An amazing style you don’t frequently see in contemporary commerical art. I love the combination of the old world style with the modern themes. This artwork led me to a strange place, one I feel could be expanded upon. Who know, one day I may revisit it.
Thanks for reading.
Artwork by Morten Vlademir Motsar
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/0nW3dK
DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what was done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time and keep it as raw as possible.
The Story
No other trees grew there, so they were easy to find. If they were trees at all.
Leafless, nearly branchless, he could make out all of their detail for some time. The walk had been long, and he had dreaded the gnarled forms growing into view, but the walk had to be made. He didn’t know why, nor thought to question why. It was a walk they had all made, his many fathers and mothers, none of whom were truly his own, but they loved him all the same. They told him he’d know the answer when he arrived, and that he’d find joy. He played the voices over and over in his head to search between them for meaning until they deteriorated into the scratch of an old record.
He stopped because his foot was sore from the walking, but also from something else. Pebbles somehow always made it into his boot no matter how tightly he tied the laces. Untying them now would take some time, and the pain wasn’t so bad, so he made his way down the meandering path that led right between the two trees, through a space that allayed the fear and the mystery that he’d carried since leaving home.
Birds darted in discordant flocks, and he expected them to land on one of the few branches, but they never did, choosing flight over rest and perhaps a grub lodged in the old wood. He thought about this concept, of labor over rest, and how he had been granted the latter ever since he had been a child, told the mind would always outlast a body. Another thing he had never questioned until now, and he had seen many of them deteriorate in mind before body. Perhaps it was the years taking their toll. Unbalanced strain.
His pace quickened at this notion of unbalance, that pebble nipping his sole more and more. Even though they had allowed him the most mimimal of activity, he had exercised in secret. Rearranging cords of wood, digging holes, then burying them again, careful to remove the upper layer of grass first so no evidence of a hole would be left.
So why were his joints sore, fingers stiff? It was cold, and the walk had been long. The trees didn’t look so ominous anymore, the scoops of their trunks inviting.
He smiled, felt the vibration of a sigh across his vocal cords as his boots found pleasure in uprooting stone after stone to keep the path clear, an activity he hadn’t realized he was doing until he looked back the way he had come.
That smiled sigh again, followed by a tickle at the back of his throat. He couldn’t clear or cough it away. Must be the mist again, the clouds that prefered the ground to the sky, the very ones that turned the forest beyond into a hazy memory.
He decided he was close enough for whatever he was supposed to see, a dozen paces or so from the trunks. The space between the trees had been deceptive during his approach. They had created an overlap, which made the trees appear much closer to each other. But they stood a good distance apart, one in front of the other, the shorter one leaning across that distance with branches outstretched.
The area at the base of the trunk did indeed look comfortable, and now would be as good time as any to remove that pebble from his boot. He slipped it off but found nothing. He looked at the trees above. The branches looked even more barren. No fruit. No sap. No answers.
He put his boot back on and tested his weight. Still the bite of that damn pebble. He stripped his foot bare. It looked so pale in the sunless sky. There, on the ball of his foot, just below his big toe was a series of holes, so deep they looked black even in the daylight. His fingertips hesitated over over them, and he half expected something to come out, wondering where the darkness had gone. Even more surprising than the discovery was the realization that he wasn’t surprised. He’d never had these holes before, but they were as plain and ordinary as a toenail, not even a blister or wart. He had the desire to take the other boot and sock off, to feel this smooth path on his bare feet, so that’s what he did.
He traced the bark of the nearest tree, the smaller one, peeked into its many knots for the answers they’d said he’d find. Finding nothing at all but wood and moss, he moved to a nearby spot to feel the grass on his feet. It fanned between his toes, and he held on to it. The grass and earth had soothed his pain.
He stretched, wiggling his fingers as if conducting the birds’ flight above. Fine droplets spattered his eyes, making everything prismatic. He went to wipe them but couldn’t. His hands. He felt his connection to them, but was unable to command them. His arms, too. Shoulders, elbows, wrists. All of them were locked. Mentally moving down his body, he found the rest of his joints were the same. His neck allowed him one more turn, and that was to look at the two trees behind him, which appeared to have slightly changed their configurations. The branches of both reached toward him, lower than he had remember them being, and his own arms reached back.
His eyes, thankfully without joints, frantically scanned where they could for the answer they had all promised him, his false mothers and fathers, who he would curse their name if he had been able.
Then he saw it, from a swollen knot on the smaller tree, something as pale as his foot. It spilled from that hole to the earth, with toes of its own, fingers of its own, eyes of its own, a voice of its own, and very alive.
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