The tree has fulfilled its task. Now time for you to fulfill yours.

The tree has fulfilled its task. Now time for you to fulfill yours.

You find yourself before the strange tree once more.

Alternative wording

You find yourself before the old Luzian ginkyo once more.

This tree is the signal?

The leaves rustle in the soft breeze. They neither confirm nor deny.

Strange leaves. More like seashells than any you're used to.

You're on the world's clock now. Nothing you or anyone else might do can slow or hasten its secret mechanism.

UPHOLD PARTY STANDARD TIME. REJECT BOTANICAL DEVIATIONISM.

This must be the ginkyo Dante was talking about.

It's exactly as he described -- an explosion of gold to stop the soul its tracks.

Still just a tree.

Yes, and you're still just an ape, and not even a particularly distinguished example.

Fuck your tree-clock! (Spit.)

A dab of saliva darkens the uneven tile. The leaves whisper their mild reproach.

What tree is this?

This is ginkyo lucifera -- an old Luzian ginkyo, planted widely during the expansion of the old Illuminated Empire.

Why?

The exact reason escapes you at the moment. Suffice to say, wherever you see one, it means that place once belonged to La Luz.

It's very yellow.

Out of sync with the season.

Yellow. Tree.

Yellow tree.

Is that its actual name?

Fuck if you know. It's yellow, it's a tree. Yellow tree.

Wait, watch.

Time passes, but you take no note of it.

No one takes note of you either. To wider Quisach you're simply a middle-aged woman, staring at a tree.

You let your vision decouple. The tree becomes a pleasing blur of light and shadow. It's all very aesthetic.

A simple misperception, absolutely nothing to be alarmed by, obviously it's just the way that the breeze pulls itself through the tree's leaves -- but it seems to you that the tree is breathing, and the cadence of its breath matches your own.

Why do I feel connected to this tree?

Maybe it's just the wind. Maybe you're experiencing a moment of true communion with another form of life, moments the current epoch has made rarer and rarer.

Or maybe it's your budding techno-fascist consciousness expressing itself.

Naturally, if this were the Paleolithic, and if you were the Paleolithic huntress, you would experience this sensation all the time.

I'm ready for communion with the world.

You are, but is the world?

No, leave me to my atomised self.

The tree sways. A tram departs with a metallic groan.

What would the Paleolithic huntress make of the present?

If your places were somehow switched, she would be utterly terrified by the silence and disconnection she'd experience in this dead reality of plastic and artificial light.

Breathe in.

Nothing much happens.

Snap out of it.

How much time do I have?

The answer lies in the delicate interplay of hormones and chlorophyll, in secret negotiations deep in the tree's archaic heart, only dimly understood even by botanists.

If the words of the old Luzian prisoner are true, you have days, not weeks.

[Leave]

You leave the mysterious tree to its business.

Alternative wording

You leave the old Luzian ginkyo to its business.

The tiles of this plaza seem to radiate outwards from the strange tree at its centre, unlike any other you've seen in this city.