The Extraordinary Life of Artistic Intention: A Biography by Soh Cah Toa

Chapter Zero: Prologue

THE BIRTH OF A LEGEND

To most people, the second of May, 2019 was just an average day. Maybe you received a gift from a friend or your motorcycle broke down or your pet goat tried to raid your neighbor's garbage for the third time that week, but it was nothing special. Nothing to be remembered.

But for the woodland community of Redtrack School, that day had been unforgettable. The second of May was the day when everything changed. When a legend, a queen, came to life. The forest's residents did not yet know it, but this day would forever be marked in history. Because May second, 2019, was the day on which Artistic Intention was born.

The whole forest knew that Creative Purpose's sapling would arrive soon, so it wasn't much of a surprise when she made the announcement that night over the old speakers some squirrels had found abandoned by the school. Creative Purpose had given birth to her second baby tree with her husband Inventive Aim, their other child Tasteful Objective would be delighted to have a younger sibling, blah blah blah.

The other trees were barely listening. They already knew all about the new sapling thanks to Creative Purpose's seemingly unstoppable rambling, and frankly, the announcements were incredibly boring. What they were really looking forward to was the arrival of Venidero, the prophet, to predict the young tree's future. He told the fortunes of new saplings once a week in a spectacular public reading. It was true that Venidero could be too theatrical, and the readings were often flamboyant and overdone, but they were entertaining. And maybe the forest needed a little drama every once in a while. 

Whatever the reasons were, everyone enjoyed the readings. As the sun disappeared behind the silhouettes of distant trees, the forest's residents were eagerly waiting for Venidero. And at last, when the sky had darkened into a moonless night, they heard his horn booming through the still night air.

It was an old, squeaky clown horn.

Venidero was a bonsai tree. For years, he'd been held captive in an old gardener's house, kept as nothing more than a mere decoration. He'd been watered every day and given treatments whenever so much as a leaf fell off, and he'd hated it. To Venidero, the old man's home was a prison. When a strange dream foretold the exact date of the gardener's death, Venidero had used  the information to escape the house and live free in the nearby woods. His newfound talent served him well, and he even managed to join one of the local forest gangs, the Blue-Greens, as their resident fortune teller. 

When Venidero learned from another house escapee that his powers had been caused by a special fertilizer, he'd gone on a quest to find more—not to give to others, but to try and strengthen himself. Unfortunately, the bonsai lacked perseverance, and he'd returned to the Blue-Greens less than a year after he set off. Venidero had never rooted himself down, but he stayed near the same patch of forest, and eventually the surrounding trees had convinced him to predict the futures of nearby saplings as well, once every week. And that was what he was doing now.

Venidero frowned at Artistic Intention's still-budding leaves as though he was searching for an image of her future life. He showed her a series of badly Photoshopped pictures and asked what she saw first. He scrutinized the lines on her bark, made her take a free online personality test, even hypnotized her to bring him a cup of (fair trade and tree-safe) coffee.

That last one was probably just because he wanted coffee.

Finally, Venidero cleared his throat and nodded at the other trees. Producing a cheap toy microphone from his hot pink handbag (both left scattered around the forest by humans), the prophet motioned for the audience to be quiet. A few trees still clapped and cheered, but soon a hush fell over the waiting crowd. The trees weren't bored now. They were listening. Everyone listened to Venidero's predictions, and despite his exaggerated theatrics and over-the-top performances, he had never been wrong.