Kzine Issue 9 by Graeme Hurry et al

Author:Graeme Hurry et al. [al., Graeme Hurry et]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Goodreads: 22310711
Publisher: Kimota Publishing
Published: 2014-05-23T23:00:00+00:00

TELLER

by Maureen Bowden

They call me Teller. I ’ad another name once, Alit or Alis or summat. It’s been so long, dunno really. But I know what I was telled by the last Teller. Now I gorra pass it on to the little ’n’s, so’s they knows not to cock things up again. Haz’ll be the next Teller. He’s a quick one: questions he asks!

We sit on Erth’s bones at the edge of Otter’s Pool. “Teller,” he sez, “why ‘s this water called Otter’s Pool? Who’s Otter?”

I shake my head. “Even the dead Tellers dint remember. Some said maybe the water was hot before The Freeze came, an’ it was called ‘Hot Pool.’ Some said maybe otters were beasts what lived in the water. I’m sayin’ if the Tellers don’t know then that’s that. No point askin’, lad.”

We spread the net and catch us a fine salmon fish while we’s sittin’ there. “Why we get fish here, Teller? Traveller says the folk who live by the Black Ocean got no fish.”

“Fish can’t live in the Black Ocean, lad. Nuffin’ lives there now. These here fish swims up the Mercy River to us on their way to make babies in the stream where they was born. Without old Mercy we be eatin’ nowt but fruit an’ cats.”

It’s time for a new clutch o’ little ’n’s to get telled their first lesson. Haz’s gorra listen how I tell it. We sit in Parkland. There’s still trees here, but no birds no more. Them’s all been ate.

I begins. “There was once a lorra people all over Erth’s body. She gave ’em plants an’ animals to eat, an’ sweet, clean rain to drink an’ make things grow. She let ’em use bits of her bones to build fine houses, an’ the sun shone warm. But they got too clever an’ they hurt Erth bad.”

I see the fear in the little faces. They believe everythin’ I tell ’em, so I have to be careful. Don’t want ’em believin’ fools’ dreams what started them wars: one lot sayin’ sommat, another lot sayin’ sommat else, an’ all knockin’ the shit outa each other over a few words. So I only tells ’em the things there’s no arguin’ about: how the old ones poisoned the rain an’ the air; made bombs what put stuff in the wind that changed folks’ bodies so their little ‘n’s were born all wrong; how folk near enough to watch them bombs go off, died a cos of it. I tell ’em about the hole in the sky what made the sun go bad and give death instead o’ life. I tell how Yelloston, across the Black Ocean, blew up. The burnin’ dust covered Erth, and the sun hid. I tell how the freezing winter lasted years, an’ most people died. Then the sun got brave and showed his face again.

Haz leans close and says, “Tell ’em Yelloston blew ’cos Erth was angry with the people, so they better not hurt her again.”

“No,” I says.

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