Impossible Stories
Spider Realm, water-world orbiting the giant gas Farsigh, the star Gliese 710
Imagine Growl and Wander on the deck of the skyyacht.
The upper deck hangs suspended from a well patched long cylindrical gas-filled balloon together with high baskets carrying air-dried fish. Great sails, billowing in front, are filled with the Southern trade winds. The sky-yacht was skimming above the water, close enough to see shadows moving below the surface.
Wander is keeping one bright eye on the sky-yacht’s wheel, locked to the course by a leather strap, and the trim of the sails. Another eye is on Growl.
Growl is balanced on the edge of the deck, legs dangling over the side, watching the last of the rings of Farsigh fade into the clouds on the western horizon.
Growl starts, “The humans are similar to us, and yet different.”
Belle had insisted on them learning each other’s language. Like her, they had started with "New Zealand-ish", because it had so few words.
Wander reflects, “The portals between the nine worlds have been open forever, we all share the same genetic material, common ancestors, and patterns of thought.”
Growl continues, “I heard the younger human male tell a home story.”
Wander says, “We all tell stories. Peter has a head full of stories. We have made a story to end all stories on this voyage.”
Growl says, “We still need to get home. A hundred more circles of Farsigh...”
The last of the rings fades from the sky, the brilliant colors of the sky fading into a cold grey twilight. Growl climbs back onto the deck and comes up to nestle into Wander’s warmth.
Growl said, “I do not understand his story.”
Wander says, “I know you will retell it to me. Are you going to tell it to me in our language or the language of the humans?”
Growl paused and collected her thoughts. With a rough New Zealand accent she started:
When she was young, Storm spent a summer collecting and painting fox skulls with traditional designs. The designs were full of color, and each told a different story about the fox. Through painstaking small dots and gradations in color, she recorded where the fox had lived and what it had hunted. She did a good job. Something that would have made her ancestors proud.
Peter said that one day when he returned from riding, he saw one of the painted skulls hanging on the wall of her old stables and asked her where she had found it. Offhandedly, she told him she had made it and showed him some of the other painted skulls, placed around the farm. She explained that the process for making them was difficult. He asked her to show him her process. She told him to come over when he had some time to waste.
Seeing her interest, he came back a day later. She took him up into the forest where she found the carcass of foxes by smell and watching the crows. Then she showed him where she dragged them to an ant nest. Here the ants cleaned the skulls for her.
He was astounded by the range she covered. She was still very young. The young girl had travelled far past his farm, through field inhabited by bulls and kangaroos five times her size. He was also very concerned about her handling the dead foxes. Many would have been killed by poison baiting by farmers, as foxes prey on ewes giving birth and young lambs. But he said that because this was her story, he did not say anything.
Then she took him to her bush studio where she mixed paints from oils (sump oil from one of his sheds) and natural ingredients: ground granites, red earth, gold-flecked quartz, and ash.
Unexpectedly, she handed him a skull she was cleaning for painting. He held it in his hand, marveling at the surface silky smooth.
He asked her how she managed to get the skull so smooth.
Storm looked at him, catching his eye. Levelly she said, “I borrowed your toothbrush and scrubbed the skulls soft.”
Growl stopped the story at that point and was silent.
Wander thought. Growl moved her body closer to his. He said, “You are distracting me.”
Growl said, “It was a perplexing story.”
Wander asked, “Did you ask the obvious question?”
Growl said, “No. The humans laughed and then they cried, so I came up here to watch the sky and nestle with you.”
Wander said, “The younger human male often tells stories that are impossible. His stories sometimes do not make sense. Sometimes he tells stories that mean something different from the words. Other times he tells stories that are taken from stories he has been told, and which he does not understand.”
Growl said, “This was different. He said it was a story about being himself. About being alive.”
Video: Pilot Film DragonsEye, c. DarkAelf, Environment panorama: Velarion, Sky Yatch: Td3d
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