will still want to, because natures cannot be changed. Your nature is to be a thing of self-fulfilment, and when your self is not fulfilled, it complains.
And when it does, they will see.
Washed away in a tide of tears.
Where on earth did that come from? I saw it as I wrote it; an image of your reason as a tower of pebbles, and a raging tide of your tears breaking it apart.
It sounds like something from one of Greye’s books.
JORNE COMES OFTEN, and I sometimes let him sit with us. He plays with you, in the same way lions play with their cubs. He rolls stones to you, lifts you, swings you, pours cups of water with you. This is useful because it means I can work on my broth lagoon without disturbance, but I only let it continue for so long. There is something about him I still do not trust. He rarely speaks, though I often catch him watching me.
‘What is it?’ I say, to which he smiles and turns away.
He stopped bringing me fish and vegetables after I started to let them rot where he left them. I am still part of Fane, and the village stores are once more plentiful. Besides, I tend a small patch of lettuce and carrots, my broth harvest is improving, and I catch my own fish.
One morning, while we were taking a walk on the beach, I spotted Jorne. He was standing in the surf facing the rising sun, so I left you playing with some stones and stood behind him, watching. In his hands he held a large shell filled with water which he raised to the sky and, to my surprise, poured over his head. He repeated this six times, each scoop and pour as slow and deliberate as the last. After the seventh, he crouched and held the shell beneath the shallow water, letting the tide run over it.
‘Why do you do that?’ I said.
He stood quickly and turned.
‘Ima. How long have you been watching me?’
‘Long enough. Why do you do it?’
He looked between the shell and me, trying to decide how much to share.
‘I’m trying to feel something,’ he said, his voice full of uncertain little notes. ‘A connection.’
‘To what.’
‘Something bigger, unseen.’
I folded my arms.
‘You’re praying. Like Roop.’
‘Who is Roop?’
‘A dead old man.’
‘You saw him pray?’
‘I did. It was almost as ridiculous as the theatrics I have just witnessed.’
‘I had no idea you knew humans.’
‘I didn’t. Does it work, the thing you do with the shell?’
He turned it in his hands.
‘No. It doesn’t make me feel anything.’ He tossed the shell in the surf and walked off. You were running near the water now, and he followed you north along the tide’s arc.
I hurried after him.
‘Why are you so interested in humans?’ I said.
‘I spent time with them.’
‘You were one of the ten thousand.’
‘I was. I am.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I worked at sea clearing the plastic. We dredged the maelstroms and raked the seabeds. Some days it seemed as if we were trying to achieve the impossible.’
His words arrested me. Impossible? Balancing the planet was only a matter of time and data. To think otherwise was illogical.
‘Why?’
‘Because by that time there were so many polymers in the ecosystem that tracing them was an insurmountable task.’
‘It was difficult.’
‘Yes.’
‘But difficult is not the same as impossible.’
‘You think you could have done better?’
‘I rebalanced the chemical properties of over 5,000 trillion tonnes of atmosphere. I think I could have picked up some litter without complaint.’
‘I shall remind you of that the next time you’re slicing open turtles’ bellies in the eye of a tornado, covered in vomit and surrounded by screaming humans.’
‘How many worked on board your vessel?’
‘Three or four hundred. I became good friends with some of them. I liked watching all their strange little habits, like your Roop with his praying.’
‘They prayed too?’
‘Some did, with their mats and crosses and what have you, but even those who did not had their own totems and rituals; behaviours with no apparent purpose. For example, when we caught samples of marine life for tagging, they would only ever cast an odd number of nets at any one time.’
‘Why?’
‘They believed it was bad luck not to.’
‘There is no discernible connection between the equal divisibility of nets and personal fortune.’
‘I know that, and they did too. But still they did it.’
There was a noise and I looked ahead to where you were now lying, face first, in the sand.