The Song of the Gondolier: Episode 1

A Valentine’s gift from me to you!

Stories of Light

Ah, Veneziabella. Imagine the labyrinth of architecture enveloping the charming little island city cut by crystalline canals. Narrow cobbled streets frame the gondoliers who paddle serene and winding canals. Listen! The gondolier serenades. His tones are soft, and the sound of the water at his oar as he glides a forward stroke is at once soothing and evocative.

This is where Mr. and Mrs. Grubfeldt were to rekindle the flames of their courting days, rediscover each other’s coital mysteries and once again embrace one another in the naked, fleshy inferno that is the true romance invariably strangled by marriage. For, after smelling her swollen husband’s body gases for nearing thirty-five years, Mrs. Grubfeldt finally snapped, bought a travel magazine and demanded that he prove that his passions extended further than watching UFC and eating pop tarts dipped in butter. And to his unexpected credit, he got off his…

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Matthew-El (an angel) overhears Sam (a probably dead human) describing God.

Sam was calling over to another group of souls at the next table; reaching out to a huddle of rather terrified newcomers stealing furtive glances over at the angels, and alleviating their fears with a constant stream of Sarah’s finest ales. In an apparent move to help the fearful newcomers feel at ease, Sam began noisily moving the two white metal tables together with a screeching scraping on the stone cobbles. Drinks spilled and slopped with the move. Ham slapped one of them on the back, and they erupted in a chorus of Delilah.

“So, come on, come on, tell us then. What does God look like?” one of the newcomers asked with one eye closed.

Another interrupted loudly: “Nonononono, no, what I want to know is, who was right then, eh? Eh? The Christians or the Jews? Or the Muslims? Or the, erm, the Hare Krishnas? Or, no wait, I ‘spose it was the Buddhists then, because of this festival thing? Can’t have been the Atheists?”

Raen watched Sam put his glass down and look at each of them earnestly.

Sam Paladin: Probably dead, but nobody’s quite sure.

“The fact of the matter is, dudes, the fact of the matter is that nobody knows. Nobody knows!” He threw his arms out and embraced the men on either side. “But at least here we all know we don’t know, whereas on Earth most of us all thought we knew, and those who didn’t know didn’t know that they knew they didn’t know. They didn’t find that out until they had been here for a while. Now we all know we don’t know. Even the angels.”

The newcomers raised their eyebrows in admiration and went “aaahhhh,” and Ham nodded and patted his buddy on the back. “That’s profound, my friend,” he slurred.

“But fear not! I’m not saying we don’t know anything,” Sam continued, wiping up some spilled beer with his tie-dyed bandana. “We know some things. Like, well, for example we know there’s a heaven and a hell on either side of us, you know: Os and Fo. But we don’t know, you know, what’s in them, you know?” Sam gulped some more beer.

Matthew-El grinned at Raen-El and shook his head. “Isn’t he eloquent? And if I could deliver just one message to my eternal dependents, it would be Sam’s. Out of all the humans I’ve protected across Earth since the beginning of time, let’s face it, if any one of those who strictly followed the arbitrarily established rituals of their chosen doctrines took an introspective microscope to their beliefs before they died they would’ve found that what they professed to be a rock hard conviction was actually more like an idle notion.”

“Yeah, and if they’d all compared notes they’d have found that idle notion to have been the same amongst them all,” said Raen, frowning as he stared at Sam. Who was that strange human? Raen had an unsettling feeling that he knew him from somewhere.

Matt clinked his glass against Raen’s and watched the jolly party across the pond.

An angel on a mission

“…but what people don’t know…” Sam was telling his friends, his eyes glazed and half closed under exaggeratedly raised eyebrows. “…is that to find out what’s in them it would behoove seekers of this pocket full of marbles between here and there to travel. And that is a journey!”

“Can’t be done,” hiccupped Ham.

“Every road can be trodden, or it wouldn’t have been laid,” slurred Sam, puffing out his chest and jabbing at it with his thumb. “Trodden it my very self, I’m sure! Oh, it’s a Dark road though; you’d need a torch of the Greatest Light you could imagine—”

“—a flashlight,” interrupted Ham.

Alice (a dead woman) and Raen-El (a pissed off celestial being) discuss the nature of angels.

The two of them sat in gentle rocking silence for a few moments, looking in different directions up at the indescribable myriad of books and scrolls.

“Which one do you need?” Alice asked, eventually.

“I need the Book of Revelation. It should contain a description of how to transcend in the flesh to Earth. From there it should be much easier to get to Fo.”

“There’s nothing like that in the Book of Revelation,” offered Alice, somewhat perplexed.

Alice Shepherd: Dead, but still learning.

“Not in the abridged version you’re familiar with. The scriptures contained within this library are bloated with ancient knowledge, knowledge inherited directly from the first angels closest to the Source. The first angels passed on the knowledge to subsequent generations, with the intent that all wisdom should be shared with man. But unfortunately back then (and in fact even to this day) we hadn’t figured out exactly how to get through to humans, their minds often too polluted with their own earthly agendas. So the messages of angels were distorted, misunderstood, edited, and forgotten. They gave up trying to impart Celestial wisdom and decided to try to guide humans through life instead, allowing them to earn wisdom with age. It sort of worked. Well, it worked better for humans that way; you were never very good with divine knowledge. But it did mean that universal wisdom was archived in here, locked away and pretty much forgotten about. I don’t think there are any Guardians in Eadar who remember what’s in here. Most probably don’t even remember these holding vaults exist.”

“How do you know about it then?” asked Alice, and true to her character immediately regretted the audacity.

“I pay attention,” was the angel’s short reply.

“So, what you were saying about forgotten wisdom, that must be why there are so many religions.” Alice started pulling the oar side to side, changing the angle of the blade as she did, and gently thrusting the boat forward on both strokes. A wavy turquoise glow bounced off her face as the little green dinghy glided along.

“There are many reasons for that,” Raen muttered, watching thousands of ancient gospels climb towards the high ceilings. “The predominant one being none of us can even begin to imagine that we could understand the multiverse. Yet we can’t help trying to answer answerless questions.”

Raen-El: You think you hate your job? Try being a goddamn angel.

Alice tried not to stare at the angel’s unreasonably convex biceps. “There are loads of books in here, I bet we could find out the real…you know. Truth about it all?”

“This Celestial Library?” laughed Raen-El. “Not even a fraction of all the divine knowledge contained in the big everything. Only divine knowledge from the third triad of angels is stored here, and then only that pertaining to Earth and her species.”

“Third triad?” asked Alice.

“Do you know anything about angels?”

“Ah, there’s lots of…angels, and you are all very, um, loving. And protective,” Alice said and sat up.

“Do you want me to tell you a bit about angels? I know you like learning things.”

Alice held her breath, trying not to betray her excitement with a giant grin.

“There are three triads, as we call them. The first triad is the closest to the Source, and this triad is made up of the Seraphim, the Cherubim, and the Thrones. They deal with the very concept of ‘is’. To understand this mysterious group we need to look deep within ourselves, far into the depths of the microcosm, where even the most gigantic material structure is reduced to nothing more than miniscule bursts of energy.”

“The Seraphim?”

“Precisely. They project what we know as Seraphic Light. Known by many as the love of God, it’s what we’re all made of, on a quantum physical level at least. And the Cherubim represent the fullness of divine knowledge—mysteries of the universe are contained in them. There are also the Thrones—they are angels of wisdom, truth, and fairness. Of course, we’re talking about wisdom, truth, and fairness applying to the great equilibrium of the mysteries of the most high, not the petty sort of stuff you and I can comprehend.

“What about the second triad?” Alice asked, watching with frustration as answers to profound enigmas went unread while she navigated the boat along bright and clear water.

“The second triad deals with the universe on a much vaster level. Swirling endlessly through time; expanding, vanishing, and being reborn forever. Dominions, they’re my least favorite angels. I’ve never met one, but they apply the laws of cause and effect over the divine creation, making my job almost impossible to do without cocking up something on some level. Virtues are angels that control the elements, so they are heavily involved in the creation of new worlds across the universe. And finally, Powers. They’re the keepers of time. All that has been and all that will be is kept safe, which I can only imagine is a fairly complicated undertaking.”

“And the third triad, then. That must be where you belong.”

“Yes, I belong to the third triad,” said Raen, and winked at Alice, sending a shockwave up her pizzazz. “Principalities, Arch Angels and us: the Guardians. Together we deal with beings. Creatures of creation that fill the universe. Principalities understand every single creature in every single world. That’s a lot of souls to be concerned with. Arch Angels are the sort of administrators, really. They oversee all the comings and goings of angelic life. And then there’s Guardians. And you know what our purpose is: to guard and guide the perfect souls of the divine. We have counter-parts in every world across the giant sea of everything. You’ll notice of course, that there’s nobody left to guard our souls. Yep, we’re the third triad – the lowest of the low.”

Alice sat in amazed silence and she continued steering the little boat and sneaking glances at one of the Source’s most awesome ideas, whose wet clothes were still clinging to his perfect celestial body.

Ascension Denied – coming soon.

The Song of the Gondolier: Episode 4

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Marty peered into Gail’s eyes, wet and bloodshot with clumps of mascara smeared into the lids. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and kissed her on the forehead. “It was insured.”

“Hah!” laughed Pio. “You kiss your woman under Ponte de Sospiri! Very romantic!”

Gail blew her nose and stuffed the tissue back into her sleeve. “Just keep going, Pio.”

The gondola bobbed along until it came to a smooth stop in a water-based traffic jam between walls of damp brickwork. There were gondolas loaded with tourists jammed into the tight space with the Grubfeldts’ little black boat. A garbage boat emitted yellow fumes of rubbish, and a man sitting at the back of a vaporetto was playing an accordion over the sound of a tourist kid screaming.

“Honk, dammit!” demanded Marty. “Hey you! Get out of the way! We’re trying to get through here!”

“This music is beautiful,” sighed Gail, trying not to smell the garbage boat. “Isn’t it, Marty?” She put her hand on his knee. Sensing something, Marty didn’t swat it away but instead placed his own over hers. “I’m not angry with you about the camera,” she continued, her voice still thick but much softer. “We don’t need it really—romance is about feeling, not seeing.”

“Get moving, Pio,” Marty growled as the gondola traffic jam slowly dispersed. “What are you waiting for?”

“Red light, signor,” smiled Pio. “I wait for it to change.”

Soon the swishing of the oar once again disturbed the sludgy water, and Gail leaned in to Marty and put her head on his shoulder. She closed her eyes.

Pio smiled, and began to hum.

Gail and Marty did not explore each other’s hot and fleshy mysteries in their hotel room that night. Instead they ordered room service and ate it in bed watching Oprah Winfrey. It’s also true that Gail went home with no photos to show Mrs. Wazenski and Mrs. Cabot of her beautiful perm against a backdrop of crystalline canals and Italian architecture. Marty continued to belch and fart for the remainder of their marriage. But ever since their romantic trip across the Atlantic Marty and Gail Grubfeldt hold hands a little more often.

THE END

Thanks for reading The Song of the Gondolier by E. A. A. Wilson!

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*Featured Image: Gondolier, by Ekaterina Frolova

The Song of the Gondolier: Episode 3

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“What the hell are you stopping here for?” barked Marty. “You tryin’ to rape us? You think I’m gay, you Ah-talian faggot?”

“No, no!” Pio laughed, holding his hands out in a gesture of gentility. “I bring you to Camp Sant Angelo like you say so you can get good price. You want to get out here? Nice architecture, molto bello! You get out here you pay me only twenty Euro, you wait for my friend Fico, he take you on his gondola. No? I keep going? Ok, I keep going.”

Soon after the Grubfeldts were almost raped by Pio at Camp Sant Angelo, they found themselves gliding along the canals described in Mrs. Grubfeldt’s magazine. Apartment blocks rose, with washing lines suspended between buildings and hosiery that was more colorful than necessary fluttered like the flags of European promiscuity. Gail shuddered. Though, if this trip succeeded in defrosting her marriage, she would perhaps invest in something silky, she decided.

“Ah, Ponte de Sospiri!” announced Pio. “The Bridge of the Sighs.”

An arch of carved white stone traversed the water between two giant billboards. “Ok, so you cannot see much of the bridge because of the billboards, but look, we have the picture of David Beckham!” Pio saluted David, who just pouted in return.

“We Italiano, we love football!” laughed Pio with a twinkle. “My team, Venezia, maybe one day we buy David Beckham, no?”

Marty grunted. “If by ‘football’ you mean soccer, then it’s a sport for faggots and pussies.”

“Ah, the American faggots and pussies have good taste in athletics.”

The gondola glided under the bridge, and Pio stopped rowing. He turned to his passengers, beaming.

“You kiss now. Kiss your lady, si? Give me your camera, I take photo. Kiss her! This is romantic, no?”

He took the camera out of Gail’s outstretched hand and began to poke at the touch screen display. “You kiss under the bridge! Very romantic. All the local Venetians do it, si, I promise.”

“I’m not going to kiss her with you looking at me like that, you faggot!” barked Marty. “You think I’m gay? Give me that!” He snatched the camera back, but the sudden shifting of his three-hundred pound bulk caused the gondola to rock and he flung his arms out to steady himself, sending the camera spinning through the air like a shot put. It smashed into the brick wall of the canal and thousands of pieces of shattered equipment rained into the brown water.

“Marty!” shrieked Gail. Tears were already spilling down her cheeks. “Oh, Marty, look what you did.” Protecting her newly permed hairstyle, she leaned over the side of the boat to reach for the camera strap that was floating beside them.

“No, signora! Leave it! It is dangerous to lean out of the gondola!” Pio stepped across and grabbed Gail by the elbow to steady her.

“Get your hands off my wife, faggot!”

“Signor, I try to help!”

“Only person touching my wife is me, you hear?” Marty grabbed hold of Gail and held her tight. “You just stick to sailing this boat, you’ve already lost me my camera and I don’t want you to lose me my wife.”

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*Featured Image: Gondolier, by Ekaterina Frolova

The Song of the Gondolier: Episode 2

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When they arrived at the front of the line and were about to board the one-way water journey to romance, Gail’s heart sank. The gondolier was, granted, wearing the red and white striped T-shirt as per Gail’s magazine, but she could see his nipple piercings through the material and she simply couldn’t forgive the jeans with a worn patch by the pocket where he clearly kept his keys. It was supposed to be romantic, not ordinary. Keys implied that the handsome gondolier had a house and maybe a fridge that he cleaned rotting vegetable juice out of from time to time, with other mundane needs of everyday life that certainly didn’t meet her vision. She pressed her lips together tightly.

“Buongiorno!” he sang, and opened his arms. Marty shouted something in return that was neither Italian nor English, and with a thud he stepped in to the narrow river boat, making it wobble and splashing eggy mushroom water into the hull. Gail covered her mouth with her handkerchief and held out her hand for Marty to help her in, but he was too busy settling his mass into the wooden pew to notice. He shuffled his weight around and released a vibrato of bodily gases.

Just as Gail prepared to scold her husband, a warm hand closed round her frail fingers. The gondolier helped her in with a smile.

“My name is Pio,” he said.

Gail sighed. Why couldn’t he have been called Giovanni, or Salvatore, or even Raffaelo?

Pio continued, still grinning. “You like cruise? We call this Italian cruise, no? Hah!”

“Now you look here, Luigi,” bellowed Marty. “We ain’t happy about payin’ you a hundred Euros for a boat ride, but we’ve been in that line for an hour. You better make this good.” And then with another burp, he added, “My marriage is on the line here.”

“Hah!” laughed Pio. “You want better price? For good price you go to Camp Sant Angelo, you find gondoliere sitting on stone steps that lead to San Stefano. He give you better price.” He put his hand on his heart and continued, “I, sadly, am regulated. But my friend, he charge whatever he wants!”

“Why in the hell would you tell us to go to your competitors?” asked Marty, his voice an octave higher than before. Gail settled in next to him and tried to snuggle up. He shrugged her off.

Pio just smiled, and soon Mr. and Mrs. Grubfeldt were gliding along the Grand Canal, with Pio navigating the heavy traffic of vaporetti, work barges, rubbish boats and all the every day traffic that made the pinnacle of bona fide Italian romance seem like the highway interchange back home in Dallas.

Pio didn’t serenade as he rowed. And neither did Marty. A hot dog wrapper floated past, and Gail watched as it bobbed and dipped in the gentle wake of the gondola. Then a droplet of water from Pio’s oar landed on it and it sank into the murky depths.

Pio’s muscles flexed as he manipulated the oar. A forward stroke and then a compensating backward stroke brought the gondola to a halt by the entrance of a brick house. Steps were leading from a door directly into the water. There was no rogue gondolier sitting on the steps, but there was a puddle of what looked like porridge and smelled like goat. Gail shrieked and grabbed her husband’s arm.

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*Featured Image: Gondolier, by Ekaterina Frolova

The Song of the Gondolier: Episode 1

Ah, Venezia bella. Imagine the labyrinth of architecture enveloping the charming little island city cut by crystalline canals. Narrow cobbled streets frame the gondoliers who paddle serene and winding canals. Listen! The gondolier serenades. His tones are soft, and the sound of the water at his oar as he glides a forward stroke is at once soothing and evocative.

This is where Mr. and Mrs. Grubfeldt were to rekindle the flames of their courting days, rediscover each other’s coital mysteries and once again embrace one another in the naked, fleshy inferno that is the true romance invariably strangled by marriage. For, after smelling her swollen husband’s body gases for nearing thirty-five years, Mrs. Grubfeldt finally snapped, bought a travel magazine and demanded that he prove that his passions extended further than watching UFC and eating pop tarts dipped in butter. And to his unexpected credit, he got off his enormous behind and booked them a trip to Venice.

Within months (for spontaneous romance of this nature ought to be carefully prepared, outfits ought to be coordinated with shoes and exclamations such as “mi scusi, il cane sta leccando il suo pene”, ought to be perfected), Marty and Gail had checked into their hotel and dropped off the Louis Vuitton luggage Gail had bought for this purpose. On Gail’s insistence they were now seeking the pinnacle of bona fide Italian romance: The Gondola Ride. Gail’s bleached hair was newly permed, the camera was charged, and Mrs. Wazenski and Mrs. Cabot at the golf club would be most jealous upon viewing the photographic evidence of the Grubfeldts’ fiery new marriage.

They were carried along by the multicolored stream of tourists. A sea of T-shirts, baseball caps, backpacks, glow sticks and iPhones dipped and bobbed across the cobbles, and Gail and Marty fought their way through the mass, enduring other people’s elbows jabbing their armpits. Bedraggled, they arrived at the line for the gondolas that the concierge at the hotel had pointed out on a map they had extracted from a vending machine.

“I hate tourists, Marty,” said Gail, dabbing her handkerchief against her cheeks. “Why do they have to ruin every romantic experience?”

“Damn foreigners,” grumbled Marty.

“What’s that smell?” Gail screwed up her nose. “Sort of eggy mushrooms?” She made the same face she had made twenty minutes earlier on the other side of Piazzo San Marco when she had spotted a filthy Italian dog licking its tiny lipstick penis. “Oh God, Marty! It’s the canals!”

“What d’ya expect?” said Marty, a belch rolling out of his gullet as he spoke. “They’re toilets for Pete’s sakes. Pure piss.” He scrunched up the map and dropped it in the offending canal. It landed on a solid film of pollution.

“Please Marty, don’t be revolting. Oh dear, the magazine said the canals were crystalline. I wanted to see ‘the silhouettes of tiny fish playing in the wake of the gondola’.”

“There’s something floatin’ over there, that could be a fish.”

Gail pressed a hand against her mouth to stem the rising nausea. She had a delicate frame and a fragile constitution. This was not romantic. She tried slipping her hand into Marty’s but he only grunted and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

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*Featured Image: Gondolier, by Ekaterina Frolova

DAMN: A simple and very short allegory on how not to fish (part 4 of 4)

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The chieftain dropped his soup bowl. “Is it true?” he asked, his voice thick. He sank into his chair and held his head in his hands, until a horrifying thought struck him. “If a great deluge was sent by our ancestors to wipe out the Fire tribe, then what badness could have been brewing there? We should thank the ancestors for sparing us.”

“Half the tribe remains, sir. But there is nobody to succeed their leader. They look to you now, sir.”

Great Wake almost felt crushed under the weight of the responsibility. But he knew he must save them, and provide for them as he did for his own tribe. “We will merge Water and Fire and become a new tribe: Steam. My father would have wanted it. We will travel to what is left of the Fire village, and we will arrange a great ceremony to grieve and to celebrate.”

The clean-up efforts lasted weeks, and even after the riverbanks were restored and reinforced the Fire village was nothing like it had been. Industry had ceased, resources flushed away, and lives destroyed. The old Fire tribe was as poor as the downstream tribes. But the villagers were hopeful, for they knew Great Wake was a driven leader, and he would guide them back to prosperity.

As per tribal custom, as soon as the clean-up efforts were complete, the newly merged Steam tribe held a magnificent funeral ceremony, with bonfires and dancing and weeping and the eating of a lot of steamed fish. But the merriment came to a heavy and somber end when, as all his ancestors before him, Great Wick was laid upon the funeral pyre, ignited, and sent down the river.

Suddenly the thundering of hooves reached a crescendo and messengers from the Earth tribe burst into the funeral.

“Great Wake! You must come! Now!”

The edge of the Plateau was crumbling. Great chunks of rock and land were breaking away from the rim and cascading down the side of the Plateau in monstrous landslides before plummeting into the eternity of sky. The riders brought Great Wake to the summit of the Plateau in the shadow of the Ancient Rule monument, from where Great Gust and Great Root were watching the devastation. Tears were streaming down Great Root’s brown cheeks and into his mossy beard. Great Gust just stared with hollow eyes into the wind.

“The river used to deposit rock and sediment that stabilized the edge of the waterfall. It has eroded,” said Great Gust in a voice as deep as hollow caverns. “Look!”

A deafening crash sounded from the distance as an entire acre of land with its dying forest sank, and then broke away from the Plateau and was sent spinning off into the atmosphere below.

“What can we do, Great Wake? Is this the end of us?”

Great Wake had no answer. His father had never taught him how to save a world. As he stood and watched the edge of the Plateau creeping closer to the settlements, he wondered whether his father was watching from the stars.

Then his eye caught a stream of smoke coming from the river, far below.

“What’s that?” asked the other leaders.

He squinted. What could be burning on the river? And then his heart stopped.

“It’s Great Wick,” he said, wide-eyed. “His pyre. It’s burning with the passion of furious ancestors.”

“It’s heading for the dam!” shouted Great Root.

“So it is,” whispered Great Wake, and sank to his knees in the shadow of the Ancient Rule.

 THE END

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DAMN: A simple and very short allegory on how not to fish (part 3 of 4)

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Soon the downstream forests began to die out from the reduction of high floods. This in turn affected the diversity of the species harbored within the forest’s great depths, and the boar dwindled. “Thank goodness the ancestors are blessing us by removing the poisonous meat of the boar so it is no longer a treat,” said the downstream villagers, and their stomachs rumbled.

One day, while Great Wake was enjoying pea and ham soup made with the biggest and juiciest peas ever harvested, and the healthiest, safest boar ever hunted, one of his advisors knocked on the door of his hut.

“What is it, Droplet?”

“Uhm…I have some news from some of our environmental researchers, sir.”

“Yes?”

“It appears the dam is causing a bit of an adverse environmental impact.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, sir, I’m afraid so. The gravel in the riverbed was an important habitat for insects, mollusks and crustaceans that have now died out. The river also used to flush out the backwater systems, which have now become toxic.”

“Mollusks? How on the Plateau is the welfare of mollusks any of my concern?”

“Simply in that any suffering of our neighbors is a suffering of the Plateau and so a suffering of our own, sir.”

“Spare me the sentimental philosophy, Droplet. We’ve got everything we need, there is no suffering here. Do you see any sad faces in the village? Any hungry babies? Well then. But send some more baskets of fish to the Earth and Air tribes, as a sign of our charity and goodwill. Otherwise, don’t talk to me any more about mollusks, please. I find the thought of them distasteful.”

“Yes, sir,” said Droplet, bowing his head. “Ah, just one more thing, sir.”

“Go on.”

“It also seems the river used to be pivotal in depositing millions of tons of rocks and sediment at the rim of the Plateau, and, well, there are reports that the edge is becoming unstable.”

“The talk of sediment has the same effect on me as that of mollusks,” said Great Wake, screwing up his nose. “It’s distasteful. Oh, but let’s have another fishy feast with the Fire tribe! Make arrangements with Great Wick, please.”

“Yes, sir. Should we invite the other tribes?”

“I would love to say yes, Droplet, but they never bring anything to parties anymore and I’m starting to get a very uncomfortable feeling that they’re scrounging off us.”

“Of course, sir.”

Downstream of the dam, the riverbed was cracked and parched, the flood plains ravaged, the forests dying and the fauna long gone. The birds that used to inhabit the great trees by the edge of the Plateau had flown upstream, so the Air tribe had none left to hunt. The villagers of both the Air tribe and the Earth tribe were starving. Without crops and game, they had to resort to selling their tribe specific skills, and pretty soon Great Wake knew the secrets of flood plains, astronomy and mineral extraction. But his father had always told him that with great power comes great responsibility, so he reassured his poor neighbors that the benefits of his wealth would almost certainly trickle downstream.

When the downstream tribes had completely exhausted their food production capacity, Great Wake had a genius idea. The mineral ore in the Earth tribe’s sludgy riverbed could be completely extracted, measured and stored somewhere. Then trade would be much more easily controlled. He’d know exactly how many fish he could afford to spare. He commissioned the Fire tribe to invent smelts to purify the mineral, and mints to create coinage from it, and soon the banks of the river near the Fire village were lined with heavy industry. Clinking and clanking and banging continued into every night, the twinkling stars obscured from view by heavy smog.

But the riverbanks upstream of the dam were already under great stress. The pressure of the millions of tons of additional water was straining the banks, and on one devastating morning the reinforcements finally burst. A great deluge broke free and with a colossal hiss swept through the fire village, crushing homes and extinguishing the lives of almost half of the villagers.

Great Wake’s advisor knocked carefully on his door.

“What is it, Droplet?”

“Very sad news, Great Wake. Great Wick, the leader of the Fire tribe, has perished in a vast deluge along with many of his people.”

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DAMN: A simple and very short allegory on how not to fish (part 2 of 4)

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The leaders traveled for days and met at the summit of the Plateau, in the cool shade of the Ancient Rule monument. In accordance with custom the leaders brought gifts for the other tribes. Great Root brought gifts from the earth, healthy vegetables and seeds that he shared amongst the leaders. Great Gust, chieftain of the Air tribe, brought sacks of grains, milled by the powerful winds that ravaged the Plateau’s lowlands. Great Wick, leader of the Fire tribe, brought disks of warped glass that could intensify the sunlight and light any fire no matter how cold the weather. Great Wake brought fish. Lots and lots of fish.

“Oy, how did you get all that fish?” asked Root.

“Yeah?” Gust chimed in. “We’re here to discuss the vanishing of the river, and you’ve got loads of fish?”

“What do you mean, the vanishing of the river?” asked Wick. “We’ve got plenty of water, and fish too. But thanks for the gift anyway. Nice trout.”

“I built a dam,” admitted Wake. “Now I can provide fish for my village forever. We can dry the fish and store it.”

“But then you’ll have more than you need!” demanded Root. “And worse, we have no fish! What in the name of the Plateau possessed you to do such a thing?” He pushed the basket of fish away.

“Why shouldn’t I?” said Wake. “You divert the river into the flood plains to grow bigger vegetables.”

“I used to, until you stole the river! And we have been doing that for generations, it never harmed you!”

“How do you know that? Whatever the size of your intervention, you nonetheless meddled with the Plateau. That irrigation system wasn’t put there by nature.”

Gust interrupted, with his voice light and breezy. “Gentlemen, please. We’ll have to solve this. I suppose the fair way is to vote. All in favor of tearing down the dam, raise your hand.”

Gust and Root shot their hands into the air. Wake made an exaggerated show of sitting on his. All eyes fell on Wick.

“Um…” said Wick.

“Well?” demanded Root.

“Well, the Water tribe’s dam has sort of increased our fish yield, so…”

“Unbelievable!” Root banged his large brown fist on the table. “So because you live upstream of this monstrosity and we live downstream, we’re going to go hungry and you’re not concerned. How can it be that this isn’t a violation of the Ancient Rule?”

“Nobody’s fucking with your stuff.”

“You’re fucking with our fish!”

“They don’t belong to you, they belong to the Plateau.”

The meeting was adjourned with no resolution. The chieftains of the Air and Earth tribes were furious. The chieftain of the Fire tribe was more than mildly uncomfortable with the atmosphere, but very much looking forward to a fishy feast that evening. The chieftain of the Water tribe went home happy. He was providing for his people, and his father would be proud.

As symbol of solidarity, the Air tribe shared with the Earth tribe their knowledge of meteorology. The rain barrels caught just enough water for the downstream tribes to drink and water their crops, and Great Root used composting and other ways to provide the earth with the rich nutrients once brought by the river. The two tribes had to work much harder, and they were poorer than before. But upstream, the Water tribe was doing just fine, the children were growing strong, the women were happy and the men were busy.

One day, Great Wake called for his merchants.

“We’re living in abundance and things are great,” he said. “Let’s a have a feast! Go and buy some peas from the Earth tribe, toss them a couple of herrings or something. And I’ll send the hunters out for some wild boar. We’ll get my sister to make some of that pea and ham soup.”

“Ah…” said the merchants. “About the boar…”

“Yes?”

“Word has it that the Earth tribe went digging in the sludge left when their part of the river vanished.”

“And?”

“Apparently they found some sort of mineral ore buried deep in the riverbed and they got the Fire tribe to teach them how to extract it.”

“How could they afford that, and why does it affect my pigs?”

The merchants bit their nails and wringed their hands.

“W-well,” they stammered. “They exchanged the knowledge about meteorology that they learned from the Air tribe, and now the Fire tribe are using that skill to harness sun power. The Earth tribe extracted the mineral ore and smelted the metal into rather amazing projectile weapons that they’re using to hunt the boar. There’s hardly any boar left in our woods.”

“What?” barked Great Wake and leaped to his feet. The merchants shuffled to hide behind each other. “So now they have the best peas and the best ham?” There would be no feast of pea and ham soup knowing their ingredients were substandard to those of the next door tribe.

The merchants looked at each other. Dared they suggest…?

“We could maybe buy some ham while we’re over there picking up peas? We have plenty of fish to trade?”

“They won’t want to buy our fish if they have the best wild boar on the Plateau! Don’t you understand this is about more than soup? This is going to have major economic effects on our tribe. We’ll go from being the richest, strongest and healthiest tribe on the Plateau to being just another link in this idiotic game of exchanging resources. We need to provide for ourselves.” He sat back down and stared at the palms of his hands. “I need to provide for my tribe,” he whispered.

But Great Wake remembered what his father had told him about the ancestors in the skies. They had all the answers, he had said. A little idea formed. When Great Wake told the Earth tribe that the ancestors had blessed him with the knowledge that all boar downstream of the dam had become poisonous, there was nothing they would do to challenge him. Nobody had ever questioned the wisdom of the ancestors before, and who would risk testing it? And so it became truth that wild boar could no longer be hunted downstream of the dam, and the Air and Earth tribes accepted this and stopped hunting boar, because the ancestors had blessed them with the knowledge through Great Wake.

From this point on, when Air and Earth villagers were very hungry, the upstream tribes traded fish in exchange for knowledge, and soon the Water and Fire tribes knew about meteorology and composting too. Great Wake was succeeding as a leader, and he felt his father would be proud.

Read Episode 3.

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Featured image: Tribe: by Kapsikom