The Secretive Murmurs of Ancient Bark

Observations from the Ebon Pathway

"Can you hear them?" she asked, her voice a mere rustle on the wind. Sounded like stories told in the dead of night, or maybe just the echoes of too many wandering thoughts tangled in intertwining roots. It’s like the trees hold onto everything we leave behind—our whispers, our doubts...

At times, it felt as if the bark was listening more closely than our own ears could ever manage. The path was winding beneath dense canopies, where the dust of a thousand footsteps settled like old confessions. "You listen long enough," he said, "and the trees start whispering secrets not meant for daylight."

Once, I paused near an ancient oak, gnarled and wise. Its leaves spoke in a language the world had long forgotten. The words slid like water over stones, an inscription carved not by hands, but by time itself. And there, under its expansive limbs, I discovered a map of thoughts, an echo of the lunatic's yammering that danced through the branches with laughter unheard by any human ear.

Just beyond the clearing, another question hung in the air like mist: What roads would our shadows take, if only they could walk while we sleep?