To Tug on the World
The last of the bombs fell in the fields of barley, beyond the over-hunted hills of the Hurtsman Plateau. They fell heavy in the night, sending rippled cries of horror to my ears, upsetting the earth beneath me. They fell fast through the thickening smog, against the dying gusts of wind. They dried the last droplets of dew on the last blades of barley. This was the final war of humanity, from which I was now wandering closer to death.
The horizon melted into an ocean of fire as I watched the evil end its final wrath. Atop the waves of death rode the pirates of humanity, the ones who stole the dirt from beneath us. They smiled conniving little grins as their heads turned my way, but soon they were consumed by the fire they set. I was alone, witnessing global holocaust.
My body collapsed and met softly with the ashes below. There was nothing to watch now, but my eyes remained open. It was all I could do for a life based so completely on observing its surroundings. And my hands - they still gripped the pages on which I had written the story of humanity. Between my teeth was clenched a stick of lead, brittle and thin but strong enough to write our last dying words.
Without sound, I cried as I laid in the blackness.
I wondered what the ashes belonged to. A child perhaps, or simply the sheets on which the child slept, or the walls in which he lived. Perhaps they were the ashes of my own house, blown all the way from the Plains of Abraham.
I don't know how or when, but my eyes eventually shut and I fell into a deep sleep. In that sleep I dreamed a thousand dreams. I dreamed of my time spent in New Paris, writing for the King and his hundred maidens. I dreamed of the hand of my dear love, grasping it in my own. I dreamed of my walks in Outlander's Park, and my story-telling, which I offered so graciously to the animated children.
But my dreams became nightmares as I was swallowed by the sea of ashes.
I awoke to find my body covered in the heavy dark stuff. With the wings of my heart, I began swimming to the surface of the black sea. Light struck my face as my neck stretched in outrage, my mouth gasping for air. I was alive! My body drifted atop a wave, my head bobbing up and down as it did when I swam in my electron swimming pool. Below I saw a million more waves, and in the distance the smog seemed thinner, allowing a magnificent view of the charcoal land.
The wave brought me to a shore of solid rock, where my body rested until revived. I had survived the war, swallowed by its endless appetite but then spit back, here, on a rock in the middle of a black sea.
I sat there for days. On the eighth day the smog thinned away to nothing, and the horizon could be seen once more. My eyes searched wildly. Soon they came across a faint light, one not of fire or bombs or other weapons of the pirates, but rather one of hope. At least, that was what I felt when I spotted it - a sense of hope. It was nothing compared to the monstrous sea on which it floated, yet it was all that existed in the blackness other than myself. I had to reach the source of this light.
I set out on crippled legs, across the dying land, through steam and smoke. My hand still gripped the pages of humanity, my teeth still clenched the lead, but my eyes focused now on this light.
I walked for what seemed like months, through many clouds of darkness, as the true epitome of our past. I neared the light, watching it grow larger, as if being built before me - as if handfuls of brightness were added each day. This was my only chance for salvation in such a place.
With one final step across the extinguished fire, I stumbled upon the source of the light, after obsessing over its growth for my entire journey.
The wind still blew here. Dew still formed on blades of barley. Life still lived. But my heart was too weak, and my body collapsed to the floor of ashes, before grand wooden gates, painted in whiteness. With a quiet creek the gates swung wide open, firing a hundred rays of brightness upon my blackened face. In pure delight to both my skin and heart, hands grasped my shoulders and lifted my frailness to its feet. They were human hands. I was no longer alone. In another instance my body was doused in warm water, pulling all black from my skin and dirt from my eyes.
I squinted in front of me to spot a short, stout man, whose own body spawned a gorgeous bright light. His clothes were tattered but clean, all white, and his hair was the colour of barley. He spoke in softness. "Welcome, my dear tattered soul, to the Town of Tugboat."
And this is where I would live, in the town called Tugboat, among the people of brightness - the other survivors of the bombing years.
I was taken into the brightness as if I were a brother or sister or cousin of the King of brightness. I was bathed by ten hands of brightness. I was fed by twenty fingers of brightness. I was clothed, I was groomed, I was examined medically, all by brightness.
One day, I finally spoke to a child of brightness, who told me the story of the town I now called home. "This town was born from the sea of ashes. It floated above the blackness to where it now rests. The people built it out of the remains of the past, the remains of humanity. We created the only light that exists in all the darkness. And we're not finished. The construction of the light and the vessel to carry it in - this town - has only just begun."
That was what the child of brightness told me. And in turn I told the child the story of the humanity she spoke of, as I had written it upon my blood-stained pages. I was Tugboat's storyteller, whose duty it was to spread the story of humanity across the new fields of barley.
During my time spent in Tugboat, I saw that the town never stopped growing. It expanded to calm a thousand waves of ashes, stretching all the way to the base of the Hurtsman Plateau. New people came every day, rising out of the sea of ashes and climbing into Tugboat to reclaim some piece of humanity. They came from near and far, in small ships and big ships and some without any ship at all, riding the waves alone as I had years before.
The people of brightness built houses and schools and community centres upon the ashes. They planted wheat and corn and barley in the ashes, turning them to fields of gold. They made sure to do things right this time around. Never once was a fire lit, or a bomb built, or a gun shot. Instead, the brightness of Tugboat stemmed from the hearts of the people, from the gracious King to the working farmer to the generous storyteller. We were the brightness.
Each time I told the story, I made sure to tell it the same. It was a magnificent existence, strong in love and kindness and care. Yet it was also strong in the negative aspects of these things, such as hatred and evil and selfishness, the things used by the pirates when they dropped the bombs.
No one feared a reincarnation of the pirates, for there was no such thing as fear in the Town of Tugboat. There existed now only heart, the wings of which soared high above the smog of the past.
Years passed. The story was told a thousand times over.
My body was buried in the Town of Tugboat, under the roots of the fields of barley. The story of humanity, written in lead on blackened pages, was cleaned and polished before being passed down to the people of brightness. It was much too full of dirt for their liking.
Tugboat had saved my life. That much was true, more true than the droplets of dew which formed on the blades of barley each morning; more true than the new sun which shone upon the golden fields; more true than the sinking graves of the pirates and their warships. Yet the little town saved more than me. It saved humanity. The Town of Tugboat and its people of brightness pulled humanity from the black ashes of war and revived it, just as it had revived my dear, tattered soul.
The epiphany of the story of humanity was simple really. All it took was one town, and one small, however powerful tug on the dying world.
by David B. King (1999)
