Margaret Atwood - The Year of the Flood

It’s make-believe. Wishful thinking, I know I shouldn’t do it: I should face reality. But reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows.

The Adams and the Eves used to say, We are what we eat, but I prefer to say, We are what we wish. Because if you can’t wish, why bother?

SAINT TERRY AND ALL WAYFARERS

YEAR TWENTY-FIVE.

OF THE WANDERING STATE.

SPOKEN BY ADAM ONE.

Dear Friends, dear Fellow Creatures, Fellow Sojourners on this dangerous road that is now our pathway through life:

How long it has been since our last Saint Terry’s Day on our beloved Edencliff Rooftop Garden! We did not realize then how much better those times were, compared with the dark days we are living through now. Then, we enjoyed the prospect from our peaceful Garden, and though that prospect was one of slums and crime, yet we viewed it from a space of restoration and renewal, flourishing with innocent Plants and industrious Bees. We raised our voices in song, sure that we would prevail, for our aims were worthy and our methods without malice. So we believed, in our innocence. Many woeful things have happened since, but the Spirit that moved us then is present still.

Saint Terry’s Day is dedicated to all Wayfarers – prime among them Saint Terry Fox, who ran so far with one mortal and one metallic leg; who set a shining example of courage in the face of overwhelming odds; who showed what the human body can do in the way of locomotion without fossil fuels; who raced against Mortality, and in the end outran his own Death, and lives on in Memory.

On this day we remember, too, Saint Sojourner Truth, guide of escaping slaves two centuries ago, who walked so many miles with only the stars to guide her; and Saints Shackleton and Crozier, of Antarctic and Arctic fame; and Saint Laurence “Titus” Oates of the Scott Expedition, who hiked where no man had ever hiked before, and who sacrificed himself during a blizzard for the welfare of his companions. Let his immortal last words be an inspiration to us on our journey: “I am just going outside and may be some time.”

The Saints of this day are all Wayfarers. They knew so well that it is better to journey than to arrive, as long as we journey in firm faith and for selfless ends. Let us hold that thought in our hearts, my Friends and fellow Voyagers.

It is fitting that we remember those whom we have lost so far on our journey. Darren and Quill have succumbed to an illness, the early symptoms of which are cause for grave apprehension. At their own request we have left them behind us. We thank them for showing such praiseworthy concern for those of us who remain healthy.

Philo has entered a Fallow state, and is at peace on top of a parking garage, a location that reminds him perhaps of our own dear Rooftop.

We should not have allowed Melissa to lag so far behind us. Via the conduit of a wild dog pack, she has now made the ultimate Gift to her fellow Creatures, and has become part of God’s great dance of proteins.

Put Light around her in your hearts.

Let us sing.

THE LONGEST MILE

From The God’s Gardeners Oral Hymnbook

When I wake up, Toby’s already sitting in her hammock doing some arm stretches. She smiles at me: she’s smiling more lately. Maybe she does it now to encourage me. “What day is today?” she says.

I think for a moment. “Saint Terry, Saint Sojourner,” I say. “All Wayfarers.”

Toby nods. “We should do a short Meditation,” she says. “The path our feet will travel on today will be a dangerous one; we’ll need inner peace.”

When any of the Adams or the Eves tells you to do a Meditation, you don’t say no. Toby climbs out of her hammock, and I stand watch in case of surprises while she goes into the Lotus: she’s quite flexible for someone her age. But when it’s my turn, although I bend myself into the shape just like rubber, I can’t do the Meditation properly. I can’t manage the first three parts: the Apology, the Gratitude, the Forgiveness – and especially not the Forgiveness, because I don’t know who I need to forgive. Adam One would say I’m too fearful and angry.

So I think about Amanda, and everything she did for me, and how I never did anything for her. Instead I allowed myself to feel jealous of her about Jimmy, though Jimmy was in no way her fault. Which wasn’t fair. I have to find her, and get her away from whatever may be happening to her. Though maybe she’s already hanging in a tree with parts of her cut out, like Oates.

But I don’t want to picture that, so instead I imagine myself walking towards her because that’s what I’ll have to do.

It is not only the body that travels, Adam One used to say, it is also the Soul. And the end of one journey is the beginning of another.

“I’m ready now,” I say to Toby.

We eat some of the dried Mo’Hair meat and drink some water, and cache the hammocks under a bush so we won’t have to carry them. We should take the packsacks, though, says Toby, with the food and stuff. Then we look around to make sure we haven’t left any obvious traces of ourselves. Toby checks the rifle. “I’ll only need two bullets,” she says.

“If you don’t miss,” I say. One for each Painballer: I picture the bullets moving through the air, straight into – what? An eye? A heart? It makes me flinch.

“I can’t afford to miss,” she says. “They’ve got a spraygun.”

Then we rejoin the pathway and continue on in the direction of the sea, towards where I heard the voices coming from in the night.

After a while we hear those voices, but they aren’t singing, just talking. There’s the smell of smoke – a wood fire – and children laughing. It’s Glenn’s made-on-purpose people. It has to be.

“Walk slowly,” she says in a low voice. “The same rules as for animals. Stay very calm. If we have to leave, back away. Don’t turn and run.”

I don’t know what I’m expecting, but it isn’t what I see. There’s a clearing, and in the clearing there’s a fire, and around the fire there are people, maybe thirty of them. They’re all different colours – black, brown, yellow, and white – but not one of them is old. And not one of them has any clothes on.

A nudist camp, I think. But that’s only a joke I make to myself. They’re too good-looking – way too perfect. They look like ads for the AnooYoo Spas. Bimplants and totally waxed – no body hair at all. Resurfaced. Airbrushed.

Sometimes you can’t believe in a thing until you actually see it, and these people are like that. I didn’t quite believe that Glenn had really done it; I didn’t believe what Croze told me, even though he’d actually seen these people. But now here they are, right in front of me. It’s like seeing unicorns. I want to hear them purr.