DAY SEVEN
Daemon: In multitasking computer operating systems,
a daemon (/ˈdiːmən/ or /ˈdeɪmən/)[1] is a computer program that runs as a background process,
rather than being under the direct control of an interactive user.
22
TRUST & GRATITUDE
WEDNESDAY 23 DECEMBER - 2012 - 07H07
MAIDEN
Gran’s journal. I’d heard of it but never seen it. Eleanor said it’s where she wrote all her crazy crap and hair-brained ideas to save the planet. Gran said it had been handed down from woman to woman over generations. She’d always told me I would get it, but like Eleanor, I thought she was sprouting some weird old lady crap because mainly, how come it hadn’t run out of pages yet?
It was more than a journal, and it was magical, for want of a more scientific term. The book was reading me more than I was reading it because sometimes the words would rearrange themselves on the page in response to my train of thought. It held songs, poems and stories, recipes, equations, inventions, hypotheses, philosophies, experiments, failures, wins, encouragements and warnings.
My ancestors spoke about a relationship with the Earth in a way that personified her. Womanly spectres, spirits and deities like the ones from my Coalescence in the cave, by many different names.
Gran told us many stories about many things, most of which Eleanor and I did not believe. She said her ancestors were from northern Europe. She told us she had survived a car crash that killed her entire family when she was nine. Her parents and little brother, who was only three, had died instantly. The only things that survived were a suitcase and its contents: this book and some clothing. She told us that anyone who tried to steal the book from her when she was in the foster care system would meet a terrible fate. Was it all true? I would find out.
Fikile tapped lightly on my door, “I’m going to town to get things for…” she paused… “the funeral. Tata will be here soon.” I heard her hurry away and I quickly opened the door.
“Fikile!” I called. She turned back and said, “I’m leaving breakfast in the fridge for you.” It was almost like old times. “Thank you,” I said. “For everything.” She smiled with genuine affection, nodded and turned towards her day. Going into town was an endeavour, and I did not envy Fikile one bit.
MOTHER
I held the ancient yellow phone up to my ear. My hand was steadier than I expected when I said, “Mother, yes. It’s me.” I let her prattle on for a while, telling me stories I already knew and making excuses for why she was where she was and how she had a plan. She always had a plan.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, and for the first time, I genuinely meant it. Usually, I was a ball of anxiety and resentment trying to figure out how to rescue her, myself and the cat I was trying to bathe. Again.
“I feel that I have done everything I can to fix what was broken here, but I realise I can’t, and I don’t think you can either,” I said.
She didn’t hear what I was saying. She never did.
“No,” I said, “I won’t be able to help you this time.”
She got angry. I waited and listened while she ran out of steam and abuse.
“Mother,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about the times when I felt most functional and...” I searched for the word. “Healthy,” I said. I took a breath. “The truth is, I’ve been at my healthiest when we aren’t talking."
She started to interrupt me.
“Please, can I just finish?” I asked. “I don’t think you meant to, but you just haven’t been able to love me like a mother. I love you like a Mother. And I am not your mother. I am your daughter.”
She started to interrupt.
“Mother, “ I said. “Please listen. It was my birthday yesterday. I’m thirty-three years old, and I can't do this with you any more." I took a quick but deep breath. "I can’t pick up your pieces anymore. I have to put myself back together now.”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
She raised her voice.
I lowered mine. “I love you, and I forgive you. Please don’t call anymore.”
MAIDEN
Glowing with vitality’ is how Gran would have described our state when we arrived at the Trust. It took us twenty minutes to hike along the cliffs and through humid Mangrove Trees. We were dripping with sweat, but our spirits were high!
The Trust lay on an emerald green ridge with the entrance facing the ocean to the east. An estuary carved its way into the valley on one side, and lush hills rolled into the distance on the other. The Trust was a food forest. And it was Tata, Gran and her Partner Tumi's life's work. They had engineered an edible paradise. Not in a lab, no, not in a brick and mortar building, but in the biggest, best and most beautiful lab in the world: Mother Nature. I didn't know Tumi very well, to be honest. I'm sure I would come to regret that too. She died of cancer when I was eight.
Fruit, herbs and vegetables grew robust and almost wild in The Trust. It fed several families in the area. "Growing food is easy," said Tata. "Real work is growing people," I begged to differ on the former, but it was not a farm - it was a forest. Eating from it meant cultivating it. That was the rule.
“My father went to the city to work as a gardener,” Tata told me as he plucked a naartjie, a citrus fruit, from a tree bursting with them. He peeled it in one long coil and said, “They paid him so little for his wonderful knowledge." A dark ball of energy formed around his chest. Tata was not wearing his golden breastplate today. "He worked hard and travelled far." The more emotional he became, the bigger it swelled. "But, the money was too little. He had to come home.” He shook his head, his anger on a slow burn. “My father could feed people, feed people!" The shadow gorged itself. "And they would not pay him what he was worth,” he whispered. The shadow puffed, swelled and roiled.
Tata took a breath, turned his and said, “My father taught me how to be a good man.” Tata held his hands up to the sky and said, “Divine Mother,” he smiled. “Thank you!” I recognised the code shifting and shaping the quantum field. Tata was generating a gratitude field. Like x-ray vision, I saw into Tata's body. His heart was a cartoon, anatomically correct, but a dark, rapidly throbbing cartoon.
As Tata listed things he was grateful for, his cows and his children, the shadow could not exist within the same quantum field as Gratitude. The shadow shivered, softened and transformed into a vapour that Tata inhaled back into himself. The darkness of his heart grew lighter and lighter until Alchemy. His heart was pink, soft and beating a light rhythm.
Tata held my gaze, checking that I understood the lesson. I nodded, and he gave me a curt dip of the chin.
The Trust was their plan to save the world. I’d heard Gran say it a dozen times, “We need to work together, or all will be lost. Not the planet - the planet is better off without us - we, humanity, will be lost if we don’t start pulling our effing fingers out!’
“Tata, if you will have me, I would like to do this work with you,” I said. I'm sure Tata weighed up whether I would be more trouble than I was worth in this context. I would find it challenging to keep a cactus alive, never mind an entire ecosystem.
Will nodded thoughtfully and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Yeah, there are worse places to spend school holidays. I'm in.”
"Me too!" chimed Amber. Lu beamed at her commitment.
Tata nodded and said, “I will think about it.” Then he grinned and said, “Let's get some bananas for Fikile!” Tata patted Will's shoulder and said something that made them laugh. I was so busy trying to understand how everything works I often missed what was right in front of me: friendship.
MOTHER
I cried into Thando's lap when I told him about the call to my mother. He watched me cut the yellow cord with equally ancient scissors. I needed a physical act to finalise my emotional and spiritual severing.
He held me as I emptied myself of tears. Then he drew me a bath. We both knew he was not the source of my healing. He was a witness and my comforter. Ala and Sophia, and the Ecclesia too. They held me and witnessed me in my grief. Then we ate our favourite, the Brinner he made, in comfortable silence.
I was safe.
MAIDEN
I felt her coming before I opened the back door. We sang (yes, I sang) a song Tata taught us all the way home, so our moods were good! But we all knew something was wrong when I opened the back door.
Eleanor stepped into the kitchen, her holo preceding her. She was one of those people who walked around with it projected, having super loud annoying conversations. “That will be all, Tata,” she said, casting a shadow over the table. Holo screens fanned around her like a peacock.
“Don’t talk to him like that. He’s not your servant,” I said. Fikile stepped out of the fray to open the fridge. Tata held my gaze. “It’s alright, little Bird,” he said. “None of us are ourselves right now.” He nodded his goodbye, not dropping his gaze. Amber and Lu followed.
“Good God, Regan, what have you done to your jeans?” Eleanor glossed over me like she always did.
“Okay, you two, gloves off." Said Fikile, putting potato salad on the table. "Dinner is ready.” Eleanor turned to leave. It occurred to me that my mother and I rarely shared a meal. I could not remember the last time we had.
“Do you know that you never thank her?” I asked.
“Thank who?” she said, turning back.
“Fikile,” I said. Eleanor stared at me quizzically. “You never thank her,” I repeated. Her code was still bothering me. Something was off. I took a closer look and found a firewall. How did she know how to do that? My code began to race, and my skin prickled the way it did before bad things happened. Will felt it too.
“What’s the Trust?” I asked. She stopped and drew herself up.
“You opened it,” she said. “I told you not to.” She looked pointedly at Fikile and Fikile shrugged. “I’m out,” she said. Eleanor watched Fikile leave then her eyes locked into mine.
“We should probably work on our project, Regan?” Will had no intention of leaving me.
I glanced over at him.
She blinked, trying to figure out what Will was talking about.
“You are unbelievable,” I said, shaking my head. I spotted a dark shape around my chest, an angry little cloud, broiling and rolling in intensity. Where was Eleanor Grace hiding her shadow? The fact that I was angry about a lie we told to cover Will being here did not escape me.
“What has gotten into you?” she asked. Something flickered in her eyes. I didn’t know what it was because I didn’t know this woman at all. My field rippled with anger.
Exercise wisdom and caution, Arche, said Blue inside my mind. The back door suddenly swung open. “Keromang,” said Tata. “You forgot your hat.” Tata came in and handed the cap to Will. He deftly flashed his golden breastplate, hidden only marginally by his open shirt, at my shadow, causing it to flinch and shrink. Tata and Eleanor locked eyes for what seemed like an eternity.
Next time, I would need to manage it myself, but for now, I was incredibly grateful for Tata and Will. This gratitude was enough to vaporise my feelings but not dispel them completely. Eleanor pulled her best fake smile out. “Don’t stay up too late working on your project.”