Nicholas Mosley - Hopeful Monsters

— Or these children are rolling their tyres down the inner surface of the four-dimensional continuum of the universe to see what, at the end, will be the effects of light, of gravity.

There was one child who was smaller than the others who was pushing a large tyre up the hill. This child wore a cap and a coat down to its ankles. It was like a small Sisyphus just emerged from an egg, pushing its own shell up a hill.

I thought — Or this is like one of those experiments in which you bombard with particles a small aperture in a screen and it is according either to chance or to how you have set up the experiment what, if anything, gets through.

When the small child who was pushing the tyre up the hill reached the top the other children gathered round. I had sat down on my haversack at the edge of the wasteland at some distance from the hill. I thought — I will stay here and observe not only the customs of this strange tribe but myself observing -

— Out of the confusion of images, might something of myself get through?

The small child was climbing into the large tyre which the other children held for him: I mean he was getting himself wedged inside the tyre as if he were the centrepiece of a wheel. He had his head down, his knees against his chin, his arms around his knees. It was also, I suppose, as if he were within the casing of some seed; his small face peering out. Or was not this like an illustration to some sacred text — the microcosm and the macrocosm, the human within the circle, the part that is the whole. These images went spinning in my mind. Then I thought — But surely the child within the tyre cannot be rolled down the slope; those tyres went bounding, leaping, so violently: the child will die! The other children held the tyre while the small child settled himself in; then they gave the tyre a push and the tyre went off whirling, bouncing, down the slope. I thought — But the child's neck will be broken: you see why this is not possible! I stood up. I wanted to stretch out my hand against — what? — gravity? The tyre hit a projection, took off, landed, took off again. I thought — There is something so soft inside, like water bouncing against stone. This also is in my head. I picked up my haversack and began to move down the hill. The other children had turned and were running away down the far side. I thought — They

know, of course, that the child in the tyre may be killed. The tyre was heading for the low embankment with the wire fence on top; there was just the one small opening through to the area beneath the railway lines beyond. I thought — So now, come on, what is it in that experiment that makes the one particle get through: the condition set by the experimenter. The tyre with the child inside made a long low leap and then disappeared, yes, through the opening in the embankment: it went out of sight in the area beneath the railway lines. I had been running; I stopped; I said — Thank you. I thought — You mean, what if that particle were a seed, with a child inside? Then — This is ridiculous. I went on. There were puddles of oily water on the wasteland in which light was reflected like rainbows. I reached the archway in the embankment and went through; there was a maze of posts carrying the railway lines above my head. I thought — So, now, what am I learning about an anthropology of the mind! The maze of posts was like some dead forest; the ruins of an ancient temple; what had the temple been used for, the sacrifice of a child? But this child had got through! And was now back in the ruined temple. And so on. I was picking my way between the posts that were like the trunks of rotting trees. I thought — It is as if they, and these images, have been a long time under water. I could not see the tyre: it had found its way, presumably, some distance into the maze. Or had it gone right over the rim of the land, and back to its origins in water. There was a small clearing within the maze; the railway lines made a loop so that there was a patch of open sky above; within this clearing there was a half-collapsed hut and two small grey-and-green bushes. I thought — This is the home of some old hermit, perhaps; or that Garden, where now these bushes are the remains of those two trees. The tyre had come to rest half propped against one of the pillars at the edge of the clearing; there was a shaft of sunlight coming down towards the hut. I thought — This clearing itself is in the shape of an egg: the tyre with the child inside is like a seed that has come in by chance, by design, from outside to that old garden, that hut like a rotting tomb. Then — Stop thinking! There was an arm hanging out from the inside of the tyre; it was a small white arm which was, yes, like some shoot not so much from a seed as into it. I said to myself again — Stop thinking! I had been thinking that if the child were dead, then people might imagine I had murdered it. I went on into the clearing. Well there it was, this strange self-risking, self-sacrificing, self-immolation of a child. I went up to the tyre and

knelt down beside it. The child was still wedged inside. Its head was at an angle which made it seem that its neck might indeed be broken: its knee and elbows were scraped and slightly raw. The child's eyes were closed; it was holding its cap down by its knee; it had dark curly hair; it was smiling. One of its cheeks was brown and pink with dirt and blood: I wondered ifl might lick it. I thought

— The child is alive! Then I realized that the child, whom I had taken to be a boy, was in fact a girl: she was a small bright girl of eight or nine. She had opened one eye and was smiling. I thought I might say — Are you all right? None of this seemed, at the time, all that extraordinary. It seemed that I should put out a hand and see if any bones were broken; but I did not want to touch the child; I remained squatting in front of her with my forearms on my knees. I smiled at her. The girl moved her neck, her arms, tentatively, as if preparing to climb out of the tyre; she was looking towards something beyond me. I thought — Well, now, what am I going to see if I turn: some old monster emerge from that hut that has been sleeping for a thousand years? When I turned my head there was, yes, someone standing by the hut; it was another child, a boy; smaller even than the child within the tyre: this child seemed to have come out of the hut and was standing by the two grey-and-green bushes. I thought

— Well, you mean, this is what we have been waiting for all these centuries, these children? Then — This is ridiculous. The girl was climbing out of the tyre; her coat was torn; she had thin arms and legs like bones which have been picked clean. She remained crouching. Then with her hands she made flashing, darting movements towards the child who was by the hut: it was as if she were flicking bits of light at him; as if the bits of light might come down on him like golden rain. Then this child came up to her and held out his hand. He was wearing a rough brown smock to just below his knees. I thought — Oh I see, the child who has been in the tyre is deaf or dumb; or this other child is deaf and dumb; perhaps they both are; that's why she makes these flashing movements with her hands. Then — Or this silence, this scattering of light, is like the speech, or milk, of angels. The child who had been in the tyre stood and took the hand of the smaller child who was standing gravely by her. She did not in fact appear to be injured. Neither child up to this time had paid much attention to me. I thought — But that is all right, I am an observer in this clearing in the jungle. Then the girl who had been in the tyre did turn to me and made one or two flicking movements towards me with a hand. I smiled; I nodded; I

shook my head. I thought — But what does it matter if I do not understand? I understand. Then the girl, laughing, held her hand in front of her hips and made one or two movements forwards and back with her finger and thumb in a circle which might have been taken, if they had not been done so laughingly, to refer to something that could be called obscene. I laughed too; I raised my hand; I shook my head. Then the girl turned away. I thought — But thank you for the offer! It was kind. The two children set off beneath the railway lines hand-in-hand. The girl stopped once more and looked back at me; she made no more flicking movements with her hands. She looked first at me, then at the hut, then at the boy; then she remained for a time looking back at me. I watched her. I thought — She is trying to make some further message. I tried to say to her — It is all right! Then I watched them go. I had sat down on my haversack in the clearing by the hut. I was thinking — Well what might indeed grow, in the mind, if there is silence: something that has been dormant for a thousand years?