Acts of God by Kanan Gill

Author:Kanan Gill [Gill, Kanan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: HarperCollins India
Published: 2024-01-17T18:30:00+00:00

The Wodewose did not live in harmony with the forest. They resisted and resented. They were descendants of those who had escaped safety to freedom from perceived oppression. Instead of freedom, the first settlers found only nature and radioactivity and their inability to function in this environment. There were bugs everywhere, the ground was too hard and too wet, or too powdery and too dry. Everywhere there was life, trying to bite, sting, swallow, crawl or lay eggs in some private cavity. They asked nature for the deluxe full-service package and it was not provided. They gave it 0/5 stars, ‘Would not recommend’. But now they were marooned here.

To return would be to face discomfiture and exclusion as they now teemed with induced radiation and ash from burnt bridges. Their inability, seclusion and self-entrapment turned to a dislike of the forest, which was a sentiment that they passed on to their children. Gradually, this dislike was fashioned into legend and folklore, a grand mythos that celebrated the Wodewose, conjured a false history of noble descendants and valiant excursion and justified their self-imposed exile.

Mythology is made to make sense of human sentiment, to offer relief from present suffering. The prophecy that the Wodewose were clamouring about, the tale of the beast, concerned this relief. Astute readers can probably guess what the relief was. If you cannot, here are some hints.

Suppose you are tasked with creating a mythological tale that promised relief from a horrible world. Suppose your readers are too cynical for plain old advice, and too lazy for a detailed action plan. What would that relief be? What is the quickest antidote to life? What is the smoothest salve for hopelessness?

Correct! Apocalypse.

Those with the least imagination and most suffering dream only of the end. Relief, freedom, retribution, comfort, all things that the unspirited cannot fathom in life, all the wonder they cannot conjure they hope for after death. We will avoid the excursion into what would be the right way to live life for the spirited and imaginative, but I will offer this brief dogma: When confronted with something stupid, it is usually safe to do the opposite.

The Wodewose cut Dr K down and set him by a tree trunk, observing him with a confused mixture of excitement and mistrust. Sitting on the ground, Dr K was gifted a new regimen of pain. Broken ribs jabbed at his chest with the shortest of breaths, his whole body sang purple-black songs of bruises as he leaned against a tree assessing the situation, but then—

He realized the most significant result of his injuries. His field of view was suddenly replaced by a vision of a ferry sinking in the Baltic Sea. Screams, sloshing water, black water, blue sky – blink – back in the forest. The Neural Interface was damaged! It was jumping his view from this world to the one below. In an instant he fathomed it was only showing him the view of the Lower Reality and not incorporating him there as a being.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.