Short Stories
Crystal's Journey
(A sequel to The House of Stone & Skyelights )
After fifteen miles or so, most of it very hilly, Crystal stopped by a large rock that was conveniently facing the sun for some food and a rest.
There was an ancient stone and slate building, barely five feet high at the entrance and with many slates missing from the roof. The errant slates were stacked roughly against one wall and Crystal guessed the barn was still used as shelter for a few sheep once in a while.
Many granite and flint stones were poking through the short grass. Insects buzzed among the few flowers and sheep droppings, exercising their limited consumer rights.
The landscape felt ancient. Apart from the steel gate on the yard by the barn nothing much had changed for thousands of years. Take away the building, most of which was mined or cut from within a mile or less, and the place had hardly changed for millions of years. 'With reduced gorse and added sheep,' in the patoire of sales.
Crystal lay on the warm side of the rock and wondered how many thoughts and feelings she could keep in her mind at once.
Our Internet connection will use very little energy and paper.
Co-operative food uses very little energy; especially my hens!
Annie's songs change the invisible world.
Pearl's sculpture likewise.
I can feel God/Goddess but can't explain it.
Everyone has bits of goodness and selfishness.
Most busyness is an escape from something.
All compulsion is an escape from something.
My body is content with very little, provided my mind leaves it alone. She snuggled into the warm rock to prove it.
All the time it is repairing minor injuries and such, without my doing anything.
Two billion years it's taken to reduce the CO2 to healthy levels. Or was it three?
Energy and materials flow around the world - sun, earth, oceans, plants and animals. Endless cycles.
I wonder if Annie has used our new phone line yet? I could phone her with the mobile and ask her! What a totally daft idea. Crystal imagined:-
'And what do you use your phone for madam?'
'To check that our other phone works!'
♥
'No work to do, then?' his eyes were twitching and his wife stood behind him, gently exerting pressure. Their car was large, bright red and covered in garish ads. Crystal came around with a start. The rear of their car seemed to be full of plastic goods.
She took one look at his revolving eyes, and his huge layers of protective fat, lay down again, closed her eyes, and started to sing a Vietnamese lullaby. This was a unique experience for two of the partcipants. The large man got into his large car. He was followed by his large wife.
'I'd like to go home and have a large brandy!' he declared.
So he did. And so did his wife.
♥
Crystal pushed her bike up the last few yards of steep, gravely slope and had a shock. The land beyond sloped away into a wasteland . There were a few granite rocks peering out of the turf and heather, but all the broad-leaved trees were dead. A few conifers survived.
The only birds that Crystal could see were large black critters in nearby dead trees. She wasn't sure if they were rooks or ravens, and supposed they didn't know either.
Cloud hung dismally amongst the distant conifers, like a collection of dull, grey, seriously overweight, pear-shaped gorillas, each nursing tummy trouble and the attendant melancholia. As the sun poured down, the mist slowly cleared to reveal a solitary jet-black raven in the upper reaches of a Scots pine. Half the branches were dead, large cones still clung to lower branches and many more lay on the surrounding moorland.
This scene has changed very little over the centuries, thought the racial memory of the raven, until recent years. First there had been the clearance of gorse and a dramatic increase in the sheep population, then the road.
The road was the source of the appalling din. Ravens can't put their hands over their ears, you see. This is partly because they need to use their ears, and mostly because they don't have any hands. Besides, it may have been a rook.
As the sun beat down, the mist retreated into the valley where the road lurked. Two lanes going each way, downhill towards Newcastle, uphill towards Wherewithal, the nearest city. The traffic going downhill didn't contribute much noise, but the uphill tale was rather different.
For once Crystal frowned. She'd have to cross the motorway, which meant following it downhill for nearly a mile to the junction where a bridge was visible. And she'd put many miles behind her before camping for the night.
♥
Crystal glanced at her wristwatch then turned the corner. She smiled as the sign proved her map reading was good - North South Street, Smogdale.
There's something very special about a small row of inexpensive, terraced houses, providing, like these, most of the people who live there wouldn't dream of living anywhere else.
Crystal took in all the details of unique individual lives; the gardens, window boxes, curtains, blinds, occasional weird house names, one house modified to have a deeper ground floor and raised roof. That could suit me, thought Crystal.
Despite being early, a habit she'd developed purely because she never wished to be rushed, Fidget was outside his house and looking for her. Good lord, he thought. It's just a slender young girl. She sounded sort of adult on the phone.
The illusion persisted until Crystal cycled past a parked van. She'd seemed perfectly proportioned on her bike, but the bike suddenly looked wrong. The handlebars were level with the roof of the van.
Crystal smiled, leapt off her bike and shook his hand.
'Fidget?'
'Yes. Hello. Er, how tall are you?' he asked.
'Right up to here!' she said, indicating the top of her head.
'Wow,' said Fidget. 'I don't mean to be rude, but in the distance, with no perspective, you looked like a smallish girl on an ordinary bike.'
'Don't fret,' said Crystal. 'My sister Annie, is taller than me!'
'No?'
'Yes! And our other sister, Pearl, is taller than her!'
'You're having me on,' said Fidget.
Crystal shook her head. 'You know, I love this road. As soon as I turned the corner I loved it. The whole town is rather appealing.'
She could hear tame pigeons, a parrot, many colourful flew and sand in an aviary. She supposed they were budgerigars. She could smell flowering nasturtiums, toast, and an ancient moped on the towpath being driven by one ten year and pushed (in clouds of smoke) by another.
Fidget smiled and rubbed his neck to restore the circulation.
'How far have you cycled?' he asked.
'I think about sixty miles,' said Crystal. 'But I stopped overnight.' She indicated the canvas bag containing her tent that was strapped onto the rear carrier of the bicycle, underneath the enormous rucksack.
'Ah,' said Fidget, whose conversation in recent months had been restricted to muttering a mixture of encouragement and threats at pieces of hardware that he was attempting to fix, and the occasional 'Yes, Eve. Good idea,' to his well-meaning neighbour.
He felt somewhat out of his depth (no pun intended) standing eyeball to kidneys with Crystal. She smiled encouragingly and he tried to imagine her experience of their meeting. Sixty miles over moorland, camping alone, collecting a PC about which she (and her sisters) knew absolutely nothing . . .
'Fancy a cup of tea?' he hazarded.
'I'd rather have two!' said Crystal.
So she did. And so did Fidget, after they finally found the tea.