Spice of Life and Death by M Bridger

“I reckon that lass Lyra or Lula or something was well into me, I got her number, I might get lucky later this week if I can see her again”, Kyle smiled, slapping his closest friend on the shoulder.

“Yeah and pigs might fly! Catch you Monday Kyle”.

“Yeah have… a hic… good one Jase, loved that Ruby-hic-Murry, I’ve never tasted anything like it”, mumbled Kyle through hiccups. They’d tried a new curry van in Timblehurst, arrived today for one day only, with spices and flavours imported from all over the world.

He stumbled his way to the start of a tree-lined path through Birchwood Copse that led the way to his flat, about two miles or so Eastwards. He knew it well, but hadn’t had any need to venture deep, it was a vast woodland that backed onto other forests, often he might glimpse a deer or fox in the distance.

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The mycorrhizal network, or world wood web, sat in a constant state of alert, sensing, listening in its own way, to interpret every shift in the compounds around it. Air changes and movements tickled the minute hairs on the underside of mushrooms and fungi, hidden in thick growths. Hyphae continually operated like an underground web transmitting and connecting for miles around, and just like sensitivity of a spider’s web, there are signals that mark a red alert, one such signal had never been raised in the network, but innately the system always had a low-level radar waiting for a trigger. Sensitivity levels are a billion times more effective than a shark sensing blood in the ocean. The network connects nationally across the whole UK, as Mother Nature intended.

The biped trampled through soil, radiating an unnatural aroma and pheromone traits. The beast spat on the ground; instantly the soil sensors flagged a substance warning, unseen above the ground. In the world below it was like lightning striking a tree, all eyes spinning to focus on that one noise. It was undeniable that the beast carried Xyelella in its system, enough to scorch the entire tree and forest system over time, it was a red alert for action. The defence instinct came into effect, summoning the Tree Guardian, overseeing the entire network.

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Kyle walked on, worse for wear and sight bleary, the full moon high in the sky, but a night drinking too much and a late curry left him feeling very full and the drink was hitting him now. The chef described some rare Indian beetles that had been crushed to form the deep blue colouring of the curry he’d chosen. He struggled to put his feet straight in front of him, and then realised he had a bursting need for a piss.

Kyle glanced around, knowing there was no one nearby, but a force of habit. He unzipped and leant against a tree to support his balance, a thick steaming stream of yellow spurted out and splashed back off the tree, his white Converse shoes taking a beating; Kyle regretted wearing his new ones tonight.

“Man, that was so needed!” he whispered as he looked up and then down again. He chuckled to himself as he noticed that a deep moss with fungi surrounded his feet, some growths the size of his hands, and he’d pissed all over them.

He leant down to take a closer look, there was a shimmering, hazy puff emanating from the small bulbs, suddenly a larger cloud wafted into his face, he sneezed and grabbed at his face to wipe it off, temporarily blinded by the substance. He stamped his feet, and, as he struggled, some kind of decayed log under him broke with force, dropping him down into an unseen cavern, where his head smashed into a rock, and he lost consciousness.

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He awoke to see a large, glowing, being before him, its powerful, intense, old eyes glaring through to his soul. Kyle’s sight spun slightly as he sought to reach up to his throbbing head, but quickly realised that his arms were pinned to his sides by a thick, unbreakable web.

“You… you are a carrier”. The Guardian was full of rage and hatred as its voice thrummed through the space and Kyle’s body, there were no lips, no mouth, just the outline of an aged woman’s face. “I was called from the Northern realms, where waste spills from your beasts, polluting my kingdom and causing gradual decay, but this, this is something else entirely”.

Kyle whimpered, he was about to speak and grovel, fear travelled through him making him shiver, he would have urinated in distress, but there was none left. He felt, and then saw out of the bottom of his line of sight, white tendrils crawl across his face and block his mouth. “Silence!”, the Guardian commanded, “You will observe that all living organisms in our network have ceased any infighting, quarrels are irrelevant to the macro picture of you, and the damage you threaten. Xyelella is lethal, it will degrade our network and the strain you carry could infect and wipe out much of my kingdom beyond repair”.

Snuffles and rummaging sounds with hooves digging could be heard above, something like pigs… “a sounder of boars, that’s what you hear”. The Guardian spoke more quietly as she explained, “the network has favours to call upon, these were the closest we could find and are a small sacrifice for the greater good. They will devour every shred of ground you touched, where your sweat dropped, your dribble, spit and excrement stream, anything it touched will go. And of course your fleshy, protein structure will have to go the same way”.

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A message pinged, the noise cushioned by the insulation inside the stomach of a sow.

“Hope you got home okay mate, you’ll never guess what’s top on the news, not quite pigs flying, but boars jumping right off the cliffsides into the sea like Lemmings on a suicide mission, crazy! Jase”.

Matt Bridger

Image by Jasmin777 from Pixabay – a young wild boar rooting in the soil an chewing on a stick.