Right Arm

Tsuru

Mr. Hanako was a silent man. Three days a week, he went into the pub in Immingham, Middle England. As he didn't talk much, no one of the regulars in the pub knew his story. He was a Japanese seaman and somehow, probably because of a woman, landed in the biggest port of England.

When the talks on the main table, where the regulars were sitting day-in and day-out, circled around seaside tales, he sometimes contributed a sentence or two. But never much.

One day, someone on the table again started a topic about the seaside. He began a wild story about some hearsay monsters that appeared to medieval seafarers.

Suddenly, Mr. Hanako stood up and said "Do you want to hear a real story? I'm ready to tell you mine ...".

The whole pub fell silent. Tension was rising and Mr. Hanako started speaking.

Mr Hanako had all the attention as he started.

"I've been going to the sea for over thirty years", he started. "Mostly on smaller commercial merchant vessels. I've seen all the oceans and harbors in over a hundred countries.

There was one day at sea that changed me. Cranes, we call them Tsuru, are usually a symbol of luck, they say. No seaman I know has ever seen one on a ship. They typically are avoiding to cross oceans.

But one day, I saw one. We were on the way to Hong Kong and approached the South Chinese Sea from the south. The sea was as flat as a mirror and I was about to clean the middle deck. I looked up and saw that beautiful guy landing on the roof of the bridge. It was a perfect animal as it spread its wings. I saw the large red dot on its head.

Must have been my lucky day, I thought. But while turning around to go back to work, I saw a big dark cloud on the eastern horizon. 'Not so lucky after all', I thought.

It was the darkest grey I've ever seen in clouds and we steered directly into them. It already started to rain. And the wind got stronger every minute. I had good clothing that kept my skin dry, but after some minutes, I couldn't stand it anymore and had to go inside. Thirty more minutes and half of the crew, experienced seamen, had to puke because of their sea sickness.

But it still got worse. It was around noon and through one of the portholes, I saw the pure darkness in the sky and the rain walls hitting the glass.

We couldn't do anything. We sent out the SOS signal at one o'clock. Then we had to wait. But it still got worse. We had lost some containers already, but then the ship started to capsize and we faced death.

The first man, one of the Kazakhs, went overboard at around one thirty. Two more lost their balance trying to save the poor man. Ten minutes later the ship started to crack. I fell into the water and fainted.

I remember things. Visions from when I was underwater. After I fainted, I must have been drifting around. And I saw things. well, I believe I dreamt of them.

First, there was Koromodako. You may know him from his other name, Ctulhu. A giant squid, several meters large. I really believe he held me above the water with one of his tentacles. We Japanese believe in Yokai, natural spirits, just like you believe in Saints. Koromodako didn't speak but I believe he communicated with me through his mind.

After that, I saw other sea creatures, Heikegani, a giant crab and others. I also have memories of skulls drifting on the still stormy sea—presumably my dead colleagues.

At last, the Ryu came. The giant sea dragon. The lord of all the other creatures that now retreated and stepped back into the shadows where they came from.

"Hello Mr. Hanako", said Watatsumi, the Dragon, in a terrifying voice. "You have a powerful guardian."

Then I fainted again.

"I have been saved. I woke up in a hospital somewhere in Vietnam. Our ship sank and all my colleagues died. And I had this strange dream that day. Or was it a dream? I really don't know anymore."

After Mr Hanaku stopped his twenty-minute tale, the pub in Inningham, Middle England fell silent. Probably for the first time ever, you couldn't hear a sound. The dart players had stopped playing and all the other guests had stopped eating and drinking and talking. Just the muted TV monitors showed flickering images of some Premier League game. Actually there was also no other movement in the room.

Well, at least for thirty seconds.

"Bartender?", yelled a Scottish guy. "Another whisky. I need a strong one after that story".

And everything went back to normal. And Mr Hanko sank into his chair and smiled slightly.

Left Arm

Lucy and the Old Owl

Lucy is a designer and design connaisseur. Others would say that she's an influencer because, besides her job, she maintains a travel blog. Not for the wonders of the real world. She's travelling the Mesh.

Her travelling avatar is special, too. She has designed it herself from scratch, which is very unusual these days. When travelling, she is a cyborg mixing cybernetic applications with human body parts. Her face is alomst her real one though.

In the vast deeps of the mesh, you'll find a lot of famous architectural masterpieces and 3d worlds to dive into and get lost in. But today, it's finally time to visit Prunus Digitalis, the tree of digital life. It's just a cherry tree, but it is supposed to have thousands of easter eggs to discover. Especially today.

It was a four-week research challenge for Lucy to find out the coordinates. She had to go from forum over chat groups to bulletin boards and pages in a style long forgotten. That part was an adventure on its own.

When she finally copied the address and looked it up in the map of the Mesh, she was astonished. It was an end-of-the-world location in the middle of nothingness with an abundance of pure and unterraformed landscapes around.

She took the day off for the trip, plugged in and pasted the coordinates. She arrived in an old shed-like room. It was made out of wood and many rusty tools and instruments hang on the walls.

After stepping out of that garage, she was a bit disappointed. There was no tree. Just high grass till the horizon with some coloured sprinkles of flowers in it. On the other side of the area, some 40 u away she saw another shed. It looked like an exact copy. She walked there and saw the sign of a cicada on the door.

She went in and found herself in a different world. Lucy stood on the same grass plain. But here, she saw a different sky, that looked much more real than the usual Mesh projections. Somewhere in the distance, she saw the majestic tree rising in the middle of the green sea of grass.

She started walking and with every step, she saw more details and the tree grew bigger and bigger. Twigs were dynamically moving on the top of the crown and the leaves seemed to change colour from time to time creating a magical shimmer effect.

When she entered the shadowed space below the tree, still many steps away from the trunk, she stopped for a moment and listened to the sound of the wind blowing through the leaves.

"How can someone create such a beautiful piece of art?", she thought. It was the most perfect Mesh diorama, she had ever seen.

Then she went on to the trunk that was as wide as a house and began to climb the tree of life.

The tree was not hard to climb. Its bark texture was rough and she found grip very easily. Still, it took a while and a short moment of vertigo until Lucy reached the first branches of the crown that spanned above her like a giant neo-gothic dome. When she found firm ground on a stable fork, she took a moment of rest and looked around with amazement.

She checked her recording - still seeing the red dot in the corner, when she saw something moving in the shadow on the other side of the natural plateau. Unsure turning upward again, she even saw more things moving. The tree came to live. She saw the first clear figure appearing next to her. It was a cat. A big one. Streamlined, desert coloured with black tipped ears. Just like her own Cybergirl avatar, the cat, the Caracal, had bionic metal parts on its body. Beautifully crafted artwork.

Was she in danger? Was she under attack? That was her second thought while she brought tension and readiness into her resting body again.

Lucy didn't dare to move. She was amazed by the art around her and by the caracal, the most beautiful creature she had ever seen in the digital world. But she also was paralyzed and afraid. Would it attack her? Was this some shooter game where she came without a weapon?

But the cat moved on. Strode past her with a proud look in its eyes and gave her a slight touch along the way. She continued her climb.

About a storey away, she caught a glimpse beyond the leaves of the tree into the sky. It turned into a dark grey and it began to rain slightly. Then she noticed that also the leaves themselves had shifted colours. The season was changing. It was autumn now, but that was no reason to give up.

When it started to snow big, chunky snowflakes, she saw another iconic creature. It was a raven shimmering in black and violet. That bird also had cyber applications and mechanical parts. It even wore metal eyeglasses.

And it started to talk.

"A warm welcome, Lucy", started the raven. The bird which was quite large even for a raven looked into a gigantic book clad in leather with golden applications. The front emblem showed a drawing of an insect, a cicada.

"Today is a special day, you know that right?", it continued in a lecturing voice. "It's the day of the owl and you are the first who has come this far. But first, I will invite you to my house".

The dark-feathered guy with cybernetic applications on its back made a gesture with a wing and Lucy followed. Several trunks, branches, natural ladders and climbs later, she saw the house.

It was even more beautiful than the rest of the scene, naturally, organically fitting into the tree's structure and with stunning Art Deco architecture.

The front door was formed exactly like the logo on the book. It was a cicada. Now she remembered that she observed the symbol everywhere along the way. On the entrance door, the trunk, even the battery pack of the caracal.

She entered and had a cup of tea with the bird that seemed so human in its gestures.

The tree and the area were constantly changing. Lucy particularly noticed that when she stepped outside the raven's tree house again. It was dark although only some minutes had passed. The tree was lit by some Japanese lanterns and thousands of small lights that presumably came from all those sleeping semi-cyborg inhabitants - yet another iconic photo she couldn't take.

The black bird showed her the way as they climbed even further to the top of the crown. And finally, she had reached a plateau at the top and could have a look outside the roof of leaves.

"Hello, Lucy", another darker and calmer voice said. A huge barn owl sat next to her, the large moon in its back. "You are this year's winner. Is it what you expected".

"Oh, it's so much more", she said. So sad that I can't take shots.

"Mmh. I might have a surprise for you", was the old owl's answer.

Then the dawn broke, the night ended. Suddenly all the leaves fell, millions of cherry blossom buds opened and turned the tree into a pink miracle.

For the work on her virtual travel blog, Lucy was well-equipped for excursions like that. She had two cameras constantly taking video of her and the scene. Also, she took additional hand shots and hi-res stills to be able to go into details. But as she looked at her media library the next day, nothing was in there.

There was no proof that she even was at that magic place. Nothing she could use, except her memories. Even the coordinates were wiped out of the system's history.

But wait. She found one file from the previous day. Its name: prunus-digitalis.tgz. She unpacked it and found one text document and an executable. She opened the file. There was only one sentence: "For your eyes only".

Then she dared to activate the executable. She found herself back in the tree. She could go forward and backwards in time and watch herself explore the digital wonder from every angle. But she never managed to copy any content out of it.