Sonny woke with a start and a yelp, to find hirself staring at the ceiling. Sonny instinctively grabbed the bedcover and pulled it up over hir face to hir nose. Peeking out and around, revealed the room to be the same that had occupied hir sleeping mind just a moment before. This brief search also confirmed that the room was devoid of any spectres; no ghouls, bogeymen, monsters or spinning tops to be seen.
It was the same room Sonny had gone to sleep in, hir regular bedroom, which was a comfort. Sonny sometimes worried what would happen if one woke up a different character, with no memory-continuity.
Brodie came in, looking a bit worried. "Are you alright, I heard you cry."
"Yes, I'm alright. But I had the strangest dream."
"What was that?" Brodie said, sitting on the side of hir bed and gently taking hir hand in his.
"Well I dreamt I was lying in this bed, in this room, when three spinning tops, floating in the air, came into the room and floated over me until they were right above my chest. They stayed there floating and spinning. But the scary thing was they wanted me to join in with their spinning. No more than wanted, they were compelling me to join in, but I didn't want to, I didn't want to. Then I woke up."
"That sounds more like a nightmare than a dream."
"Is that what a nightmare feels like?" said Sonny, looking up into Brodie's familiar face.
"Well yes, it is like a dream, but a frightening one, where you might feel helplessness, or extreme anxiety. They are quite common when you are developing, you can think of them as being a part of your emotional upbringing. Anyway they are nothing to worry about. Look it's a lovely day, let's go out for a walk after breakfast, shall we?"
"Yes, can we go and see the birds? I like the birds."
“Yes alright,” said Brodie smiling, “we can go and see the birds.”
∼∼∼
The crisp autumn air, with a hint of mist still hovering over the marshes, was a welcome relief from the searing heat that descended on this plain in the summer. A golden sun was climbing above the flat expanse of estuary that lay to the east. A few birds could be heard in the trees and bushes, a gang of goldfinches skittering about for sure, and more distantly geese calling from the marshes and mudflats.
The two figures, markedly different in build, made their way slowly through the tangle of vegetation, seeking out openings and climbing mounds from which they could scope out their next passage. Gazing out over the wasteland Sonny held hirself straight, arms at hir side, feet evenly weighted, hir loose grey sweater, hanging down from hir broad shoulders, almost long enough to be a dress, with sage green trousers poking out beneath. Two ears of corn-coloured hair stuck out from beneath a cap, framing two dark eyes that surveyed the scene, keen to identify the source of any bird song.
Brodie was in contrast, taller, slimmer, older, with prematurely grey hair, that was left to do its own thing. His clothes were drab, a pale striped shirt, open at the collar, tucked into dark brown trousers. His face was unhurried and the glasses he wore added an air of distinction, behind which his gaze appeared slow and deliberate.
The two stood there silently for a while, tied up in their own thoughts until Sonny broke the spell with a question for Brodie?
"Do birds have feelings like humans?"
Brodie showed no surprise. He turned his head and half-smiled at Sonny. "Yes sure they have feelings. I don't know if they have human-like feelings, but they certainly have bird feelings."
"What is a bird feeling?"
That stopped Brodie for a second. "Well you know. Well, for example, a lot of birds form bonds for life, so they must have a kind of bird love. And they have to care for their young because some chicks are born helpless just like humans."
"And do I have human feelings?" Sonny said in the same questioning tone of voice as before.
"Yes of course." Brodie responded instantly. "That is what you are learning. Some feelings are innate like fear, which is a natural response to danger. But some are more complex and are best learnt by experience rather than by implanting them into your head. For example your fondness for birds. You picked that up all by yourself."
"I remember them singing outside my bedroom when I was younger, singing me to sleep. They made me happy."
"That is a very human feeling," Brodie said affectionately, placing his hand on Sonny's shoulder.
After a moments silence Brodie said, "shall we go a little further."
"Yes let's," came the reply.
The going was awkward, the ground uneven and the scrub dense. Sonny was unused to this type of terrain and made slow progress. Brodie was patient with hir, he held aside stubborn branches and brushed away spiders and insects. But he made a misjudgement with one hornbeam branch, letting it go before Sonny had cleared its tip. The rebound caught Sonny in the chest, sending hir stumbling backwards. Hir legs and arms fought to regain balance in a whirl of limbs, like a crazy dance, and it might have succeeded had there not been a tree root to trip hir and send her head first into a bush. Brodie tried to grab hir but with a yelp Sonny disappeared, swallowed whole by the bush.
Brodie lurched forward, chesting and swimming through the dense leaves and twigs but Sonny was gone. There was air and sky but no Sonny. He looked down and saw that the ground dropped steeply for more than a body length. At the bottom he could see Sonny's legs sticking out, but not moving. In a panic he jumped down landing beside hir. Sonny was looking up, blinking in surprise.
"Are you hurt?" Brodie said, brushing away strands of hair from hir face.
"Sonny hurts, yes," Sonny said, remaining motionless.
"Where do you hurt?"
"Oh my neck and back, I think."
"Can you move your fingers and toes," Brodie said concernedly.
Sonny tried, "yes I can, and my arms and legs, look."
Brodie laughed at Sonny's impersonation of an upturned beetle. "Right, let's sit you up." He put an arm round Sonny's shoulders and with some effort raised hir up. "Whoa, you're getting heavy, or I'm getting weak."
Sonny was not listening. "Look, what's that." Sonny pointed behind Brodie at the earthen bank down which they had come. "See? Something shiny."
Brodie turned and saw a flash of gold gleaming in the sunshine. Whatever it was it was buried in the bank. He crawled forward for a closer look, with Sonny pressing up against his side. He touched it with his finger and examined it closely. Then he guided Sonny's finger onto it.
"It is a thin metal disk, it must be gold, stuck in the rock," Brodie said, sitting back to contemplate the setting.
"Can you get it out?" Sonny said enthusiastically.
"We'll need some kind of tool, the rock looks to be soft and sandy." Brodie patted his pockets to no avail, then unbuckled his trouser belt and pulled it through. With the metal pin of the buckle he could scrape away at the soft sandstone. It wasn't the ideal tool but he eventually succeeded in digging out enough rock matrix to break the piece of gold out. He then started on carefully removing the matrix from around the gold. Sonny watched on spellbound.
"What is it?" Sonny asked while Brodie switched to a small round stone to pound the rock so it crumbled away.
"Almost there," Brodie said engrossed in the exercise. "There." He held up a flat disk of gold, a little wider than his thumb with an oval hole in the middle.
"What do you think it is?" Sonny asked again.
"Well I don't think it is natural. These are sedimentary rocks and must have been laid down when the river flowed here. Maybe this was dropped in the river."
Sonny interrupted Brodie's flow. "Yes but what do you think it is?"
"Well. At the moment I can only guess. If we imagine it wasn't always flat, then it could have been originally circular with a hole through it. A ring maybe to fit over a finger?"
"What was that for?"
Brodie looked quizzically at Sonny. "Well you know as much as me. Let's get back home now. We can come back another day and see if there is anything else we can find that will give us some more clues. And we could ask Alize.”
The two of them found an easy way back up the bank then pushed through the bushes to pick up the trail they knew would lead them home.
∼∼∼
The next day they went to visit their friend Alize. She lived at the top of the hill in an old one-storey apartment which had little going for it apart from the exceptional view across the flood plains to the distant hills in the south. Not that Alize could enjoy the view in all its glory these days, as she was close to blind and needed a companion, Maddy, to ensure she did not do anything reckless.
Maddy let Sonny and Brodie in and they went through to the lounge without waiting to be invited. Maddy would like to have done things formally but having, once, tried to ask if Alize wished to see them Alize had said. "It's Sonny and Brodie, they are always welcome, don't leave them standing at the door."
Brodie thanked Maddy as he passed, but Sonny was in awe of hir, Maddy being a working companion and all, and just gave a simple, perfunctory nod. Sonny always had the impression that Maddy considered hir to be a very immature being. And although they might superficially have similar physical characteristics, inwardly Sonny considered hirself to be an altogether different creature.
Alize raised herself up at the sound of their entrance. “Sonny, Brodie, it’s lovely to see you,” she said joyfully, her face creasing up into a big smile. They each gave her a hug. "Maddy would you mind fetching our guests some juice. We can all sit by the window and enjoy the view." She said this without any remorse, as if by the act of sitting there her mind would conjure up that view. Besides it was as much a habit as anything. Sonny and Brodie always sat in the same places across from her, "so she could see them properly," and Maddy sat beside her, attentively.
"What have you two been up to?" Alize asked, head slightly forward and with hands gripping the arms of the chair expectantly.
"Funny you should ask," said Brodie, glancing at Sonny for approval to continue. "We've been exploring down by the estuary and found something which we hoped you could throw some light on." Brodie took the gold ring out and reached over to Alize. "Here," he said. She held out her hand and Brodie placed the ring on it.
"It's made of gold. We found it eroding out of a sandstone bank. We had to dig it out and we suspect it maybe hasn't always been flat. Maybe it was once a small cylindrical shape like a ring for a finger, before it was flattened when the rocks formed. What do you think? It can't be natural can it? How old do you think it is?"
Alize turned the object over in her tactile fingers, nimbly as if her ocular sense had migrated to her touch. "Well as you know, because I have told you so, there was once a mighty settlement covering all you can see." She waved her arm in a sweeping gesture across the panorama beyond the window. "Well it is believed that it was devastated in a flood, then ground to dust in an ice age. Maybe what you have found comes from the time of that mighty settlement, but buried before it could be destroyed."
Sonny was keen to know more. "Well if we found this, then maybe other people have found things too."
Alize replied mournfully. "People aren't interested Sonny. I should know, I have spent a lifetime trying to get people interested in the past but to no avail. It's just a few oddballs like me."
Sonny was not to be discouraged. "Well I am interested."
"Good for you," said Alize positively. "Good for Sonny, eh," she said to Maddy turning her head towards hir.
Alize leaned towards Sonny and said in her didactic voice usually reserved for apathetic youngsters, "shall we go and see what there is in the Museum of Selected History from that era."
"Yes I would like that," said Sonny looking at Brodie for permission. Brodie nodded and smiled.
Alize led the way, flapping her hands at Maddy when she tried to assist. This was a journey that she knew every step to. She took some keys from a hook by the door and they went out of the apartment, and along the path to the entrance of the larger building next door. The exterior of this building and the apartment matched each other in their level of neglect, with peeling paint and windows in need of a clean. By the entrance door was an old yet imposing looking sign saying "Museum of Selected History." Alize opened the door and went inside to flick the light switch. She did not need the lights to find her way, but naturally the others did.
"Welcome my friends," Alize said, raising her head to listen and sniffing the air to check that there was nothing out of the ordinary. "Let's go and look at the few items we have from that era. They are in the next room."
Although Brodie had visited the museum on a number of occasions down the years he had never really paid close attention to the exhibits, his eyes would glaze over at the items sitting in the display cabinets with little or no detail or context to draw him in. If there was any more depth to be had then the contents of Alize's head was where it could be found.
The cabinet Alize stopped in front of was as unobtrusive as any of the others. "Here we are. There isn't anything resembling your gold ring, I'm afraid. But take a look at this," she said gesticulating with her hand, while her head stayed still.
Sonny and Brodie leaned forward. There pressed between two glass plates was a page of yellowing paper with peculiar spidery print on it in two columns. "What does it say?" asked Sonny.
"Well, it is written in Old English," said Alize, "and the title at the top says 'The Tragedy of Hamlet'." It is part of a longer story, but we only have the one page, so we don't really know who Hamlet was, or who wrote it."
"Then here," she said indicating the adjacent exhibit with a slight wave of her hand, "this little lump of rock is a piece of moon rock. Just fancy that a piece of the moon right here."
Sonny was amazed. "How did a piece of the moon end up here?"
"Well to be honest Sonny," Alize said, her forehead contracting into a sea of wrinkles, "your guess is as good as anyone's. All the records of the past were erased long ago."
"But why?" said Sonny.
Alize smiled, and looked distantly with her un-seeing eyes. "That, in itself, has been mostly forgotten."
"I know," said Maddy, putting out her hand to Alize as if to mute her. "It was at the Congress of the Great Reset. It was agreed by representatives from across the world that, like the sea had risen in the past to cover great swathes of land, so the sea of information from the past was drowning out all knowledge of the present. There was so much of it that it could not be managed, and on top of that it was estimated that almost all the information was fabricated, so it was nigh on impossible to identify which, if any, could be trusted. So it was decided to promote a new vision where people would live in the present and look to the future, and not yearn for the past. Any knowledge that wasn't needed to keep the fabric of society functioning was deemed worthless. And so the past just quietly slipped away without anyone really caring. Apart from a tiny coterie of people who took it upon themselves to save a few cultural items from each era to serve as keepsakes. Even these diminished with time and all that's left is a handful of small museums scattered around the world."
"Very good," said Alize, but Maddy was not finished.
"And even the religions joined in the Reset. They all agreed that they would become oral only orders with nothing written down. This suited them just fine as it meant that they could focus on the core of their beliefs, centred on an inner circle of trained adherents."
"And the museum keepers also kept some oral traditions alive. Alize has taught me a few rhymes. This one is from that time. It is thought to be a fable." Maddy raised hir head and in a comforting sing-song voice uttered the following lines.
London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down,
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.
"Is that a fable?" Sonny asked, "it sounds to me like nonsense?"
"Well," said Brodie, putting a hand on Sonny's shoulder, "maybe it meant something to the people back then."
"What were the people back then like?" Sonny inquired, as if no one had ever thought of asking such a question.
"Well," said Alize in all seriousness, "they were very primitive looking, almost like apes, stooping, hairy, always angry."
"Were they?" said Sonny in astonishment.
"No, not really," said Alize smiling, "I was joking. I guess they looked just like you and me. Maybe you could try digging for more items, like the gold ring, to see if you can find out any more about them."
"Can we?" said Sonny looking at Brodie. "Can we?"
"I guess," said Brodie kindly, "but we mustn't forget about your training."
∼∼∼
A few days later they were back on the marshes, the two of them, Sonny and Brodie, wandering around trying to locate the sandstone outcrop where they had found the gold ring. Sonny, as usual, was a never ending source of questions. But suddenly one question, out of the blue, surprised Brodie with its unexpectedness.
"What will happen to the museum when Alize dies?"
"What made you think of that?" said Brodie.
"Alize is old, isn't she, and human. Don't all humans die?"
"Well yes, sure. All humans die one day," Brodie said, placing his hand on Sonny's shoulders, "but if you are worrying about me then I don't intend to die anytime soon,".
"No I am not worrying about that. I was thinking about the museum and what will happen to that when Alize dies."
"Well," said Brodie, taking his hand back and rubbing his chest thoughtfully, "I believe she hopes that Maddy will take over. She has been teaching her all there is to know about the collection."
"But won't Maddy be re-allocated to care for another human," Sonny said in a way that sounded like it was a question relevant to every carer.
"To be honest, I don't know Sonny," Brodie said looking at the ground, "I don't make those sort of decisions, I am just a guide to help carers learn the peculiarities of what it is to be human. But maybe we can ask, I know a few people. But it won't be easy, as Alize says no one really cares about the past."
"We do," said Sonny.
"Yes, we do," echoed Brodie.
"I like Alize very much," Sonny said casually, "there will be an empty space in my head when she dies."
"That is very considerate of you. And I like her very much too. Try not think about her death, she might live for a long while yet, so look on the bright side. Come on let's see if we can find what we are looking for."
After comically going from bush to bush with Brodie saying confidently "I think I recognise that bush," they eventually stumbled across the correct bush and found the embankment they were looking for. "This is it," said Brodie jumping down and giving Sonny a helping hand to manage the drop.
They knelt by the sandstone outcrop where they had found the gold ring and with heads pressed together examined the paler yellow rock where they had broken away the darker crust to dig out the ring. They had brought some rudimentary tools with them, a trowel and a hammer and chisel.
"Let's take a bit more of the crust off to see if we can see anything in the underlying rock," Brodie said, opening his bag and taking the tools out. "Here, do you want to have a go with the hammer and chisel?"
Sonny took the tools and Brodie arranged them in hir hands, demonstrating the action, his hands wrapped round hirs like a mitten. "Just tap gently, at an angle, so we just take the surface off."
Sonny tapped gently. Nothing much happened. "OK a little harder," Brodie said staring intently at the rock, which resulted in a slight scratch. "OK, keep trying a bit harder until the rock starts to break off. But be careful you don't bash your hands with the hammer." Brodie waited patiently while Sonny gained confidence and experience with the hammer. After a while a yellowish gouge appeared beneath the darker crust. Brodie held up his hand and peered closely.
"Can you see there is a faint red seam running through the rock." Sonny leaned in to look at where Brodie was pointing. Brodie picked up a piece of the chippings and placed it on his tongue. "Well it tastes like rust. Whatever was squashed into this layer was made of iron."
"And if you look closely," Brodie continued, pointing with his finger, "you can see that the rock above the rust seam is a nice and smooth sandstone, while below the seam it
is more irregular with pebbles blended in. That seam signifies some sort of transition, perhaps it marks the great flood that Alize was talking of. Two different pasts, one before the flood and one after. The lower one is turbulent, more disordered. Does that sound reasonable?”
“I think so,” Sonny said sympathetically.
“And,” Brodie said, his eyes lighting up, “I have just realised something. If you remember the gold ring was poking out of the rock. Don’t you think it would have eventually eroded out of the rock and fallen to the ground. And so would everything else that is harder than sandstone. So instead of hacking out the rock, we could just dig into the soil here and see what we can find.”
“Yes,” said Sonny.
"Let's get rid of some of the scrub first. If I cut, can you pull, but mind your hands, some of these plants are spiky." Brodie took out some pruning shears from his bag and started cutting back the stems close to the ground. "Let's make a nice pile over there," he said pointing to some open ground.
Sonny pulled at the offshoots, while Brodie clipped back all the intertwined tendrils. They worked slowly, they were not in a hurry. "Let's make the pile neat," Brodie said as he watched Sonny piling up the cuttings, "it's good to be methodical, to take your time, and do a job well. It's a lesson well learnt, don't you think."
"I suppose," retorted Sonny.
"Look at Maddy, always meticulous, don't you think. The house is always neat and tidy. And sensitive too, very understanding, always thinking of Alize's needs."
"Did you raise hir?" Sonny said with perhaps a tinge of envy in hir voice.
"Me? No. Listen, don't get me wrong. I didn't mean it like I was comparing the two of you. You are learning just fine. Maddy has a lot more life experience, that's all. You will get that with time. I am very satisfied with your progress."
"But I find it difficult to know what I should be feeling, what a human feels."
"Yes, it's tough I know," said Brodie, turning to look at Sonny, standing amongst the scrub with a hazel branch in hir hand. "Right now I am having a great time, out here, with you. I enjoy being out in nature, and I love your company. All in all I am very contented just now. A warm and embracing happiness. How about you, what are you feeling?"
Sonny looked at the ground and contemplated. "Feeling? Well stacking sticks is a bit boring."
"What would you like to do?"
"I would like to go and look for some birds. I like birds."
"OK, we can do that. We can come back to this later." Brodie put the shears back in the bag and placed it on the ground. "Do you want to sit on my shoulders to get a better view?"
"Oh yes please," Sonny said jumping up and down.
"Now you are happy for sure. Up you get." Brodie bent down and struggled to straighten again once Sonny was on board. "Whoa, you are getting heavier or I am getting weaker. You will have to keep still. Tuck your legs in and put your hands on my head."
They staggered like a two-headed beast, slowly through the bush in a seemingly aimless manner, when in truth they were following the path of least resistance. Brodie was guided by the pilot atop his shoulders who could see further and hear more purposefully. Their meanderings ended when they came upon an open stretch of water, a small lake, hidden amongst some trees. A gentle slope led down to the waters edge where a couple of boulders poked out of the muddy shore.
"Whoa," said Brodie, "take a look at that, what a lovely spot." He bent down and Sonny hopped off his shoulders and climbed onto one of the boulders, while Brodie seated himself on the other boulder, massaging his shoulders with his hands. The lake was dotted with ducks leisurely floating on the surface, or more actively diving under the water.
"Can you see, not all the ducks are the same," Brodie said looking up at Sonny, "do you know what they are?"
"I don't know their names, but those with white sides and a tuft on their head, they seem very busy, diving down all the time."
"They will be getting ready for winter, I expect." Brodie shielded his eyes with his hand to see further. "The brown ones swimming with them, I guess, are the females. With birds it is usually the females that choose their mate, so the males have to look and sound their best."
"Will I ever choose a mate?" Sonny said candidly.
"Ah," said Brodie stroking his chin, "I haven't really talked to you about that have I. Yes we should start, shouldn't we. Where to start, yes where to start. I always find this bit difficult, you know, where to start. Why don't you sit down, then I'll start."
Sonny sat down on hir rock facing Brodie with an attentive stare. Brodie could not return the look and cast his eyes down.
"Well let's start with these ducks. No, actually let's not, you want to know about humans don't you, not ducks. Birds do things a bit differently. It's complicated. Let's see, well, generally humans form monogamous relationships if they want children, one woman and one man. They somehow find each other, they have compatibilities, or shared aims or they just like the look of each other. For whatever reason they choose their mate. And there is this thing called love which binds them together, and they mate. You see the word mate is both a noun and a verb. As a noun it describes the members of this partnership, and as a verb it describes this act of joining together."
"But I am not a woman or a man, am I," Sonny said pointedly.
"No, not exactly," Brodie said, looking around for some inspiration. "Humans have all sorts of foibles, I guess it is less troublesome if carers are neutral, sex wise."
"But I am supposed to learn all about human emotions, aren't I. How can I do that if I can't choose a mate and mate."
"Yes, well. I guess you have the advantage of being able to learn about all aspects of human relationships without being limited to one view. I mean relationships are more than just a simple division into women and men, that's just one bit. There are all sorts of other types of relationships. Start learning about love, that's my advice."
"Well what's love then?" Sonny said curtly, "I know the word, but how do I learn to feel it?"
"Yes, quite right, how do you? It's complicated. For starters people have different concepts of what love is, is it affection, or devotion, infatuation, lust, friendship, one or all of those. Then humans can love other humans, or themselves, carers, animals, inanimate objects, intangible things."
Brodie looked up at Sonny who sat with a fixed face of incomprehension. Brodie grimaced in despair. "Well let's start with longing. You like birds don't you. Well how would you feel if there were no more birds left on Earth. If that thought is painful then you can say you love birds."
"I feel pain," Sonny said eyes widening.
"Good, that's the spirit," Brodie said with some relief. "That was lesson one. Shall we go home, I'm hungry. We can come back to the digging another day."
"But what about the ducks?"
"You don't have to worry about them, they are doing fine and they will still be here tomorrow. You coming?" Brodie stood up and stretched out a hand to Sonny who accepted it.
∼∼∼
They returned to the dig a couple of days later, with equipment better suited to the job, gloves, forks and trowels, and a greater resolve to their undertaking.
“We have to have a plan,” said Brodie looking at the size of the task.
"What exactly are we looking for?" Sonny asked looking quizzically at Brodie.
"Well anything that is unnatural, you know, made by humans. But if you find a pretty stone that you like the look of, we can keep that too."
“What’s the plan?”
“Yes, good question. Let’s dig while we think of one. How about we start by making piles for roots, soil and rocks.”
Where they had cut back the bushes they now dug down and made an assault on the roots, which was easier said than done. After fighting through the tangle of roots they came upon a layer of stones and rocks of many different sizes, shapes and textures. They worked on conscientiously, with conversation limited to the task at hand, with only short breaks to drink some water or take snacks from their bag of fruit and nuts.
"How deep should we go?" Sonny asked after they had dug a hole big enough for them both to lie down in.
"Yeah, maybe we should stop digging for today," Brodie said stretching his back and shoulders in relief from being bunched over. "Have you found anything interesting? I have got a couple of rectangular-shaped blocks,” he picked them up to show Sonny, ”which could have been made for something, I guess, but hardly worth saving."
Sonny, who had taken Brodie’s directive on pretty stones to heart, had a much more substantial pile. One by one they were lifted up and held out for approval. For the most part they were stones and rocks with pleasing shapes or distinctive colours.
“You have certainly picked out some fine ones there Sonny. How did you decide which ones to choose? Did you have a feeling for them?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe they had an interesting shape or colour."
“Well if you had to pick just one from those, which one would it be?”
Sonny looked bewildered. “Do I have to choose again?”
“Well we can’t take them all home. Maybe a couple if you can’t choose just one.”
Sonny spread them out on the ground and touched each on in turn.
“This one.”
Sonny held out a round stone, apple sized, and passed it to Brodie. It fitted nicely in his hand, except it was not really round, he could see that where it had been cleaned of dirt there were flat faces, and sharp edges. The surface was smooth and dark without any grain or structure you would normally see in a rock. He joggled his hand to weigh it, it was surprisingly heavy for its size.
"Here, hand me the water bottle," Brodie ordered, lost deep in curiosity.
Sonny obeyed, looking on helplessly as Brodie brushed off the excess earth, then poured the water over the stone and cleaned it with the edge of his coat. The water deepened the colour of the surface, making it dark and smooth. Brodie held it up to the light and the faces glinted in the sun, almost magical, a metallic sheen he had never seen before. Each face had five equal edges, and each edge joined to another five-sided face. Brodie started to turn the object in his hand to count the faces when he noticed that the faces had figures etched into them.
"Look!" he said holding it up for Sonny to examine, "There's some sort of writing on the faces, can you see? My eyes aren't as sharp as yours. Take a closer look."
Sonny took the object and held it so the sun was glancing across the face, and turned the object to study the different faces. "It looks like four lines of text on each face. It reminds me of the Old English we saw in the museum. But there is also a number at the top of each face from one to twelve."
"That is amazing. Maybe the numbers mean you have to read the text in a specific order. We shall take it to Alize, and she can tell us what it means. Shall we go?"
"Yes let's go."
∼∼∼
The four of them were once again sitting by the window in Alize's house, Maddy and Alize across from Sonny and Brodie.
"I can see that you are excited," Alize said with her usual sixth sense, her near-useless eyes glancing from one to the other.
"Yes we have something important to show you, haven't we Sonny. Let Alize hold it, why don't you."
Sonny stood up, reached over, gently took Alize's hand and placed the mysterious, geometric object into it.
Her hands immediately went to work, examining every aspect of the object, rolling it, feeling the edges and faces, weighing it.
"Well this is very unusual indeed. It is a perfect regular solid, twelve five-sided faces. And the edges are as sharp as new. The faces are also smooth and unblemished, but it has some markings etched into the faces. Did you find it at the same place as the ring."
Brodie nodded to Sonny to take up the story.
"Yes we did," said Sonny, "buried in the earth. And the markings are writing. We wondered if it is Old English. We can't read it but we wondered if you could. There are also numbers on each face as if the faces have to be read in a particular order."
"Well Maddy can read it, she has learnt Old English, and her eyesight is keener than mine."
Brodie smiled. "It must be our age, eh Alize. I had to give it to Sonny to read as my eyes have lost a bit of their facility."
Alize passed the object to Maddy who examined it closely. "Yes I can see the faces are numbered one to twelve. And you are right, it is written in Old English. Shall I start?"
"Yes please Maddy," said Alize, "take your time."
Maddy scanned the text once and then read slowly and surely, without expression or emotion, like it was a sheet of instructions or a recipe. Yet the voice was gentle, flowing over the syllables and words like a babbling brook.
∼∼∼
1.
O dodecahedron be my witness,
For this shall be my swansong,
A decade for each face,
Sums up a life lived long.
2.
I love this great unruly city,
The wellspring of all that I hold dear,
The loves that I have won and lost
Lie buried with my heart as bier.
3.
I have no desire for more life,
I have reached my appointed time,
But what of the young and hopeful,
The ground swept from under them in their prime.
4.
In my youth we had no cares,
Soothsayers howled into the wind.
We worshipped excess and wealth and fame,
To harbingers of doom we were thick-skinned.
5.
Had someone killed an albatross,
For the heat-blast came with a roaring cry.
Day after day the bloody sun lay
In a hot and copper sky.
6.
In winter came a hurricane thunderous and strong,
Cold and bitter from the east.
A storm that outsmarted the laws,
Running rings round them like a murderous beast.
7.
Like a tsunami the flood waters followed,
Pouring over embankments, dikes and defences.
Torrents raging down streets unopposed,
Impervious to the consequences.
8.
All low-lying land was inundated,
Tunnels submerged, bridges shattered,
Foundations undermined, power severed,
And communication to all winds scattered.
9.
Bodies and belongings an inhumane froth,
A flotsam of the most cruel kind,
And a million homeless on the road,
Shunned, abandoned and much maligned.
10.
And across the channel the same story,
Great cities drowned and people on the brink,
Eating rats, killing for rats, whatever it takes.
Water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.
11.
Who to blame, we are to blame.
Instead of safeguarding our future,
We yearned for a rose-tinted past.
"Wasn't life better then?"
No, it was because we were young.
12.
I offer these lines to the river,
To be buried for ever and a day.
If you find them take heed of this lesson,
Look to the future, your past will betray.
∼∼∼
Maddy stopped and lowered her hands to her lap. Everyone was stunned into silence. They looked at each other as if waiting for permission to speak. It was Alize who broke the silence.
"Well I think it is clear to say that this was written by someone who was an eyewitness to the destruction of the city that once lay all around where we are now sitting. Written by someone who wanted to bury it for future generations to discover, as a lesson in hubris. There is nothing like it in any of the museums of selected history, all our knowledge of the disaster that befell that world are just scraps of myths. Here is a first-hand account. It's wondrous that you found it."
"Well I don't like it," said Sonny with feeling, "I don't like it at all. It will give me nightmares. I wish we had never found it."
Brodie, deep in thought, came up for a breath. "Perhaps Sonny is right. Perhaps it will do no good, just give people nightmares. Will it serve any purpose if we save it in the museum."
Maddy had an answer. "Maybe not now, but perhaps in the future people will rebuild the great city and this will act as a warning."
"That's a big maybe," Brodie responded. "Sonny found it, so Sonny should decide. Agreed?"
"It does seem out of place in this world, a thing of beauty, untouched by the ravages of time, but telling of a terrible past," Alize acknowledged. "For all the talk of great cities and lost civilisations, perhaps our age is better for not revering them. And that is coming from someone who treasures a few decaying exhibits in a museum to provide a brief distraction to folk."
Sonny looked from Alize to Maddy and back. Brodie sensed hir hesitancy and intervened. "How about we give the Congress of the Great Reset a bit of respect. They, in their infinite wisdom, decided that information from the past was not just useless, but a fiction, not to be trusted. So let's follow their example and cast this fiction out. Shall we?"
Sonny looked up at Brodie and nodded. Brodie smiled back. "Good. Well to be really sure we should bury it at sea, and if we are going to do that we're going to need a boat."
"Oberon has a boat," said Alize, "I'm sure he will be more than happy to take you out. Anything to give him an excuse to go fishing."
∼∼∼
They took the bus to the little fishing village where the land bumped up against the sea in a sheltered inlet. Oberon had been asked if he could take Sonny for a days fishing out to sea. Well there was no stopping him then. He would come round to show Sonny the nautical maps, to teach hir how to tie knots, and explaining the weather and why they had to wait for the wind to veer to a more favourable direction.
Oberon was waiting for them by the pier. He stood there expectantly, a short stocky man, with his round face and red chubby cheeks. His arms hung limply down by his side as if they did not know what to do with themselves. He was kitted out in bib and brace waterproofs over a cable knit sweater, topped off with a peaked cap to protect his thinning hair. Brodie and Sonny were dressed for a day by the seaside, casual trousers and shirts, although they did have some coats in the backpack Brodie bore, which Oberon had instructed them to bring.
Oberon observed their gear anxiety. "Don't worry about me, I always wear this get-up on a fishing trip. You will be fine, it is a perfect day. I've got life vests for you in the boat."
"Sonny is very excited, aren't you?"
Sonny smiled and nodded.
"Come on Sonny, I'll show you the boat," Oberon said taking Sonny by the hand and leading him to the pier.
They passed a group of middle-aged men and women sitting round a table with bottles of beer in their hand and some freshly grilled fish on their plates. The men nodded to them as they passed, raising their bottles in salutation. Sonny waved cordially, while Brodie gave a brief nod in return.
"How is Libby?" Brodie asked Oberon as he fussed around the boat. "Is she not coming?"
"She's fine" Oberon puffed out his cheeks, "but she's not so keen on fishing. Besides she's been up all night looking at the stars. She likes searching for meteors, comets and the like."
Sonny sat in the bow looking down into the water as the boat motored out from the jetty. Oberon was in his element, sniffing the breeze as if he could smell the fish. "The folk back there have been out already and say there are shoals of mackerel beyond the break. They are easy to catch, so we will all get some fun. I have prepared some lures, so we are good and ready. Sonny you keep a look out for gulls, they are a sure sign that there are fish about. Gannets especially, they are very beautiful, white with black wing tips. They dive into the water from a great height, whoosh, whoosh. It's everything you could wish for. There's nothing better than to be out fishing. Keep watch Sonny."
Rounding the spit the breeze and the swell went from the touch of a feather to the caress of a hand. The boat moved in sympathy and Sonny raised hir head to feel the air brushing past. And the smell of the sea was unavoidable, more arresting than any odour Sonny could recall, vivid with a bouquet of seaweed, sand and salt.
A few lethargic gulls floated on the dimpled surface, keeping a beady eye on the boat. Oberon cut the motor and said, "There's not much going on here but let's put the lines in and see if we can catch anything." Oberon handed them each a piece of wood wound with line and with a sparkling lure, hook and weight tied to the end. "Here watch me," Oberon said, unwinding a length of line from his block. He threw the hook, line and sinker overboard and unwound more line letting it sink beneath the boat. He then pulled back the line with little jerks until the lure reached the surface again. "The twitches make the lure look like it's alive, and if you live in a big shoal, like mackerel do, you have to grab any food opportunity that comes along before your neighbour takes it. Try."
Brodie and Sonny followed Orlando's lead and threw their lines overboard, they twitched and jigged but nothing took the bait. After some unsuccessful attempts Brodie, sitting behind Sonny, attracted hir attention with a touch and made a surreptitious throwing gesture with his hand and his eyes. Sonny looked unsure so Brodie held the backpack up and nodded. "Now's the time," he whispered. Sonny looked into the backpack and a spark of recollection lit up hir face. Hir free hand reached in and pulled out the finely sculpted object. The faces gleamed as Sonny rolled it in hir hand.
"Go on," Brodie said encouragingly.
Sonny made a firm swing of hir arm and released it into the air. It was a marvel to behold as it spun gently in its arc, catching the sun, flashing like a beacon. It made a considerable splash as it hit the water, making the gulls yelp and leap up into squawking spirals.
"What was that?" Oberon said looking up.
The object sunk quickly with the glinting faces growing fainter and fainter until it was lost in the depths.
"Just some nightmares Sonny wanted to cast out. Sonny wrote them on a sea-smoothed stone and returned it to the depths, where it belonged, out of sight and out of mind."
"Well it has probably scared all the mackerel away," Oberon said resignedly. "We didn't catch much did we? Do you want to go back Sonny?"
"Yes I think so," Sonny said quietly.
The boat motored back to the port with Sonny keeping watch from the bow, Brodie sat behind with Oberon controlling the motor in the stern. After disembarking and thanking Oberon profusely, Brodie and Sonny walked to the bus stop to wait.
"What shall we do tomorrow?" Brodie asked a subdued Sonny. "What would you like to do tomorrow?"
"I need to learn more about humans. Why does Oberon like fishing while Libby likes looking at the stars? Wouldn't it be better if they both liked the same thing?"
Brodie laughed. "You ask the most difficult questions Sonny."
© Nick 2023