Aur Child

Alai-Tiul trembled with newfound determination as he returned home from the wind towers on the evening of the same day as his discovery of the cube. The puzzle of the power cell churned in his mind. He hardly noticed the ramblings of the boy, and felt some regret in ignoring the child, but it was difficult to always sacrifice his own thoughts to pay attention. He knows how I can get inside myself when I’m working through something.

Once alone in the shed, he carried out small experiments. He made the little bulb glow bright. No spark or squeal came from the power cell this time. Alai connected it to all his household circuits one by one, then in combinations and, finally, all circuits simultaneously. The latter was something he would never attempt with his family’s power cell. The light circuits, the water pumps, the kitchen devices, and even the greenhouse pump system ran together without any trouble. As the moon climbed higher, he even secretly connected Bemko’s greenhouse irrigation pumps to increase the load. The power cell did not hesitate in the least. Indeed, all the circuits and all their devices seemed to run better and quieter than ever before. Cleaner electricity?

With racing thoughts, he imagined how many homes could be powered by this tiny little cube. Gallia-Tiul must see the value in it. He recalled her reactions when he told her about the explosions and the fabric. There must be a simple explanation for why they haven’t used it before. If safety was their concern, they could keep it somewhere distanced from villagers’ homes. His exuberance had overcome his reason. He would protest for what he felt was best for his family and the village.

It was with these convictions that Alai-Tiul was surprised to see Gallia-Tiul standing before him at his vendor table in the marketplace the following day. The boy filled a satchel with mackerel for a customer when the gray linen frock and silver hair of their clan’s patron elder appeared before them, a compassionate smile on display.

Alai smiled immediately in return, trying to hide his awkwardness, yet he detected something serious behind her smiling eyes. A lecture is nigh.

“Hullo, Elder Tiul,” chirped the boy, as he spun the satchel tight to tie a slippery bow knot.

“Hello, dear child! I see you have had success with fishing since the rains!”

“Yes, fine, Ma’am.” He pointed to the last two smallish grouper lying on the table. The fish seemed to frown at being singled out. “These are fresh caught this morning if you’d like to choose one?”

“Oh, that’s very kind, dear! It is getting late in the afternoon. If you’re sure you won’t sell these to others, fried grouper is my favorite dish, though it’s messy to prepare.” She seemed to chuckle at her tendency to speak her thoughts aloud. “But others report hit-or-miss fishing lately. Since the storm, at least. Poor Gorian-Nemla says he hasn’t found any crabs in his pots. I’ve wondered, how odd a thing that is!”

“Bemko reckons it’s because Fisherman Nemla sets his pots in Crabber’s Bay where all that muddy water’s been rushing out of Sharkjaw Creek.” the boy suggested shyly, but Gallia didn’t seem to be paying much attention. He looked down at the table. “We never cast our nets past the point.”

“Well,” Gallia continued, spreading her arms wide in the air as if to embrace the table of fish on offer and applying a traditional saying of the region, “the nets in this family have no holes!”

The boy beamed proudly at this apparent praise. But the idiom caused Alai some discomfort, because while that expression is used to describe good fishing or results of hard work in general, it also had a more implicit meaning to allege someone’s tendency for lying. Alai could not let the coincidence escape notice. A wry smile as Gallia lowered her arms confirmed his suspicions.

The boy watched the two adults contemplate one another. After a few moments, he broke the silence, “Oh, there’s Fisherman Nemla now. Mother asked me to see if he’s been luckier today. She wanted Blue Manna crab to make a gazpacho. Perhaps I should check with him, father?”

“Well, there’s an idea!” declared Gallia, superseding Alai’s parental authority. She leaned around the table for a better look across the market square. “Ah, yes. It appears he’s finally brought back something with him. You’d better go and grab whatever crabs he’s caught before they’re gone! I’m sure your father could manage the stand on his own. Isn’t that right, Alai?”

Alai only nodded. He knew now that Gallia had learned the truth and was setting the scene for another scolding about tinkering. The boy followed Gallia’s glance towards the old fisherman to where open-clawed crabs were visible in his basket. Grabbing his rucksack - and some coins from the till – he blurted “See you home, father”, and dashed across the square to intercept Gorian before the crabs were sold to anyone else.

Gallia exhaled with a dramatic hum. “Clever. Energetic.” Her eyes shifted to meet Alai’s and the jovial curve of her mouth lowered to something more rigid. Alai had not spoken the entire time.

Her thick lips separated. “You may recall, Alai, that we have a saying in Our Order about veracity. ‘One’s shadow can either be greeted or chased’. The emphasis is on the individual. Either way, the action is yours; you must do something about it.”

She reached out her hand and placed the shred of cloth in his.

Despite standing in the shade, Alai immediately noticed how warm it still was outside. He had put himself in this position. Passions had interfered with honesty. Of course, he would eventually disclose to Gallia his finding of the power cell. Just not yet, he had told himself. But now, confessing its concealment would appear as something entirely different. Still, he had no choice. And after all, it was the right – the only – thing to do at this point.

“I ... I have meant to tell you both yesterday and today. Just, I wanted to know if it …”

“It is not yours to know about, Alai.”

Alai inhaled deeply. “Yes, you are right. It was rash, I know. But it’s so similar to the terminals in the towers. And when I ran tests, it could handle any demand through all the circuits I could devise. It’s awfully powerful, Elder Tiul, and the power is much cleaner than what we get from our own cells. Imagine how easily this could support all these buildings!” He had started to ramble, but hoped he had made his point. He gestured along the periphery of the market square where the largest dwellings of the village existed.

“Awfully powerful, indeed, but not your power.”

“Well then, whose is it?”

Gallia pointed her chin down and peered over her glasses into Alai’s eyes. She reached up to the circular pendant hanging from her neck and inhaled slowly. “The Aur children belong to the Earth, to nature, to the universe. They belong to everything; not any one person.”

Aur children? Alai had always understood Aur children to mean just one thing: people. His people. Now, it seemed as if Gallia conflated this singular concept with the metal power cell he had found in the creek. What’s more, she suggested there were others.

“They? Are there more? You know of it, then? What are they, Elder Tiul? From where do they come? Why have they been ... hidden from us?”

Village Elder Gallia-Tiul reached her hand towards Alai and placed it on top of his. She maintained her rigid stance and replied in a terse voice that implied closure. “The fewer who know of them the better. This was a choice made before you and I were born, Alai. Protect the Aur children. We must. I must.”

Ah! More scripture.

“Elder Tiul, couldn’t you try to ask the other elders if the village would benefit from replacing our salt cells with this one? I’ve spoken with some of the merchant sailors; they say that in some villages, that’s exactly what’s done.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I could not. And you must not speak about it any more.”

“So, there’s no chance to improve our condition?”

“Our condition? We make do very well without so much power. The salt cells we use work just fine. And you help us so much when they need repairs, Alai.” She breathed in heavily. “Entrust it to me. I know what to do with it. Rest assured that I have vowed to be responsible for it. Let its momentary appearance fade from our memories. Let us carry on in safety and comfort as we always have.” Her hand gently caressed the top of his. “‘Today, under a kind sky, we eat a healthy but small meal and find plenty of reasons to smile and laugh together’. Go on Alai, head home to that lovely wife and son of yours. It seems a crab gazpacho is your small meal tonight!”

As Alai rode the bicycle home from the market, the single-wheeled trailer bumping along behind him, he struggled keeping to the path. Frustration confused his loyalty to the village as much as his rationale towards his son’s actions. He must give up his ideas and make amends with his clan leader; by noon, tomorrow, they had agreed. Unfortunately, word of Alai’s mysterious device, albeit not its source, had already spread around the village. Stern looks and shaking heads made it obvious that rumors of Alai’s “tinkering” had once again branded him troublesome. Tinkering. He hated how that word was always used to belittle his sincere curiosity into how things worked. No surprise, I guess. And, to Alai, there was no surprise about the source. With all the odd experiments he had conducted, and despite all of Alai’s attempts at secrecy, nothing escaped the notice of an inquisitive nine-year-old boy on his own turf.

Through loose boards and door gaps, the curious child had likely watched in awe as his father assembled the most dizzying combinations of circuits. For many years, this son of a makeshift electrician had honed his basic understanding of simple electrical circuits. Tagging along with his father on countless repair tasks, he had already been well-trained to troubleshoot, repair, and even construct them himself. No doubt, then, that his own enthusiasm was echoed in the boy, and that the boy would seek places to vent that glee.

Scriptleafs, coolboxes, stove-ovens, water pumps, fans, and of course lighting were the fundamental applications of electricity for most households. While other boys would play on the village pitch or while away shaded midday hours with puzzles, Alai’s son would rather deconstruct and rebuild small salt batteries used to power the auxiliary systems in villagers’ homes. With these experiences, he would understand full well the miracle secretly witnessed through the shed’s cracked planks. An innocent excitement had certainly bubbled over by sharing these observations with his friends and, as he always did with just about everything that happened at home, the kindly old neighbor with whom they shared their greenhouse.

Most villagers had, therefore, likely heard about these experiments through the most pervasive medium of rumors: their children. They would listen to the stories disclosed at mealtimes and shake their heads in condemnation. They would recall all too well Alai’s countless prior experiments that required admonishment by village elders. With their luddite biases, most villagers automatically assumed a critical view. They muttered of the dangers to which Alai once again exposed himself, his family, and the entire village by ‘meddling with what we do not understand’. Only his neighbor, Bemko-Tiul, had responded more sympathetically to the gossip.

Bemko was working behind the wavy plastic panes of the greenhouse when Alai’s bicycle and trailer trundled into the courtyard. His earth tone garments blended in as backdrop to the shifting reds and greens of the cultivated flora. Tall tomato plants climbed trellises along the inside wall of the greenhouse, keeping him well hidden as Alai passed by the building. Alai didn’t see Bemko edging ahead and then pulling himself back, and he didn’t see the way Bemko’s cheeks pulled down to reveal an angst of which he was rarely forced to suffer. Instead, Alai walked past with a down-looking, forward-leaning gait, with no expectation of being interrupted.

Alai entered the shed. Bemko lowered the tray of sap caulking he was brushing into the building’s weeping seams. He followed his neighbor’s movements with his eyes and seemed to bow his head as if to acknowledge the main difference between the two: smaller body, but bigger mind. He placed the thin brush onto the tray and trudged over to the shed.

The sound of Bemko’s step made Alai yank his hand out of the bin in which he was rummaging; a man of that size simply could not tread softly. Alai’s friendly smile betrayed his caution as much as his hope to persuade Bemko to leave him alone.

In his direct and harmless way, Bemko obliterated that thought with his first words.

“You can’t feel too good ‘bout that cell you’re usin’, friend,” he said with a tinge of reproof after he presented a brief mudra in greeting and stepped further into the shed.

If Alai had happened to notice him earlier, to greet him, to step into the greenhouse, a conversation might have flowed more naturally, since Bemko was most comfortable in that quiet refuge. “It’s easier in here,” he candidly told villagers who wondered how he could spend so much time within those sultry walls.

Perhaps it was easier for him, an outlander, to while away his days amongst silent stalks and vines. The plants didn’t glower at him. They didn’t judge his size or his pale skin. They didn’t whisper behind his back when he returned from ventures deep into the forests to bring home unfamiliar species – a heterodoxy that neared outright dissent. “Where has he been now?” they might ask rhetorically, but they hoped not to learn the truth. Villagers were dazzled by his copious knowledge of plants and gardening – the only memories that remained after recovery from his accident – yet fearful of his whimsical grafting and breeding.

The plants seemed to appreciate Bemko’s company. Why not? They didn’t pity him for the slow thoughts he was left with after his accident. Instead, they moved at his speed. Beans, lettuces, squashes, onions, peppers, and myriad roots, along with several luscious fruits grew assuredly alongside him; they breathed with him. His thick fingers worked meticulously handling delicate seedlings. Sweet fruits rolled in the palm of his hand just as children juggled marbles. It was a wonder to see that burly man who towered over most villagers when upright, hunched over, lovingly adding precise quantities of water to pots and trays, adjusting roots suspended within a tub, his soft breathing, the product of a massive chest, pushing down gently upon the liquid surface.

Bemko kept to himself, but his craft cried for attention, and forced villagers to reconsider their proclivities. He could grow luscious plants, vegetables, and fruits well beyond the needs of his own consumption, of which the eye-smashing colors and smack upon the tongue didn’t fail to tempt even the most orthodox adherents to Our Order. Tomatoes, a luxury of surplus water, could not be grown every season in most greenhouses, but Bemko had developed varieties that grew in proud bunches and burst with sweetness despite the most stringent irrigation all year round. The fruits he shyly offered to villagers when they came poking around were looked upon with equal parts of trepidation and intrigue. His seeds, carefully dried and stored, were the topic of whispered inquiries by merchants in the local pubs who had heard of his talents and yearned to witness them firsthand.

His skill, despite their outward disdain, was nonetheless coveted by villagers. They made excuses to visit him, to glean hints on his productivity, even though they never stayed long. The shock of the place – banal from the outside with its roughshod plates of plastic sealed with glistening gold sap to plastic frames yet stuffed to the gable vents with a pulsing jungle of intermingled leaves – was unnerving. Worse than that, the intricate network of electric pumps and hoses feeding the tiers of plant trays and bins, buzzing and chugging, hanging and humming in moist corners and over horizontally arrayed trellises, all a haphazard collection of shapes and sun-faded colors, revealed the duplicitous alchemy of the man’s handiwork and insipid collaboration with Alai.

In a word, Alai thought, Bemko was a passive soul, which was even more reason to find the current assertion of his neighbor unusually bold. Perhaps that quirk was what forced Alai to eschew his earlier frustrations and acknowledge the irrefutable truth of the statement.

Alai nodded, without a hint of defense, at the fair words of this simple man. “This is true, neighbor. Its place is not in the shed, not near our homes, but where should I keep it?” Alai replied, respectfully, in the heavy village vernacular that Bemko enjoyed using to affirm his local identity.

“Well, we have the wind towers, so what’s the need for it at all?”

“Hard to say, neighbor. It’s something about knowing how it works and that I figured it out. Like with your plants, you know?”

“Aw, you’ve learned enough about it, friend. So, the boy has said to me, and so he’s told Elder Tiul …when she asked him of it.”

Alai tilted his head, but before he could say anything else, Bemko continued. “Naw, he ain’t been blabbin’ off to the other kids. He trusts me and he trusts her, and that’s a good thing, no? He told me he thought you’d want to keep it a secret, but that doesn’t make it safe for you, does it?” Bemko nodded towards the small cottage, “Or them. You want to keep them safe, no?”

“I do, neighbor. I do.” Alai paused and pointed towards the hill where the towers stood. “Perhaps it’s better in the village for all to benefit, no?”

“Aw, friend,” Bemko replied with a steady shake of his head, “The elders will never allow that contraption to be messin’ with villager’s minds. They’re plain scared of it, I say. ‘We have wind towers workin’ just fine so there’s no need to do more,’ is what they’ll tell you, but you already know that. They appreciate what you do for them – haulin’ in plenty of fish and fixin’ up people’s old salt cells and lights when they need it. I’ve been here long enough to have learned that the elders simply aren’t interested in anything that might upset the stability of the village. Already there’s too much gossip about what you’re hidin’ out here. Some say it’s makin’ people sick. Those bad ideas are affectin’ me too, for sure. Don’t you know it, friend?”

“I do, neighbor. I do. But I haven’t harmed a soul with it, yet well …hmph, talk what they will.”

Alai paused with a sigh as the two men both looked out from the shed door and considered the maroon layers of red piling up on the horizon above an already set sun. The air had begun to cool, a stiffening landside breeze drawing out the coolness of the forests behind them. Without another word, Alai understood Bemko’s motivations. He never meant harm. All he had to say was important. Not a wasted breath was used. After a period of reflection, Alai respectfully ended the dialogue, “Well now, I’ll head inside and have a rest after a long day. Enjoy this peaceful evening, neighbor.”

“And you too, friend.”