Margaret Atwood - The Year of the Flood

We should not – indeed we cannot – rejoice at that. For yesterday the plague took three of us. Already I sense within myself those changes that I see reflected in your own eyes. We know only too well what awaits us.

But let our going out be brave and joyous! Let us end with a prayer for All Souls. Among these are the Souls of those who have persecuted us; those who have murdered God’s Creatures, and extinguished His Species; those who have tortured in the name of Law; who have worshipped nothing but riches; and who, to gain wealth and worldly power, have inflicted pain and death.

Let us forgive the killers of the Elephant, and the exterminators of the Tiger; and those who slaughtered the Bear for its gall bladder, and the Shark for its cartilage, and the Rhinoceros for its horn. May we forgive them freely, as we may hope to be forgiven by God, who holds our frail Cosmos in His hand, and keeps it safe through His endless Love.

This Forgiveness is the hardest task we shall ever be called upon to perform. Give us the strength for it.

I would like us all to join hands now.

Let us sing.

THE EARTH FORGIVES

From The God’s Gardeners Oral Hymnbook

The new moon’s rising now, out over the sea: Saint Julian and All Souls has begun.

I loved Saint Julian’s when I was little. Each of us kids would make our own Cosmos, out of stuff we’d gleaned. Then we’d stick glittery things onto it and hang it on a string. The Feast that night was round foods, like radishes and pumpkins, and the whole Garden would be decorated with our shining worlds. One year we made the Cosmos balls out of wire and put candle ends inside them: that was really pretty. Another year we tried to make Divine Hands for holding the Cosmos balls, but the yellow plastic housework gloves we came up with looked very strange, like zombie hands. Anyway you don’t picture God as wearing gloves.

We’re sitting around the fire – Toby and Amanda and me. And Jimmy. And the two Gold Team Painballers, I have to include them. The light flickers on all of us and makes us look softer and more beautiful than we really are. But sometimes it makes us darker and scarier too, when the faces go into shadow and you can’t see the eyes, only the eye sockets. Deep pools of blackness welling out of our heads.

My body hurts all over, but at the same time I feel so joyful. We’re lucky, I think. To be here. All of us, even the Painballers.

After the mid-day heat and the thunderstorm I went back to the beach for our packsacks and brought them to the clearing, along with some wild mustard greens I’d found along the way. Toby took out her cooking pot, and the cups, and her knife, and her big spoon. Then she made soup with the leftovers from the rakunk and the rest of Rebecca’s meat, some of her dried botanicals. When she put the bones of the rakunk into the water she spoke the words of apology and asked for its pardon.

“But you didn’t kill it,” I said to her.

“I know,” she said. “But I wouldn’t feel right unless somebody did this.”

The Painballers are tied to a nearby tree with the rope and also some braided strips torn from Toby’s once-pink top-to-toe. I did the braiding: if there’s one thing the Gardeners taught you, it was craft uses for recycled materials.

The Painballers aren’t saying much. They can’t be feeling great, not after being pounded by Amanda. They must also be feeling stupid. I would be if I were them. Dumb as a box of hair – as Zeb would say – for letting us creep up on them like that.

Amanda must be still in shock. She’s crying gently, off and on, and twisting the raggedy ends of her hair. The first thing Toby did – once the Painballers were safely roped up – was to give her a cup of warm water with honey, for dehydration, with some of her lamb’s-quarters powder stirred in.

“Don’t drink it all at once,” she said. “Just little sips.” Once Amanda’s electrolyte levels were back up, said Toby, she could start to deal with whatever else about Amanda needed fixing. The cuts and bruises, to begin with.

Jimmy’s in bad shape. He has a high fever, and a festering sore on his foot. Toby says that if only we can get him back to the cobb house, she can use maggots – those might work in the long run. But Jimmy may not have the long run.

Earlier she spread some honey on his foot, and fed him a spoonful of it, as well. She can’t give him any Willow or Poppy, because she left those back at the cobb house. We wrapped him up in Toby’s top-to-toe, but he keeps unwrapping himself. “We need to find him a bedsheet or something,” Toby says. “For tomorrow. And figure some way of keeping it on him or he’ll broil to death in the sun.”

Jimmy doesn’t recognize me at all, or Amanda either. He keeps talking to some other woman, who appears to be standing by the fire. “Owl music. Don’t fly away,” he says to her. There’s such longing in his voice. I feel jealous, but how can I be jealous of some woman who isn’t there?

“Who are you talking to?” I ask him.

“There’s an owl,” he says. “Calling. Right up there.” But I don’t hear any owl.

“Look at me, Jimmy,” I say.

“The music’s built in,” he says. “No matter what.” He’s gazing up into the trees.

Oh Jimmy, I think. Where have you gone?

The moon’s moved westward. Toby says the bone soup has boiled enough. She adds the mustard greens I collected, waits a minute, then ladles out. We’ve got only two cups – we’ll have to take turns, she says.

“Not them too?” said Amanda. She won’t look at the Painballers.

“Yes,” said Toby. “Them too. This is Saint Julian and All Souls.”

“What happens to them?” says Amanda. “Tomorrow?” At least she’s taking an interest in something.

“You can’t just let them loose,” I say. “They’ll kill us. They murdered Oates. And look what they did to Amanda!”

“I’ll consider that problem,” says Toby, “later. Tonight is a Feast night.” She dips the soup into the cups, then looks around the firelight circle. “Some feast,” she says in her dry-witch voice. She laughs a little. “But we’re not finished yet! Are we?” She says this last thing to Amanda.

“Kaputt,” says Amanda. Her voice is so small.

“Don’t think about it,” I say, but she begins to cry again, softly: she’s in a Fallow state. I put my arms around her. “I’m here, you’re here, it’s okay,” I whisper.