Chloë Joan López
chlo'jo'lo'
Oracle Revisited

I apologize for yesterday's episode. The effect of my malaise (or ecstasy) has been to leave me prone to these periods of... decoherence. I speak in the first person, but there is no one speaking. It's certainly not me, the quinundine. Or it doesn't feel that way, anyhow. But my thumbs have stopped oozing, at least. I don't understand this at all.

I made another trip to see the Oracle. I never got around to talking about her. I never told you about how I peered into her foyer on a sodden afternoon, soaked with rain, and how she welcomed me. She is an unassuming woman, who apparently lives a solitary life, though I would never presume to ask. Who would have thought that in this remote hut lives an Oracle? But then again, much in the Universe remains will always remain unexplored, unknown to the community of creatures.

I entered her foyer, and though the outside of the house had been soot-stained and run-down, the inside pulsed in synchrony as the phloem of innumerable stems, tree trunks and branches, all twisted and intertwined as they strained to be near their solar inhabitant. Inhabitant, because, as I came to see, the wicker walls, thatched root, and the hardwood furniture were all made from their grateful living bodies. (Solar because that is the only way trees conceptualize anything.)

I was grateful for her myself. I could discern at once her perceptivity, her wisdom, and the breadth of her experience. It was hard to believe her to be mortal. Perhaps she is indeed the avatar of some goddess, slyly disguising herself. But if that's the case, I'll never know.