Enter the Forest

[Eyreplenh]

Greetings! No, sorry, forget that. How cheesy can one be...

Umm, so, either way, I guess you can't forget that, because this will be a pretty special thing, but I do want to apologize for this rather bad introduction. The foresters gave us this thing to talk into, and they say that it will transmit and manifest itself in the past, but gave us no directions for how to operate things like rewinding and erasing and that stuff. Well.

My name, because I do have one, is Osito Hiya. No shit. I have a tendency to speak too much, something that continuously irritates my friends, bless them, but that nonetheless was the trait that got me the job of making this, um, transmission. The others feared to choke up from the pressure, but as you can hear, I have no problems with choking up. If anything, being nervous make me talk more.

I suppose I should say something of substance. My name you already know, and I am currently living on the island formerly known as Japan. Do you still call it Japan? We still do, mostly, even though most nations names stopped mattering quite some time ago. But I figure you still need to know approximately where you are in the world, you know. It makes it more real. The foresters don't need to know, at least they don't seem to care, but for us regular joes, at least for me, it's a comfort. It's now about 100 years since political parties with reforestation on their agenda started making themselves known around the world, 95 years since Norwegian Forestry became the first of these parties to win the election. In Norway, of all places! And it is more or less exactly 20 years since the first foresters made contact.

They are... Wait. I guess, if none of the above has taken place yet, I guess you are a far way back and this sounds really farfetched. Well, it should. It doesn't really matter as I don't think anyone can nor wants to change much of what is going to happen; for now, just accept that the foresters are here. I'm only in my middle twenties anyway, and no historical adept, so I don't think I can help much with understanding or by pointing out obvious things that will happen in your near future that will make me more credible. Unless this doesn't go far back that is. It's not that important to me anyway. Credibility that is. Anyway... wait. Hold on a sec.

Yeah, I'm back. According to Yani, the foresters didn't give any specific instructions as to what they wanted us to say, didn't want to say, they just handed off the device with their usual aloofness and went off again. Here's something you can talk into and it will broadcast into the past. Have fun. Just like them to do something like that.

So. Okay, this is Osito Hiya, I'm currently residing in Japan with eight friends in a really cool part of the forest half a days hike from Tokyo. It's early winter in the year 2120 and this years first snow fell just last night. Don't know if this will work tomorrow or next week, or if it's working right now; but I do like the sound of my own voice, so I'll try talking some more into it either way. Probably.

Well, umm.

Bye.

[dark fuschia]

"Is it alright if I make it a love letter?" That's what I asked her.

She asked me "For who?" She spoke in the familiar strain they take on when drawn into using Airspeak. I think it hurts them, a little.

"No one." I lied.

She considered me silently and I said I would do it.

I have to speak into this stick and tell you about things. Tell you about my life. She says it will be transcribed somewhere in the past. Foresters are strange folk, they have strange beliefs, all mingled with their strange technology. I don't believe her, about this being transcribed in the past somewhere, but I have never been commanded to speak before. It is difficult to resist.

She is gone now, and like all Foresters I will probably never see her again. Not that particular one. I liked her. She had silver streaks down her back. Unusual.

Can you hear the rain? How it falls outside. The forrest will be pleased.

I said this would be a love letter, but not yet. Today I am afraid to speak words that might bind my heart further. Maybe tomorrow.

First let me tell you of my home. We all live illegally here, in the mountains. We live in a place where the forest never left. We have a house because the forest hid it from them, from the Governers. Places that did not require reforestation did not require desertion. Someone built it here in the mountains, amognst the ferns and the gums, over a hundred years ago. There are thirty of us here, and sometimes we grow, sometimes we shrink. I don't think the Governers care that we are here anymore. So long as we are quiet.

Listen to the rain.

I left here once for the city. Most of us have done it at one time, and some of us choose to stay. But I could not survive there. Do not misunderstand me. I loved it, I loved the city very much. The wonderfully tall buildings, the many faces, and the tiny streets full of life. I loved knowing that I could never know everything about that maze-like and mighty place. But I could not hold a position and so I risked sterilisation.

Some of the women I met there didn't mind. They didn't want children. Perhaps I don't either, but I am not ready to forgo the option. So I came back. Maybe if I had tried harder I could have held a position, but it is such a hard life, to live in a position. To serve people who are better off than you, to mind their many children in return for the chance of one or two of your own. Better to be in the Mountains, even though almost everything can be known about this house within a day.

I can hear Geary coming. He hates the Foresters and will be very displeased if he finds out one has been here. I will speak more tomorrow.

[Eyreplenh]

2025. Norway, Northwestern coast

Ten years since Norwegian Forestry came to power. Five year since the death of my grandfather. Five years since I visited this place. The experience is eerie.

When my grandfather died Norwegian Forestry had just begun inplementing their version of reforestation. His house, located in a small village just south of the arctic circle on the western coast, where a perfect match for the criterias set by the just re-elected government. After the second election they won (with a larger margin than the first, just above 60%) NF deemed the time was come for them to enforce a lot of the politics they so far had mostly talked about. First and foremost, it was the reforestation of rural areas all over the land.

They did it in a subtle and actually quite nice way. My grandfather died, and a few weeks later a government representative contacted my parents who organized a meeting. They wanted to meet with us to clarify any matters or arguments we were currently having about the inheritance, the house and the plot of late grandfather. Seeing as all of us are about as well off as can be expected and lives in cities to the south, our case was a simple one. The government offered to buy out the house and plot to a rate slightly above the market (which really was a bargain, the house hadn't been in proper repair for years) and none of us had anything particular to say about it -it seemed the best thing to do.

Being the youngest in my family, I was given the "honor" of going up there to survey the place and write up the final papers, and I did, those five years ago. After assuring them there was no chance whatsoever of us turning around in this matter, I was allowed to wait until they were ready to demolish it before going up there. I was kind of curious, and wanted to see how they were going about all this.

In the end, it wasn't very spectacular. A few specialists turned up and tore out whatever non-disposables they could find. Some plates of asbestos, the watertank and some lineoleum were thown into a big, open-aired truck, before a couple of big diggers pushed the roof down and the walls over. They worked the mass of wood and stone for a while, digging it into the ground and bringing soil to the surface, before they trundled off. I was left at the now empty plot, with a slip of paper that was the receit.

I still have that slip of paper, and I carry it around at all times. It is rather absurd, but that day five years ago filled me with a melancholy feeling that is still with me. Having the note comforts me. I have it with me today as well, it's in a pocket in my jacket and despite some ruffles around the edges, it looks the same as it did five years ago. My grandfathers plot does not.

I wasn't around for the actual planting, but I know it was done just a few weeks after the demolition. And now, seeing this place again, it's eerie. They planted mostly the Norway Spruce, which thrives up here, eternally pushing against the arctic barrier that limits it's growth further north. In this case though, thrives is a slight understatement. The Norway Spruce, which, apart from having a seriously ridiculous name; is one of the sturdiest and most resilient trees nature has provided, and in good conditions it is easily able to grow two to three feet a year. Here, five years since they went into the ground as small sprouts, they are towering almost twenty feet already, seventeen magnificent trees spreading out wide over the ground that used to hold my grandfathers house, garage and lumber-shed. Between the trees, green grass and some small attempts at undergrowth.

I am just about to wander in between them when I hear a small voice giving a shout. It's the still alive, obviously, old neighbour that has poked her bony head out her door. I give the trees another look, but figure they'll still be here in a couple of hours.

[Eyreplenh]

There are wolves here now, the old lady tells me. A pot of coffee is brewing on the pot. No real point in trying to get across that I don't really drink the stuff. Yes, she continues, sometimes I can see them just over on the ridge. The ridge is a small hill half a kilometre behind her house. They run around, but on some nights they sit on the ridge, and look down on the houses.

Wow, I say, I mean... That's horrible. Horrible? Nah, the crone, says, they don't bother me. All the folks around that had kids have moved away anyhow, and the forest is full of food for them, so I'm not afraid. In fact, I've kind of always wanted to meet one.

I look around in the womans livingroom. Typical norwegian interior, but more aged than most. Probably unchanged for at least thirty years. Some family photos, a couch and a good, quality chair in front of a large flatscreen tv. You cannot live in the outskirts of norway without a tv, I think to myself.

The neighbour continues her stories, finally with an ear that will endure them, and I sink down into the warm couch, the cup of coffee slowly cooling on the table in front of me. She tells me they are only fourty people left in the village now, but has few complaints. The ones that have remained is the elders, and they seem to manage fine. She tells me now that in stead of a store the government has organized a large truck to come once a week with whatever the villagers order. It is actually much better than having a store, she says, because now they just register whatever they want online and then it is delivered on the door if they want that. The old store never had pineapples, she tells me, and she dearly likes pineapples. And the prices are better than it used to be too. If nothing else, this elderly bunch is an adaptable lot.

I look outside and makes my excuses to the old lady, as I want a couple of hours of light to wander the forest. It has been calling to me for some time now, and I want to physically feel it.

Don't hesitate to pop in for dinner later, she calls to me as I leave her house. Maybe I will.

[Eyreplenh]

It's funny how things turn out. I first voted for the Forestry because I believed in their idea. I really believed, for the first time, that there would be a party that, global warming debates aside, would take the environmental issue seriously, a political party that could actually mean some change. Then, almost instantly, I voted them out of habit. The last time I put in the ballot... I cannot even remember it, and it was only five months ago. Life under NF is good, better than I could dream of, but it is almost as if things are going too smooth. What happened to the sceptics, the rivalling ideas and political contestants? Sure, they're all still there, it's not like they are being muted, killed or worse, you know, like happens in some "democratical" places. No, they are still there, but they have ceased to matter. And it seems like they know it themselves.

Things are not like this everywhere, however. When the Forestry announced they were hoping and working towards being a starting point for an international movement, it was kind of hard to take them seriously. Countries less rich than ours have other things to contend with, and are generally not as eager to jump on an idea like this. But the idea and the politics have spread. Sweden re-elected their Forestry government for the third time earlier this year, even though things are not going as smoothly there. It's not that the political opposition is fiercer or that the ideas is being beaten down, but Sweden, lacking a lot of the financial muscle that we have, thanks to our ever dwindling oil resources, so the implemented politics have a greater impact on the general public. When the state assumes ownership of you grandparents house in Sweden, you don't get market price and then some. You get some. What is interesting is that the public is not opposing the governing party, but are, incredibly, embracing the change, deeming a lowering of the individual living standards to be somewhat proper. There has even been a large resurgance of old, pagan ideas, and I hear growing numbers of people is seeking out into the forests, calling out for the attention of old viking gods. Thor, Loki, Odin, that lot. Even more incredible, there doesn't seem to be any form of racism attached to this version of the return to old. At least not yet. I might have to go over there to see for myself.

Going over there wont be a problem. True, Norway and Sweden have, in modern times, had a good relationship and there has been no passport controls or the like for years and years, but now there is like there is no border at all. The customs stations have been closed down or turned into stations for the Ministry of transportation and infrastructure. Why have even symbolic borders, they asked, and then just poof.

Sigh. It's getting dark, and I should be heading home, or at least back to the houses. Maybe the old neighbour will let me stay over after dinner.