The Earthrise Diaries November 2009

© text Don Diespecker 2009

The Earthrise Diary (November 2009)

Don Diespecker

Nov 1 2009. Black Cormorants. There’s a fresh in the river. It’s dwindling now, some days after the soaking rains, but it still looks good. Apparently this mainstream surge also looks good to a couple of black cormorants (they’re a larger bird than the much smaller black and white Little Cormorants like Clarrie who generally works the Pool in front of the house). I’m sitting in the shade behind the Belvedere reading Lee Siegel’s essays and spying on the cormorants. The cormorants are riding down the glinting mainstream, side by side on this Sunday morning and I don’t think they’re working. The river is quite full too. They go down (I like to think) cheerfully, good naturedly and when they reach the Pool they ease away from the flow and drift more slowly toward the far bank where they turn to look back. When they turn their heads their bodies are lifted a little by the torrent’s flow and so you can see something of their slightly inclined backs sloping to their slightly pert tails. But when they’re drifting downstream through the mainstream’s channel all you can see of them is the black heads and the black necks because their bulk is under water. Strangely, when they drift down like that I’m reminded of surfers drifting in to a beach as they sit nonchalantly astride their boards that are invisible beneath the water. Now the cormorants are sunning on a dry bedrock slab next to the riverbank, quite motionless, but always with eyes monitoring the lively water.
Before sunrise on this Sunday I found that the first sprouts from the new grass seed I’d sown on the Belvedere (in loam imported from nearby deposits) was up. I’d been checking for this first appearance for two or three days so I can confidently report that these emerging new blades all appeared above ground uniformly, the blade heights: 25-mm.
Nov 2. Spangled Drongos. Sunday arvo. I’m in the shade behind the Belvedere reading and writing when I see two widely separated dark birds further down the Right Bank; the binoculars confirm a couple of spangled drongos each of them aloft in young flood-wrecked casuarinas. Drongos tend to get around in small groups, socially, or to make solo adventures in familiar territory close to the nests. The two birds were separated by 40-m or so, each drongo at the top of his tree. They then took turns (or so it seemed) to dive down and out almost to midstream, there to splash on, rather than into, the surface, then bounce or skip to make a second similar splash half a metre further before lifting and wheeling about to return to the treetop. Was this an example of drongo bathing, I wondered? From their perches they had good views down and into the water; both repeated this behaviour several times. Thus, each had a good field of view, their target areas were safely in clear but not deep water and there were no predators like snakes and goannas to harass them. Kingfishers make such flights too, but they move at speed and hunt their prey in water that’s not very deep and then withdraw, quickly. The drongos were definitely not hunting (most of their food consists of flying insects taken in flight). Also, they nest high in big trees and combine to attack snakes or goannas that risk climbing high to reach their eggs. (The new Belvedere grass was 40-mm high, approx, at sunrise).
Nov 3. Invisible Cicadas. I’m upstairs at dusk and hear yet again the unsettling sound of a nearby cicada orchestra warming up. The volume and pitch seems varied and on this occasion the warm-up lasts for a minute or so. The drummers were heard two or three times last month but for brief periods and then forgotten about. This will certainly be a noisy summer. (The new Belvedere grass was approx 50-mm high before sunrise).
Nov 4. Grey Dragon. The new grass sprouting on the cleared flat bends to the morning sun. The medium-sized water dragon sits motionless, head up, in a patch of shade (I’m watching idly from the house). I’m reminded of yesterday’s hot afternoon when I sat comfortably in the shade at the back of the Belvedere and an inquisitive dragon’s head was up in the air. I expect he or she was scanning for insect movements. Dragons are at a disadvantage in even 75-mm of sparse grass because they’re so low-slung. That afternoon dragon then came up to the small garden next to me, the one with stones surrounding the white cedar, and shimmied up a metre-high tomato stake (marking a Bloodshot dahlia). From that grand height, elegant claws across the squared top of the stake, he could survey all of the Belvedere, presently a very popular hunting ground. Perhaps he was also curious to see me reading Lee Siegel’s essays, Falling Upwards (‘I say, Blanche, I was up the stake, spotting hunting targets, you know, when I noticed Agdor was reading an Up book. Curious, eh what?’).
Nov 5. Bellinger Flood-watch. Again. More storms, showers—and even rain—having been forecast for today I chose early Outside Work as a priority. Not that it matters, but the Big Lawn was nicely ready for a good trim: the weeds were standing high (you can’t enthusiastically chip weeds unendingly: the mower effects more rapid change). First some important emails (rels are heading to these parts), following daybreak clearing and some further revetment in front of the Belvedere, some writing decisions, then The (radio) Bookshow and then I took the mower down and started cutting on damp soil. No dust. Wonderful. In two one-hour sessions I gave Big Lawn the attention it deserved and she looked almost beautiful again (lawns are female, I’ve decided). Storms had been predicted. Some spitting showers pattered lightly as I was finishing. Later, violent electrical storms cut short the writing plans and the computer was turned off for safety. Then much rain fell. Within minutes Big Lawn began disappearing as ponding and streaming developed in front of the house. Some of the loam I’ve spread across the revetment will have been washed out. The new grass should hold. Early news bulletins indicated three rivers were on flood-watch, including the Bellinger, naturally. Having not quite had a recent flood here, despite some flash flooding in the Bellingen area, I knew we’d all need a lot of luck to avoid yet another flood (the local newspaper headline indicated a fourth flood for the year despite the Lavender Bridge being only partly submerged; in the Darkwood the adjacent bridge deck stayed almost a metre above the rising river). Storm rains transforming to what looks like the start of Flood Rain followed. All night. Is this to be the fair dinkum Fourth Flood (or possibly the Fifth, for some?).
Nov 6. No flood here, for once, but yet again a flood in Bellingen and Coffs Harbour—with evacuations and rescues in the Coffs Creek area.
Nov 9. I meet Chris and Kerry at Sapphire. All’s well but it’s another hot day.
Nov 16. A v warm day and the temperature at about 30˚C as I arrive home to ‘my’ blessed shading trees. As I totter along the path to the house I almost take a couple of steps too many: a dramatically handsome carpet snake lies across my path. ‘Oh, er, ah, g’day,’ I murmur. The snake moves not and I see a disdainful right eye survey me briefly. This fellow is about 2-m long and gleaming with rude good health, but s-he doesn’t look at all like your usual local python—this one has the striking carpet patterning, but the colours, instead of being rather dull and yellowish are much more contrasty; there are reds and I think, blues. I hope it was a python and not some nightmarish ‘new’ hybrid critter with venomous fangs as well as python’s teeth). Sigh. –And I took the trouble to walk respectfully behind him at a distance to reach the front door. Then I returned to watch him/her move like an oiled and v colourful tube (reminding me of a Klimt painting for some exotic reason) up and over the broken shale wall lining the path and it wafted away into the scrub between the path and the cliff face. Surely it wasn’t a rock python? Such snakes are reputedly very dark in colour. Also, and this is peculiar, this is only the second or third snake of any respectable size that I’ve met all season. Dashed odd, what?
And then I strove mightily to locate my 60-odd digital pics and change several into emails. I wonder did they arrive as intended? I have high hopes of eventually learning how to get one of these into or onto the Diary blogsite. To my surprise ALL of these new pics look good to me: no blurring or camera wobble evident.

Nov 18/19. Sharon and Oren visit and we eat, drink and talk. The weather behaves nicely but the temperature is rising and there are dangerous fire warnings in many areas (& a total fire ban in NSW).
Nov 23. I take the iMac and visit my friend Kerry at Moonee. It’s hot and windy. Cicadas everywhere. The computer is quite well but requires about 3 hours to download updated software. I learn a little more about photo arrangements from K and he deftly demonstrates the placing of one of my new pics on the blogsite. K lends me Alan Furst’s The Spies of Warsaw, a thriller set in one of my favourite years: 1937. Isn’t it strange how the symbols for 1937 stick in one’s mind. It was the year we left Vancouver Island, signed on as crew and sailed to S Africa/Mozambique on the SS Bencleugh—and the many tons of lumber that filled her holds and also was stacked bridge-high and secured with enormous chains. Unsinkable. The Year of the Cabin Boy.
Nov 19. After several discussions about the Council’s Heritage-listing of properties, I attend a public info session at the BSC. I’m able to ask questions of a Council officer. Penelope arrives and we learn more about Heritage listing. It’s yet another hot day.
Nov 26. It’s again hot and breezy. Some night creature has further attacked the roses and the budding dahlias in the fenced part of the Theatre Garden. What a mess. The roses are all dying because they’ve been savagely pruned (tips and buds). I decide to start moving the roses (they’re otherwise doomed) back to the Dog’s Garden. Naturally, it’s a hot morning but I begin before sunrise. The dahlias may be less attractive to the Creature so I’ll leave them there, next to the lantana and the forest. There is perhaps a slightly better than 50-50 chance that the roses may recover. All the other plants in the Dog’s Garden are thriving, especially the red salvia.
The river is falling quickly again.
If you have got this far I offer another midge story for your entertainment (if the narrative seems, also, to be an unsolvable mystery, please send me an email and I’ll explain)...

© text Don Diespecker 2009

A Room Of Her Own

Don Diespecker

Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.
Virginia Woolf: A Room of One’s Own

Midges are of course known to each other by their World names and as everybody now knows, World names can only be learned, i.e., acquired, intuitively. Even the human, the Old Gardener was able to learn his acronym-based World name, Agdor, the learning made easier with the good-natured cooperation of the Local Assembly Speaker, an old mosquito who invariably swished and squelched with Agdor’s blood (Agdor from ‘A Good Drop Of Red’). For the benefit of curious readers, the acquisition of World names is a Traditional Midge Ritual. For those humans desirous of learning their World names it is necessary to do as the midges do: pairs of humans must stand respectfully quiet without swatting or scratching for precisely 7 seconds while fixing on each other. The fixing interval is based on the Universal Time of 7 seconds (a magical number in all realms). During the fixing interval personnel remain silent, respectful and absolutely peaceful (viz, totally without rancour while emanating only positive thoughts no matter how, when or where they may have encountered one another). Waves of intuitive curiosity then flow from each living organism and at the nexus of these emanations a glow of golden light quickly grows brighter until it displays the World names of each ‘protagonist’. Thus Agdor, was always able to learn the names of midges by applying this simple and gracious principle. It should be noted by any living being reading these words that The 7 Seconds Principle is also a necessary First Step in learning not only Midgespeak Local Dialects, but of acquiring a noble proficiency, if not a fluency, in the Universal Language, or Lingo, (UL) such that even humans are able to comprehend all insect and animal communications: they can also converse in UL with all creatures and do so, like all creatures, majestically and without the hindrance of local or regional accents—a coveted accomplishment (especially of humans) guaranteeing all living organisms such neutral-sounding speech that it almost perfectly resembles BBC English in its speaking qualities and so much so that the profession of comedian in all realms requires comics to communicate either in local or regional and sometimes in national speech.
*
After the untimely passing of Raoul Socrates Midge during the harrowing and unfinished Project, Fix and Pitch mission of the Local Big Mind, of which Raoul had been the Director, there was gloom and despondency in the Local Sector of Midgeworld. It lasted for weeks. In due course a new Director was elected: Salvador Plato Midge, and there was rejoicing in the Local Sector because Sal, as he was popularly known, was not only a most cognitive midge—a thinker—he was also a creative artist, despite, at times also being sorely troubled by the conflict between thinking rationally and the creative ruminating that afforded him his most artistic moments. In moments of creative relaxation Sal also created jigsaw puzzles that he bartered for found objects. And he also welcomed his colleagues to his Fine Arts Gallery, playfully called Objets Trouvés. Although the Gallery adjoined Salvador’s modest home it was entirely separate from Sal’s quarters.
Although a distinguished midge Salvador Plato was also an odd sort of a chap, for not only was he a philosopher and a deep thinker who had (like his august human namesake) founded the nearby Midgeworld Academy of Arts, Sciences and Consciousness, but he was acknowledged throughout the known World as THE Midgeworld Academy founder such that all of the world’s Midge Academies were subsequently founded and constructed along the lines specified by Sal who lived peacefully in the Darkwood Forest of New South Wales, Australia and as the human Plato had himself announced in bold letters above the door of his own house so long ago, Sal had arranged for Local termites to carve, as inscription, the provocative epigram, Let no one enter who does not know geometry. And although it was never openly argued, some of Salvador Plato Midge’s critics insisted that the ancient (human) Plato inscription ended, not with the word geometry, but with the word mathematics, while the majority of Locals simply shrugged their wings and suggested that the inscription’s last word was nothing more than a moot point; however, so many Local Sector midges were puzzled by this remarkable inscription that they very soon came to believe that there was some metaphysical benefit to be obtained by each and every midge who would contrive a saw or saying or epigram or epigraph—almost any kind of inscription, they decided, would do—such that considerable numbers of midges of both genders determinedly went out of their ways each to display a pithy saying over the entrance to their dwelling. Although his predecessor, the esteemed Raoul Socrates Midge, had distinguished himself by exploring the many possibilities of acquiring genuine knowledge he had neglected to record in writing, all forms of writing being a desirable but extremely difficult process to achieve, any of his remarkably well argued views. It was a chap’s memory, Raoul Socrates asserted, that counted.
Thus it was that Salvador Plato Midge considered himself honour-bound to dutifully record, somehow, in writing, as many of his predecessor’s words as could be remembered, not only by his own efforts, but also by soliciting the memories of his many friends and acquaintances; however (there is always a ‘however’ with these philosophical fellows), and because the ancient human Socrates did not himself write a word (for heaven’s sakes) it should be borne in mind that when the human Plato was writing either about or of Socrates he was actually voicing his own (Plato’s) views… and Salvador Plato Midge considered this to be so very droll! And then there were all the modern-day critics who insisted that as it was with the human Socrates and the human Plato, so it was too with the eponymously named midges (in other words, the midges were all supposedly pragmatic and somewhat rigid). The greatest difficulty in Salvador’s life was the haunting awareness of his inability to invent a reliable method of writing or printing; thus, memory and memorizing was of paramount importance to the entire community. And as much as Sal appreciated the undeniable veracity of midge memory, his inability to record anything in writing had also provoked what was now a chronic and ineffable sadness. And because Sal also suffered from a lifelong attraction to honesty he put a second and very different motto above his little-used rear door, ars longa vita brevis. Had he been completely honest he would have made the sign in English, rather than in Latin (art is long, life is short.)
And there was that other oddity about the contemporary Salvador Plato Midge: he was essentially also an artist in a community that almost perversely presumed itself to be pragmatic and conservative. Sal’s art gallery and his modest lifestyle occasioned little comment; he was Salvador Plato Midge, a very decent fellow who was everybody’s friend.
*
Late on a splendid spring day, and with the sun westering over the Darkwood, Salvador Plato was taking his ease in his favourite web hammock (Sal was on very good terms with his neighbour, the female Huntsman spider, sometimes known locally as Apocalypse Now (or AN, for short) although as Sal’s friend, she was ‘Betty’ and both creatures remained cooperative and peaceful neighbours following the negotiation of their joint non-aggression pact. From where he reclined in his hammock Sal had a wonderful Downstream View of the green and gold shining river gleaming in the late afternoon light, for his home and all the way to Farewell Bend was pleasantly located high in a Bird’s Nest Fern growing from a crevice in the shale cliff face above and behind Earthrise, as Agador called his home at Midgeworld. Birds were wary of the midge house in the fern because both seemed suspended in the air surrounding the cliff of weathered shale on the forested slope behind Agdor’s house (where birds occasionally landed in foliage at speed and these unfortunate flyers sometimes crashed into Agdor’s glass windows and doors and even into the stone cliff, usually with fatal results). Salvador was also able to enjoy part of the Upstream View to Hello Bend, the Rapids and The Pool in front of the Old Gardener’s house. The views from this safe eyrie were unsurpassed and inspirational.
Salvador was in his hammock this late afternoon and partly outside, suspended above his top-floor deck. He was close to nodding off as he swung gently while smiling at the Downstream View. He buzzed his wings briefly to salute Betty nearby who eye-winked in return. There were all the current ‘writing’ projects (i.e., memories to be processed by special teams of very cognitive midges known locally as The Cognoscenti), Sal thought. There were revisions of My Grounded Republic and Midgeworld’s Flying Laws to be considered. There were Governmental meetings to be organised and they would also have to be recorded by appropriately trained journalists; and there were—what was that? The Huntsman tugged the warning thread that waved and rustled the leaf alarm and when Sal looked directly upwards he became aware of the clamorous rattling of many leaves and twigs heralding the arrival of a large midge. It was one of the most powerful of the Local Sector Council members (The Council of Ten), Baron Scarpia Midge, the Police Chief who appeared to be landing aggressively. In a trice Sal launched upward to touch feelers with The Chief.
‘My dear Salvador,’ gasped the overweight Scarpia ‘forgive my unannounced arrival,’ and he slowly descended to the covered or interior section of Salvador’s deck asking, as he descended, for permission to land.
‘Of course, yes and welcome. Let us hang our wings out to dry and relax. –I don’t understand, Chief. What’s going on?’
‘This is urgent. There was no time to call ahead. We have a problem, we the leaders of the community, I mean. It’s the Hon Morgana.’
‘Morgana!’ said the amazed Salvador. ‘Has she broken a law?’
‘I do hope not, but the evidence suggests otherwise. She is leaving home,’ whispered the Baron.
‘What? Why on Earth would she even think of doing such a thing when we all know that Sir Gawain, her most protective brother, would never allow it? Could it be a secret lover? Is that it?’
Baron Scarpia Midge rolled his eyes, snorted and took a very deep breath. ‘Sir Gawain knows who all her friends are and most of his lady friends are widely known, also. And we all know that Sir G has a reputation as a dangerous philanderer.’
‘All of the midge folk are well known to you, I think, Baron? Why might you be concerned if she were to leave her brother’s care?’
‘Dash it all, Salvador, it’s because she’s allegedly becoming subversive! There’s evidence!’
‘What? The Hon Morgana is the sweetest—‘
‘Forgive my interrupting you, SP, but there have been reports. The Hon Morgana plans an abrupt Left Turn and if her friends and admirers are not able to protect her she may very well stray into, ugh, the Dark Side, alas.’
‘Great Sky!’ exclaimed an appalled Salvador. ‘This is astounding information, Baron! I simply cannot imagine—‘
‘SP,’ whispered Baron Scarpia Midge, bending conspiratorially toward Sal, ‘one of my agents has had her under surveillance for some time now—‘
‘But why, Baron, why?’
The Chief sighed lengthily (while an increasingly puzzled Salvador Plato realised that the Chief was now looking decidedly anxious). This was certainly becoming a difficult conversation for both midges. ‘Evidence that Morgana (and here the Baron Scarpia leaned forward to stare piercingly into Salvador’s eyes) has intentions to be a writer.’
‘A writer!’ gasped Salvador. ‘And that, you suggest, is a very bad thing? We all try our best to write, somehow, or at least to record our compositions thoughtfully…unless—‘
‘Exactly,’ the Baron replied, ‘it isn’t just writing, qua writing, for the sake of it—‘
‘You don’t mean—‘
‘I’m afraid so, my dear Sal. The rumours and gossip are that the Hon Morgana intends to write fiction and to become a novelist!’
‘Fiction? But, but—‘
‘Yes quite. Unthinkable. Unnatural. Disharmonious and dangerous and it will lead to unrest in the Local Sector.’
Sal’s antennae drooped instantly and asymmetrically, indeed the starboard feeler literally dangled. His head fell forward and he weakly raised a foreleg to shield his eyes as he said in despair: ‘I cannot believe it; it simply cannot be true!’
‘It’s true, SP. Another of my agents has been filing, so to say, reports that describe Morgana’s attempts to record her fictions on leaves.’
‘Fire and Water! The narratives couldn’t possibly be feuilletons, could they?’
‘No, we’re talking printing. She’s become friendly with the Americans who recently arrived by Human Collar from California in one of the human Flying Machines and they’re—all of this dangerous little group—using raindrops as lenses for our Sun to burn notational holes in gum leaves.’
‘Ciphers and punctate or punched hole printing,’ gasped Sal. ‘They can actually do that now?’
‘It seems so,’ said the Chief grimly.
‘This is too much,’ said Sal, reeling. ‘Fictions? Novelist? We simply do not do that in Midgeworld, why, it’s unheard of!’
‘And also iconoclastic and probably treacherous.’
‘Oh my goodness! I say Baron, have you somehow been making Notes?
‘Indeed I have, yes, and more than that, I plan to draft a report and hope to employ our best Dictionary Personnel while composing the report. I only wish it could be printed by the new method but then I would become subversive and you might have to arrest me.’
‘Oh!’ wailed Salvador, ‘ what have we come to and how have we so miserably failed Morgana? Our education program and all of our teachings have always emphasised truth, right practice, pragmatism and er, ah, the objective, um, approach to correctly composing or writing nonfiction. Journalism would be a good example and we do need another journalist to work on the Midgeworld Local Sector Express. Surely, Chief, you could encourage Morgana to be our next reporter or even our rapporteur or would that be rapporteuse?’
‘No, it’s too late for that, SP. The second part of my bad news is that Morgana not only intends to leave home, she is about to do so or may already have done so—steady on, old man, or you’ll fall into the forest!’
Salvador Plato Midge groaned and clutched at his fevered brow.
‘Look, SP, I must leave you now—many urgent matters pending—there’s a rumour that this group of—how shall I describe them—these storytellers and writers—are seeking a safe house. Forgive me if this information is upsetting. I absolutely must take my leave now; no, no, I’ll see myself up, thank you and now, farewell.’ As the philosopher stared in surprise the Baron Scarpia Midge revved his nicely dried wings and arose very much as a human police helicopter might do: directly into the luxuriant cover of the forest canopy, leaving below a very puzzled Sal.
*
The doughty Salvador now struggled to compose himself. His dulled wings had crinkled at the leading edges; he strained to properly unfurl his drooping antennae and to will renewed feeling and sensitivity into them. He knew that he must urge himself to a rapid recovery or fail as both philosopher and leader. Now he focussed his awareness on motivating the restoration of what had seemed lost: his wholeness, his integrity. Suddenly, there was a small downdraft sufficient to dramatically alert his feelers to near-perfect sensitivity. Peering upwards he saw the tiny form of the Hon Morgana descending. Warm air from the cliff face made her descent wobbly and even dangerous, but she persevered and soon was able to directly signal her intention to Salvador.
‘Sir, it is Morgana. Have I your permission to land, please? Betty told me to ask you directly.’
‘Of course, yes, Morgana,’ Salvador Plato Midge replied nervously. ‘Such a busy time, yet you are always welcome here. Please settle.’
‘Thank you, Salvador Plato,’ said Morgana. She touched down lightly a respectful 30-mm from the philosopher. ‘I saw the Baron Scarpia moments ago. He seemed most preoccupied and was unaware of me starting my descent. I’m sure I know why he’s been visiting you here.’
‘It’s because you want to be a writer and even to leave home to write,’ Salvador said as calmly as possible while discretely urging micro movements and proto-stretches to restore vitality to his muscles and joints.
‘It’s so complex a story that I can’t yet explain it all but what you have just said is largely true,’ said Morgana. ‘I felt I had to leave the powerful influence of my brother in order to work towards becoming the writer I know I may one day be. Dear Gawain has always fussed so. He over protected me. I had to leave, I had to.’
‘You have already left home?’
‘I have, yes.’
‘But what has your brother said to you about this? Life is so short, Morgana.’
Morgana paused. ‘Sir Gawain agrees. May I explain later? I have come to you, Salvador Plato to ask if you would allow me to rent studio space in your safe house so that I could work and live quietly while enjoying your protection. No one would dare to attack or attempt to influence me here. Please say yes. I could repay such kindness by assisting you in your home or in the art gallery. Please, please, dear Salvador Plato, our lives are so short because we are midges; all is so ephemeral. I do so wish to make written writings before I die.’
‘Er, and fiction writing, I believe.’ SP took a very deep breath and without quite appreciating the epoch-making and hugely radical moment, he added, ‘Of course you may stay here. Will you require a Memorising Team?’
‘No, my mind is clear and thank you, dear Salvador Plato; you are a true friend. Both fiction and literary nonfiction and gonzo journalism currently motivate me. I am eager to begin! Where may I settle and work, please?’
‘Why, exactly right here, if you wish. There is a splendid view and with Betty on one side and myself, so to say, on this other side, you should be secure. Betty, by the way, would not dream of eating us; we are far too tiny to make a meal and, she has told me, with wry good humour that only her late husbands were of a nourishing size. You are most welcome to use my web-hammock if you wish.’
Morgana smiled. ‘Thank you kindly, Salvador Plato. I shall always remember this. And please don’t be concerned about Sir Gawain. He is in the middle of everything and wildly distracted. If I may, I’ll start work now. Please say when you want my assistance and I’ll help. I have everything I need inside my head; only humans have baggage, ha ha.’
*
When Sal had left to work in his Gallery, Morgana perched between the hammock and the edge of a fern leaf. She wasted no time in examining her new writing space for there was much to be done and she knew that all of her work must necessarily be accessed from within her mind and then spoken, however softly, for the notions, the themes, and the resultant narratives to come into the world and to then be recognised and remembered. The view was indeed extraordinary. She watched the silvery surface of the river flow sweetly past toward Farewell Bend. There were suggestions of themes that she imagined might now, with some good fortune, become manifest.
Morgana focussed calmly on the river and began composing. Unlike humans who generally needed to hold a pen or pencil or to press keys and to see where they placed symbols and arranged the ordered structures of their writings, Morgana was entirely unhampered and able to compose her narratives by speaking them while viewing the wavering surface of the green river that flowed past so majestically. She titled her first piece Beginnings:

As an infant midge changing to a child midge nested within the Home Leaf I remember seeing only the family there being nothing either outside or beyond and being thus contained within meant that our home was my world entire and there was nothing else in my world save those who nurtured me until such time as I was able to understand that our leaf house infrequently contained us all together at the same time and that members would come and go to find nourishment in the Greater World while I so newly arrived must necessarily be provided for by those who had brought me to the Home Leaf for I was then a foundling orphan something not much known in our Local Sector and so much so that I knew nothing of myself nor who I was nor how I had come to be or had come to this Home and yet none of that matters because here I am now and seeing and hearing and tasting and smelling the great river while also balancing harmoniously in the wing-beaten air adjacent all of it my home always or so I thought and even though I asked before they passed away no-one in the family not even Gawain would ever fully explain to me how I came to be or had come at first as a stranger so tiny and helpless and newly sprung it seemed and unattended in the stream this same shimmering river this torrent this great mystery of Water that allows me to remember and to dream and even enables my imagination to see from within these tiny memories of the early family days and all those who saved me and grew me and in my images too there are also those other even smaller images of an older time a time that was earlier than my family an era that I think surely held lightly my very own nuclear family who may have lost me or not known how I vanished from them in a distant time when I was likely stolen but there is no-one now who can say how I came to be on a leaf on the waters floating past this place although now it seems that that there was truly a family from nearby who Started me and they too were loving and nourishing and I fear they may have perished in a great flood though they lived high in a very great e.grandis tree above us all on the mountain the tree so high that the family could see for miles see for miles see the ocean distantly the sea and I seeing as I presently am seeing the fragments now…

Morgana completed the voicing of the draft and sighed. ‘Again I almost remembered something I thought was lost or forgotten,’ she said aloud and then was startled by Betty’s voice nearby.
‘I don’t know that I got all of that,’ said the spider, millimetres away, ‘but I can read it back to you if you like. It’s all coded into that part of this web closest to where you are now. Your writing voice, by the way, is terribly faint.’
‘Thank you Betty but I too can recall it all.’
‘OK. Can I hear some more, then? It’s pretty quiet up here most of the time. You don’t mind? I could even offer feedback. –And I once was a line editor on the old Arachnidworld Chronicles and was their Foreign Correspondent before that.’
‘I don’t mind. It was only a fragmentary interior monologue. Tell you what, you can record the next part if you like. The rhetoric is trickier for me to write. You’d be doing me a favour.’
‘You’re doing me a favour,’ said Betty. ‘It’s not exactly Actionville here these days.’

Morgana closed her eyes briefly before starting a new narrative. ‘Here we go. I’m calling this Country Seat.’

A barefoot Princess Fleur walked slowly through the Great Park, shoes in hand then she paused and stopped. It was probably a great foolishness, no doubt about it. The word would get out. Not that it mattered. Who cared, really, what people might say? People, what people? Oh damn! Everyone would know by now anyway. Everybody could see. It was all so obvious. It would be another calamity like the one here at Insight all those years ago. The passenger seat of all places was it? Almost had to marry him. But what a time it was! Those wonderful summer days so endlessly long so marvellously filled with bright young people! Girls in summer dresses. Straw hats. Parasols. How discretely the girls laughed and giggled. How boisterous were the young fellows. So bold so dashing. Can never forget him winning in our Humber Snipe racing at Brooklands and Monza. Such a dasher the chauffeur was. Such a close thing it was too and all so absurd. Remember his name? Striped blazers. White flannels. Boating. The chaps sometimes fell in. It was all such a game. Showing off really to impress us. Young once.
So young and foolish all of us were. Yet we had so much pleasure then. Thought we’d stay forever young. We’d all live forever. And now? An older and less wise Princess considers her destiny. The moneyed aristocrat awaits my afternoon arrival. Possibly will propose. Would suit me yet probably he won’t. The entire household given the weekend off and there shall be champagne and caviar. No doubt. We shall make do fending and foraging for ourselves. Ahead there shall be just the two of us romping through that rambling great pile. Even his sister notably absent shall be. Had she run away to make her fortune, join the circus fulfil her dreams? Incomplete: my princely brother planning dark vengeance against my incautious lover and what if he should kill him or worse kill him before we’re wed? One way or the other each man maddened by power by ambition. It’s too late now. The grass feels so good. But put my shoes on again.
Princesses should go forward determined. How else to get what I want?

‘Aha! Yes I see. Cute,’ said Betty. ‘Any more?’
‘Yes last one now. Let me see. This I shall call Understated.

‘May I offer you a drink your Highness?’
‘I say steady on Thomas!’
‘Forgive me Ma’am. I do apologize.’
‘Oh do give over. Is there another glass?’
‘Yes Ma’am the cocktail cabinet inside the seat back.’
‘You did so well today. You won! Pour.’
‘Say when.’
‘What is this stuff?’
‘Best Cognac Ma’am.’
‘Mine no doubt.’
‘Yes Ma’am sorry it’s just a little for the race.’
‘Do stop apologizing! Take more next time. What’s your first name?’
‘Len Ma’am, Leonard Thomas.’
‘Then kiss me Leonard!’

Betty laughed, wheezing a little. ‘Just say if you want feedback or an edit.’
Morgana buzzed her wings at low revs to convey her thanks and to signal her farewell before bouncing up to the hammock. She had made a good start, she thought. She would take a nap and then pop down and offer to assist Sal. Perhaps later this evening she would explain herself further; possibly she might not need to. What was it she’d been told by the Cognoscenti, something Whitehead had written in his Dialogues: Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.
Below in the Gallery Salvador Plato was considering the placement of a new twig to hold an old holed leaf in such a way that when a Placement Crew had set it all up for viewing the viewer would see (as it were) a circular framed view of the afternoon river at about 16:30 hours for the next two days when the reflected light of the setting sun shining from the forested mountainside down onto the water would gleam like old gold. The visitors would enjoy it, he was sure. He remembered something his human namesake had written long, long ago; perhaps he would mention it to Morgana: Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.
Plato (Republic, Bk 4)