A light breeze graces the southern hinterlands. Spider lilies and sundrops and blazing stars sway gently, top-heavy with bloom, moist leaves glinting. Beyond them, poppy mallow and golden aster crowd the edge of the clearing, arcing around the branches of a fallen oak. Turkey tail mushrooms cluster together on the bark, their concentric markings hypnotic; lichen fills the gaps with flakes of gold and celadon. Slightly farther south, the oak’s roots cling to a clump of dark soil. Sensitive fern emerges here, fronds still small, enjoying shade from an elm tree’s overreaching branches. A small, still pool has formed in the depression beneath. There are no insects or eggs near the pool, no dragonflies or mosquitoes or springtails.
Beyond this pool begins the forest. Mulberry bushes take in the patchy sunlight where the oak and hickory branches have yet to fill out. White flowers surround their catkins like frozen sparks. The mulberry yields to swamp bay shrubs deeper in, with leaves dark and lustrous, and stout blue beech bushes. Deeper still, ferns blanket the understory.
The vegetation remains lush all the way to the riverbank. Maypop and cross vine climb the birches, red and violet flowers streaming from crown to base. The river is strong from recent rain, but fringetrees and snakeroots hold the banks in place. Their dense, feathery flowers shine in the sun like powder snow, striking amidst all the green. Throughout the water, glassy eddies form around broken branches, though no fish shelter beneath the wood.
The river descends for a few dozen miles before spilling out into the delta, a swampy mess of emerald and cerulean. Southern wax myrtle, ringed with tall grass, clings to patches of solid land. Farther out, the ocean stretches to the horizon. Downy clouds drift through the periwinkle sky, with no gulls to obscure them.
A rabbitlike creature floats belly-up in the water, eyes iridescing like nacre, white fur gleaming as it basks in the sun. All is nearly silent. Just the ghosting of the wind and the lapping of the waves. The world is as it once was: simple, vast, inviting. It belongs to the few who can enjoy it.