Veracity (44 page)

And the more I thought about my decision as the days passed, the easier it sat with me. I would often nod my head at the river while I sat beside it, almost relieved with the idea that I could do whatever I wanted with the remainder of my life. Until eventually, the anxiety of disappointing the Elders began to feel more like a kind of refreshing independence from them. I started to feel lighter, less burdened. I began to grin when I was standing in the sun. And in time, it sometimes even crossed my mind that, if Onni could see me, he would actually be happy he'd steered the boat off course that night, that he would be content in the fact that he'd risked everything - even if he
had
ended up losing it - to save me. I felt my world slowly becoming smaller, simpler. I felt like it was becoming a place where it was easier to breathe. And I felt this all willingly. Willingly.

35

I soon settled into a pattern of working hard during the day and sleeping sound through the night. I cleared a few strips of land, planted the seeds from the straggling crop plants that remained, and began to collect others that I found while foraging around the hut.

It occurred to me that if I grew as many different kinds of fruits and vegetables as possible, it would guard against a single disease or a plant-specific insect wiping out everything I had. So I decided to head out on a bit of a gathering journey to collect as many seeds as I could find. I had been living in the hut for almost a moon before I set off, wrapping a few things in the grey blanket and descending into the land, walking away from the river for the first time since I'd arrived.

I had grown used to the plants and animals that lived along the water and on the edge of the shrub plateau, so most of the flora and fauna that I came across was quite new to me. However, at the end of my first day of hiking, I also came across something that was somewhat familiar: a patch of trees with the same yellow melons I knew the Creatures fed on, which I was more than happy to get the seeds from. I also found a few peels that had almost entirely decayed, which had the markings of the Creature's teeth scraping along a few of their dry surfaces.

I learned some new information about them. It appeared, as there were already new fruits forming on the sloping trees where they'd foraged, that they hadn't been there in a long while, and from this, I speculated that they had to be roaming animals, and that the only way I would ever see one would either be by accident, or by waiting for a long period of time in one place. I scoured the area for other clues, but couldn't really find much more than that.

I spent the evening under those same trees, watching the light on the swollen fruit fade until they became dark globs against the night sky, goggling down at me like the extended eyes of a hermit crab. I slept well, dreaming of the pounding surf and the chatter of crustaceans as they scuttled across shining slabs of rock.

I began hiking early the next morning, and before the sun had even fully risen, I'd already climbed to the top of a massive rise that began not far from the grove. Once I reached the crest and looked around, I was surprised to see a group of buildings scattered below with an overgrown road leading out of them. I would be hesitant to call it a settlement, but it was a complex that was definitely big enough to have farmed from, which meant there might be a chance of finding some remnant crop plants nearby. And I was right; as I descended toward the houses, I stopped to remove the seeds from three different varieties of vegetables that I'd never seen before, and decided, after counting how many kernels and pips I'd gathered, that I now had more than enough for the terrace, and that this would be the end of my journey.

But before turning back, I thought I might walk through the buildings, which were overgrown and strangled by vines and creeping plants, just for curiosity sake. I passed between two buildings and walked toward what must have once been a kind of courtyard at the centre of them all. I had put my sandals on, knowing that there were often shards of glass hidden in the vegetation around ruins, and so didn't know that there was a stick under my foot until I stepped on it. It broke with a loud crack, and I flinched at the sound, as if sorry for disturbing someone's peace. Though, hearing the noises that came as an instant reaction to it, it seemed like I actually had. Something was moving inside one of the buildings.

I froze, like a statue in the centre of the courtyard, my hands still suspended in the air. The noises were almost like cloth flapping in the wind, or someone shaking the dust from a shirt before putting it on. I looked up at the sky for signs of a breeze that might be responsible for this; there were none. The sun had just poked its eye over the horizon, and was drawing long shadows across the walls, while casting slats of light on the grass in the courtyard as it filtered through the spaces between the buildings. After listening more intently, I realized that the sounds were coming from one of these spaces instead of from inside. I watched the light on the ground, half expecting to see a long shadow pass across it, but there was nothing, and the noises soon stopped.

Part of me wanted to just turn and run, while another part - a curious and more stubborn part - held my feet in place. I tried to calm myself with logic, listing off every reason I shouldn't be afraid: I hadn't seen any evidence of living people since I'd set foot on the mainland, nor had I seen anything that was organized or cleaned in the buildings as I'd approached them, or even a trail that a person would use to come to and from the houses. I should have had nothing to worry about. In fact, come to think of it, I told myself, I
wasn't
worried. No, I was confident. I nodded at the grass, paused, then reached behind my back and dug through the folds of the blanket until I found my knife. It would have been impossible to walk away without investigating.

I walked toward the thin space between the two buildings where I'd heard the sounds, and as I got closer, they started up again, in sync with a flickering movement in the slat of sun on the ground in front of me; and then suddenly stopped. I continued to the edge of the building and spent a full minute or two in the quiet - reassuring myself that I was really not in any way afraid - before finally peeking around the corner.

The first thing my eyes were drawn to was a spool of yellow rope that the elements had frayed into bristles of tiny threads scratching at the air, and then I noticed the large black bird that had become tangled inside it, a strand of rope wrapped around one of its legs. It must have accidentally stepped into a loop, maybe while hopping through the tangled mess in search of twines for its nest, and this loop had then cinched around its foot when it tried to fly off. It had been there ever since, uselessly struggling to get away. And as soon as I stepped out from around the corner, it tried again, but only succeeded in bouncing from wall to wall at the end of its tether, until, after a frantic effort, it recoiled back to the ground with a graceless crash.

The bird itself looked terrible. Judging by the plumage that was scattered around and its scraggly, emaciated body, it must have been trapped there for days, maybe even weeks. There were blotches of white skin that could be seen under its thinning layer of feathers, and the base of some of them were bare, appearing almost like rows of bones, as if its frame were trying to push through to the outside, eager to become a skeleton. I didn't move for a long while, waiting until it settled to the ground, exhausted. It hadn't even bothered tucking its wings close to its body; they lay draped open, scarcely covering its sides.

It's interesting, because my first reaction, the first thing I felt inclined to do, was kill it. I wanted to pick up a heavy rock and hurl it between the buildings, ending its suffering with a conscientious act of mercy. But something stopped me, and, for some reason, I paused to think about it before looking for a stone to throw.

I imagined myself, or any person really, trapped under a fallen tree in a forest, and, though this person calls out until their voice is hoarse and breaking, no one comes to their aid. Eventually, after days pass, and it becomes clear that nobody will ever come, somewhere, deep in their minds, they come to understand that they're going to die. And as this knowledge surfaces, slowly transforming from a guarded thought to a certainty, I think it would be natural for them to begin a process of preparing for it, in whatever way they personally saw fit. They might even manage to find a kind of peace, to embrace the warmth - that is really a coldness - which they feel spreading throughout their bodies. And perhaps it is even with a feeling of ease that they begin to drift off into sleep for the last time.

Then I imagined that, suddenly, a giant monster with a club in his hand appears out of nowhere. Reflexively, the person writhes into panic once more - the same panic that they'd felt when they first recognized their lives were in danger. And, unable to prevent their bodies from reacting, they twist and struggle, yet again, to try and squirm out from under the tree, but obviously still find it impossible. Panicked, they turn toward the monster, which is now looming over them and raising the club above his head. The person does not see the monster's greater intentions, what they see is the club, and they hold their arms up to shield their face from it as it swings down through the air. It strikes them, their ears ringing with the effects of adrenaline and terror, and, instinctively, as a last ditch effort, they turn and dig at the earth with their fingernails, labouring frantically to free themselves, to run, to hide, to defend their bodies from the blow that finally strikes them in the back of the head and ruptures their skull into fragments that pierce into their brain and end their life.

I wonder: how is that so much better than dying on your own terms? The truth is, only a human being would see the monster's thought process as sound. Only a human being would see a simple act of violence as the solution to a complex process. And regardless of how self-aware the Elders thought they were, this is how we were taught to treat animals that had unluckily fallen from trees: bludgeon them to death. But what I now understand is that we weren't taking those rocks into our hands and smashing their tiny skulls in because we felt sorry for them, but rather because we felt sorry for ourselves for having come across them, powerless and incapable. We did it as a means of answering
our
helplessness, not
their
suffering.

So. It was decided. Contrary to what I would have done on the island, I wasn't going to kill this scrawny, dying bird. Instead, I was just going to leave it be, let it die on its own.

I turned to walk away, but stopped after only a couple of steps, staring at the ground, tapping a hand against my leg. This second idea didn't sit well with me, either. And regardless of the fact that chaos dictated this path for the bird, and that I had renounced the idea of interjecting to kill it, I could not, no matter how hard I tried, renounce the idea of interjecting to save it. I was well aware that this was because of our uncontrollable urge to poke and prod into natural processes with our arrogant fingers; I was well aware that I was just as guilty as the monster in my imagined scenario, but I could not, no matter how hard I strained to move my feet forward, keep myself from turning around.

The bird seemed sorry that I'd returned. Almost reluctantly, it cocked its head up to the sky and, collecting what little energy it had left, jumped from the ground and tried climbing through the stubborn air once more. After it was yanked back to the ground with a thump, it turned to face me, its beak opening as I neared it with the knife in my hand. I bent over and cut the strand of rope that was tying it to the spool without getting my hands within pecking distance. Then, fluttering and reeling more like a ragged ball of cloth than a bird, it ricocheted out from between the two buildings and into the tall grass beyond. And it was there that it toppled to the ground and stayed, a miserable heap of breathing feathers, buried in the meadow that surrounded the buildings.

Did I think it was just going leap into the sky and go on its merry way, that I would be patting myself on the back while I watched it disappear into the horizon? I hadn't 'saved' its life. In fact, I'd probably even placed it in more jeopardy than it already was, as it was now out in the open where predators and scavengers, which might have been reluctant to go into the unnatural and confined spaces of the buildings, were free to pluck it from an open field.

I walked out from between the buildings and folded my arms across my chest. "So," I said, aloud. The bird turned to look at me with a kind of renewed shock; which wasn't very surprising - I hadn't heard my own voice for what felt like a few weeks. "What do you think we should do with you?"

The bird blinked.

I scratched my head, "I mean - I think we should finish what we started here, don't you?" Then I paused for a moment, "Actually... I have no idea why I used the word 'we' there, but I think the saving part is clear enough, no?"

When I snickered, the bird shrunk even lower, evidently terrified by the sound of this as well.

"That 'we' reminds me actually; I've been joking to myself about finding some animal to talk to. You know, a 'keep me from going crazy' kind of thing. But, as I'm chatting away to a half-dead bird that doesn't understand a single word I'm saying, along with referring to myself in the plural... I should really just shut up and find you some food - no? Insects, I imagine?"

The bird blinked again.

Insects are everywhere. We see them scurrying in front of us, running through the grass, across the walls of buildings, flying through the air, dropping from leaves, and committing suicide into our ears and eyes at the most inopportune moments, but I can't remember ever trying to catch them before. Instantly, they seemed to have disappeared from the world. I was crawling on my hands and knees, sifting through the grass, looking in every imaginable place that it would have been logical to find them, but they seemed to have anticipated this, melting away into mysterious and unseen corners of the landscape. When I did manage to find one, I was met with the second challenge of capturing it, and, after pilfering a couple of jars from one of the houses, I managed to develop a method that had at least some degree of success. This method relied heavily on the finding of beetles; which were slow, big enough to detect, and rarely flew when you tried to catch them. Though, after about an hour of concerted effort, I'd only caught five.