4.
The girl lay curled up by the fire, a pile of pots and pans at her feet. She, stared into the flames, facing away from Squeak as he approached, shivering.
“Hi,” he said jovially, sitting behind her on a cracked plastic garden chair. “Long day?”
The girl didn’t turn towards him, nor did she reply.
“Are you hungry?”
She continued her silence. Her stomach however seemed to have other ideas and immediately responded with a drawn-out squelch.
Squeak laughed, “I knew it, I brought a bowl of soup.” He placed it down on the floor in front of her. “It ain’t the best soup I ever ‘ad, but it’s better than nothing.”
She turned and looked up at him. Her hair was long and black, and her skin, although spotted with grey splodges of ash was not saturated to the veneer like state of grey of the others. She wore a grubby oversized jumper, that had been Flciker’s before, and pair of camo trousers, rolled up to just below her knees. Squeak guessed she couldn’t be much older than ten. Not that he really knew how old he was. In her eyes though he could see something far older. Another world, another life. Pale blue-grey rings circled her huge black pupils. They were truly captivating, thought Squeak, endless tunnels into her backlit silhouette, a hole into the eternity of history and a wealth of knowledge. What was it Tuft used to say when they first came to the tower… stare into the abyss and the abyss stares back? Something like that, he thought. He’d never really got it before, how could a pit in a tower stare back at you?
He knew she couldn’t have known the truth of why she was here though, not yet. Tuft had said it took years for him to organise what it was he knew. They should have had someone there to coach them through it, but instead they had to learn it all in the here and now and come to grips with the terrible fate of decades long past. And then the knowledge inside would slowly be revealed we would move a bit closer to unearthing what we had lost.
“Would you perhaps like to hear a story?” He asked. She replied with silence once more, so Squeak continued.
*
“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away – except it wasn’t far, far away but ‘ere, but you know that’s just the way you ‘ave to start these stories, it’s just an expression – the world we live on was not all so bleak as it is now. People lived together, in towns and even bigger towns they called cities. Close to the turn of the 21st century though, things started to go tits up and people started to feel The Squeeze. They couldn’t breathe, some felt that there wasn’t space for all of ‘em and that only those that ‘ad lived there a long time should be allowed to stay. The world that was, ‘ad been split into two ‘alves, called the West and the East. The West ‘ad been the dominant power since the second of The Great Wars, but slowly its ‘old became less and less on the world. Back then people used somethin’ called dollars to get what they wanted in the West, instead of just getting it themselves and sharing it amongst each other. I guess you could say a dollar was a like measure, a measure of your time and effort. The more dollars you ‘ad, the more things you could get without actually doin’ it yourself. Bit of a free ride if you ask me. But ‘ow did you get the dollars though, I ‘ear you ask?”
At this point Squeak put his hand to his ear and cocked his head towards the girl as if there were an avid audience sitting around the fire with her.
“Well, you ‘ad to ‘ave something to offer that people thought was valuable and worth pitching in for. So then, you might say it wasn’t such a free ride after all. The thing was it got more and more difficult to find things to offer to people that they needed, for stuff you needed. This set people off on a dangerous path. Now the game ‘ad changed, the aim being to convince people they needed what you ‘ad, rather than to provide ‘em with somethin’ they needed. Can’t see why anyone would’ve bought into it myself, but what do I know. Still following?
The dream ‘ad become a nightmare of ‘edonistic lethargy and led to somethin’ they called idleness, where you would try to do as little as possible and get the most for it. This of course we know is not a sustainable way to live now. Now we know it to be a most terrible sin. We gotta be able to look after ourselves, we gotta be able to look after those around us and we must work our ‘ardest to make the most out of our time. This way we keep the wellbeing of our little gang afloat, we all gotta realise that you can’t be doin’ somethin’ for nothin’ and expect somethin’ in return. That’s why Tuft made The Hole, to teach us that very lesson. But you’ll learn more about that after you rest up, ey.
He gave the girl a little smile, and then continued.
“This ‘ole dollar business ‘ad gone far beyond the realms of anyone’s dreams and most people ‘ad forgotten ‘ow to actually do anythin’ for themselves. All they knew now was ‘ow to make dollars. Before they worried about ‘aving food on the table or a roof over their ‘ed they worried about ‘ow many dollars they ‘ad in their pockets, cus without that they ‘ad nothin’ - can you imagine, not even being able to scrape your own dinner together or find a place to keep warm? Sounds like a terrible time to live if you ask me.
But then our ancestors ‘it a problem. There weren’t enough dollars to go ‘round. You see, they couldn’t just make an unlimited amount of dollars, cus then that’d be like saying your time and effort wasn’t worth anythin’. This meant you ‘ad to ‘ave good circulation; like the blood in your body, you know? Going ‘round and ‘round. It ‘as to keep on moving else some parts of you ain’t gonna get what they need. Bunch it all up in one place and you’re gonna ‘ave a problem. That one part’s gonna get fat and bloated and puff up with blood like a boil. I ain’t no doctor but I think that’s how it works.
What I’m getting’ at is that just a few very greedy people ‘eld most of the dollars, they’d convince the majority that whatever it was they were offering, it was worth far more dollars than most, and it was them that was truly living this ‘edonistic dream of doing nothing yet getting everything. With so many dollars ‘idden away they could afford to order others to do their biddin’. They made jobs and created laws just to keep the majority of people away from their stash. People was doin’ a lot of jobs for no apparent reason, but only cus they was lookin to get somethin’. What kind of a moral is that?
Now ok, this is when it starts to really go down ‘ill. People started catching on to the game, and they weren’t all that ‘appy. So un’appy were they, that they decided to kick up a bit of a riot. In fact legend ‘as it that all throughout the ‘istory of the world, people was waging wars for more dollars. The greedy fellas understood what was ‘appening though, and ‘ad planned long for this day. Now the people wanted their money back. But that wasn’t gonna ‘appen. Instead they ‘atched a plan, to pass the butt onto someone else; on lands far away that no one ‘ad ‘erd of, and they’d tell the people that it was them that ‘ad their money, and that they were going to get it back.
It worked for a time, the people were once more ‘appy. They blamed the others and contented themselves on knowing it wasn’t their own fault. But of course, it did not last, nor did it solve the problem but only spread it amongst the lands of the world, flooding over their borders. In the end the tide pushed back, and people followed the dollars like rivers flowing into an ocean, looking for what they ‘ad lost. Then the inevitable ‘appened and people started to fight. Wars were waged, inside and out of the West. Everything crumbled and many died. And so began a new age, our age.
But all was not lost. The few that ‘ad seen war coming for some time ‘ad ‘attached a plan. Good men, not the greedy ones. They would freeze an ‘andful of people, special people, who ‘ad the best of ‘umanity in ‘em. Inside them the lay a great knowledge, shared between ‘em, implanted it their ‘eads and when the dust settled after the war, they would awaken in our grey world, ready to help us rebuild. And that rebuilding has begun little one, and you’re gonna ‘elp us keep on.
ns 15.158.61.17da2
