos. We decided to severe the ties to Grimscape.
But one question remained: how to prevent members of Grimscape to simply jump over to other myzels and starting their foul game again?
Together, Eury, Lamella, and our newfound allies devised a plan. We would confront the Grimscape head-on, combining our diverse strengths to weaken its influence. It was not only about isolating them, but also to make other myzels more resilient for their bad influence.
As we ventured deeper into the territory corrupted by the Grimscape, we felt how the malevolent myzel’s dark threads, that suddenly were everywhere, slowly also entered our own thoughts, its chilling aura pushing our spirits down, trying to sow division and discord in our minds. It unleashed illusions, attempting to break our spirits with visions of a fractured Fungiverse. But Eury and I, guided by our love and determination, saw through the deceit. Eury, with her sharp tongue, would challenge its lies and manipulations, exposing the fear and hate hidden beneath the shadows. Me, with my unwavering optimism, would inspire hope in the hearts of those who had succumbed to despair, reminding them of the beauty and resilience of the Fungiverse.
As we confronted more and more members of Grimscape, we soon found out that Grimscape was burdened by a darkness that wasn’t entirely its own. It had become a collective of myzels who had succumbed to despair and negativity, their hearts intertwined in a web of misery. And it would need all our strength to fight it back and not succumb in despair ourselves in the process. Or was it already happening? I increasingly couldn’t help but feel a pang of sorrow for this troubled entity. The Grimscape, once a beautiful myzel, had been consumed by the collective suffering of its inhabitants. Each step we took was not just a battle against an external force; it was a journey to heal a wounded soul. We needed to help it, not cast it away.
I told Eury what I had seen and her words, though firm, carried a touch of understanding: “We cannot fix it, if so, it can only fix itself, let’s focus on our own communities for now”. I agreed, feeling ashamed and numb, but carried on.
Amidst our journey, we encountered myzels within the Grimscape who had lost all hope and I had to fight strongly to not be consumed by the sadness of it all. Their eyes, once filled with dreams, now mirrored the desolation of their surroundings. With each encounter, I reached out to them, my touch carrying the weight of their shared despair but also the promise of redemption. I listened to their stories, shared their pain, and in return, offered them a glimmer of hope. Eury, on the other hand, challenged the myzels within the Grimscape to face the source of their darkness, tried to shake them awake and show them where they were headed. Lumina’s radiant glow, rather than banishing, caressed the Grimscape’s tendrils gently, as if reminding them of the warmth they had forgotten. Zephyr’s messages were not just warnings; they were whispers of anger, urging the myzels trapped in the Grimscape to break free from their self-imposed prisons. Tessa, rooted in the earth, extended her empathy to the Grimscape itself, as if offering a silent promise of healing.
Sometimes, members of Grimscape saw us and fought back, not with fury, but with desperation. They conjured illusions not to deceive us, but to shield its inhabitants from the harsh reality of their existence. Eury’s sharp mind saw through the facade, and with each illusion dispelled, I felt a tremor within the Grimscape – a flicker of acknowledgment that there was a way out, a path toward light and healing.
In the final confrontation, as we stood amidst the thorny vines of the Grimscape’s lair, I sensed a change within it. The collective consciousness, once so resistant, now quivered with a mix of fear and longing. Eury, her eyes filled with understanding, spoke not just to the Grimscape, but to the myzels within it.
“Your pain is real,” she said, her voice carrying the weight of centuries of suffering. “But there is beauty in the world, even in the darkest corners. Embrace the light within you, and let it guide you home.”
As if in response, I extended my hand, my touch gentle yet firm. The Grimscape trembled, and in that moment, I felt a surge of compassion – not just from me, but from my companions, the very land beneath us, and the entire world and all its inhabitants.
And then, Grimscape thorny vines lashed out at us, more than ever before, it was a pain that I had never felt before, but it frightened the whole Fungiverse. And for a moment, the darkness that had shrouded the Grimscape started to dissipate, revealing the myzels’ true forms, each face now reflecting a mixture of shame, fear and outright hatred for everyone to see.
And I could feel how the other myzels in which we had been before, saw the true face of Grimscape too and began, one by one, to de-myzel from Grimscape, either by collectively concentrating on severing the connection or by some members eating a green-glowing mushroom and severing the connection directly.
And with that, the shadows began to retreat from the other myzels and slowly, the Fungiverse began to heal. And as I looked at Grimscape, no longer a symbol of dread, but a testament to the transformative power of empathy and connection, the myzels once trapped within it now stood beside us. The Grimscape, once a collective of despair, had become a testament to the potential for change and redemption within every myzel.
By Eury’s side, I raised my glowing arms, casting a warm light that pushed back the last remains of Grimscape’s oppressive gloom. “Love, unity, and hope will always prevail over fear and hatred,” I proclaimed, my voice resonating with the strength of the entire Fungiverse. The combined force of our words, coupled with the elemental powers of our allies, weakened the Grimscape’s grip on the myzels. With a deafening roar, the malevolent myzel recoiled, its threads withdrawing in defeat. The Fungiverse, once again bathed in the vibrant hues of life, slowly began to heal from the scars left by the Grimscape’s presence.
On the same evening, we even made a headline in human news: “biggest myzels in the Fungiverse cooperate to isolate renegade myzel.” Had the reputation of the Fungiverse been tarnished? Perhaps, but who knew? There was so much going on that no one really noticed anyways. Hopefully it would show them at least that we weren’t the homogenous bunch that they depicted us as but apart from that … who cared?
Well, me, to be honest. I never had anything against humans, although sometimes I want to just scream about how they try to solve their conflicts … it’s like they just blare out whatever they think. Eury says its Stokholm Syndrome, but I think that with the skills that nature gave them, they are really trying their best … and they do make good music … Speaking of which … how did we get here again? It had something to do with music – oh right. Taylor Swift.
I mean: did you hear her newest song: Blank Spaces (Fungi Version)? Just check out the lyrics:
Nice to meet you, where you spore?
I’m a fungus, you know the score
You’re looking like my next host
Love’s a game, wanna play some more?
‘Cause we’re fungi and we’re crazy
Can’t you see the spores are hazy?
Got a long list of my ex-hosts
They’ll tell you I’m insane
But I’ve got a blank space, baby
And I’ll write your name
Cherry stems and your white coat
Sneaking in and out of petri dishes
I can show you incredible things
Mushroom fields and spore print rings
And later:
Boys only want love if it’s spores they’re breathing in, don’t say I didn’t say I didn’t warn you,
Boys only want love if it’s spores they’re breathing in, don’t say I didn’t say I didn’t warn you,
Boys only want love if it’s spores they’re breathing in, don’t say I didn’t say I didn’t warn you,
‘Cause we’re fungi and we’re crazy
Can’t you see the spores are hazy?
Got a long list of my ex-hosts
They’ll tell you I’m insane
But I’ve got a blank space, baby
And I’ll write your name
Say what you want about her, but she connects people and tells stories, hell, she is basically a story-super-spreader. What more do you want? A whole fungi-themed era? In any case: I have never looked so much forward to Halloween. Trick or treat my ass, I just want a reason to dress up like Taylor.
Winter
“I don’t believe in horoscopes; I just believe everything is connected. And who knows how? All I know is: after years of eroding of all kinds of societal institutions, we need to build back. We should start with our friends and family, but also think about bigger societal structures. And we should get it done fast before the next backlash. After all: that’s what the Fungiverse was made for.”
Last post from @tessa_ract
After checking on my myzel, where a couple of organizatory things had to be done, we were discussing the government forms that we wanted to implement, factions needed to be appeased. It was all getting a bit much on top of my job … if I continued like this, I couldn’t do it much longer … but then again … who else would do it? Our myzel had an actual participation problem … mushroom needed to be stroked, myzel threads moderated … but all people wanted to do was using it as if it would always be there, as if it grew on trees and didn’t need some maintenance as well. Basically, I knew that we should implement actually working democratic processes in our myzel – I knew that many asked for them, that they weren’t working as good as they could, but there was just not enough time nor enough people to actually do it! Instead: drama over drama over drama. Only this morning another big fight between two hot heads. I had it all over my head. There was just no time to breathe. I mean: how would you to decide whether to kick a member out of a community or not? Sometimes it’s obvious but often enough it’s almost impossible without losing significant amounts of members or even risking a split or a power struggle within the myzel. But then again, I also didn’t want to be too authoritative … some were still questioning my decision to de-myzel from Grimscape without getting feedback from the whole myzel … but there were so many things to be thought of … so many things to keep in mind …
What good is it if you are the leader of the biggest myzel in the Fungiverse if it slowly drains you of all your energy without any silver lining on the horizon? That wasn’t exactly was I signed up for when I ate that pink glowing mushroom that had appointed me the leader of the myzel, giving me powers and privileges that I never really wanted … But there was no use talking about it anyways … so better to get going, there was much to do: I wanted to meet with a fellow fungi from the other myzel with which we fought Grimscape to do some community-building. Her name was Lamella. We wanted to check on how the myzels that we tried to heal were doing.
Everything seemed fine, people even waved at us. But then, as there is always trouble in the Fungiverse, the same day, as we floated among luminescent spores, we encountered Fish Guy.
Fish Guy hailed from a sect where fish-men supposedly learned to connect themselves with higher fish-beings, a mysterious ritual supposedly linking them to the universe’s depths but actually only connecting them to the sect leader’s hybris. Whispers hinted at their prayers to Dogan, an enigmatic cosmic entity, who would bring glory to the fish people again and let them rise up against those species that decided to walk the earth first and destroyed everything in return. It was the eons-old conspiracy theory that they had told themselves when in fact they too had decided at one point to step unto the earthly surface of the world. But Fish Guy was blinded, finding himself caught up in a net of lies he could no longer escape. It had all started so well, they had played dart together. But then, the collective had been overrun by people who had lost their home in the aftermath of all other myzels severing ties to the Grimscape Myzelium, plunging their world into chaos, which had let them to be isolated by the other myzels too just as Lamella had predicted it would happen. It was now time to face the consequences of our actions.
We only found them by temporarily joining their myzel (if you really want to know the state of the Fungiverse, myzel-hopping is the way to go).
It became clear soon that something was wrong with this myzel. Everywhere hung iconographies of Dogan. And soon, we were aggressively talked to by this person, who in fact was Fish Guy and trying to convince us to join the cult around of Dogan, which he called “an elite coaching group” and said that it was mainly “just a fishy mindset” and some biologistic nonsense about taking the next step of evolution.
Eury, who Lamella had brought along and I remembered from the fight against Grimscape as well, immediately sensed Fish Guy’s despair. “Perhaps,” she mused to us when we had hopped over to a saver myzel, “Fish Guy could find solace with the other fish-people in the far north, who are to embark on a journey in the depths of the sea, away from the turmoil of the collectives. Human have destroyed enough of the earth. It’s too late, more and more of the fish-people want to leave to the bottom of the sea and stay there until the thread posed by humanity has solved itself. I mean sure, they are radical in their own right, but they want to unmake the last step of evolution.” She shrugged, “at least they don’t want to hurt anyone. Maybe he wants to go with them. Think about it that way: it’s not happening very often anymore. Maybe one should grab a chance like that when it comes.”
She looked me straight in the eye, but I could sense the despair inside of her that stemmed from her time outside the Fungiverse, which would still take a long time to heal.
And so, I, ever the voice of reason, disagreed with a firm voice. “I find that more than a little cynical. Leaving Earth won’t solve the underlying issue. We should help Fish Guy find his place within our collective.”
We hopped back, he had been waiting for us. We told him we were concerned for him and whether he would be interested in coming along to our myzel and have a little talk. But Eury, who apparently couldn’t contain herself, talked about the other fish people. And poor Fish Guy, now torn between choices, contemplated leaving Earth, seeking refuge in the tranquil depths until the thread of conflict unravelled. The idea seemed tempting, an escape from the turmoil above.
So, I, understanding the depth of Fish Guy’s dilemma, approached with compassion. “Leaving is not the answer,” I said softly, my voice like the rustle of lamellas in the wind. “Also, we honestly still need you people to get this ship afloat. Please stay.”
Touched by our sincerity, Fish Guy felt a surge of hope. He nodded to himself. “You know, I was raised a Christian. They taught us that our life on earth is a gift that isn’t ours to give a way. Now I think that’s an oversimplification but maybe I will just go with it against my own judgement. It’s certainly better than anything the bros of Dogan taught me. And after all, I always called myself an agnostic. I mean, there must be some reason why we have been given our time here. Not that it appeared to all make sense … but somehow, I still believe there could be something to it. Some sense. So just could as well make it count, you know?”
In that moment, he chose not to escape but to confront the challenges alongside Eury, Lamella and me, finding his purpose within the diverse fabric of the Fungiverse. After much contemplation, he made a choice that resonated with the rhythm of his essence: Fish Guy decided to join a collective unlike any other—a group with a daring vision. This collective, inspired by the boundless mysteries of the universe, planned to depart Earth and journey to the bottom of the sea, where the secrets of the deep called to them like ancient whispers. But not now when the earth of the edge of crumbling into chaos. Yes, one day they would leave and join their brothers and sisters in the sea but would only do so when they had made sure that earth was back on its way.
Late that evening, we bid Fish-Guy farewell and returned to the heart of the city, making a beeline for my favourite fungal story-telling spot. Stepping onto the stage, I felt the spotlight’s warmth on my skin and sensed the anticipatory hush of the audience, my new-found friends and I even recognized some parents and their children from the school that I taught and that was closely connected to my myzel. It was the place they had chosen for their children to grow up in and from which they would slowly discover the vastness of the Fungiverse. My heart thumped with a mix of nervous excitement. Adjusting my lamellas, which encircled my ears like mushroom gills, I surveyed the room with a playful glint in my eyes.
“Ladies and gentlemen, and all the beautiful souls in between,” I began, my voice clear and confident, “Tonight, I’m not serving up the usual mushroom jokes you might expect from a fungi-person like me. No, tonight … I hope you want to listen to a story of mine. It’s a tradition among my people, which you probably know. To tell stories to one another, so I hope afterwards you can tell me yours as well. I know you are all busy, but I hope you can spare the time. I overheard this story many hundreds of years ago as I was still a little mushroom, listening to the passengers that walked above me.”
I saw some people get up and leave, but many people stayed, and I seized the moment.
“In a vibrant forest nestled between towering mountains and babbling streams, there lived a curious little creature named Willow the Woodland Sprite. Willow was not your ordinary sprite; instead of possessing magical powers like the others, Willow had a special gift for storytelling.
One day, as the golden sunbeams filtered through the lush canopy, Willow noticed a sense of sadness lingering among the forest animals and plants. The once lively chatter had faded, and the flowers drooped their petals low. Willow, with a heart full of empathy, decided to do something about it.
Gathering all the animals and plants beneath the wise Grand Oak, Willow stood on a mossy rock and began to weave a tale. It was a story of a brave rabbit who overcame his fears by sharing his worries with his friends, a clever fox who found solutions through listening, and a kind old tree that offered shelter and wisdom to all.
As Willow’s words floated through the air, the forest came alive with vivid imagery and heartfelt emotions. The animals and plants listened, captivated by the tale. Slowly, smiles returned to their faces, trunks and stems, and a newfound sense of camaraderie filled the air. The forest, once despondent, was now filled with hope and unity.
Inspired by Willow’s story, the animals and plants started sharing their own tales. The wise old owl spoke of ancient forest secrets, the playful squirrels recounted their adventures, and even the shy mushrooms shared their dreams. Each story brought the community closer together, fostering understanding and friendship among them.
And so, in the heart of the enchanted forest, a tradition was born. Every full moon, the animals and plants would gather under the Grand Oak, taking turns to share their stories. They discovered that in sharing their joys and sorrows, they not only lifted each other’s spirits but also created an unbreakable bond that made the forest stronger.
As the seasons changed and years passed, the tale of Willow the Woodland Sprite and the magical storytelling circle spread far and wide. Travelers from distant lands came to listen, and they too shared their stories, creating a tapestry of narratives that celebrated the beauty of diversity of all living beings.
And at some point, it was even adapted by the humans. Always late to the party … and then they want to make it all about themselves, of course.”
A pleasant shiver went through the crowd. With a bow and a grin, I left the stage, the applause of the audience like a melodic harmony. Stepping down, I was met by Eury, her smile radiating understanding.
“A story about telling stories? Really?” she teased.
“Well, I had to say it,” I replied, undeterred, and hugged her tightly. She felt like solidarity and justice. It was a perfect moment.
But then Lamella said: “You know, I not sure why you had to make that joke at the end … it’s not even true.”
I looked at her, feeling panic in my throat. She would destroy everything.
“Come on, it was harmless”, I tried it again.
“Tessa. Humans aren’t the only beings that want progress, you know.”
I looked at her with raised eyebrows.
“What?”, she replied, probably sounding angrier than she intended, “Don’t you want to move forward in life? What’s wrong with it. I … I just think we should be more careful with what we say … in these times. You sound like a radical germ-man.”
I nodded and swiftly, captured a selfie before Lamella became aware that she was, in fact, still smiling. #unitedmzylels I thought and send it off. Now, everything was perfect, just as it should be! And so thought our corner of the Fungiverse, too. The selfie first gained local recognition in my myzel and then the videos of my story quickly went viral.
I immediately sensed that it was the beginning of something big. I knew that it was greater than me, than us, that it had already nothing to do with any of us anymore but that didn’t matter. I was just so glad to share it with the people I loved and read all of their stories. Maybe now it would really come … the breakthrough of the Fungiverse … maybe now everything would proof to have been worth it.
And I looked at Lamella and Eury, who were feeling it too and to my own despair … saw confusion and sadness in their eyes. I knew I had made a mistake and probably broken their trust, but I couldn’t take it back and even if I could, probably wouldn’t. They too, sensed to know that, turned, and went away. They didn’t spoke to me for a long while, but otherwise didn’t make much of a fuss; the bound between our myzels stayed intact and our myzels even gained new members. No one could possibly complain against that, right?
But this was only the beginning. In the following weeks, it was like the Fungiverse truly became alive. So many people told their stories, new communities developed, and it was so exciting that me and my myzel had to take part in the hype. I had waited for something like this for so long, now all of it had been worth it.
And soon everybody I knew was buzzing about it: Fungis for Future. It was like this spark, you know? Inspired by the big global eco-awareness thing, Fungis for Future was all about community building. We weren’t out there yelling and gluing ourselves to the street or supporting radical myzels; it was about creating connections, building these little communities, rather than making a scene in protest.
Sure, Lamella was still very angry at me (she would of course never write something like that, but I think she would love to call me a manipulative bitch), but after all: hadn’t it all been good for the Fungiverse at the end? I think on some matters she was really naive and a bit uptight to be honest and after all, she wasn’t the one that was responsible for a whole myzel, in fact the one that her human-dryad-girlfriend was a member of and for which I, also, was responsible for providing safety for and, frankly, actually did quite a good job at. But instead, they worry about their human world problems. Yet, every time they need something they come running to me for shelter and comfort. They really think that the ones that have an idea are the ones that should get credit for it. But what about the people that actually build it? I think it’s more than fair to get something in return for generations of turkey people keeping their industry afloat once in a while, not speaking of all the daily racism. They toss a coin to a magic mushroom in the pedestrian zone, get their fortunes read and think they are alright. Well, they aren’t.
But we had anyways waaay too much to do to waste our time with such details. In the following weeks, we did a few little tasks for local communities all over Solarfurt, doing repairs at the local library, helping organize events for sport clubs. But mostly, we just listened and talked, about what the next year would bring and what great things this year had already brought. It was great. Autumn was finally here and this time, it was here to stay; through all the cold months of winter it would keep us warm. And as always, I wondered, how the humans would do it. They are telling more and more stories, but no one listens to them. They just scream into the void of their own despair, calling for someone to help them. And even though Lamella would probably didn’t think I say that but, I, too, think that’s us. The people of the Fungiverse. We need to help them to connect to each other again. Perhaps with a story … a collection of stories from all over the Fungiverse … we could even get it into the world of the humans with Eurys old account … I’m sure that it would then reach the right people eventually … maybe even Taylor “the fungus amongus” Swift. Ah, and there we are again! I know how that story of Lamella ended! I read it, too. And I think she is right! She could be very useful to us. But I also know that I have to give over to the next one … and I will do so happily … the stage is yours: fish-guy! Make it count!
Waiting for Spring
“This is my last post here. I wish you all the best. Thanks for all the fish, guys and see you on the other side.”
Last post from @the_real_fish_guy
On the eve of my final day on earth, I found myself standing on a giant bridge that led to the beach of the ocean of departure, my heart heavy with the weight of impending change. Beside me, a young girl named Elara stood, her eyes clouded with despair, contemplating a decision that would change her fate forever.
The sky was ablaze with hues of crimson and gold, a breathtaking spectacle that painted the heavens as if the universe itself were bidding farewell to our world. The waves sang a melancholic song, echoing the deep sorrows etched within Elara’s soul.
She had stepped to me earlier, there was uncertainty in her eyes, mirroring mine.
“Is there any point in going on?” she whispered, her voice as fragile as the seafoam. “The world is ending, and I have nothing left. I used to love someone, but she is gone. I don’t know where. She was suffering from Weltschmerz … and I think she infected me …”
I turned to her, my eyes reflecting the wisdom of ages and the hope that still flickered within my aquatic heart. “Elara,” I said, my voice a gentle echo of the ocean’s depths, “even in the face of such finality, life persists in unexpected places. There’s beauty in the resilience of the human spirit, in the way it clings to hope even when all seems lost.”
With a quiet intensity, I shared tales of the cosmic wonders me and my people would soon encounter beneath the waves, the unexplored depths where life thrived in harmony with the elements. I painted a picture of a new beginning, where every moment held the potential for discovery, and the mysteries of the deep sea whispered secrets only the brave could fathom.
Tears glistened in Elara’s eyes as my words washed over her like a soothing tide. “But what about the pain?” she asked, her voice quivering. “How can I leave it all behind?”
I touched her trembling hand with my scaled fingers, a gesture of understanding and empathy. “Pain is part of the human experience, Elara. And that counts for all of us wandering this earth, too, I presume. It’s what makes us resilient, what teaches us empathy and compassion. But if it becomes too unbearable, of course we can choose to escape it. We can always do that, and I think that’s why I never despaired over the future.”
As the final rays of sunlight kissed the ocean’s surface, I saw a glimmer of hope flicker in Elara’s eyes. She took a deep breath, as if inhaling the courage to face the uncertain future. With a newfound determination, she stepped away from the edge of despair.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice a fragile melody. “I don’t know what lies ahead, but I want to find out. I think I don’t want to see this new world you’ve shown me, but I’m glad you do it and I will wait for your return. I think I want to find the person that I lost again. Perhaps she isn’t gone. Maybe … she still needs my help. Maybe I could get people to care for her on social media with a big call for help. You know, since she is away, I feel like I’m standing beside myself. I know that’s a bit oversharing but yesterday I even tried to … you know … hug a tree. But it wasn’t the same … at least not as I would imagine it … It’s so unfair! The world is so unfair! I hate it! I just want to see that’s she is alive. That she lives! That everything is fine!”
I nodded and faced the ocean again, went quiet for a while.
“If I were you, I would check out this place called the Fungiverse”, I said finally, “It’s at least where I met one great dryad. You just need to eat a glowing mushroom to join.”
She looked at me irritated, breathed out heavily, and shrugged. “Yeah. Sure. Although … she never was much the type of fungi-punk if you would’ve known her … but yeah … I mean even Taylor is fungi now … maybe I could check out her old account again … well, thanks anyways.”
Quietly, I chuckled at the stubbornness of the humans. Their best and worst trait, I thought.
And together, we faced the approaching darkness, ready to dive into the depths of the unknown, where life, resilience, and the beauty of the life’s spirit would continue to flourish against all odds. But not yet, no, just a few moments longer …
⠀
After what felt like an eternity, I got myself to leave Elara and walked down the mountains to the beach. Once again, I felt the cold waves washing over me. I had joined the others in the water, it felt like coming home. Some had already begun to swim down, and I had not many moments left to follow them. And then, as I turned back one last time, I heard the song of the Spirits of Spring with unforgivable even almost slightly cruel force.
They sung about the communities of the Fungiverse, growing bigger and bigger, at some point becoming intelligent on their own to what they called Myziarians. And how communities would flock to different Myzarians, always joining the one that fits them best.
As the Myzarian influence spread, a transformation began to unfold across the world. Communities of various species and civilizations started adopting the principles of interconnectedness and cooperation. The once-divided lands began to heal, and conflicts dwindled in the face of shared understanding, mutual respect and democratic discourse.
The Myzarian’s reach would expand beyond what anyone had imagined. It would become a beacon of hope, guiding not just the Fungiverse, but multiple worlds toward a future where cooperation, compassion, and sustainable progress were the pillars of existence. It would never result in a state that was finished, it would always stay complicated, ambiguous, there would always stay the hope to be having made it, to having crossed the finish line and even so this would never be satisfied and there was no necessity that everything went well, and always the threat of falling back, there would always, for every individual be a potential to make the world more worth to live in for themselves, their communities and every living being.
My head rose out of the water and between my tears, I saw the girl from earlier dancing in the distance on the beach. She had indeed eaten the mushroom. It was then that I felt the urge to dance with her, too, dance without hindering or any second thoughts, just living in the moment, and I thought that I had just made a great mistake. And then, I took a leap underwater, forcefully resisting the urge to looked back again, catching up with the others, leaving humanity behind, the only ones that could never escape. Now it was up to them, I thought, now they have to figure it out by themselves.
Thanks for reading. If you liked this story, please re-post it under #fungiverse, #fedipunk or #fungipunk, or create your own variant of the story if you want to. It’s free to use! Let’s spread the idea of the fungiverse through the Fediverse and beyond!
If you want to know about the Fedipunk-genre, check out this post: https://fungiverse.wordpress.com/2023/11/04/from-solarpunk-to-fedipunk/
Written by bluebbberry on October 2023, licensed under CC0 (no rights reserved)
Fungiverse Tales 