+In the midday sun on a clear, windless day, sitting on a carved sandstone bank with the walls of the City of Asher at her back and her feet in the Reinhart River, Prahla watches a group of men on the opposite bank. They are felling a fourth tree to make space for an expanding field of various Brassica. One man, face hidden and covered from head to toe with heavy garments, is spraying the soil. He stops cranking the lever in the top of the small barrel he’s holding as two men yell at him while others move away. He appears to wait while they finish doing what they are doing. Prahla knows the pungent liquid limits what can grow in the soil.
Behind
Prahla, moving in and out of the city walls openings, people are milling around
and walking up and down the corn, cotton, canola, soy, sugarbeet, zucchini and
squash filled terraces descending from the city wall to the riverbank. The food
is heavily guarded by several Armin, foot soldiers that patrol and monitor the
people of Asher according to the laws established by Mayor Rinehart’s council.
There
are people on ladders installing unfamiliar metallic contraptions on the
outside wall as they have been throughout the inner city. Prahla realises they
look like spring loaded armaments and shudders to think why the City
councillors would place unmanned machines, that could be used as weapons, in
the centre of the population.
Beside
her, people are rinsing clothes in the shallow water at the river’s edges and
swimming. Nearby, a group of powerfully built gladiators nurse metallic
weaponry and sit quietly relaxing while their skin is painted with red lines.
One man shifts his ornate grey spear and dislodges red paste from its crushed
metal bowl, sending it over the stone edge into the river. An artistan hastily
stands and attempts to clutch it from the water, they retrieve a partially
dissolved blob and return it to the bowl to dry.
Prahla
notices a murky black cloud in the water growing downstream of the gladiators.
Some children in the river begin to squeal and playfully tease one another as
they move away from it.
One
of the children doesn’t want to get out of the water because she has
unnaturally thick white patches of hardened skin on the joints of her body’s
limbs, making it difficult to move. Prahla feels terrible knowing the disease
will spread and that she will probably die early because of her immobility and
the inability of her parents to care for her if they are not bons and must spend
more time at labour for food than time caring for her.
Looking
to the city walls behind her, Prahla notices a small plume of black smoke and
hastily pulls her feet out of the water.
A
group of bons wearing dull fabrics decorated with intricate metal and stone
ornaments passes behind Prahla towards a gebar crouching inconspicuously by an
ornamental pillar who intersects their path. The gebar opens his jacket and
unrolls a bundled cloth littered with shiny stone and metal ornaments for the
bons. The oldest man turns away, a younger woman looks around and a middle-aged
woman eyes them warily. As the youngest man extends his hand to touch one, an
Armin strides across and places himself disapprovingly between the ornamented
group and the gebar, he appears apologetic to the bons. The group continues
walking and when their backs are turned the Armin beats the gebar across his
arms with a short stick. ‘You don’t have permission to sell here,’ he grunts.
The
cloth and ornaments fall to the ground as the armin retracts the stick and
again beats the gebar across the back of her knees. He grabs a handful of the
scattered ornaments and shoves them into a small bag, slung behind him over his
shoulder before kicking some of the remaining ornaments over the edge of the stone
bank into the water and meandering away. The gebar removes her tan outer robe,
an attempt to blend in with the bons, and jumps into the water to retrieve what
she can.
At
the city gate a group of people are pushing through when a young man bumps a woman
who looses her balance and falls over; he doesn’t offer to help her to her
feet. The Armin sees, skips over and strikes the young man across his back
before offering his own hand to the woman. Prahla watches the Armin say
something to the woman, as she pulls away he becomes angry.
Prahla’s
gaze drifts west, close to the where sun sets before passing the length of the
river. Upstream to the water falling over the edge of the curling mountain
range that shelters their city, she notices a wisp of smoke against the blue
sky. It dissipates quickly, leaving her confused.
‘Prahla!’
calls a voice behind her. It’s her neighbour Jade, a boy of ten years to
Prahla’s eleven. Prahla doesn’t move, she eyes the mountain horizon intently.
‘What
are you looking for?’ asks Jade as he descends the steps of the terraced
landscape to her side.
Prahla
focuses on the distant tree line feathering into blue sky. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Come
on!’ urges Jade, tugging Prahla by the arm. ‘You have to see what Aadhu’s Dad
brought home, before dinner.’
‘Wait
a second,’ relents Prahla. She retrieves a small net from a boat while checking
the rope securing it to the bank.
Net
slung over her shoulder and tied, they begin making their way uphill towards
the towering city wall, using the steps to avoid trampling the plants being
cultivated in the sunlit terraces where some people are now planting rice in a
plot filled with shallow water.
They
pass a person covered from head to toe in heavy robes watching a child with
bowed legs, a deformed chest and curved back walking. The child stumbles and
begins wailing after breaking their wrist on the flat ground.
Prahla
goes to help them up but Jade grabs her arm. Prahla pulls away from Jade’s
loose grip to touch the child on the back, the robed figure starts hissing at
her to get away from their child.
~
Mena
Hahn is folding clothes. She pulls one sleeve from the left back and then the
other sleeve to overlap; she tucks the bottom up to make a square. She
retrieves the next item, a shirt. She pulls one sleeve from the left back and
then the other sleeve to overlap; she tucks the bottom up to make a square. She
retrieves the next item, another shirt. She pulls one sleeve from the left back
and then the other sleeve to overlap; she tucks the bottom up to make a square.
She retrieves the next item, another shirt. She pulls one sleeve from the left
back and then the other sleeve to overlap –is that a spill on the floor over
there?
Mena
Hahn is kneeling on the ground trying to rub off a spot of black tarry gumm
from the porous stone. She tries to pick it off with her nail and finds it has
stained the stone underneath with a shadow. She scrubs it with a damp cloth –is
it fading yet? She tries again to rub out the stain.
A
distant, low wail suddenly echoes around the cavernous empty room that her own
home would fit inside, after travelling from somewhere deeper in the complex
mansion, bouncing off polished hardstone walls.
Mena
Hahn pauses to look up and listen, as a chill settles through her body she
thinks better of it and returns her concentration to the little mark on the
floor.
~
Entering
the city via the southbank marketplace, Prahla and Jade weave through the
wandering crowd that is hurriedly lugging heavy bags and packs of assorted,
colourful objects.
People
are pushing past one another irritatedly, clamouring to get to stalls with
particulary decorative signs set with shiny coloured stones for food. Row upon
neat row of glossy, unmarked, brightly coloured vegetables graces the centre
square of the market and hordes of people clamour to purchase them for various
amounts of plastic. The currency has recently changed from Grey to Black disks
and there are some people whose money is being rejected from being used to buy
food.
Jade
and Prahla hear other children fighting over toys above them as they stoop
underneath the sellers tables to avoid the congestion. They walk in shadow,
crouched underneath the weight of thousands of specialised objects and
surrounded by a cacophony of harried voices.
Jade
covers his nose as the smell of meat hits them and cold bloody water touches
Prahla’s barefeet.
‘Euurgh!
Do we have to go this way?’ begged Prahla.
‘It’s
quicker…’ said Jade.
‘The
meat tastes better the longer it feels pain before death,’ said a woman
instructing her son how to properly torch the head of a skinned Miut before
carving its limbs off.
‘But
we don’t have to…this way then,’ said Jade slipping out from under a table into
a less crowded isle as Prahla followed.
They
passed an advertisement for Prime, a painting of a fluffy white sheep beside a
handsome cow, grazing on green grass in a meadow by a stream from which a
little pig was drinking beside a goat. Below the large painting headed by Prime
Industry’s emblem were shelves of neatly stacked, flesh coloured circles and
squares that various sellers that were selling rapidly.
The
ground was strewn with discarded papers in different languages that had been
printed for the people of Asher about how nutritious prime was and how much of
it whytcoats insisted they should consume.
‘Hey!
What are you children doing here?’ shouted an Armin.
‘Ignore
him, keep walking,’ said Jade as they made their way to another section of
brittle stone.
‘You
should be in training! What’s your school? Hey, I’m talking to you!’
People
in the crowd made way as the Armin ran at Jade and Prahla.
Prahla
spun around to face the Armin, a young man in a stiff uniform.
Jade
stood beside her as a few sellers standing at their tables watched them.
‘I’m
one and four, I’m finished training,’ said Prahla.
‘You
don’t look it,’ said the Armin suspiciously as he glanced then ignored Jade.
‘Then
why are you not labouring if you’re not learning. There is always need for
workers in prime or the mines.’
Prahla
purses her lips.
‘Are
you a fisher or a fief?’ he asks looking at the net tied around Prahla.
Prahla
doesn’t answer.
‘You’re
a gebar,’ he quietly accuses.
‘Nay,
I’m a bon!’
The
Armin laughs. ‘Yes, in every gebar is a bon trying to get out.’ He leans
closer, ‘You’re no bon.’
The
Armin looks at Jade as he reaches out to grab Prahla’s arm, ‘She’s a pretty
girlfriend…for a gebar.’
Prahla
jumps backwards and knocks a table behind her, some wares fall to the gound and
a man starts ranting about payment.
‘Don’t
touch me!’ yells Prahla.
‘There’s
medicine from prime that will make you more…’ he signs the curves of a body
with his hands, ‘if that’s the kind of work you need gebar,’ said the Armin
softly so only Prahla and Jade could hear. ‘You’ll make a lot of plastic with
that pretty face, and you need plastic if you want to eat. I’ll bet you’re real
hungry aren’t you little one.’
‘Leave
her alone!’ yells Jade, imploring the sellers and passers by in the crowd to
help them.
‘Look
what she has done to my things,’ said the large seller whose wares had fallen to
the ground. ‘These bracelets are made from the finest diamold in the world.
Look at these papers,’ ranted the seller, ‘they are real! Look what you have
done to them. Don’t let them get away,’ he said to the Armin, ‘look at what
they have done here, do you know how expensive these are!?’
‘You
should cover that hair of yours pretty girl unless you are asking for trouble,’
said the Armin as another Armin approached them. It was a young woman with soft
features and a hard expression.
‘Come
here girl,’ said the other Armin in a falsely kind tone as she reached out for
Prahla.
Prahla
dodged her and accidentally knocked another table, coloured glass bulbs came
toppling down from shelves and smashed into tinkling shards. Jade pushed Prahla
away from the Armin into the crowd and cut open his own hands as he slipped and
gripped the shopping table to hold himself up.
Dodging
the hands of the Armin, Jade soon followed Prahla under another table, they
stood upright and pushed it over to cause a commotion and hinder the Armin with
a wall of different sandals.
As
Jade looked at his bloody handprints on the upturned table of things, he saw
bloody footprints from Prahla’s feet.
This
time Prahla yanked Jade backwards, urging him to run as sellers began turning
their attention to them and trying to assist the Armin in catching them. Scared
and angered, Jade and Prahla continued to upend tables in the market place as
they ran and disappeared in the commotion. Seeing a way out, they climbed up
and out of the commotion of the market as people were squabbling in the
commotion below.
Jade
and Prahla dash across the rooftops of the city as Prahla’s bloody footsteps
begin to fade. As they leap over a narrow alleyway, Prahla sees working gebar
below being harassed by a group of young bons. The gebar is chained to a
dogline, commonly found trailing the walls between employers houses. The gebars
children are unchained but follow their Mother; they watch her struggling
helplessly.
Prahla
leans over the edge and yells out to the bons below, ‘Hey you! Get away from
her! I said stop!’
Two
of the bons look up at Prahla and Jade, the young men laugh loudly.
Prahla
turns around and walks away, she kicks out a smoke pipe poking through a roof
and picks up the stone. She runs back and throws a rock onto the ground near
the bons, they look up hastily as it shatters and the working gebar hurries
away along the line while her children follow.
‘Prahla!’
said Jade, ‘you’re going to make everyone want to get us!’
‘For
what!?’ gasped Prahla as they both turned to continue running.
‘I
haven’t done anything wrong!’ she exclaimed.
Prahla
and Jade eventually dropped down into a quiet alley and accidentaly disturbed a
group of metricians. The group of five were animatedly pondering long lines of
numeric symbols variously chalked and carved onto a clay wall. An old man was
in the process of circling an empty space within the crowded lines of symbols
as Prahla and Jade approached.
‘How
did you get here?’ mumbled the panick stricken voice of a man whose ears twitched
as he spoke.
Prahla
halted.
‘We’re
sorry. We’re not being followed,’ assured Prahla. ‘We’re leaving,’ said Prahla,
inspecting a stack of boxes along a wall that were filled with white powder.
Escaping particles were being carried in whisps along the ground and into the
air by a gentle breeze.
Jade
stopped behind Prahla to look at the writing on the wall, his eyes drawn to the
void amid the mass that had just been circled.
A
woman hastily pulled a piece of string and a dirty old prime poster rolled down,
covering the metricians marks.
‘Just
quietly, we need you to be on your way now,’ said another more firm voice.
Prahla
nodded at the man who spoke, a tired and skinny looking man with shoulder
length hair dressed in black with a tan cloak.
Out
of breath, Prahla throws down her net inside the front door as she enters the
cool shade of Aadhu’s small home after Jade. The clay walls of Aadhu’s home are
lined with trinkets; appliances for cutting, squashing, jamming and twisting,
contraptions for pouring, meshing and moulding.
‘Don’t
say anything about what just happened, okay?’ huffed Prahla quietly.
Jade
nodded as he caught his breath.
‘Aadhu!’
calls Jade, ‘Show Prahla what your Fathur traded today!’
A
short green-eyed boy, half Prahla’s age peeks his head out from a doorway
disguised by a sea of ornaments. ‘In here,’ he grins.
Prahla
moves slowly after Jade, distracted once again by the plethora of objects
filling the home, crowding around the metal fireplace.
They
move through the doorway to Aadhu’s family sleeping room. Wide sheets of fabric
drape over beds set into the far wall and a hammock rocks in one corner where
Aadhu must have been resting.
Translucent
fabric barely disguises refuse in the space against the walls on either side to
their left and right. It is lit by light pouring through large fragments of
rare and ancient, almost unbreakable, clear stone set into the ceiling. Prahla
briefly wondered if Aadhu’s Farthur brought the clear stone home from the
Finlee Mines, where hundreds of men and women excavated the mountains southeast
of the city for artefacts of an older age. It had been established that an area
of land thirty days across was littered with remnants of a late global
civilisation and few speculate as to how so much accumulated in the area.
Within
the clear quartz sungaps, the centre of the ceiling is completely covered with
round glassy globes as Aadhu has taken to collecting used and discarded ones.
‘Check
this out first! I got it today,’ smiles Aadhu pointing at the ceiling. Prahla
really isn’t sure which one of the hundred or so bulbs he’s pointing to but she
smiles politely.
‘Somebody
painted it, by hand,’ he says amazedly. ‘Never seen one like it before.’
Prahla
squints as she looks again. There now, she notices a bulb with a moon and star.
In
the middle of the refuse filled room, Aadhu kneels on a cushion on the floor.
It makes a slight crunching noise, like the sound of dead leaves, under his
shifting weight. In front of him a silvery blue triangular tube about two feet
long and palm width in diameter lies on the floor, its surface polished like
the surface of still water.
‘What
do you think?’ sniffs Jade at Prahla excitedly.
Prahla
realises Jade looks unwell, again. She feigns a smile and nodds slowly.
‘It’s…blue and shiny.’
‘Watch
this,’ smiles Aadhu.
Despite
the visible absence of breaks in the objects surface, Aadhu dissects a portion
from the top, followed by another. Then he reassembles the resulting six
sections to make a hollow tetrahedron. The edges connect and hold together via
invisible bonds.
Prahla
now kneels and touches the edges of the newly formed shape, examining how it
connects at the joints. The surface is clean, dry and flush.
‘I
don’t understand,’ frowns Prahla.
‘Here,’
ventures Aadhu, ‘pull it apart…slowly.’
Prahla
gently grips two sections and pulls. An invisible force is drawing them
together. Prahla gasps. She completely removes the section and attempts to
reconnect it elsewhere but it pushes against her and slides away, refusing to
connect. Jade chuckles. After short experimentation, Prahla reconnects the
loose section at another joint, pointing away.
‘What
does it do?’ asks Prahla.
Aadhu
shrugs as they wonder at it.
Jade
picks it up by the extending arm, ‘It’s a foodpan,’ he proposes, placing it on
his head. ‘And now it’s a hat.’
Aadhu
laughs wildly, ‘here give me a go!’ he cries leaping to his feet.
‘This
hat isn’t for the likes of you my boy!’ sniffs Jade, strutting and turning
deftly several times to keep it just out of Aadhu’s reach.
Aadhu
picks up the cushion from the floor and swings it at Jade as Prahla quietly
stands and backs out of the room. She returns to the entrance room just as
Aadhu’s Mother enters with two large fabric bags of goods and places them on
the floor, some of the contents spilling out -prime, containers and building
blocks of colourful melting stone.
‘Richard!
Aadhu? Is your Fathur home yet?’ calls Aadhu’s Mother before she sees Prahla.
‘Prahla,’
she smiles warmly, ‘How are you dear?’
‘Well
thank you Mena Hahn. And how is Master Hahn?’
‘Working
hard dear.’
Prahla
nods. ‘Is he working anywhere near the earth fire?’
Aadhu’s
Mother looks unsure. ‘I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. He does…messaging or
something. Anyway, you should be getting home now.’
‘I
was just going,’ smiled Prahla walking towards the door and knocking over a
chair. It bumps the extended arm of a contraption that pushes the small curtain
of a shelf.
Jade’s
voice was heard to issue from the other room as Aadhu had torn open the cushion
on the dismantleable contraption. ‘Aw, look at what you’ve done!’
‘Wait!’
exclaims Aadhu’s Mother upon sight of a small white object exposed by the
moving curtain. Prahla stops and spins around.
‘I’m
sorry, I didn’t mean to…’
‘No,
no. It’s okay.’
Aadhu’s
Mother steps over her bags of goods to retrieve the white cube. She hesitates.
‘This was your brother’s…you should take it home with you.’
Prahla
stares at Aadhu’s Mother and after a moments pause, politely raises her hand to
take the object.
Aadhu’s
Mother turns around and pulls aside a curtain to reveal several shelves of
goods to which she begins adding the new things from her bags.
Prahla
doesn’t realise Jade and Aadhu are standing silently in the doorway of the
other room watching, until Jade wheezes and coughs. Prahla waves goodbye to
Jade, and Aadhu. Coloured paper printed with Richard Rineharts face is falling
out of the torn cushion Aadhu is holding. Prahla picks up her net and leaves
with the cube in hand.
~
Prahla
eyes the long row of small dwellings facing an outercity wall that her home is
a part of. In this area they must all be painted ochre with a number on the
door in black. A few houses away, an Armin is overseeing two council workers
overpainting a mural with ochre and another Armin is instructing a tenant to
remove a small tray of potted plants hanging from an outside window, insisting
it is a danger to walkers. The Armin digs their hand into the soil and is
inspecting the seeds he finds when a delivery girl passes with a crate.
Prahla’s
neighbour Margye is loitering in their doorway, watching the delivery girl and
the Armin. The delivery girl produces some papers from a bag slung over her
shoulder for the Armin to inspect before he waves her on her way.
As
the delivery girl sits the crate down, Prahla sees a few fruit that are uneven
in colour and a few scratched, her tummy rumbles as she remembers how much
tastier and satisfying that food is compared to what they sell in the market.
Her hunger is further sparked by the sight of her neighbours son as he pokes his
head out the doorway and hastily reaches out to grab a bundle of red berries
Prahla hadn’t noticed yet.
A
neighbour passing by was heard to whisper to her companion, ‘have you seen how
much she chooses to spend on that rubbish? Look at the state of it, no wonder
their house is so empty.’
‘But
they do have nice chairs,’ mused her companion.
‘Oh
puhleese. Our chairs are much better than theirs, Edric’s chairs are better
than theirs. Speaking of which, you know what I would really love to have
sitting in the front entrance…’
As
Margye exchanged some plastic with the delivery girl, Prahla overheard snippets
of thanks and praise about her sons improving condition and saw them inspecting
a small white lesion on his throat and at his elbow.
Looking
at her neighbours son, whom she had never talked to before, Prahla was reminded
of her brother and felt a stab of sadness, she looked away.
Above
the faces of the round stones comprising the walls before and around them,
Prahla can see the green tree line of the basinmountains against blue sky in
the far distance.
Despondent,
Prahla sits on the stone paved ground gazing at a weathered toy cart half
buried in leaf litter and sand under a bush nearby.
A
male and female gladiator suddenly crosses her line of sight, Prahla looks up
and they look down at her as she sits beside her brother’s discarded belonging.
~
‘Are
you sure it’s safe to be out here?’ asks Jade again in a whisper as he creeps
through the undergrowth of the forest behind Prahla in the fading daylight.
‘We’re
not that far from the wall and we’ll be quick,’ assured Prahla.
‘How
long have you been foraging out here for now?’
‘Since
Mum disappeared.’
‘Your
neighbours haven’t noticed you’re living alone?’
Prahla
shakes her head.
‘Jamie
said there’s a group of bons handing out food on the east side of the city,’
said Jade as he paused to inspect a flower.
‘That
one will make you sick,’ said Prahla, gently tapping his hand away. ‘What kind
of food are they giving out at this place?’
Jade
shrugs.
‘Once
you get in there, they’ll want to know everything about you. They’ll probably
lock you up somewhere, train you to work for them or something.’
Jade
ducks under a branch as a concerned expression deepens.
‘Now
that you mention it…I haven’t seen Jamie in a while.’
Prahla
signals Jade to be quiet and points some distance away. They both make out a
stick of ivory through black hair, someone is crouched in hiding nearby.
Prahla
signals that they should move another way and, using her hands, also draws
Jade’s attention to a particular plant growing there.
~
Under
the stars, Prahla gazes down at the large image of the blue woman, Marie. She
secretly peers through a small window from the roof that allows sunlight to
beam onto Marie’s picture in daylight. The melting stone Marie’s image is made
out of appears glossy in the gaslight that fills the large stone hall.
The
Highest Priest stands in front of the icon Marie while his appointed Hiidean’s
stand in rows below, forty men in all. Prahla scrutinises the assembled crowd
kneeling in rows, ready to move on command.
The
Highest Priest spoke. ‘She who spoke only when spoken to, from lips untouched
by man, she sacrificed her wings to live with hands, that stung like a thousand
cuts of glass with each movement of her delicate fingers, and so serve her
Father Gondor faithfully for all eternity.’
‘Praise
be to Marie,’ repeated the crowd together in chorus and promptly bowed.
‘We
give thanks and praise to Marie, the coming of her Father in her son is near.
When we have finished using up all the fruits of this world that her Father
gave us, we will be taken from this empty place to another. There, we will live
without want in our Father’s arms for all eternity. So take, eat, let us have
our fill as we listen to the exact words of the one and the only Father Gondor,
here spoken through our brothers.’
‘Give
me a turn now!’ whispered Jade excitedly from beside Prahla as he finished
chewing a little green parcel.
Prahla
moved aside so Jade could watch the service.
Through
the sunlight hole, Jade inspected the Highest Priest standing over the crowd
crouching face down. He reads from a large old book with a heavy chain attached
to its covers while the crowd repeats a mantra each time he pauses.
‘Never
kissed, ever?’ said Prahla, thinking out loud to herself. ‘How can kissing make
you a bad person?’ wondered Prahla.
‘I
know, how silly,’ said Jade as he sat up. ‘Kiss me!’ he dared. ‘Or are you
afraid you will go to the world on fire for all time?’ he teased.
Prahla
laughed a little too loudly. ‘Agoni? I don’t believe in that place.’
Jade
beamed and turned his head to the side, grinning.
‘It’s
a made up place,’ thought Prahla out loud. ‘Like Raintree.’
‘Raintree?’
said Jade, trying to remember. ‘Oh…from that story when we were really
little…about the animals that turned into beetles, birds or bees or something…’
Prahla
leant forward and heartily planted a kiss on Jade’s cheek.
‘Oh
yuck!’ smiled Jade.
They
were both giggling when Jade was suddenly dragged away backwards along the dry
stone roof into the darkness.
‘I
thought I could smell urchins,’ growled a husky voice.
Prahla
screamed as she heard Jade’s yell cut short after the sound of a dull thud.
‘Jade!’
yelled Prahla.
Prahla
rolled aside and jumped to her feet as a large hand came out of the darkness.
‘Come
here urchin gebar whatever you are.’
‘Better
than to be a grarg!’ growled Prahla. ‘Jade!!’ she yelled again, standing just
out of reach. As her eyes began to adjust to the nighttime darkness she could
see the silhouette of a large man hoisting himself up onto the roof.
‘Jade!’
called Prahla again, slowly walking backwards. ‘Are you okay Jade?!’
The
man stood up and Prahla stood her ground, waiting for an opportunity to dodge
around him and check Jade.
‘You’re
a fair looking urchin,’ sneered the man. ‘Either you’re a very good gebar or
it’s past your bedtime armin su.’
‘I’m
no bon,’ spat Prahla.
Glancing
behind her at the stone cityscape aglow with nightlights, Prahla notices a
large cylindrical embellishment on the roof. If I can get him to chase me, lead
him away, maybe I can come back and get Jade…
As
the man jumps forward to chase her, Prahla turns and dashes off.
After
three steps the man reaches the roof window. There is an audible crack and
suddenly the ceiling gives way under his heavy foot.
Prahla
glances behind her as she’s running, just in time to see the man’s fearful
expression as he falls through the roof into the gaslit hall below.
Alerted
by Prahla’s cries for Jade, the crowd below was looking to the ceiling and has
time to move out of the way of the falling man.
‘Jade!
Jade, wake up!’ whispers Prahla urgently. Holding him upright she grabs his
arms and hoists them over her shoulders, leaning forward until his weight is on
her body she slowly stands.
She
can hear excited voices and the opening and closing of a creaky wooden door.
Bracing herself and gritting her teeth with Jade slumped over her back she
shuffles as quickly as possible along a shadowy alley and around a corner.
Taking another turn as footsteps and voices grow louder behind her she realises
she will pass a side section of the hall where people are prostrated. She edges
towards the light coming from the hall, no one is looking at her as she passes.
Everyone is directing their attention to the image of Marie, standing with
their hands in the air as the Highest Priest presides over the crowd and the
man’s body is carried away through them.
Prahla
feels Jade stir. Carrying Jade, Prahla crosses the light into the shadow on the
other side and holds him against a wall as he stirs and attempts to use his
legs.
‘I’ve
got you,’ she whispered. ‘Jade, you need to walk, we have to get out of here,’
she said urgently.
Jade
was in pain, he nodded.
With
his arm over Prahla’s shoulder they began walking more quickly.
Rounding
another corner Prahla enters a crowded night market where the people around
them pay little attention to them, despite Jade’s condition.
Nearby,
a gebar unsuccessfully snatches someones satchel of plastic, the multicoloured
rectangles spill onto the ground beside Prahla. As she struggles past with
Jade, people are quickly assisting the man to pick up his plastic.
They
pass a little girl lying on the ground under a blanket. Prahla gasps at the
sight of her blue lips and grips Jade tighter.
We
have to get out of here… thought Prahla.
Aes Dana, Perimiters. Aes Dana, Lysistrata.
