Earthrise Diary 1-010
The Earthrise Diary (January 2010)
Don Diespecker
During the thunderstorm they sat side by side to see the river from above. He told the sailor that this was the very best time to see the bloodwoods flowering on the mountainside: the rain blurred the creamy blossom, mist rose through the forest and streams within the stream made patterns on the river. She saw that it was so, turned and smiled.
Storm from the High Deck
Dec 26 ’09. A large tree broke and fell on the top of the cliff above the house on Boxing Day night. Although I couldn’t see it properly from down here it was alarmingly close to the house.
Dec 27 ’09. A large tree broke and fell (it sounded like deadwood), in the area of the house (high ground) but couldn’t be seen from this level when I later searched for it.
Dec 2009. More trees have collapsed this month than at any other time since 1984. Most have been on the high ground above and near the house. When a big tree breaks or collapses on the slopes it frequently brings down more trees—another 8 or 10 are sometimes felled. The major limb (about 190-mm dia.) of a riverside cheese tree broke with a loud crack one night about a week before Christmas. Clearing the debris required a machete to trim it and the wrecked branch was then axed in three so I could drag the pieces away.
The weather has been dry in the last 2-3 weeks. The cyclone in WA retained its structure when it came ashore a few days ago and has been dumping large amounts of rain across the continent (flood warnings and subsequent flooding in a number of inland rivers). Some of the rain reached here yesterday evening. I suspect that global warming is playing the major role in these events. I’ve been working on an essay (‘The View from Earthrise’) about life here; the narrative began with the cheese tree breaking and the draft now ends with the Dec 27 (unsighted) tree. So much damage is unsettling; I wish I were able to see the damage more directly but could do so only from above and the slopes here are dangerously unstable so climbing up isn’t worth the risk.
Jan 8 2010. Another tree breaks. This time it was directly across the road from here at the Deer park (I’d searched here without luck then looked out the gate to see a tangled mass blocking the road further down near the neighbour’s river paddock gate. A large branch from a century-old tree can effectively block the road with debris that includes neighbouring trees. I phoned Amanda. Mort came down with a chainsaw and the dogs watched from the back of the ute. I stood at the gate until he parked with the hazard lights on. Although it was a Friday afternoon, it was fortunately quiet on the road (there’s a blind bend in front of my gate and some young guys on trail bikes go through here at max revs). Then I helped clear. Soon, a local on her way home, Gerry, stopped and helped too. (PS about a week later one of my high red cedars in the same area, had dropped a branch without my seeing or hearing it and somebody (Mort, I later discovered) kindly took it off the road and chain-sawed it. I found it the next day and removed the tangle).
Jan 10 2010. The light is so good I take my breakfast coffee outside, move the chairs into the belvedere’s shade and sit to see. An always-available position is like a new position. The river wanders past glinting and gleaming. River light dances in the leaves of the old cassia (planted 20 odd years ago in front of me—the floods have knocked the tree down and broken it, but it sends up its best new branches as if nothing untoward had happened. The small green leaves bob in the light. Parts of the branches are in shadow. Beyond is the river, shining. When I allow my eyes to see what’s in between the water and the leaves I see single strands of spider silk floating, catching the light in places. I tell myself that unless I take the time to see what there is to be seen by relaxing into the view, everything is background and the spider’s strands will go unnoticed. Being in a beautiful place or being contained within a view filled with life and movement and light implies noticing, being aware. Otherwise the self, the ego, the watcher gets in the way. And who is watching the watcher? More trees have collapsed. The downstream view is now more striking because the bloodwoods are in full flower on the mountainside: big bunches of creamy white blossom among the shades of green. The flowering was magnificent to see two and three days ago in the rain; I even got some pictures.
The cicadas are as busy as ever their acute sounds as sharp and penetrating as the whine of high-speed saws. That reminds me of saw sounds from long ago: the Transvaal Gold Mining Estates (TGME) in Pilgrims Rest had a big carpenter’s shop that produced ear-splitting noises (the local mines used a variety of timbers, including the first eucalypts I can remember: plantation-grown bluegums or possibly flooded gums destined to become props in drives and tunnels). In the 1930s and early forties nobody was wearing earmuffs. Now it’s hot before 08:00 and the temperature will be around 30˚ today—and not forgetting the humidity: just strolling down to the lawn makes any movement sweaty, which is why I started the day gardening before sunrise. The sun’s in my eyes suddenly. Time to move again. I wander back into the shade and peer at the plants: flood-flattened white begonias are flowering profusely. There’s been so much rain. Too-tall colourful cannas need staking; wand-like they’ll otherwise stretch to 3-m and break. The bird’s nest ferns in the big old white cedar above me are half in shade, half in sunlight, the lighted parts are translucent and more strands of spider silk float beyond the old tree.
The terraces between the lawn and the Theatre Garden are almost cleared; I’ve been clearing there for two months. All the high grass is being dug out, taken down to the flat lawn area and in due course after sun wind and rain have had an effect, brutally mowed. The mower needs new blades: too tricky for me without the right tools. This early morning time continues, just, to be the best time for writing: there are tourists everywhere at all hours: camping close to the road, swimming, fishing, boating and tubing. Welcome to the New Year and the steamy summer.
I’m up to my eyebrows in work (draft writings Inside and rearranging the landscape Outside) and sincerely hope there will be no further tree collapses. (Another PS: yet another tree broke on the afternoon of the 17th. I was inside and heard it; they always sound very close but I failed to find it).
Jan 20 2010. I return home in the heat. The Honda turns left through the gate and into the Earthrise shade. I produce a heartfelt sigh. I’ve been once to Bellingen this week and twice gone on further to Coffs Harbour and Park Beach, three days in a row: white knuckle driving. It’s probably not a big deal, driving an old car, but the older I get the less fun is that driving. The relief of returning here is therefore huge. I lift the bonnet of the car and thank her sincerely for her good work (does that make me a pagan, I wonder?). The fire fighter’s pump and the lawnmower are both ready to go again. I resist immediately dashing out in the heat and give myself a little blood pressure lecture and then take a cup of tea and the new books down to the Belvedere and sit in the shade. The book that demands a first examination is Alberto Manguel’s Into the Looking Glass Wood. Can’t wait, but I’ll postpone that pleasure for a little while. I monitor the tennis (Australian Open) and don’t envy the players battling the waves of heat from those hard courts. I’ve been getting up early, 05:00 usually and sometimes 04:00 to manage more writing. I’m ready to submit more of it to editors and publishers who are probably dying of ennui. Winning the Nobel for Literature would be nice, I think, as the shadows lengthen across Big Lawn.
The Xmas orchids continue flowering and now the tall white/pink lilies tower above them on strong stems—these are the lilies of summer, the ones that have a scent like that of ripe peaches. There are more of these on the riverbank as well as what I seem to remember is turmeric (if the plants are not turmeric, they’re cardamom: you see how easy it is to un-remember these floral matters). There is some bloodwood blossom on the ground; it has a dark and heavy scent (for me) and makes me think of dark honey. Some night creatures are feeding on it, I think (at 02:00 and 03:00, not birds, but perhaps possums or even bats; I hear the fragments falling onto the roof near my bedroom—and there’s the higher roof above my head, too).
I’ve watched some of the Ken Burns documentary series, ‘The National Parks: America’s Best Idea’ on ABC TV. It’s very impressive. I’m always intrigued to see historical film footage of the era, more or less, when I arrived in the world (this old so very different from b/w stills) and I enjoy seeing the styles and fashions of the Twenties: cloche hats, e.g., and early Fords (--I was there, if you see what I mean, having been born in 1929. In my 1930s Depression era childhood the styles and fashions of the mid-Twenties and even earlier were not entirely unknown). I recognised as eerily familiar Model T and Model A Fords, women who dressed distinctively in 1920s styles. There is something about the sight of a large number of 1920s motor vehicles in a National Park that is, for me, moving and even eloquent. Dad owned such vehicles, from time to time; we went on Sunday drives and touring holidays, camped in the Woods (as Americans and Canadians speak of forests). And I remembered that I started primary school at Sir James Douglas in Victoria, BC some days late in ’35 or ’36 because the family had been camping at Englishman’s River—in the woods on Vancouver Island. The car in that distant time was a Page/or Paige (sp?). How wonderful are moving pictures!
Jan 25 2010. After tidying into place some out of time bits about trees breaking (above), I totter down toward the shade with my copy of Manguel, determined to slow the rush to insanity with a gentle read and before I reach my shaded chair a branch breaks high on the ancient riverbank to my left. Yet another big breaker smashes its way down through the canopy narrowly missing one of the W African Tulip Trees; it remains hung up, about 20-m above the lawn periphery. I mowed this area a couple of days ago, deaf to such sounds because of the big old ear muffs I wear, the ones I used to wear at the Pistol Club years ago. The trees, the trees!
The grass seed sown on Jan 16 (on the cleared area between the Theatre garden and flats in front of the house, appeared as grass about 5 days later; the area is now greening nicely. I was offered some loads of discarded quarry stone (22 barrow loads moved!) and have been using it along the edge of the (cleared and recovered) Riverside lawn (which has been mowed only once).
Jan 27 2010. This morning early I started hacking out the high grass in Cedar Grove. Onward, gasp, wheeze, and Upward!
If you’ve been following the Midgeworld action, you might want to read the sequel to A Room of her Own (below).
The Fabled Anecdote (a sequel).
© Text Don Diespecker 2010.
Along the White Begonia Flyway
Don Diespecker
Global Warming and Climate Change were now affecting Local Sector 1655 of Midgeworld and the Elders, the Cognoscenti, the Literati and even the Police, the Secret Police (aka the Special Branch, aka The Twig) and all the secret Intel Agencies (e.g., that of the water dragons, locally known as The Water Police) were convinced of the unfortunate tendency on the part of humans to be only partly aware of what they were doing to Planet Earth.
It was early December in the Local Sector and the start of the Summer Writing Season. The barks of the big flooded gums had started to split in late November and within the first days of December masses of dry crackling bark covered the ground. And during that first week of summer there were thunderstorms and heavy showers and much of the leaf litter on the lawn and the bark shed from the grandis trees was unduly soggy.
The old human gardener (‘Agdor,’ in UL or Universal Lingo) struggled to clear the continual mess by carefully using his motor mower to turn bark into proto soil that together with lawn clippings, he made into piles to be changed by sun and rain and reduced either to young mulch or the more mature and nutritious Earthrise Soil. Agdor’s days were generally mixed opportunities of physical work, mental work and recreation. He often started Outside Summer Work, other than the dangerous and noisy motor mowing, shortly after daybreak when the day was cool and fresh. While Outside, the old man tended to begin Inside Work by writing in his head (he could see words becoming phrases and sentences and because he fancied he had an ear for dialogue, his occasional hearing of voices made the eventual writing of drafts a pleasure to be savoured) and he was sometimes inspired to have absorbing live conversations not only between parts of himself but also with some of Nature’s most sophisticated Wild Beings. Those audible human chats frequently made Intel gathering laughably easy for espionage agencies in Local Sector 1655. Outside pursuits, prior to ‘recording’ words on his computer within his house always included acknowledgements, greetings and even admonitions to the Animal Kingdom: there were the ants (to be avoided when walking or to be admired when they ascended/descended the mighty e. grandis hybrid in front of the house, pursed-lips saluting of the mighty cicada percussion orchestras, chats with the brush turkey turning over the kitchen scraps, and ritual encouragements of sundry plants, and cheery smiles for the sentinel cormorants meditating safely on snags or bedrock in the river (some of the cormorants, particularly the big black ones that looked almost as big as Emperor Penguins, seemed to Agdor, to be in need of a mug of black coffee, but he realised that the birds probably required their own Quiet Times before another day of Working the Pool). And as the day waxed from warm to hot and often steamy, Agdor worked inside his house, glancing occasionally through his windows at The World. He was also subject to the strict injunction (his own) that The Lunch Break was to be used principally for sitting outside in the shade where he could read, scribble notes and occasionally think and even compose suitable writing sentences in relative peace prior to the arrival of holiday throngs to sport in the river. Further, the piercing summer cacophony made by the massed orchestras of cicadas was often a painful trial and the old man suspected that some of the noise was overdone, particularly when he was sitting outside or puzzling at the dystopian drumming in the middle of the night and when he thought deeply of cicadas he imagined that some of their thundering might be as vengeance against the competitive explosions of noise from his motor mower (it was just as well, Agdor reflected, that he did not mow at night).
The Best Shaded Sitting Place on a hot day was at the back of the Belvedere, with its compelling views of the downstream river. There were two stonewalled gardens in this area and there were also large clumps of white begonias on either side of the corridor flanked by the two gardens. The two humans Agdor and Olejay had made the gardens and planted the begonias (c 1985) and although the area had been submerged and battered by many floods the stoic old begonias had survived and flourished; additionally, the begonia clumps were significant garden landmarks for they also marked the verges of the M1 Flyway.
The Midge Flyways in Local Sector 1655 were central to the culture of Midgeworld. From above, a satellite or an unusually high flying midge would be able to see, as in one of those mysterious ‘landing fields’ in South America, the geometric layout of the Flyways. The M2 was aligned on the North-South axis, the M3 paralleled the downriver view and also connected with branches of the M1 (the three major Flyways being approximately at the same altitudes generally some 2-m to 4-m above Big Lawn Level), and the M4, a High Altitude Flyway with its path 50-m above the roof of Agdor’s ‘Earthrise’ house). The M4 was frequently used for Surveillance by Midgeworld’s Secret Police because the Plan Views were exemplary.
‘Earthrise’ was a human appellation rather than a Midgeworld name place and the midges had respectfully adopted the name as leitmotif and emblematic identity so that it might be recognised by Global Midges (‘Earthrise’ was thus a human honorary name for the Midgeworld Local Sector1655). And of the Local Flyways it was the M1 that was known worldwide as The Jewel of Earthrise. The midges loved Local Sector 1655 and worked tirelessly to promote the beautiful location as a Global Heritage site where Nature and Life were always esteemed. Prior to the partial clearing of this land by humans all proto views were concealed by lantana that grew in a rolling ocean of green. The plant had almost subdued the giant flooded gums until Agdor and Olejay altered the landscape, not only for their pleasures of the views as well as for the enjoyment of the myriad creatures, but as an homage to the place itself. The M1 as a celebrated Flyway also served the Summer Seat of the Sector Government in the area widely known to local midges as The Paris of the Darkwood—and the area where Agdor often sat in the shade was a renowned Bohemian part of the M1: a Writers District.
High above the network of flyways a single midge was simultaneously watching the traffic flows below, partly remembering a scene from the movie, The English Patient, which she had watched from above and behind Agdor’s shoulder one evening in the old man’s house (the film scene was an aerial view of two aircraft, one above the other while flying over the Libyan Desert). The busy midge while watching from the M4 was also composing a feuilleton and recalling fragments of the Hon Morgana’s recent narratives, having easily deciphered the web recording that Betty, the Huntsman spider had so kindly made for the promising new writer (most Huntsman species were too absorbed by The Hunt to make conventional webs, but there were exceptions). The high-flying Flyways observer was none other than Lady Ashley Midge (codename Brett), the efficient Commander of the Secret Police and the only sister of Midgeworld’s Police Chief, Baron Scarpia Midge. Nearby, were three specialist Writer’s Recorders, each of them possessing excellent memories. They were well trained for high altitude flying and they attended Lady Ashley Midge, whom it should be noted, was not only a very acute Commander and known affectionately to her staff as “B,” (the Head of the Police Special Twig) but one having remarkable eyesight and understanding. It was little known that Lady Ashley (or Brett), now of a certain age, infrequently appeared in public, at least in her official role. She was therefore not well known or immediately recognised by a majority of the Sector’s residents. –And it is confidentially mentioned here that the reason for the excessive cognitive crowding by Lady Ashley of her busy mind, was the most obvious one: she would not allow herself to be distracted when dutifully carrying out her high duties because she was also a midge in love; her secret lover being Sir Gawain Midge, the valiant brother of the Hon Morgana!
The relationship was presently so difficult. Of course Scarpia knew about it; after all, it was his job to know a little about almost everybody in the Local Sector. Surveillance was so jolly important in the Sector. Intel and Watching were essential. But what might Scarpia do? Although she knew he knew he’d not spoken about it. What ought she to do, what could be done? And nothing said by herself to Sir G. Did Gawain know that Scarpia knew? The Affair had become a tangled web—no, ought not think of webs: Scarpia had almost been entangled in Betty’s web recording of Morgana’s writings. What could be done? There had to be honest discussion with Gawain, surely? It was the only way. Have to think it through clearly. A drink would help. A bit early though. Could drop down to the Quarter soon, perhaps. Probably wouldn’t be recognised at the Dome or the Rotonde. Maybe could invite one of the Recorder chaps to escort me. Shall ask.
‘You’ve been here previously, Officer Benedict?’
‘Yes, Ma’am I have. When I was Recording for the Sector Emergency Services I used to come here with the boys, especially after floods and we’d have a drink or two.’
‘Really? That wasn’t included in your CV that I recall.’
‘No, Ma’am, it was, well, a bit of a secret, you see, because every emergency was, well, sort of stressful.’
‘Understood. Let me buy you a drink. What’s your poison?’
‘Overproof Happy Juice, the one matured in cunjevoi and stinger leaf juices.’
‘Hell of a drink, Officer Benedict.’
‘Yes, Ma’am, it hits the spot.’
‘We’re almost off duty. You can call me Brett. What’s your codename?
‘Jake, Ma—sorry, Brett.’
‘Jolly good, Jake. Barman!’
‘Yes, Commander?’
‘Two Overproof Stingers here, please. Set them up on the edge of the Bleeding Heart leaf.’
‘And do you come here too, uh, Brett, I mean, now and then?’
‘Sure. Here I unwind. Here I think of my next Report as well as my next feuilleton piece before inviting you or one of the chaps to memorise the writing.’
‘This is where it all begins, then, Brett?’
‘This is the second place where it all begins, Jake. The first place is Up There and the words come to me while I’m Up and also seeing Down There at the same time if you follow me. Then I come down here. Here come our drinks. What do I owe you, barman?’
‘Nothing Ma’am, they’re on the house. Your recent advice on combating Bar Invading Thugs has been invaluable, thank you.’
‘Jolly good and thank you.’
‘How could one midge combat several invaders, Brett?’
‘I showed him how to lure the villains to where the loot is, right beneath a raindrop tainted with stinger juice. It never fails, Jake.’
‘The sun shining through the juice drop vaporises the villains brains?’
‘Bingo, Jake.’
‘Cheers Brett, may I ask your advice?’
‘Certainly you may Jake.’
‘For a long time I’ve wondered if I too, might be able to acquire writing skills. I want to write about different places, cities, towns, rivers, forests.’
‘Nothing to it, just take the bull by the horns. You’ll need a Recorder to assist you?
‘I thought I’d try by myself.’
‘Jolly good, Jake. I’ll support you. Taking the family?’
‘Yes, I’d like to. My nephew could take over my job if I have a leave of absence. He’s young but I’ve been training him. He’s called Pedro Romero Midge.’
‘Very well, have him report to me. After this break I want you to Record my next piece, but not here. When we finish our drinks we’ll go aloft again; I write best when I’m high. Then I want you to carry out some important tasks before you go off duty. First, you are to contact Sir Gawain and tell him to meet me at this time tomorrow, but you must do this unobserved, so you’ll have to use the M4 and fly high. He is to meet me at La Closerie des Lilas, NOT here. I also want you to contact the Hon Morgana, Sir Gawain’s sister, who now has a Writer’s Room at Salvador Plato’s place and that too is best accessed from the M4. Invite her on my behalf to join her brother and myself at Closerie. I’ll invite my brother, Baron Scarpia to join us so that we shall be four. No, I shan’t require a Recorder, thank you.’
*
Lady Ashley Midge’s feuilleton was duly recorded by Officer Benedict Midge while in the M1 Flyway at an altitude of 40-m above Belvedere Level.
River
Lady Brett Midge
The summer river;
There is a bridge,
But the horse goes through the water. Shiki
All rivers speak with us but there is no one river, they say. There is the ocean and there is really only the one ocean for all rivers come from the sea to fall elsewhere as rain. And then the ocean-rain-river returns to the ocean. As the human, Pope has explained, a river is constantly passing away and yet constantly coming on. We cannot argue with that. All rivers behave that way. Yet no two rivers are the same or even alike. Nonetheless, many are similar.
Once our river was known as Clearwater and Bellinger now is. Nowhere is her mouth as wide as the Amazon’s mouth that seems oceanic. Once there was signalled a vessel’s request for fresh water and the return signal read, Let down your buckets! Such a mouth is truly oceanic. But our river here is everybody’s river and is unlike the mighty Amazon. Here the river is modest although wild in floods and then so much bigger. This Bellinger is much like others: it is like the Blyde running through Pilgrims Rest in the Old Transvaal or the Cowichan slipping through the forest on Vancouver Island. The Jordan is slower because smaller. The rivers are otherwise similar in size. Cowichan means ‘place in the sun’ and Blyde means ‘joy.’ Bellinger means clear water which is why we all live within her influence. Perhaps the humans have learned this from us. Or possibly we have learned this from them. And we all become used to rivers and how they are what they are and behave as they do. The river’s actions cannot readily be predicted because rivers rive and sunder, sluice and billow and so change anything that impedes them. We all ought to know what may be known about these live water beings because then we would understand ourselves, as well as flowing water, and then we might become fully knowledgeable.
Midges may discover of rivers what presently seems unknown or unknowable, and to know what may be known it is essential that we seize opportunities to see what can be seen. To see all the rivers of the world is a dream, yet seeing many rivers continues as a beckoning reality. We all know about ROTS, reading over the shoulder, and we Local midges have always practised that here. ROTS inspired your columnist as a young midge to travel great distances while being snug beneath the collars of humans and to even travel first class when the humans travelled first class. Thus did I see the Danube, the Rhine, the Seine, the Thames, the Hudson, the Nile and the Plata and what I also discovered were the experiences associated with small or medium sized rivers. A river does not need to be Amazon-like in its confluence with the ocean, it may be bigger than the Bellinger and like the Dordogne which sometimes has tidal waves, upstream running, or it may have bridges that are unlike any we have here. Our timber bridges that submerge in floods are so different to steel or stone bridges. Once in Cahors, France we flew about the wet and windy town. Later when the sun came out we flew across the big 14th century Valentré bridge: a stone bridge with high roofed towers and set above a barrage that pools the river. I flew the high structure on my own to marvel at the art, the workmanship. Later in Paris I flew all the bridges for sheer delight and did the same in London and New York and Sydney. A midge has only to find an airport and there will be travelling humans ready to take us on Golden Journeys. If only we had such bridges to grace our shining river, the river, the river!
Here bloodwood blossom gleams white in misty rain and after the rain sun browns the wet flowers and they begin to fade away then fall on the mountainside. Here in the sky’s air the honey-sweet scent enters the Flyway and mixes with the rising lawn perfumes. Far below the old human in riverbank shade swishes kindly away our Local Sector midges boldly jaunting face-close. Nobody dies. If only humans had wings might they be less warlike? Imagine the old man in the shade winging up here to find yet another midge in his view. Could they possibly evolve just a little further and so acquire their own wings, humans, could they? Here I continue privileged until the time when the big wingless creatures are able to join me and see the world from Above. Thus I am enabled to see from my high study space a heavenly sight and one the old human can never see until he completes the evolutionary journey: the serpentine stream that winds divinely like a great serpent through the flowering forest, a river that brings life from afar to this place.
*
Salvador Plato Midge spoke respectfully to the group of four. ‘There have been four of you to enjoy the cut and thrust of difference. I have been called on to facilitate, thank you, Morgana for inviting me. If you all agree, will you please summarise your part in this matter? Morgana?’
‘Yes, Salvador Plato, I agree’ (and the other members readily agreed, too). ‘Our informal chat prior to this meeting has persuaded me that truth is always the best policy. So! When my brother, Gawain told me he had met Lady Ashley, or Brett if I may, I realised this must be a most important relationship (Gawain, this is the first time you have discussed love with me). I decided that I would leave home so that I would not be in your and Brett’s way and also because I have contemplated the artist’s life for some time. Brett, you have always been friendly and I always enjoy your writings, so your relationship with Gawain has inspired me to begin my writing life. I have started to write while in the safe house of Salvador Plato. I am happy.’
‘Sir Gawain, can you summarise, please?’ the facilitator asked.
‘I am in love with Brett,’ Sir Gawain said forcefully. ‘I have been anxious about my sister and concerned I may have driven you away, dear Morgana and I am very pleased, Salvador that my sister is in your care and enjoys your protection.’
Salvador nodded and smiled. ’Lady Brett?’
‘I may be a secretive sort of chap, but I love Gawain so much that I am now ready to relinquish command of the Police Special Twig, to stay home and become domesticated after my sometimes peculiar public life. And I am now very happy.’
‘Baron Scarpia, what say you, Chief?’
‘I must say I was reluctant to come to this group because I know far too much about each of you. My concern until recently was that my sister Brett might be in all kinds of trouble were I not able to remain close to her and to protect her. I now see that I have been worrying unduly, for I understand that Sir Gawain is in love with my sister. I wish them good fortune in their new relationship. I had also been anxious that if Morgana moved out of Sir Gawain’s care she would begin to write dangerous fictions that would increase pressure on the both the Police and the Secret Police. From what I have been told, my fears have been unfounded and I apologise for any bad behaviour or offense I may have caused.’
‘Very good,’ said Salvador Plato. What do you really want for yourselves, each of you?
‘I want to find love before it is too late for me. I suddenly seem to move faster towards domesticity and I intend writing my memoirs,’ said the Baron Scarpia.
‘And I want more progress sooner rather than later,’ said Sir Gawain. ‘We absolutely have to perfect printing processes. Presently, there is a perception that we all know more than we can possibly write and Record.’
Morgana said: ‘I want to be a proper writer and be able to see what I write, rather than hear our Recorders repeating my words. Our fictions may now be recognised as appropriate in a world filling with humans. I’m sure we can write as well as they do.’
‘I do so want to be a better midge,’ Lady Brett told her companions. Her eyes were shining. ‘I know we’re all awfully decent chaps at heart and that we’re all struggling towards the light and toward becoming intellectual fully conscious beings. We must learn how to do printing, it’s absolutely essential.’
‘I suspect the possibility,’ murmured Salvador Pluto, ‘that some of us have been behaving as excessively in human ways. True or not, it is now clear to me that nothing subversive has occurred; no wrongs have intentionally been committed. We are all, as citizens of Midgeworld, decent beings.’
