Mallachas and Magantha

Jun was parked on the shoulder of the road, engine idling, thumb hovering uselessly over his phone.

His Customer Satisfaction rating pulsed at the top of the screen—4.2 → 4.1—the numbers blinking red, as if embarrassed to be seen with him. Another late delivery and the app would bury him. He refreshed the map.

The GPS chirped once. Then again. Then began to stutter.

The arrow spun wildly, tracing tight little circles, recalculating with growing panic, until the entire map drained of detail and settled on a flat green void. No streets. No rooftops. No pin. Just a blank square where a structure should be.

Jun exhaled through his nose.

“Great,” he muttered. “Some… aesthetic place.”

He told himself it was a gimmick. A pop-up café. A soft launch. Influencers loved places like this—return-to-nature vibes, overpriced drinks served in jars. Maybe the consignees were testing new flavors. Maybe they wanted to copy potential before it went viral. That’s how these things went.

The road narrowed. Asphalt gave way to gravel, then to something older—stone slick with moisture. Fog crept in without warning, thick and low, curling around his tires. Not rain. Not soil. Wet stone. Ancient moss.

His phone let out one final, sharp chip—a sound like a dying bird—and went silent.

Jun slowed to a stop.

Something rose out of the fog ahead of him.

At first, he thought it was a trick of scale. A tower. A monument. Then his eyes adjusted, and his stomach tightened.

It was bamboo.

A single stalk—ridiculously huge, a pillar of green—thick as a building, stretching upward until it vanished into the mist.

It simply stood.

Jun killed the engine.

“This is… new,” he said, to no one.

He checked the receipt again. Milk tea. Less ice. Extra pearls. Extra sugar. Paid. No tip yet.

The address marker hovered directly over the base of the stalk.

Jun swallowed and stepped into the fog—telling himself, firmly, that this was just branding. Just commitment to the bit. A place where old stories were archived and repackaged. Where lost memories were served with oat milk and biodegradable straws.

He raised his hand and knocked.

The silence pressed in around him—no insects, no wind, no distant traffic. Just fog and the towering green column in front of him. His phone was dead. The clock was ticking on his delivery. The fee mattered.

He knocked again, this time harder.

The sound that came back was wrong.

Not hollow. Not woody. The bamboo answered with a deep, muffled thump—slow, rhythmic, resonant. Another followed. Then another.

A heartbeat.

Jun pulled his hand back, skin prickling.

Before he could step away, the bamboo moved.

A crack split the stalk vertically, running from the base upward with the sound of stone tearing itself apart. The ground trembled. The fog shuddered as if disturbed by breath. The crack widened, not splintering but parting, clean and deliberate.

Light spilled out—not bright, not holy, but old—heavy with dust.

Two figures stepped through.

The first was a man—Mallachas—tall, broad, wrapped in rough, earth-toned cloth that looked grown rather than woven. His face was weathered in a way no living man’s should be, lines carved deep not by age but by seasons. His eyes were hooded, dark, steady—eyes that had watched rivers change course and had not been surprised.

Beside him stood Magantha.

She was barefoot. Her hair fell down her back in a long, unbroken river of black. She did not pose. She did not perform. She simply was, as natural and unselfconscious as a tree.

They stood close, not touching, yet inseparable—two presences sharing a single gravity.

Jun felt suddenly, inexplicably small.

These were not recluses. Not performers. Not people playing at something old.

They were ancestral.

They carried the weight of first stories, of remembered names for things the world had forgotten how to speak aloud. The kind of beings who had learned the land before maps existed, who did not archive memory because they were the archive.

Mallachas looked down at Jun.

Magantha looked past him—at the fog, the road, the distant hum of a world that had wandered too far from its roots.

Jun swallowed, clutching the plastic bag like a peace offering.

Jun cleared his throat.

“Delivery,” he said, lifting the plastic bag with both hands, careful not to let it swing. The cup inside sloshed softly. Condensation slicked the sides, cold against his fingers. “Milk tea. Less ice. Extra pearls. Extra sugar.”

He held it out the way that he had been trained to—arms extended, polite, apologetic. An offering. A transaction.

Mallachas did not take it.

He leaned forward instead, broad shoulders rolling slightly as he bent. His nose hovered just above the knotted plastic. He inhaled.

The reaction was immediate. His brow creased. Not in disgust, but in confusion—like a man encountering a smell he had no name for.

“This,” Mallachas said slowly, each word weighed, “is food.”

Jun nodded. “Yeah.”

Mallachas straightened and looked at him fully now.

“Why,” he asked, “are you offering sustenance meant for animal young?”

Jun blinked. Once. Twice.

“It’s… milk tea,” he said, weaker this time. “Everyone drinks it.”

Mallachas glanced at Magantha. Something passed between them—silent, intimate.

His gaze returned to Jun, sharp now—not cruel, just exact.

“You are grown,” Mallachas said. “Why do you still drink this?”

Jun opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

Thankfully, his phone suddenly vibrated.

Once.

Twice.

Then began to buzz nonstop.

The screen lit up—despite being moments ago, unmistakably dead.

📌 LIVE LOCATION SHARED

🔴 LIVE VIDEO ACTIVE

The camera icon blinked.

Jun swore under his breath and tried to shut it off. The screen lagged, stuttered, glitched—colors tearing, audio warping. The bamboo behind Mallachas fractured into pixels. Magantha’s outline blurred, doubled, sharpened again.

Then the notifications poured in.

🔥🔥🔥

WHERE IS THIS?

NEW CAFÉ?!

VIBES!

The feed exploded—clipped, reposted, algorithm-fed. Comments stacked faster than Jun could read. Someone added music. Someone else added a filter. The fog turned pastel pink. The bamboo glowed neon green.

Within the hour, headlights cut through the mist.

Cars pulled up along the narrow road. Doors opened. Voices spilled out, loud and bright, breaking the silence like glass. People emerged in coordinated outfits, phones already raised, faces angled toward the optimal light source.

“Wait—this is insane.”

“No way this is real bamboo.”

“Guys, don’t move, I need this shot.”

They didn’t see Jun.

They didn’t see the bamboo split.

They saw aesthetic.

A new place. A backdrop. A location waiting to be claimed.

Magantha watched them arrive, her expression unchanged.

Only her eyes shifted—slowly, thoughtfully—as if counting something that could not be undone.

Magantha dismissed the spectacle and knelt in the soil, hands caked with damp earth. She brushed her fingers across a cluster of tubers, inspected a leafy stalk, touched the small fruits growing thick on a tree. Every plant was alive, rooted in soil that smelled like patience and rain.

The women arrived, bright smiles plastered in filtered perfection, phones already raised. They snapped photos of leaves—their Monstera Deliciosas, their Philodendron Pink Princesses—each a carefully curated pose of green in a plastic pot, backlit by studio lights, humidifiers humming softly in the background.

Magantha rose, brushing soil from her palms. She studied the small devices, the pictures, the curated plants.

One spoke first. “Ooooh, your… plants. So rustic. So… low-class.” She giggled, holding up her phone to show a glossy pink-leaved Philodendron. “Mine is thriving. So chic.”

“Yeah,” another said, holding up a Monstera with perfect fenestrations. “It’s an investment for the 'Gram.”

Magantha tilted her head. “What fruit does it give?” she asked. “How does it heal the stomach?”

The women blinked, a little off balance.

“It… doesn’t do anything, sweetie,” one said. “It’s for aesthetics. Humidifiers. Grow-lights. It lives on the feed, not the earth.”

Magantha looked at their plants, their hands, the glow of screens reflected in their eyes. Pity touched her. These were captive plants—beautiful only in ways dictated by humans, unable to survive a single day in the earth without constant curation.

She thought of her own hands, soil under her nails, the smell of roots and rain. She thought of Mallachas beside her, their shared presence, the unspoken rhythm of survival and care. She thought of how she watered, pruned, and harvested—not for followers, not for likes, not for aesthetics—but for life itself.

The women began to speak of self-care: sheet masks, ten-step skin care routines, spa days, Shein hauls, thirst trap reels and monetization. They gestured to their screens as if that was proof of happiness, vitality, meaning.

Magantha didn’t need proof. Her self-care was in the bend of a stem, the callus on a thumb, the patient cultivation of food. To live in harmony with earth and self was enough. She watched them, a little sad, a little bemused, thinking: You seek the gaze of strangers when you already have the devotion of a companion and the respect of your house.

One influencer leaned close. “You should really try this sheet mask routine—it’s amazing for stress, for your skin, for you.”

To Magantha, their self-care was an attempt to cover exhaustion, insecurity, and the cracks of a life lived for others’ eyes. For her, true care was in honoring the body as it truly was—lines, marks, calluses, and all—because each mark was proof of living, not a flaw to erase. It meant tending life, tending land, and tending oneself in the same rhythm: patiently, humbly, and with respect.

The group of men moved forward, confident, phones in hand. Their skin was flawless—glass-smooth, translucent, like porcelain dolls. Not a pore. Not a freckle. Not a blemish earned from labor under the sun. One of them, taller, holding a glossy phone with a smirk, stepped up.

“Hey,” he said. “Show us your gaming setup.” He swiped through his camera roll and held it up. The image: a gleaming Secretlab Gaming Chair, black with neon trim, angled like a throne.

Mallachas’ eyes tracked the chair. He straightened slightly, a small, almost imperceptible nod passing between him and Magantha. In that brief instant, he recognized it for what it was: a throne, a seat of authority—designed for a king, a chieftain, a warrior.

Then his gaze dropped. Not to the chair, but to the man himself.

“Your legs are thin,” Mallachas observed, tone even. “You sit in a throne… to move your thumbs?”

The man blinked, confused. “Uh… I’m a streamer. I hunt bosses every night.”

Mallachas looked again, slower. “After defeating the boss… do you bring home the meat to the lady of the house?”

The man laughed nervously. “Uh… no? It’s… for followers. For the likes.”

Mallachas’ eyes narrowed. His hands twitched, not in anger, but in readiness. “Your arms have no muscle, no marrow, no life in them. You need meat. I will hunt a wild boar, a young buck, or whatever the forest will provide…”

The men recoiled. They muttered words they had practiced: “toxic,” “masculine savior complex,” “stop imposing your traditional gender roles.” One even gestured at a delivery app: “Just use the app, dude. Like a normal person.”

So this was what men had become. Faces perfect for screens, soft as petals—incapable of lifting, striking, surviving.

The women paused, cameras lowering slightly. One dared to ask, “So… how long have you two been together? What’s your timeline? Talking stage? Pre-nup?”

Magantha’s hair shifted in the breeze. Her eyes, dark as soil, met theirs evenly.

Mallachas spoke first. “We do not measure ourselves in ages or ceremonies.” His voice was quiet, but it carried the weight of mountains. “There was no talking stage. No negotiation. No contracts.”

Magantha nodded, barefoot, firmly rooted. “We are halves of a single being. Two forces grown from the same life. We do not begin. We do not end. We simply are.”

The influencers glanced at one another, confused, as if expecting a punchline. The concept eluded their modern, filtered minds.

Mallachas turned his eyes toward the fog, toward the dense, untamed growth surrounding the bamboo grove. Shadows pooled between the trunks and twisted in the corners of the forest.

“You see that?” he said softly. “Beyond the grove, the world has shifted. Men no longer hunt. They sit on ergonomic chairs, hunting digital bosses, moving only thumbs and eyes. Women no longer role-play life—they cosplay, curate, and chase attention on screens. Strength, devotion, survival—forgotten, replaced by spectacle and imitation.”

He let the silence stretch. “Strength is measured not by followers. Devotion is not measured in likes. A man must move, must hunt, must sustain. A woman must know the earth, the cycles, the nurturing of life. This is the law older than screens and apps.”

Magantha placed her hand lightly on the bark of the giant stalk beside her. “They live in a world of borrowed identities. Clothes, filters, hashtags. Their devotion is to followers, not to each other. Their lives are a performance, not growth.”

Mallachas’ gaze swept the horizon beyond the bamboo: the dense, chaotic sprawl of forest and scrub, tangled with roots, shadows, and possibility. It cast its weight over everything—the old ways and the new.

Along the horizon the sky darkened, bruised and swollen, the clouds a heavy, wet indigo that pressed down on the grove. Birds circled low, wings beating frantically against the thickening wind.

Mallachas’ eyes followed them, tracing each movement, feeling the air in his bones. The smell of rain was already in the fog, mingled with earth and moss. He knew what was coming.

“The Great Water,” he said softly, almost to himself. “It comes.”

He turned to the visitors. “Seek shelter. Now.”

Laughter bubbled from the influencers. One raised a phone, fingers tapping their weather app. 0% chance of rain. They shrugged. “The app says we’re fine.”

Mallachas’ lips twitched—not in amusement, but in patience bordering on disdain. He ignored them entirely.

He moved among the bamboo stalks, weaving thick vines across joints, knotting them with hands that knew tension and balance, strength and resilience. The stalks shivered but held, anchored by his labor.

Magantha moved silently, bare feet on wet earth, gathering seeds, tubers, and clay jars. She buried and hid them in the soil, securing what must survive. No flash, no camera, no audience—only survival.

The fog thickened. The wind began to hiss through bamboo and undergrowth. The influencers’ bravado faded. Screens flickered. Notifications began to buzz—warnings about rising waters, local floods, emergency alerts.

The influencers stumbled back to their cars, heads down, phones in hand.

One held up a steaming cup of coffee. She snapped a photo. Another added a filter, a hashtag, a caption:

“Stay safe, everyone ☕💦 hashtags: cozyvibes, rainydays”

The post went live. Likes climbed. Comments poured in. The real storm raged unseen behind the screens.

The Wi-Fi cut.

The lights went out and the phones died.

Only the night and the storm persisted.

In the pitch black, only two spheres glowed steadily: Mallachas’ eyes, unwavering, terrifying in their calm. He moved among the bamboo with steady precision and ease.

Magantha’s voice rose softly, a hum threading through the storm, a song of endurance and patience. The rhythm steadied the grove, the stalks, and the night itself.