The Waves (an Island novella) by Jen Minkman

Author:Jen Minkman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dystopian, post-apocalyptic, Young Adult, teen, science fiction, sci-fi
Publisher: Dutch Venture Publishing
Published: 2013-10-02T16:00:00+00:00

14.

WE ARE gathered in the living room. Alisa busied herself preparing dinner after getting back home with my father. There’s a big dish with fish, potatoes and carrots on the table. Tony is starving and polishes off two plates before we subject him to a round of questions. Actually, we don’t have to ask him much – he’s rested now, and eager to tell us his story.

“Henry and I are from Bodmin in Cornwall,” Tony starts. “That’s a settlement rebuilt by survivors about one-hundred and forty years ago.”

“Survivors?” Alisa parrots hesitantly.

“Yes... survivors of the epidemic and the bombs.” Tony looks around the circle of faces and visibly pales. He must recognize our complete puzzlement. None of us have a clue what he is talking about.

He frowns and rubs his forehead. “Tell me – what’s in your earliest recorded history?”

“This island was made for us,” my uncle immediately drones, sounding like one of the priests. “Annabelle brought us here and she will come to take us away again once we’re ready. Many generations have come and gone, but the Goddess hasn’t yet appeared. We’ve been waiting for one-hundred and fifty years.”

Tony nods. “Okay,” he mumbles.

“I take it you’ve heard of her in Cornwall as well?”

Slowly, the man from the World across the Waters shakes his head. “I’m afraid not. Your Goddess is unknown to us.”

In the ensuing silence, Tony gets up and walks over to the kitchen to get some more yoghurt and blueberries. We are all so visibly thrown by the news that he must have decided to leave us alone to process it by ourselves. I raise my eyebrows at my dad. He feebly smiles back.

“So our stories aren’t true?” Alisa whispers defeatedly. “Does this mean the priests have lied about everything?”

“We don’t know that,” the Bookkeeper objects. “The fact that this man doesn’t know Annabelle doesn’t mean she doesn’t exist at all.” He doesn’t sound too convinced, though.

Tony returns with his dessert bowl and slowly sits down again. “Why don’t I tell you about history before Annabelle?”

“That seems like a good idea,” my uncle nods bravely. “I’m all ears.”

“All right then.” Tony clears his throat. “Hundreds of years ago, the world was a very crowded place. There were billions of people, and they were continuously waging war on each other. At some point it got so bad they wanted to annihilate each other with fire and disease.”

Tony spins us a grim story of how people used to live. Leaders didn’t just fight each other, but dragged their subjects into wars that would never yield one real winner because the weapons they used were deadly to all and everything. Famine, poverty and injustice reigned supreme.

Slowly but surely, his story is making me sick with sadness and disappointment. Is this where we came from?

“So you’re saying our ancestors were criminals,” I suddenly blurt out, interrupting his story. I can’t listen to it anymore.

Tony shakes his head. “Not at all,” he quietly replies. “Your ancestors were pure and innocent. They were children.

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