From: Paperky@aol.com Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 18:37:29 EST Subject: Moon Child, X-file Shamantree vignette Source: xff Title: Moon Child: A Vignette (I guess) follow up to Shamantree Author: Kory Turnbull Email: Paperky@aol.com Classification: a little H for Huh? and some S for silliness, ES for Earth shattering. Spoiler: Gosh, I do not know, I haven't been able to find the complete and total very last X-files book at a garage sale for a quarter so I will just have to say: Every single episode! Rating: PG, maybe G Archive: Archive this puppy up the wazoo! What do I care? Disclaimer: X-files is the sole property of Fox and Kris Carter and probably somebody else too who is not me. I do not claim to own the rights to any of the characters or anything of that sort. Any thing else mentioned that is copyrighted by someone other than myself is not mine. This includes any books or songs or processed meat products which may or may not occur in this vignette. It's sort of a big vignette, so pour yourself some vino to enhance your reading pleasure or displeasure as it were? Author's Notes: This is a follow up vignette to the Shamantree episode I posted over the last month or two back. Moon Child " "Scully, Scully! I've been dreaming of the trees again," Mulder cried out excitedly as Dana Scully entered his dark, cluttered basement office. It was decorated in a paranoid hodge-podge that recalled disaffected goths haunted by the occasional tickle of a lost alien probe deep inside them, hauntingly to produce the appropriate outer manifestation of paraphernalia tacked, glued and stacking up in the corners. Scully's eyes sought the heavens beneath her gorgeous red hair as her lips curled to show her straight white teeth. She inhaled deeply, in preparation for a sigh to steel herself for what was to come. Fox grinned from his chair. The whole rolling eyes, lip-curling thing never got old for him. He found it very sexy. Of course, he wouldn't tell Dana that, but he couldn't help but think that on some level she knew this. He had noticed she didn't use this expression with other people much. Of course, maybe she didn't because nobody else expostulated hackneyed theories and paranoid plots, or dreams about trees on her like he did. Either way, he felt he was coming out ahead. "Well, you've really got to stop sleeping out in the hedges Mulder." She deadpanned. " I know," He replied, "It's just that after so many years out on the road solving cases I can't sleep inside anymore. Now if only I could find some road-kill moose around here I could get something to eat." He joked, looking about for carrion. "Yeah," She said, "Cheeseburgers and fries just don't do it for me anymore either." She laughed. "Mmmm-mmm , you just can't beat semi-tenderized moose." Fox added. "Or even fully tenderized." Said Dana. "No," Fox said, "I meant it was tenderized by a....." "I know what you meant," Dana cut in. "Yeah," Fox grinned, "I knew you knew." "Oh, I'm not going there. I'm not gonna' beat that dead moose," Dana said and changed the subject. "So, I suppose I'm going to hear about this tree dream. Is it more human spring peepers and Johnny African Apple seeds followed by a dead rock star and a loser who needs a real job trying to sell some low-grade burl for a million bucks because it looks like a naked woman?" "Not just any naked woman. The Eternal Feminine- now Earth-Mother which as I told you jacked the price up another cool mil." Fox corrected. "But no! It wasn't that this time. Something else, something wonderful that I wouldn't have thought of in a thousand years." "Technically Fox, you did think of it. As the dreamer of whatever crunchy, birkenstock wearing fantasy has popped up out of your snoozing psycho...Er, excuse me, psyche. That would be you who thought of it and in a lot less than a thousand years. "Dana iterated and then added, "Although working on the X-Files lo these many years may have aged you prematurely." "Why must you iterate? Are you just trying to prove you're not ill-iterate?" Fox asked, being silly. Dana thought about it for a second and answered, "I'm just hoping I can stop you from iterating-ill! " "Hey, this is like rap," said Fox. "You be ill-iteratin'." "Big mac, quarter pounder, french fries," sang Dana as she broke into a robot dance. "Hey wait a minute," Said Fox, looking around curiously. "What the heck is going on here?" "I don't know, that was weird," Said Dana. "It's almost as if whomever is writing totally repressed his embarrassment at the thought of writing the last few lines and just powered past brain-cell freeze and just let his pen keep going." "Fox looked around for no one in particular and yelled, "HEY, WAKE UP OUT THERE! I'm not kidding. I've got a seriously sci-fi eco-dream to tell Scully about and it's getting late." "What the...!?" Dana exclaimed as the words on the poster of the UFO behind Fox changed from 'The Truth Is Out There' to 'Don't Yell In Here.' "Look! Do you see that?" Fox turned his head but before his eyes could focus it turned back to the original message. "What?" He asked. "Um, never mind. So what was this dream about?" Dana asked, a quizzical look lingering in her eyes. " It was like this," Started Fox, "I was lolling about on a knoll covered in wildflowers with a penguin and a retarded cat in diapers....No, wait! That was another dream. Hmmmm...Oh yeah, it was really crazy this part. There was the anchorwoman on the tv news and she was talking about how the EPA receives only a fraction of the funding other government agencies get for the job they're supposed to do. Yeah, something like that. But that's not the craziest thing. The next thing I know the president is giving a speech and he's saying air pollution is caused by trees. Trees! Can you believe it?" Dana laughed, "Hey this is your dream, do you really expect me to believe it? Wait a minute! I remember that. It was Ronald Reagan." Scully covered her eyes in shame, "I wish I hadn't remembered that." She said." Fox looked at her, disappointment written in his eyes. "Scully, you remembering aside, I thought we understood that these tree dreams were something more. A harbinger! A true portent of things to come, right? Don't we?" "Umm," Scully muttered as she took a step back, reached for and opened the door to the hallway a crack to look out. Seeing nobody about, she closed the door and looked again to Fox. "No Fox. I really didn't think that and I'd seriously council against you telling anybody else that." Fox shrugged. What did he care if somebody didn't believe him. It's not like it hadn't happened before. Of course this was Scully. Hadn't she been cured by the Shamantree? Hadn't she spent the better part of a month getting seriously more crunchy than most Deadheads ever would? Chanting and watching her head grow out of a fungus? Fox smiled a wry smile resolving not to let his disappointment in her keep him from telling his story. He'd found that relating things to her had often helped him to fill in the gaps and he hoped this would be one of those times. So he said, "Well anyway apparently the reasoning behind that tree pollution thing is...Ha...Every year they drop their leaves all over the ground making a big ol' mess. Also they claimed that as trees get older they do less scrubbing of carbon-dioxide from the air. And I could have sworn they said they actually create more carbon-dioxide? Is that right?" Dana shrugged, "I dunno'" she said. "Mighta' been spin-doctors." "Yeah, that seemed pretty strange to me. Then it hit me. If old trees create CO and young trees breathe it, then what we're looking at is Mother's Milk. Scully, trees aren't mammals are they?" Fox joked. "No Fox, according to the latest scientific tests, trees do remain trees. To be mammals would mean they would no longer be vegetation but animal life, which I am quite sure they are not." Dana stated matter of factly. "You sure?" Fox asked with exaggerated disbelief. "Quite sure, I must say," Scully said with an affected British accent. "Were there double-blind taste tests?" Said Fox mock-seriously. "AS a matter of fact, yes. Back in the seventies. Yuell Gibbons was involved." Dana kidded. Fox smiled. "Guess I can't argue with that," He said. "Yeah," Said Dana. "Too bad about that ulcer. Hey Fox?" "What?" "Ever feel a pine tree scrape through your colon? Many parts are inedible!" Dana said. "Ooooh," Winced Fox. "That was a bad one." "Sorry," Dana said. "Just the doctor in me, I guess. So is that it? Mother's milk?" "NO there's more. Take a seat." He gestured toward a wooden chair that he usually used for propping up under the doorknob to keep pesky people out who had their own keys. Like directors and such. She shrugged and sat in it. "No," Fox started in, "My further investigations have revealed...." Only to be cut off once again by Scully with a question. "Wait! Now are these actual investigations or dream investigations?" "No!" Fox interjected, "Not just dream investigations but tree dream investigations. To be exact." Fox waited for the attractive exasperated look to cross Scully's face. "There it is!" He said. "What?" Asked Dana. "Uh oh." Fox thought, "Did I say that out loud?" Then said, "Oh uh...Nothing. I've got an itch. Right in the small of my back. Well, a little higher. Right where I can't reach it. He maneuvered his arms wildly over his shoulders and behind his back futilely to demonstrate. "Would you mind?" He asked, smiling. "Don't bet on it buster." Was her reply, along with, "I take it you were about to restate your belief in harbingering portents?" Dana leaned back in her chair, scanning the room for something strong to drink. She was hopeful even though she already knew she was going to be disappointed before she started looking. If any liquor ever got into this office it didn't last long. What with exasperated higher ups and Earth culture hungry aliens who live in the crawl spaces trading copies of spank back and forth raiding the stashes. "Okay, I'll just say it then. You know how sometimes when you discuss UFOs with people and you state the point that it's folly to presume that in the whole massive universe we are the only life? And then somebody always has to say- Yeah but what if, what if we are the only life? Somebody has to be first, maybe it's us- You know that guy?" Fox looked at Dana not really expecting an answer. Dana's blank stare passed with a wink. "Oh yeah," She said, "That would be Jake in the motor pool. He's always the one. He also likes to throw around that ol' goody-The Earth is a living organism and we're all parasites living off of it- bit. What a card, huh? She looked over at Fox and saw he was wide-eyed staring at her. What?" She asked, "What's wrong?" "Dana! Dana, what did you just say?" Fox asked excitedly. "What? That Earth is a living organism and we're all parasites thing?" She asked. "Yes! Yes! That's it! That explains the whole thing. The mother's milk and the other." Fox stared off into space rubbing his chin pensively. Dana couldn't believe it. "Oh come on," She said, "What other? It's Jake, he opens beer bottles with his teeth and changes oil faster than anybody." "Okay. Okay. Look, here's the thing. Old trees, the claim is they don't just give off CO but also methane and who knows what else? What's it for? Picture this, now this was a major part of this dream. A planet covered, pretty much, with trees. Ya' know like, like that star wars planet." "Like the Wookie planet? Or was that the Ewok planet? Were they on the same planet?" Dana puzzled. "What? Were they...? Huh? I don't know." Fox thought about it for a moment. "But, yeah, okay. Only it's Earth with it's moon which scientists say way back in the day was maybe part of this planet that was knocked up into space by a meteor. Wow! Knocked up, to say the least." He beamed a large smile at Dana and said, "I should have more conversations with you Scully. The ideas just keep coming. It must be your magic red hair or something. Picture it," He made a sweeping gesture in the air with his arms as if he was looking through them at an orb in the sky. "Ewok planet Earth covered in trees. Big giant trees reaching for...What else? The heavens! All breathing and giving off gasses. Different gasses at different stages of life and forestation for that matter. Gasses that perhaps do different things to the atmosphere. Make it more malleable, more able to withstand forces working over smaller areas of it. As Earth's tree and vegetation critical mass takes place, what happens to it? The atmosphere warps like a soap bubble being swung out of a hoop. Stretching, it forms a point extending deep into space toward the moon. The surface of earth is in chaos, with tornadoes, hurricanes and general weather madness prevailing. Churned and battered, all manner of surface life and features are pulverized, atomized and generally frapped to be driven far up into the atmosphere. The sky becomes a thick soup of life. And of course, the crude oil, which if undisturbed by man, would still be pooling on the surface of Earth would also be atomized and drawn into the air. The oil which theoretically is a suppository of life-forming karma, would mix and mingle with the soup being flung up far into the atmospheric bulge." "That your theory?" dana asked. "Sssh!!" Said Fox and continued, "The force of Earth's gravitational pull would change wildly affecting the moon, causing the moon to plunge closer to Earth until it is swung into the atmospheric bulge and 'SHLOOP!" "Shloop!?" Dana raised one eyebrow at fox. "Yes!" Fox said, arms raised in a dramatic gesture, "SHLOOP! The moon slams into the bulge, which is super-filled with oily earth matter roiling about, enveloping the moon. A huge chunk of atmosphere separates from the Earth as the moon swings upward away from the Earth with a brand new atmosphere complete with all the makings for life soup. Voila!" "Don't you mean stone soup?" Scully asked? "The moon is a big lifeless rock in the sky you know. Can life even exist on a planet without a molten core? Not that the moon's a planet, it's a moon after all. Would an atmosphere and life make it a planet? Would it develop it's own axis around the sun? Oh, that would do it wouldn't it? Independent of Earth...?" "Whoa!" Slow down there, little filly. These questions will all be answered in good time. Now let's see here. Where was I? Okay, now the Earth's gravitational pull returns to normal and the moon flung by forces upon it magnified by it's brand spanking new atmosphere complete with new-atmosphere smell is hurled into a new orbit around the sun. Complete with a spinning axis that gives it night and day comparable to Earth's. And what if in those initial tree gasses and oily soup and water and such it created a sort of microwave effect on the center of the moon causing it to heat and liquefy the core giving it it's own wild animus?" Fox seemed to question himself on that last part. Scully scowled at him. "Wild animus? What the heck is that supposed to mean? I know what animus means but I've never heard it applied to a molten core of a planet." Fox smiled. "Just another book I read. But you can't get it yet. It's not out." "Oh?" Scully asked, "Are you moonlighting as a publisher?" "Well, no. It was in a dream." Fox shrugged. "Oh! You're reading books in dreams now, too?" Scully's eyes widened. "It's not really much different from dream web surfing. Easier on the eyes, though. And a restful way to read a book that's for sure." Fox said. "So what did this book have to do with birthing planets?" Scully asked. "Nothing really, it was on the table along with the Da Vinci Code and some others. So I read it." Fox said. Scully thought about this for a second and said, "Wait a minute. It was on a table with Da Vinci Code and you didn't read it? After dreaming of the guy selling the door on Craig's List? You read another book? Fox said, "I liked the name of the other one." Fox said disinterestedly. "I just used it to reference the new planet because of the molten core thing. And it said on the back all the proceeds go to preserving wilderness in Alaska. Besides, the guy selling the door dropped the "Code" interpretation and changed it to "All encompassing Earth-Mother," so it didn't apply anymore." " Well, did you send off some dream money to Alaska. For the wild animals?" Dana asked. "No. And can we get off the subject. You're making me lose my train of thought." Fox thought about it a few seconds then said, "So the new planet has a molten core now and maybe it even would share a twin orbit with earth on opposite sides of the sun. So they would constantly be sharing the good vibrations of life vibrating on a continual ellipse through space. Mother and child on the same path, with the child occupying the same space once a year on it's birthday, the mother never seeing it but feeling it forever from the other side of the sun." "Well, that might kind of suck for Earth because it wouldn't have a moon anymore." Mused Scully. "No more moonlit walks on the beach or sitting in the car at lover's lane staring out at the moon." ""Then again," Added Fox, "No more lunatics out all night causing a headache for the police." "Oh? What will we blame them on, then?" said Scully. "It doesn't matter," Fox said, "There would be no humans around to care. Just their eternal karmic code locked in the oozing slimes to be unlocked by another seemingly random series of evolutionary coincidences millions of years down the road. And who knows? Maybe, there would be some cosmic void, some vacuum that as yet we don't understand that would cause some asteroid to come and take up the space left by the moon. By the time we made it back to sit in our chopped chevy on lover's lane and stare out at the moon, we'd never even know it was gone." "Not likely!" Said Dana. "No really, how would we know the moon was gone for awhile?" Asked Fox. "No, it's not likely that we would be sitting on lover's lane staring out at the moon." Corrected Scully, a smirk on her lips. "It could happen!" Fox said. "In your dreams!" She said. "Well, that goes without saying." He said.