Watch out! It's fourthousandwordslong. I haven't given it a name, I am awful at naming, suggestions plz.
Let’s begin up, looking down at the setting of this story. Its colours are green and blue and brown. The green of vegetable growth, in small patches bordering the blue of ponds, and all about the brown of sand. It is likely a drier place than that you are used to, but not the dry infertility of the desert; for the people who live here understand the secrets of irrigation. And yes now that we float down closer we can make out the brass pipes that connect the ponds to each other, maundering about over and under themselves in a hotly gleaming weave. And too we see those stones of ruined towers, now homes to the people here, orange with reflected light from the sands, cool green from the plants, shimmering blue from the pools. We are approaching the biggest of these ruins, the most intact, and now I must introduce other colours for proudly standing on the face of this building, a face half gone, remains a purple yellow blue red orange green geometric display in stained glass. We cheat now, descending impossibly through the canvas roof stretched taut over the ruin, and inside is a workshop dark except for the technicolour spotlight of the one sunfacing window. Strewn about are things in brass. Old pans, pieces of pipe, cogs and wheels, oddly conceived contraptions. In short, the lab of an inventor filled with the detritus of a brass civilisation. And there, occupying almost all of the one room, is a thing. But I should stop now, for I want first to describe this thing through the eyes of another character than myself.
For two months the community was without a doctor. Doctor Grabe had been so old that almost nobody remembered what she had been like when she’d first arrived. Back then she’d been a fiery independent person filled with the metallic modern knowledge of the university in far away Angreland. A whippersnapper. A spring chicken, she came and upset old folk with her new ideas on what to give colds. But as she aged into the old crony maid everyone now knew, as her wit lost its idealistic goals and became sharp for sharp’s sake, her medical skill ceased to be scientific in the people’s minds. She stopped being just doctor, and became witch. When she was a grandmother’s age, her skills, while still effective, acquired the air of antiquity. But, now gone, she was replaced by a more primal knowledge. Colds refused to receive her carefully prepared medicinal teas, instead they took the timeless treatments of soup and sleep. All this conspired to make Novamor’s arrival the more shocking. Again from Angreland university, bringing new knowledge to upset the old folk, Novamor took the role of doctor from the old ways which had just taken it from Grabe. Took the role in people’s minds so that ‘doctor’ was no longer an ageless thing, older than your parents, but was again a whippersnapper. A wit jellied by fresh idealism. Though there were many small communities, and each of them had doctors, it was still one-in-a-hundred who chose to live in them over the great cities of Angreland.
Watch as she makes her rounds. Hello, I am the new doctor. Most of the community sees her in her hutch, but some are to be checked on in their homes, as detailed by doctor Grabe in the tiny logbooks. Watch as she comes upon that largest ruin, the one with the stained-glass window in what remains of its face, the most colourful place in town, and see her enter through a hole in the wall to check up on the inventor Muta, who suffers from insomnia and shortness of breath. She knows that doctor Grabe had been responsible for bringing him his food, and wonders who has been performing this chore for the last two months since doctor Grabe died. She wants to make sure that whoever it was can continue, so that Muta can be fed. And she: “here’s what to do for your insomnia, and here’s for your shortness of breath.” And he: “That’s not what doctor Grabe prescribed.” And she: “I am doctor Novamor, and this is new learning straight from the university of Angreland, proven to be more effective than the old ways.” But not all of their conversation dwells on medicine. Novamor had a good degree of curiosity in her and began to ask after this or that. That’s a press for shirts, this is a pressure cooker, or a machine which can chop vegetables, or a pump, or a motor. The thing, which I have said occupies most of the room, only makes itself known to her slowly, for it is so big and higgledy that the natural assumption is that it is not one but many things. Finally realising the thing’s enormity, she asks “what is that thing?”
Muta was not old. He’d gotten started with inventing early, assembling contraptions in the rubble heaps of his childhood, laying in these times the basis for the person who was to come. And now he adopted a wistful expression, those younger days alighting incongruously on his older face. “It’s a thing I built in my young adulthood. It took me years. A statue.” But Novamor was confused by this: “A statue? But it looks like a machine.” And Muta sighed before saying “I once dreamed of making it move. I haven’t really lost that dream I suppose, I am just waiting for the right inspiration.” And now they are to the subject of supplies, Muta said “My food has been brought for these two months by a child who has been taking time off their lessons for the purpose. I don’t want to continue impinging on their development.” Thus faced with the prospect of bringing this inventor all of his food until the day he died, Novamor hatched the following plan. “Your shortness of breath is exacerbated by your lack of exercise. From now on, every three days, I will come here and you and I will walk together to the market. I am confident you will eventually be able to make the journey yourself.”
And, over time, two months passed. Twenty times Muta and Novamor met and walked into the village square where the granger lived and sold vegetables, past to the agrarian who offered milk and cheese and yoghurt, on to the cooper who sold eggs and meat, through the beanery where lentils could be had, and then to the house where the herbs and spices, a specialty to this town, were grown. All these might be combined in Muta’s magical cooking pot, that took only minutes of your time to stew meat for hours. On these walks, Muta and Novamor would chat; Muta was quiet to a default but would pour forth on any subject if prodded. He became Novamor’s closest friend. She confided in him the stories of her youth, the many grains which had tipped her decision to be a community doctor. She had been sent hither to replace a retiring Grabe, but Grabe died while she was on the way. The herbs and spices of this community were one of three reasons the caravan visited each two months. The second being to bring supplies for the doctor and others, and the third was Muta’s marvelous inventions. The way to Angreland was long, it took the better part of a year to get there. Each caravan traveled only from one city to the next and back, the round trip taking from one week to two months. If they needed something from Angreland, they would first send a request that was curried from township to township, caravan to caravan, until it got there, whereupon the requested item would take the same trip home. So Novamor could only order something specific over the course of more than a year. Of course she had made provisions for the more common medicines to arrive immediately.
To Muta on the other hand, Novamor became something other than friend. He would think of her and smile, and, yes, he began to tinker, adding this or that trinket to his huge statue as he smiled at it and thought again, as he had when he started out, of how useful it would be in rebuilding out of the stones of rubble. It was shaped like a large person, but with no head. It lay on its side in Muta’s spaces with its legs curled up, and looking at it Novamor asked why it had no head. “Throws off the balance,” said Muta. And did Novamor notice that Muta, after long neglect, had once again begun to modify and augment his statue? I suspect she did, but she must not have understood its implication, because she made no word or deed to halt Muta’s growing affections.
Let’s away again, up from the city until it is a speck. And now look sideways to the Sun, in the uncoloured sky. To the left is a big lazy pillar of cloud billowing brown in the slow wind. We follow it down to its source, zooming in as we go, and something is moving at the base of the cloud. Zoom until you can see it, a creature with six legs and skin uncoloured like the sky. Its size is demonstrated by the carriage it wears on its back, and the tiny people who make their homes there for the month in between. Each of its legs rumbles as it rises, lifting splays of sand upwards as it makes its inefficient step, casting them to the sky. Its eyes stare blithely outwards. It smokes something that the caravaners have given it and marches on. Its path is marked by two gleaming piles of pipe in brass, forming the edges of a road, in which courses water from wetter places and to the community. There are many stops on the way where water from these pipes might be drawn to hydrate the trekkers. Lumbers on, seems slow but it’s just the scale that throws one off. The people on board, some hammocked under the tented portions of the carriage, some sleeping in its dark basement, some bathing on the roof, most drink and play games on the deck, unknowingly following the untimed traditions of persons cooped aboard captained ships. And here is the captain, at the helm of course. It is not important that Captain Vig be at the helm, the creature – is it a beast or a machine? – has only one way to go. He stays by the helm because that’s what captains do. And he likes to remind people that he is captain in ways suitably subtle that no one feels annoyed. Arriving now, the two clutches of pipe spread around to form a bowl large enough for the creature to turn around or to do whatever it likes, which is lie about with its carriage off and smoke some more.
The caravan’s bazaar is a ways from Muta’s house, will be there for a few days. The villagers with things to sell or trade or with things to buy or to buy with all go and it is a happening. The caravaners fold their great carriage off the creature, and it comes with a smooth coaxing, once twenty or so are put to the pull. It comes onto the ground and some clatch is released, the walls fold down in wonderful and inexplicable ways, and, just when you think there couldn’t be any more to this popup book, yet another wall unfurls contrary to gravity and expectations, and to boredom. And the caravan brings colours to the town. Not just purple yellow blue red orange green, but all colours are present. There are those who sell spices and herbs, there are those who buy art or rare sweetmeats or chemical supplies from the next village over. Novamor goes for to acquire pills she prescribes, and other things, and Muta as a first personally plies his machines instead of leaving it up to the local child who always managed to drop a good number of coins on the way back to Muta’s house, and what was Muta saving up for anyway? The origami bazaar is wide in many ways, and boasts both the hottest and coolest places in town. One or two comparatively large trees are cared for as shade for the creature. Novamor and Muta arrive together though it is Novamor who holds the front of the cart housing Muta’s inventions.
Captain Vig comes abounding out from the depths of the bazaar toward the pair. “Oho! And here at last is the man behind the machines! Together with the lady Novamor.” There is not a question in his voice. He had of course ferried Novamor from the adjacent city two months prior. He decided to impart upon Muta’s head some economic advice. “You know if you lived just next door, in the city of Ix, your wares would fetch twice the price!” Muta replied “I would as soon move to Ix as to Angreland, and besides, my devices fetch quite enough as it is,” not telling the true reason, that he had a statue here and nowhere else. Vig said “Oho! That they do!” while filing away another detail of this loaded reply for later conversation. Captain Vig was muscular, affected a mustache, long hair kept tailed, a deep voice with a large range, manly, in coarsely buttoned shirts that seemed to any onlooker to say, I covered my body just for you today, madam. Muta had not attended a bazaar for many years, and though Novamor had seen what was on offer before, she had never seen it here arrayed thus, so they whiled the afternoon browsing. Muta mixed discoveries with remembering and was most of all surprised to learn what his money could buy him. Vig had insisted both to dinner and so it was that, as the Sun tripped behind the line of the buildings and the fires were lit to avert the chill of the sands, the three found themselves at a table with thin chairs underneath them, and lanterns of, again, all colours, hanging about the edges. If Muta did not find the spread placed before him and Novamor extravagant, it was only for lack of experience. All manner of exotic fruit and complex preserve were placed before him. In fact Muta spent the whole evening unaware that Novamor was being wooed. Vig and she had had an affair on the caravan for that month and he was trying to entice her into an inconstant relationship. Vig who was graceful and charming in conversation was careful to make this point subtle. Subtle like all the things about Vig that don’t immediately bulge out at one. And so at one point, being regularly inclusive as habit, and playing the part of good host, Vig said “Why don’t you want to live in Angreland Muta? It is not such a bad place?” “It isn’t?” Muta asked. Vig said “I was born there.” Surprise from both listeners, and, do tell, tell us why. Why did you come thence hither? To be a caravan chief?
“Do you know your history? My father was one of the first settlers. Before I was born, he set out from Angreland for a pile of ruins like this one. They weren’t easy to find before the pipe was laid, but he was a determined person and knew his way around a compass. He found a place, a number of places, and then headed back to Angreland. He spoke, urged, and people started to agree with him, to decide that provincial living was a worthwhile investment. So teams of them, my dad included, began laying the pipe which now makes the lives of all us countryfolk possible. But he was not satisfied, and continued to explore farther. Eventually his work paid off: he found a ruin filled with precious artefacts. No one else knew its location, so he made a killing. In this time, he went back and forth often between Angreland and wherever it was. In this time he led the life of a wealthy hedonist and sired me. For the first few years of my life I knew my father as this greedy man who came and went, and didn’t seem to care about my beautiful mother. And when I was still a boy he left for the last time. I remember what he said to us: ‘I’ve lost it, I’ve got to find it again.’ I thought he meant his motherlode then. My mother was sad for a time, she had lost the man she loved, in fact she had lost him before he left her for the last time. Because she loved that explorer who had set out into the desert alone, not knowing he would find anything, just wanting to make a peaceful living for people not suited to the big cities of Angreland. So after that man disappeared and then he left, she mourned. But she became happy again through me. She would tell me stories about his younger days, things that happened on the trail, adversities overcome. She painted this image of my father as a great adventurer. For her, she was reclaiming the man she’d once loved. For me, she was creating an idol. She was also inadvertently educating me in the ways of traveling the desert. And so when I was twenty I had a legendary picture of my father, as told by my mother. I set out to find him. I wanted to find where he had settled. For years I traveled between the communities as a caravaner. My personal wealth and status grew due to my, if you’ll allow me, economic acumen. Several years ago I had a twin realisation. First I had the money and experience to be the captain of my own caravan. The turnover in this profession is fast so I wouldn’t have trouble finding a route to take over. Second I wasn’t really looking for my father. Separated by time from the coming-and-going man of my youth, and also from the adventurer of my mum’s stories, I was better able to find who he really was. He’d been a leader and explorer, a great person by many standards, but greed was his weakness and it overtook him in his middle-age, but he found his old self later, and left to travel. So looking for him was a fool’s game, success was just as likely if I stayed put as if I continued the search. I had inherited his contradictory diseases: his nomadic bug and his vision of a quiet simple life. I was looking for those ideals. And here I have found the perfect resolution of that conflict. I am settled in my home, but my home moves on the back of Stanley, that’s my creature’s name, whither I want. Right now whither I want is back and forth between here and Ix. I have fond memories of my youth in Angreland. They don’t include my father, but they include my mother and the cities’ many children and libraries, which you might like Muta. Fond memories, but these cities are made of concrete, and immobility is not for me. I never really lost my dream of finding my father, it just changed, transformed into something else. Something truer.”
Muta was compelled to speak of his dream: “My childhood occurred, wholesale, in the junktrap centre of town, where many odd things are hidden in between blocks of rubble. I always had a fluency with contraptions, could turn dead bits of brass into living machines. Before I left my teenaged years I had ceased to make exploding devices and projectile weapons and turned to making useful things with which to help people. And it was in those heady days, at the same age that you Vig set out to find your father, that I began work on my statue. A statue of a person, but fifty people tall. I dreamed it would help to rebuild this city from the heavy blocks of rubble, then it would be a great place, to rival the brass civilisation of old, greater than Angreland!”
“Well,” Vig said, “if you could rebuild the old world that would indeed be greater than Angreland. I don’t think anyone disputes that what we have is lesser than what was had.”
Novamor’s turn: “You men have great dreams. For all my life I have just wanted to be a community doctor, to settle down with a nice place to live, to find someone” and she looked down and blushed for here were two ‘someones,’ “and to live happily till the end of my days with them.” She did not mention that the someone she imagined finding was very much like Vig.
Muta said “You should not downgrade your dream, it is just as worthwhile or great as Vig’s or mine.” Vig added “And no less fantastical.”
It was another month before Muta was finished. He and Novamor still walked together, but he was now fit enough to gather many of the people of the community himself to watch the unveiling. Novamor was as excited as everyone else to see the construction giant with which Muta had been tinkering for years finally done and moving. Picture them all about the front of the glass window, and Muta is standing on a small box shouting something about rubble and the motions of metaphysical building blocks. Then he’s done and he’s off inside to do something unseen before running back out to join the throng. Far back so he gets a good view. The people are nattering away, and there is the permanent flow of water in brass to be heard, but no other noise. Then the canvas begins to move and ah!, a hand grips it at the edge from the inside, with giant brass knuckles, grips it and pulls it back, standing up in one silent motion. And the crowd is silent too. Stands up the big person shiny in the Sun off and into the people’s eyes, not all gold but there are darker bits too where a sort of lichen has taken over the years. And it is only a lifetime old but seems to be outside of time at the moment of its birth just stepped right out, already there is that impression of something that always has will be. It is standing looking out into the desert at something which only the very tall can see, and you don’t have to be very tall to see the giant the youngest are watching. And then, gasps, surprise, jolly laughter, amusement, happiness, dancing. The giant, against the expectations of its creator and everyone else while we’re at it, has begun to dance.
And the giant continues to dance. Sometimes its eyes are closed in concentration, looking maybe directly at the lost music it hears; other times its eyes are open and it’s looking maybe directly at YOU way down there. The people get the hang of the silent giant, its knees obscured by the walls of Muta’s house, they gradually depart though some stay for a long time. And it is to become a tourist attraction. Persons will pilgrimate to see the giant. While the Sun is still up Novamor and Muta are watching together, and some time, neither knows quite when, it happened that they are holding hands. Then Muta turns to Novamor and said “it’s for you. I expected it to jerk mechanically but instead it danced. All along though I knew it was for you. I did it for you and because of you and I couldn’t have done it without you. And let me just say your beauty. Let me say it. Novamor you are the most beautiful woman in the world.” She receives this smiling at the dancer. She is not caught unawares. She turns to him. Novamor, who’s dreams have also changed, simply says “yes.”
And on the dancer dances, while we spiral away, back into the uncoloured sky.
ENDNOTE
This story was inspired by a poem I sent to my boyfriend Rob in a text message. The image of the poem is here preserved, the giant, though in the poem it was a small statue. The theme, how our dreams change and how we look at them, grew out of the poem, and the idea that maybe my dreams could change and be better for it came from Rob, though I'm not certain about this. Uncolouredness represents the artistic truth! No rose-coloured glasses when uncolouredness is around. I'll also say that this story bears the influence of Salman Rushdie slightly too clearly for my taste. Should we bend reality to our dreams or bend our dreams to reality!? Oh and it took me a month to write for various reasons.
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