Deep within the Dwindling Forest lay a luminous egg. Scented with orchid pollen. Surrounded by warm herbal mists. Wrapped in a temperate cocoon was Only One. Life barely existing. The herb before the notion of healing. Forest existing within the forest itself.
Movement in the still water. Turbulence in the mud. Sediments flick open and explode beneath the belly movement. Platypus strike earth with tail and beaks are nudging the soft earth and river rock.
Before the dawn the splitting of the egg. The struggling life sucking in egg skin and moisture. Shell sticking in the moist form as it gently explodes from its food chamber. Then the cold and terrible air, moving into still closed eyes. The rubbery egg is pushed away between blades of river rest grass. And Only One is alone and gasping at the new hard air for sustenance.
Before the first light the Only One wriggles through the buttress roots - belly slides over twigs and earth moss, eyes shut with shell glass. Twitching, inching towards the river. Urged forever on by hunger and warmth of upper forest streams already touched by sun.
Old leaves trickle from overhead canopy. Small spiders hover on thread with parasites chewing their backs. First light breeze of morning breaks into forest - churning earth carpet into daylight. Aquatic insects sense her coming and slide away along the water's edge with skaters legs and fragile wings.
Only One slips into crumbling river for the first part of her being. Humus slide and smooth pebbles collapse into silvery stream - filling her senses with earth sound. She sinks deeper into a cyclic river where she nudges stone and feeds on worms and shellfish.
