The Tides of Control and the Bloom of a New Age.

An old truth teller endeavors to keep the words of a lost world alive in a new time

“Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky.”

Captain Wallaby stared at the paper on his desk, then dropped his face in his hands, massaging his leathery, wrinkled cheeks. Tears began welling in the saggy pillows of his lower eyelids — the awful conglomeration of words was written by Aralia, one of his prize pupils.

Wallaby rose from the desk, walked to the long, curved window, and stared into the frothing grey sea tumbling into the black rocks below. Each violent crash of the surf clawed land away, and the deathly cold water crept ever closer, threatening to take what remained of a once vibrant life.

The old professor straightened up, pulled his shoulders back, and returned to his desk with a sigh. He’d been teaching Literary Arts for nearly sixty years and was tired. They were worse with each generation, he thought. More distracted, mentally and physically lazy, and less and less concerned with matters of substance and thought. He was surprised they could read.

For the kids, life was a bowl of Halloween candy. Nothing but sweets to be acquired, hoarded, and gluttonously consumed. If something didn’t give them a rush of happy feelings, no matter how temporary, it simply wasn’t worth having.

Everyone was supposed to be happy and docile all the time.

Still, he had to try. It was his purpose to challenge them. To make them grow.

Passing his hand over the side of the desk, the line of gemstones illuminated. He pressed the blue rock, and the screen materialized above the stones.

A moment later, a tall girl with long, curly brown hair, rosy cheeks, and lips painted a brash yellow appeared in the viewer.

“Hi, Captain Wallaby.” the girl greeted him cheerily. “Did you like my story? Do you think it’s good enough to win the contest?”

Pinching his eyes closed with a thumb and forefinger, Wallaby fought back the disappointment he felt clawing its way up his throat.

“Hello, Aralia. Yes, the story. That’s why I’ve called on you.”

The girl stepped closer, nodding, her eyes blinking and fingers clasped in anticipation of a happy announcement.

“Could you step into my office? I want to discuss it with you.”

“Oh sure, Captain Wallaby! I’ll tell Mom I’m fading over. See ya in a sec!”

Ending the communication, Wallaby walked to the wall of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that ran the length of his study. “I must get them to read!” he thought for the umpteenth time, but a stagnant tome of pages written before the Bloom was a hard sell in a world of instant everything.

When Wallaby turned around, the white haze of Aralia’s figure began to form; a blink later, she stood in his office as solid as stone.

“Hi, Captain. What did you want to tell me about my story?”

Wallaby grabbed the papers from his desk, turned, and faced the girl, who was undoubtedly expecting accolades and applause. “Yes, the story. Well, frankly, Aralia,” he began in his teacherly voice, “it’s terrible.”

The girl’s face, which held a bright smile since she’d arrived at his study, dropped into a pitiful frown. Her eyes immediately dampened, and she sucked in her top lip, folding her bottom over it like a pocket.

Wallaby lunged into a critique. “Look here, the very first words are redundant. ‘Every night at midnight,’ why are you repeating ‘night’ in a span of four words?”

He was merely warming up, not yet allowing the steam to whistle from the kettle of his frustration. “Why not, ‘Each night, or each midnight? But ‘each night at midnight?’”

The girl began twitching her fingers, rubbing her pinky finger against the pad of her thumb.

“There are more problems, Aralia.” the teacher continued, “and we haven’t even finished with that first sentence. ‘the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky.’” He scratched a bushy eyebrow with a finger and continued. “‘Came out to dance?’ You’re using four words when one will do. ‘Danced with the blushing sky’ would have been better.”

The girl scuffed a heel against the wooden floor, “Well, what’s so bad about that? I think it’s very pretty.”

“Hmph! That’s the one thing I wish you would have done more of when writing this assignment — think!” Wallaby grumbled, shook his head, and walked back to his desk. “The imagery is terrible, and the words are all wrong.”

“That’s not fair!” she protested.

“This isn’t even close to good enough!” he replied. “The setting is midnight, black skies, no? Yes. How is someone going to see purple clouds against a blackened sky? And, how could the sky be blushing if it were midnight?”

Aralia’s fingers were hot from the friction of rubbing together; she dropped her chin and furrowed her brow looking directly at the teacher, who was now pulling out a red pen and ready to attack the paper.

Wallaby, his head slowly shaking with disapproval, began the following sentence of his critique.

Aralia snapped her hot fingers, tossing tiny sparks to the floor.

“You’ve got to be believabrrrll….” Captain Wallaby’s lips twitched and pressed against his teeth. His eyes met the girl’s glare. Squinting at her, he stood and slapped a hand on the table. Wallaby, standing erect, closed his eyes, calmed his state of mind, and slowed his breathing.

His mouth loosened, finally exhaling.

“Aralia.” He said her name with clear and careful pronunciation. “You know that’s not allowed. You cannot cancel an elder.”

The girl feigned innocence, her guilty fingers now twirling the ringlets of her corkscrew mane.

“A story, even fiction,” he continued telling her while slashing red streaks across her work, “Must be believable, even if the entire concept is make-believe. When you write, you are creating dreams, possibilities, and magic.” Then with a look of forgiveness, the Wallaby added, “There was a time when not everything could be done with a snap of fingers.”

He gathered the papers and shuffled them neatly, stacking them with a crisp clack on the desktop. Then, Wallaby walked to the girl and handed them over.

“Try Again. Trim the fat, and this time, think; with your heart and brain. You are one of my brightest students, Aralia. I know you have it in you.”

The girl, looking dismayed, retracted her petulance and accepted the papers. “It’s just that I can’t come up with any good ideas for a story,” she said in a final protest.

Wallaby, once more the genial teacher, smiled and nodded. “Nothing could be easier to fix. Come with me.”

The girl followed her teacher to the wall of books.

“These are all records of people who had one good idea,” he told her. “It only takes one spark to get the fires of creativity burning. So let’s see what we can find.”

At the books, Wallaby moved quickly, his fingers touching their spines while his eyes darted from one shelf to the next, searching for the right inspiration. Aralia moved slowly, reading titles she’d never seen but recognizing a few names her parents had mentioned in their conversations.

She was still scanning the first row of the first shelf when she slipped a finger overtop a book and gently pulled it from its slot.

Opening its protective leather jacket, she delicately turned to the first page and began to read. The effortless grace of the words held her attention, and she was on the fourth page before Wallaby noticed her standing idle.

Delighted and curious, the teacher returned to the girl and watched her eyes smile at a passage.

“….she had a decided mouth, comical nose, and sharp gray eyes which appeared to see everything and were, by turns, fierce, funny, or thoughtful. Her long, thick hair was her one beauty….”

Wallaby approached her and saw which book she held in her hands. “Ah, ‘Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. A book chooses a reader as much as a reader chooses a book.” He smiled at her and felt the flutter of hope in his heart. “Take it, Aralia. It’s a marvelous story.”

The girl closed the book and ran her fingers over the soft cover. “Thank you, Captain Wallaby. Can I read this first and then write the assignment?”

“I’ll give you a two-week extension,” he answered, then he touched a finger to his nose and said, “but don’t tell the other students. I have faith in you.”

Smiling, she touched the small gemstone pendant hanging on a thin leather cord around her neck and, in a moment, began to vanish in front of his eyes.

Invigorated from connecting with Aralia, Wallaby patted the pudgy pocket of his stomach and decided lunch was a fine idea. Touching his fadestone, the elderly teacher dissipated from the study and emerged in the garden behind his home.

Thinking of the tuna and anchovies delivered yesterday from Marcel, the fishmonger, Wallaby had his menu decided. “Nicoise, today, I think, would be fine,” he said to the ducks and chickens scurrying away from his boots as he walked into their coop.

Gathering a few eggs, Wallaby took the deer hide flask from the hook on the wall and walked to the conical mounds of blue soil in the center of the plot. Pulling the cork from the flask, Captain Wallaby tipped the sack allowing a single drop of amber liquid to fall into the dirt. Then, moving from one mound to the next, he called out the product to be born.

At the first mound, he said, “Green beans.”

The second, “Celery hearts,” and so on, until he reached the end of the row. Then, taking a willow basket from its perch on the fence, he turned back and began plucking the fresh harvest. Within a few minutes, he’d piled a small bounty of fresh vegetables into the basket; An ear of garlic, cucumber, a few plump tomatoes, a handful of black olives, celery hearts, a Spanish onion, green beans, two artichokes, a small head of butter lettuce and a fistful of spinach.

The chickens and ducks swarmed the mounds, pecking and pulling at the plants before they sunk back into the soil.

“Splendid,” he declared to the duckling nipping at his pant leg.

Touching the fadestone once more, Wallaby misted from the garden back into the house, carrying his groceries to the large kitchen.

By the time Wallaby had finished preparing the fish and vegetable salad, he saw his eyes were larger than his stomach; he had enough to feed four. He thought of Mistress Claudette and how she would appreciate a lunch harkening back to her French ancestry.

Setting aside the bowl of olive oil and white balsamic dressing, Wallaby stepped quickly to his desk and skirted a finger over the translucent amber gemstone. The air above the desk flickered with pixels, then formed into a view screen of Mistress Claudette’s Historical Social Studies lecture room.

Mistress Claudette stood at the side of her desk, her hands splayed on the thick top of Bird’s Eye Maple, her head bowed, and she breathed heavily.

“My goodness!” Wallaby called out, “Claudette, are you alright?”

The Mistress nodded, lifted a hand from the table, and raised a finger.

“Claudette? I can see you’re in some distress. Turn around, and let’s have a look at the trouble.”

Claudette straightened up and turned to face Wallaby — her mouth pressed into a tight line across her teeth. Her nostrils, on a pretty, rose-petal pink nose, flared large, and her eyes were watery.

“Oh, dear. One of them got you as well.” Wallaby surmised. “Let me help you.” Wallaby materialized beside her, placed a hand on her shoulder, and blew gently into her ear.

The teacher’s mouth relaxed, her lips slipped from her teeth, and she exhaled loudly. “Thank you, Captain Wallaby.” She swallowed deeply, relaxed her shoulders, and closed her eyes before speaking further. Once calmed, she smiled at her colleague, then explained.

“They’re getting stronger sooner.”

Wallaby nodded, “And bolder. One of my best students tried to cancel me this morning. Fortunately, she is only half my weight.” The captain patted her shoulder and pointed to the hovering screen behind him. Stroking his fingers through the air brought the screen back and showed the fresh salad waiting on his counter. “Come, join me for lunch; you can tell me all about it. I’ve prepared a Salade Nicoise in the manner of your French ancestors.”

Claudette smiled and nodded, “It looks delicious, Edwin. Is the recipe from one of your collections?”

“Yes, cookbooks count as literature, and fine food is poetry, only served on a plate, not paper.” He replied with a smile.

“It does sound lovely, and I am a bit famished after that ordeal.”

Back at Captain Wallaby’s, the teachers discussed the events while enjoying the robust salad.

“You didn’t use any of the eradicated words, did you?” Wallaby asked, listening as Claudette recounted one of her students clamping her mouth shut.

The Mistress rolled her eyes and confessed. “I didn’t think so. I was merely speaking about the theological beliefs of societies before the Bloom, and that was enough to elicit offense.”

“Hmph!” Wallaby grunted, “I might have guessed. That’s almost using the R-word. You’re fortunate it was a junior student. Had it been a senior, you might be facing a review.”

Claudette nodded, “Yes. You are correct. I will double my efforts proofreading my lesson outlines from here on out.”

“It was the smattering of freckles dusted across the bridge of her nose that made Wendell fall for Catriona. A small nose rose with a slight lift upwards at its very end. Slim along the sides with petite teardrop-shaped nostrils, and when Catriona laughed, grimaced, or feigned shock, it was a device of beguilement.”

Captain Wallaby smiled, and Aralia, standing beside him, smiled at his reaction to her words. She’d turned in the assignment with a week left to spare; once she began reading “Little Women,” she couldn’t stop. Caught up with inspiration, Aralia had written her story within hours of reading the novel’s final page.

“This is much better, Aralia,” said Wallaby looking up at her, pleased with the result of his encouragement. “See? This is how you begin a story! Now I want to know everything about Catriona and how Wendall will fair with her! Well done!”

The girl beamed at his words and rose to her toes. “Thank you, Captain Wallaby!” Then, recalling her earlier behavior, she looked at her toes and, in a much quieter voice, apologized. “I shouldn’t have done that, and I’m sorry.”

Wallaby nodded, “Yes, that was a bit uncomfortable for us both, I think.”

Aralia remained standing with her eyes cast to the floor.

“But, it’s all forgotten now,” Wallaby added quickly to stop the girl from feeling too much and being unable to cope with his expressions properly. “Now, I have some wonderful reading waiting for me; I’d better get started.”

Aralia’s smile returned immediately, and she reached for the fadestone strung around her neck. But, before touching it, she looked back at her teacher and, with a tone of genuine ache, said, “And I’m sorry about Mistress Claudette. I know I’m not supposed to say anything, but I didn’t think what happened was fair.”

Captain Wallaby’s face turned somber, his eyes sad. “You’d better get along now, Aralia. There’s no excuse to be late for your next class.”

The girl dipped her chin, giving a half nod, then touched her fadestone and evaporated.

Captain Wallaby rose from his desk and walked to the window overlooking the angry, grey sea smashing into the black rocks below. It had stolen more shoreline, and the deep, green grass lawn was eroding from the tide’s unrelenting advance.

He thought about poor Claudette, how sad she must be now, banished to FadeLock. “And for what?” Wallaby said to the churning sea. “Not even for speaking the words but merely for having the historical texts of societies before the Bloom Re-generation. Books about…” Wallaby clamped his mouth shut and pressed his fingers over his lips. “Don’t even think the words,” he thought to himself.

He stared at the sea, ripping its way ever closer inland, taking more of what it wanted without regard for what should stay. The old man, the most senior of the teachers and the last man to captain a vessel before the oceans turned to their unyielding violence, which the council deemed too hazardous for sailing, searched each day for a sign of calm and a hope of reason.

But he saw nothing on across the salt spray horizon but storms.

Turning back, Wallaby returned to his desk. He did not look at his wall of books, now more than half bare after the council’s investigation of texts and influential materials deemed too offensive to be kept in circulation.

Instead, he kept his mind very quiet and breathed no words.

Sitting down, he resumed reading and grading papers, hoping that there, in the stack of short fiction stories written by his students, a voice would emerge. A voice brave enough to speak without fear of repercussions.

As he read through Aralia’s submission, he allowed a smile and a thought. “It only takes one person to have one idea and then the fortitude to write it down.”

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