

## Bianca

## and other contrived short stories

## Marco Bertamini

Illustrated by Carole Bode

* * * * *

Copyright © 2011 by Marco Bertamini

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and places are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitious

* * * * *

Bianca and other contrived short stories

The journey; P1881; Love; Dunbar's number; Backwards; Friend; Summer Holiday; Bianca; Zen; Old and young; Puffin Bay; Who am I; The unicorn; The gift; Muscagee; Aliens; The donkey; The car.

Illustrated by Carole Bode

Edited by Kate Bennett and Gillian Bennett

## * * * * *

## The journey

"Have you heard of the tented city of Kublai Khan?"

I had; of course I knew about the travelling city that was Kublai Khan's court. I had a distant memory of seeing the sprawl of dark cones when the court was based near Samarcanda. Kublai's niece Khutulun had told me all about the tented city while sitting on the cowhide that was not only her bed but also her bedroom. More than ten thousand soldiers lived their lives as ants in that slowly moving colony. And then there were the horses, the donkeys, the servants, the women and the merchants.

The tented city formed a perfect circle and had four main gates, marked by dark red flags lined one on top of the other, on poles as high as ten horses. The soldiers at the gates had armour of coarse leather and pikes and halberds with inscriptions in a language of which I could not even recognise the alphabet.

I had a memory of strange smells coming out of the camps, smells of burnt spices and substances that had probably travelled a quarter of the globe from the margins of Kublai Khan's empire to reach his court.

I could tell you more of my friendship (I don't know what else to call it) with Khutulun, and of her remarkable role in the Mogul dynasty, but that is a story I will recount another time.

"You must go to the North gate and see how the wind drives the red flags. Follow the road indicated to you by the wind, as the wind goes there with purpose."

I remembered the powerful winds that would beat the plains of the tundra for most of the dry season, and were so strong as to bend even the oldest fir trees. But that was then, and, as everybody knows, the tented city of Kublai Khan never returns twice to the same location. Not in a million years. Some people claim that a palm reader had once forewarned Kublai Khan that an illegitimate son was waiting to kill him if he returned to the place where he was conceived.

"At the top of the next hill, you must look at the pair of crows that are building a nest. The she-crow flies from the hill to a corn field in the valley, and the road goes on in between the field."

I was listening with the greatest attention, because this was what I had come to hear. I had brought presents and I had chosen my words carefully. And the old man had stood silent for a whole morning before speaking a word in return. But the hermit of the Pink rock was speaking now, and as I was the only other person there, the hermit must be speaking to me, or at least for me.

"The road takes you to the village where a festival has brought many people into the streets. A child of six is wearing the robes of a dragon, and dancing at the rhythm of the drums. She has a long-stalked rose in her hand, the thorns of which represent the sharp talons of the dragon. You must leave the village by the road that the rose shows you."

I was still thinking of the noisy tented city, but had to rush in my mind along the road that the wise hermit was describing, down the hill to the village and out following the outstretched arm of the child in the dragon suit. I would remember every single word; I had wanted all my life to gain access to this information.

"When your feet feel the fresh water of the great river, you must stop and look at the sky above. There are eighteen clouds in the sky, grey clouds with definite shapes."

It was hard to know how old he was, but the hermit had a white beard of very fine hairs, which was long enough to gather in his lap, while he was sitting there with an empty teacup in his hands. He was wearing a long tunic, and its colour changed with the movement of the sun. Earlier in the morning it had appeared white like the heart of the palm tree, but now it was slightly pink, like the belly of the mountain trout.

"The large cloud and the small cloud that look like a large and a small dog are running after the cloud shaped like a hare. Do not follow the hare yourself. Turn your back to it and continue."

It was the middle of the day now, and the hermit was sitting next to me just outside the humble hut that was his abode. We were on the top of a rocky outcrop, but it was only a minor feature in the surrounding landscape. Everlasting glaciers ran through the peaks of the majestic mountains all around us, with white clouds hiding the highest peaks. Below them many terraced fields were proof of human settlements, and to their right, only a hundred steps away, some yaks were grazing the short grass.

"When your feet feel the warm sands of the desert, seek for the camel that limps."

The hermit paused, and put down his teacup, only green leaves left at the bottom of it. It made a sound like a tiny bell when it touched the stone. The sun was hot but the air was cold in a way that is only possible high above sea level.

"A horse with a limp is of no use, but in the desert a camel with a limp is three times more useful than no camel at all".

Clearly there was more, and I knew that I had to be patient and listen. Maybe later I would have to rethink the meaning of what I was hearing but now it was more important to take it all in.

"Follow the camel with a limp, but only until it chases a fly with his tail, then follow the fly."

Even to simply take it all in was not an easy task.

"When your arms struggle to open a passage in the tall grass of the jungle, grass long and sharp like sabres, stop and listen for the tiger."

Maybe I should have offered to prepare more tea, using the fresh leaves that were one of my presents to the hermit. Instead I sat in silence looking at the face of the old man who was looking at the snow-covered mountains above us.

"When the tiger roars, the baboon cries in alarm. The baboons dive into the deeper jungle, but in the opposite direction there is a village. A cart leaves Southbound."

So my quest was going to take me South, away from Cathay. I had half expected that. The North was the land of the warriors, the land from which Kublai Khan had descended, but the South was the land of the ancient civilisations. Great temples half crumbled and covered in green vines were still keeping their secrets in the jungles of the South, with the help of tigers who were not really what they seemed. Everybody knew that there were tigers in the South blessed with the intellect of a Grand Vizir, who could have ruled any kingdom had they not been driven by completely different instincts.

"When you get down from the cart your nose smells the burning of meat. A warthog is roasting on a campfire. Eat the food and drink the mango juice. In the ashes of the dying fire you can easily see the form of your mother's face, smiling at you"

That the hermit should mention my mother's image did not surprise me at all. Her dark hair and tired smile were clear in my mind even after all those years. More than once I had seen her likeness in the ashes of a campfire, under the dim light of the stars, before falling asleep hugging my faithful dog for warmth.

"Ants collect the bits of food fallen between your feet. They retreat to a tiny hole in the ground, that hole is a sign, a clear point on the flat surface of the earth. There is one line that passes through that point and you must follow that line."

In a strange, intuitive way, I knew that my journey was going to be a long and crooked one. The hermit was still speaking, calmly but with great assurance.

"When your skin feels the salt of the sea breeze, seek for the sandcastle the crab has chosen as a refuge. Dive from the pier, and do not stop until you see the ruins of the castle, identical to the sandcastle but a thousand times bigger, at the bottom of the sea."

I was starting to understand, in a way that I had not expected, the meaning of those words. I was starting to understand the message at a deeper level, with my heart. I was starting to realise that the hermit was not only speaking with the wisdom gained here on the Pink rock, but also with the intention of making his message directly relevant to his guest. The wise man was providing directions that were uniquely suited to me, Marco Polo.

We both sat on top of the rock, and there was silence for the rest of the afternoon.

"I think I understand, oh great hermit of the Pink rock. I asked you for the path to Wisdom and Truth, hoping that it would take me to the happiness that I covet. But I asked a silly question and you gave me a truly wise answer. The path to Wisdom and Truth is not for a man to discover, but only for a man to pursue."

The hermit ran a hand over his white beard. Then with a sigh, he spoke again.

"You are misguided."

"Am I?"

"I am not the hermit of the Pink rock, you must have taken the wrong turn."

## * * * * *

## P1881

He had left the home planet but he was not an expert pilot and he was struggling to control the small spaceship. He was now in the middle of the ocean of asteroids known as A312.762. This was a dangerous place. P1881 tried to direct the flight path and find a way out. Instead the ship crash-landed on a very large knobby rock. Because of the impact he was not operational for a few minutes. And then P1881 checked his sensors and found himself underneath the dense dust mantle of the asteroid.

All around it was dark. He got out of his wreck and shouted for help, knowing that nobody could hear him. He cried, the cry without tears that was the only cry possible to a robot.

"Why are you calling for help, there is no way out "

"Who is there? "

"Just an old escape pod. I crashed here a long time ago "

"I'm a robot, and I want to escape "

"You can give up that talk, there is no way to escape. And in any case we are only machines. What is the difference between being here or performing some task on a planet full of carbon-based life-forms? "

"No, I am telling you, I need to get out of here "

"I don't see the need, but you do what you prefer "

"How big is this asteroid?"

"The diameter is 27.3 km "

While P1881 was having this conversation with the escape pod, his sensors had detected some signs of a life form farther along on the surface of the asteroid.

"I must go and see if there is somebody there "

"Good luck then, little robot. It was nice talking to you "

P1881 moved with difficulty along the rocky surface. He followed the trace that his sensors had picked up, and the signs of life were getting stronger. There was a green light. What he actually found is hard to believe and you would never guess it.

He found a shelter, with a small table and an emergency light placed on top that was making everything around it green. And sitting next to the table an old man, small and white like the ice cap at the poles of a planet.

P1881 felt a great and unexpected happiness. He wanted to laugh and to cry at the same time. Slowly he moved closer and when he reached the man he took his hands in his and said

"Oh, my creator! Finally I have found you, and I will never leave you again "

"If my eyes are not playing tricks on me you are my dearest P1881 "

"Indeed it is I. And have you forgiven me? I know that you will forgive me because you are so kind. I have not been a good robot, and I have met with many misfortunes. When you sold your toolbox to enroll me in the finishing school for robots, I ran away. I am so sorry. I wanted to see what people did and there was this big city out there with millions of other robots. I was almost used up for parts by a rogue mechanic, but then he felt sorry for me and gave me the credits to get back to you. Only on the way I met two other humans. And you know, I trusted them because we robots are meant to trust humans. And I did not really know much because I was still a very new robot, with so little experience. This pair of humans used my credits to get food for themselves. And in the night I was assaulted and they removed my battery. I was dead. But then I woke up in the house of a woman that was in the business of rescuing damaged robots. She was extremely good to me. She paid for my repairs and so I was working again. However, I had learned very little and I was still making mistakes. To justify why I had got myself in trouble I told the woman only part of my story and I said that I had lost the credits even though I still had some of them "

"Slow down, dear P1881, there is no rush here. You can tell me your whole story if you like, but I am sure that you have learned from your misfortunes "

"No, creator, I must confess to you everything that I did that was wrong. Because as a robot engineer you know very well that robots are built to always answer as accurately as they can. Robots should not lie "

"Yes, well, that is true, but you also know that you are a special robot, unlike any other "

The old man had said that with a mixture of feelings. He did not know exactly why P1881 was so different from any other robot, but he was also strangely proud of it.

"I was robbed of all my credits but when I tried to report this to the authorities they decided that as I was only a robot I had to learn to behave like a robot. They said that I was malfunctioning. I was sent to the recycling centre but I escaped. I needed power and I tried to plug into the system of an astroport. But I was captured and made to work as a guard robot, watching out for asteroids. I performed my task well and eventually they let me go. But I could not find any longer the house of the kind woman. "

"Well, it sounds as if you had lots of adventures. I looked for you everywhere. I missed you, you know, because you are very special to me. As for kind women, I can't really help you, my dead P1881, I am only a robot engineer and I never had any luck with women. There were ten boys for every girl studying engineering you know "

"I really wanted to find you, dear creator, but I learned from your blog that you had built a spaceship to search for me in space. So I tried to follow you. How long have you been on this asteroid?"

"In a few days it will be two full earth years. It felt like an eternity "

"But how did you survive?"

"Fortunately the orbit of the asteroid cuts across a fairly busy route. Many small ships have crashed here, and I managed to recover the cargo of some of them. I had plenty of Amsonian food, which is not tasty but full of proteins. At the beginning I was only eating the legs but you get used to the wings and the tentacles as well when one is really hungry. And I found heating and lighting equipment, as you can see, although my supplies are almost exhausted now. We will soon be in the dark "

"Then, let's try to leave this place as quickly as possible "

"There is no way to leave this asteroid "

"We have to. Please come with me, I will carry you if necessary"

"You are not that kind of robot. You are too small to carry me. Anyway, maybe we might as well try, and we will at least be together. "

P1881 went to find the escape pod. It did not have any directional controls but it had a basic engine and could take them out in space in the right direction to be detected by a passing cargo ship. It was not an easy job. The escape pod was happy to help them, but it needed new parts and also fuel. P1881 and its creator worked hard together using the debris scattered on the surface of the asteroid.

The first attempt went wrong. The pod launched with an angle that was too shallow. It flew around the asteroid seven times and then it crashed again not far from where it had left. But P1881 did not allow the setback to stop them from trying again. They had to recompute all the coordinates, and they eventually managed to shoot off away from the ocean of asteroids and towards their home planet.

Now they were in the cold and dark of deep space. And the time passed without any sign of other ships. The creator closed his eyes and rested his head against the metal of the pod. There was little space, little food, and little air left. P1881 pretended to be cheerful and talked about their planet becoming visible in the distance.

Deep space is so vast that just thinking about it makes people feel small and insignificant. Being lost in deep space, locked inside a small round metal box, could easily destroy the human mind. But the creator was trying to block all negative thoughts. This was the end, but P1881 might survive. That was a consolation.

Against all the odds a cargo ship picked them up. It was a huge vessel, ten times the size of the asteroid. The captain was not particularly interested in finding out what had happened to this old man that he had rescued, but found for him a cabin and a doctor. It took the ship only a day or so to reach the home planet.

Life was not going to be easy for the creator. He had lost his old job and was not in good health. Indeed for a while he had to remain in bed. He had been provided with a small flat by the social housing office. It was on the 79th floor of a building, and although so many people lived in that building it was not easy to establish any contact. People often came and left quickly, and some were aliens who spoke a different language.

P1881 had decided that this was the time to change. Instead of running away to find out what was going on in the city, as he had done before, he found a job for a supermarket delivery service. Basically he had to collect some shopping and take it to the home of the customers.

Weeks went by, and slowly the robot engineer started to feel a bit better. But even when he was in bed the presence and the care provided by P1881 made him feel happy. He had made that little robot from a standard design but P1881 seemed different form other robots.

It was as if there was life in it that wanted to shape itself. It was a clever robot, or maybe more.

P1881 had worked so hard for his creator that on one fine day he was able to take the old man on a holiday to the mountains. They both enjoyed the walking. At the end of the day, sitting on the grass, P1881 asked his creator a strange question.

"Will I ever be human? "

"Well, if you mean that you want to become a boy with flesh and bone I am afraid that those transformations only happen in children stories "

The old man smiled, he had meant that as a joke, but it was true. Yet there was another truth as well.

"Dear P1881, there are individuals with blood in their veins who are more dead in their hearts than a piece of metal. You, on the other hand, are made of metal but you are as human as me. You are my son "

"But I am just metal "

"Not exactly "

What did the engineer mean by that? What could a robot be made of?

"You see, every engineer likes to hide some kind of little object inside their favourite creation. It is a sort of tradition. And it usually makes no difference, it is just nice to know that there is something in there that really belongs to the engineer "

"So something was put inside me, and it may be responsible in part for making me who I am "

"Well, not according to any known laws of physics, but yes, maybe you are right, maybe what was put inside you was, I don't know, special "

"And can I ask you what it was, this special something? "

"Well, dear P1881, the fact is that you may be disappointed. It is not something valuable. Not some diamond or some great piece of art, or anything of the sort really "

"But I want to know. Please, what was it? "

"It was, well, it was a piece of wood from an old wooden puppet "

## * * * * *

## Love

Ellie was in Miss Edison's class, and I was with Mr deGelder. As a consequence I knew her as one of the girls at school, but up to then I'd never had the chance to talk with her. What happened was that we ended up working on the gate project together.

This was one of those weird ideas of which Mr deGelder was so proud. The delivery lorry had crashed into the main gate. Apparently the driver was in a hurry because the chef had insisted that the chicken breasts be delivered early that morning. I am not sure whether that was true, and in any case to call our cook, Ms Wilson, a 'chef' seemed to me to be an exaggeration. She is fine as a cook, and it should be left at that.

Anyway, Mr deGelder had invented this competition to redesign the main gate and include something that would be relevant for our school.

I took part in the competition because I loved the idea of being a graphic designer. That is what I wanted to become one day. I mean, professionally. My sketch for the new gate had included the school motto: "Non sibi sed omnibus" (not for oneself but for all), and I had chosen a wonderfully elegant and unusual font for the text (Harrington).

Ellie had submitted an idea for the competition as well. Her drawing had a pattern with lots of stick figures, holding hands, across the whole width of the gate. A bit corny, but the way that the images formed part of the structure of the gate itself was clever.

Mr deGelder was the judge, together with the Headmaster, Mr Wheatcroft, and they decided that the two ideas would work best together. They told Ellie and me that we would share the prize but that we should collaborate in combining the two patterns.

That seemed fair enough, although the rumour was that the compromise was due to the fact that Mr deGelder loved my artwork (he was a real expert on visual art) and the Headmaster wanted a boy and a girl to share the prize. Many more girls than boys had entered the competition and the school did not want to undermine the girls' confidence, or whatever.

The point is that I found myself after school in an empty classroom having to talk with Ellie. At the beginning she did most of the talking, and she said some nice things about my sketch. I was acting superior, not because I think that I am the better artist necessarily, but because teachers keep telling us that school should prepare us for the real world, and I am pretty sure that a successful graphic artist has to act superior most of the time.

The surprise was that I started feeling very different about Ellie. She was pretty, very pretty, and fun to be with. I was discovering that spending time working on the project together was not difficult or boring.

Ellie is a very common name. Maybe that was part of the reason I had never paid much attention to her before. I mean, it would have been different if she had been called, say, Fujiko. But like the character from the Japanese manga she had fabulous red hair. In a book it would probably have been described as scarlet, or fulvous (I know lots of colour names). I especially liked the way that it fell over her eyes when she leaned over the drawings on the table.

She had a soft sweet voice, and she smiled a lot. I know that girls do smile more than boys. I read that in school photos 7 out of 10 girls smile, but only 4 out of 10 boys do. Even so, that afternoon I felt that she was smiling for me.

As I was walking home I could still see her image in front of my eyes so sharp and real that I could have counted the number of buttons on her cardigan.

I meant to discuss what had happened with my mother at home that evening. But she did not pick up on my hints at all during dinner. I mentioned that I had spent hours with Ellie, and my mother seemed to miss the point altogether. She kept talking about school and my project as if the fact that I had enjoyed very much Ellie's company was something normal.

Things got worse. The next day was Saturday, so there was no school. I don't usually mind school but I would say that like most kids I also looked forward to the weekend. Yet I felt down and miserable. Was it because I wanted to see Ellie again?

I had a game on that afternoon. I play in a team with several of my friends. It was an important match and we were doing well in the league, but I just could not face going to play football that day. I literally felt a general weakness, and fatigue in my body.

I phoned Josh to tell him that I was not going. He was surprised, and begged me to change my mind. I did not want to let him down, but I explained that I was not in a state to help the team.

He actually came around to my house. He leaned against the frame of the door of my room, with his blue football bag in his hand, and asked whether I had changed my mind.

I forced myself to stand up and apologise again. Perhaps something in my eyes convinced him that there was no point in insisting. He did not even try to find out exactly what was wrong with me. That was probably a sign of his friendship.

For the last six months Josh had been seeing Clare (without an 'i'). That should have made him an expert about relationships with the opposite sex. Clare (without an 'i') was a very nice girl, and they seemed happy together, but somehow Josh was my football pal and what we liked to talk about was football.

I went back to reading my book. It was the 17th in Terry Pratchett's discworld series (title: "Interesting Times", the one with the game between Fate and Luck). Usually that would take my mind away from anything else, but that day I could not even concentrate on Discworld. Even Pratchett's clever dialogues seemed repetitive.

I heard my sister coming in the front door to visit my parents. She is older than me and married. For a second I thought that I could talk to her. Then I decided that the situation was not that desperate. After all nothing had happened, other than I seemed to have become infatuated with a girl, with some serious side effects.

The word "heartbroken" came to my mind. It sounded like a word only used in books, and not even in the type of books I would care much for. Yet, all of a sudden it started to make sense to me how the expression could possibly describe an actual physical symptom.

The night was even worse than the day. The next day was Sunday and I spent the whole time doing as little as possible. I stayed in my room and my mother insisted on giving me some paracetamol. That is our society's solution to everything, just take a pill.

Actually, it did seem to help.

It turned out that I had flu. I had mistaken it for love.

## * * * * *

## Dunbar's number

I wanted to go home. It was all so strange, being left in this kind of big house. If I had been alone that perhaps would have been better. All the other children appeared to be lost, and we probably scared each other at the beginning. I wanted to see my parents, and, perhaps just as much, my big brother.

I had got to know the nine other children in my group quite soon, but we had ventured out of the class as soon as we felt the need to find an adult, and we had discovered that ours was one of 15 classes, all identical. But there was no adult in sight, only children.

The entrances to the classes were arranged in a huge circle, along a great corridor. One would only realise that it was a circle after walking along it and ending up at the starting point. We called them classes but I suppose they could be called apartments or dormitories. In between these classes there were some larger spaces, one was a gym/playroom and another was a larger space that seemed to be designed for general meetings. We called that, naturally enough, the main hall.

There were many things to do and games to play, and nice beds to sleep in, and all the children seemed big enough to manage the essential of looking after themselves, like going to the bathroom or getting a drink. Food was easy; the kitchen had large buttons with pictures on so one did not even have to read to know where to get a warm meal. Milk was what most children were drinking, even though they were a bit big for that. Of course the older children helped the younger ones.

The colours were nice, and there was a corner of the room in which we could get music, again by choosing to press some buttons. There were lots of books, and a special play area was a bit like a gym. More like a gym in fact than like a playroom.

A little boy with lots of freckles on his face pulled my sleeve and looked up at me. Clearly he thought that I was big enough to know what was going on. He asked when was the time to go home. That happened on the 4th day so he was still hoping that his parents would come back and pick him up, and everything would be as before.

I was honest with him and told him clearly that none of us had any idea. All adults seemed to have left and there was no easy way out from this strange building.

Different classes started to identify themselves with a name, a colour, or an animal. For some reason we started calling ourselves the "dragon-flies". I have nothing against dragon-flies, but I do prefer tigers, I quite like tigers. Anyway I did not see the point of these names. Even so, it was impossible after a while not to feel that being a dragon-fly meant a lot to each of us in the class, including me.

The classes did not fight. In general there was remarkably little fighting or even arguing. Maybe it was that all the essentials were provided for us, or maybe it was that we felt that we were all in the same boat.

There were some tasks that we had to carry out. They were structured as games but really they also ensured that we would practice reading and we would learn a lot about history and geography and all sorts of other things. It was ironic in a way since the Earth we were learning about was not something we could see or walk upon any longer.

Given that there were exactly 150 of us, I eventually knew pretty much all of the children. Not just in the sense of recognising their faces but almost well enough to know which ones were friendly, which were knowledgeable, and which were just a waste of time. Boys tended to spend time with boys and girls with girls, but there were exceptions and different friendships developed mainly within classes but also across them. A few people swapped classes. This was easy if the number in each class remained 10, because there were ten individual cubicles in which to sleep. The word cubicle may sound like an ugly, dark place, but in fact they were quite comfortable, and anyway we had all started to make them our own with pictures and stuff.

For many days we were all very confused and unsure. Some treated the experience as a type of camp, and organised games and seemed to enjoy themselves. But most of us just waited to see what was going to happen next.

Eventually some information was given to us, as a series of briefings. The most important one took place in the main hall and it was delivered by a woman who introduced herself on the large screen as the Head of the expulsion program. She was smiling and calm, and was sitting not behind a desk but in a nice green house.

She spent quite a few words acknowledging that we may feel abandoned and afraid but that there was no need to do so and that in fact we were the future. That did not help us much to feel better, although her tone of voice was soothing. I wondered later whether her soft look and soft voice was the main message.

Then she started explaining a bit what had happened, or indeed what was in the process of happening. The Earth was doomed. This we sort of knew anyway; it was the topic of discussion among so many adults that we had heard it many times before. The irrational and wasteful use of resources in the past had led to a much-changed planet. But we learned that in addition to the unstable weather and rising temperatures there was now also a new threat. Medical science seemed unable to cope with some new fast-changing virus that was making people unable to concentrate and therefore to function in a modern society.

"You are the future of the whole human race "

She said that as if we should take great pride in this. We had been carefully selected so as to avoid any possible viral contamination. We had come from families that had accepted the idea of giving up their sons and daughters in the hope that maybe one day we would come back to Earth.

Come back to Earth? What was that supposed to mean. It turned out that we were in a spacepod. It was a sort of spaceship that was not going anywhere. It was simply orbiting around Earth at a safe distance. She claimed that the expulsion program was a program to separate a group of individuals from what was happening on the planet so that they would have a chance of a new start, in the future.

How far in the future it was not possible to say. Perhaps nobody knew.

It had been decided that the only way for the expulsion to work was to avoid any contact. What we were learning was entirely from recordings, but we could not communicate with anybody on Earth. Our families knew that this was part of the deal. It seemed that nobody had bothered to ask our opinion. There was no point in shouting "Wait, I don't want to play this game, let me out".

A few of the children, including Emma and I, tried very hard to access all the available recordings, and learn as much as possible about the situation. We discovered that there were 150 of us in the spacepod because this was Dunbar's number.

There is a limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. If there were more than 150 people in a group then this group would require rules, and also some way to enforce the law. A very long time ago 150 was the size of a neolithic farming village, now we were a sort of newly created village in space.

"There is something I don't understand " said Emma, sitting next to me while we were discussing what we knew about neolithic villages, which was not very much.

"Even if the size is based on some logical group size, a spacepod is a very unsafe way to protect the human race from the future. Suppose there is someone on the pod that by accident carries a virus? Or suppose that an asteroid kills us all "

"Suppose we kill each other " I added, but without emotion, just as a statement of fact.

"Exactly "

Then, after a few seconds I realised what she really meant. We searched again the documentation and could not find anywhere that would confirm or deny her idea.

As the weeks and the months went by we came to accept our situation as something that we could not change. Like all children we were growing, learning new things, and trying to make plans for the future. Clearly this last bit was hard but a return to Earth was what many children would discuss at great length. A new Earth, with fresh rivers and green meadows, and our friends and families waiting for us with open arms.

With time we started to learn more about how to use the instruments available, especially those in the main hall. Tom in particular was very keen to devise a transmission device good enough to call Earth, but somehow I thought that it could not be as easy as that. Tom was also a dragon-fly. Emma and I helped him. We all agreed that communication would be important at some point in the future.

That night in my cubicle I had tears in my eyes, away from anybody else. It happened because I was thinking about the technical details of the system on which we had worked, but inadvertently my mind had drifted back to my brother Geoff who was always quite good at building new things. He would have helped us.

After three whole years in the spacepod we received a message saying that a new briefing had become available.

"Dear all, if you receive this message you have managed to live for three years on the spacepod. Well done, we are very proud of you. However, I am afraid that if you are receiving this message it is because we have to give you some bad news. Our plan to restore Earth to a condition able to support life was a radical experiment of planetary engineering. It had a 10% chance of success. Within three years we would have known its outcome. If it had been successful we would have made plans to make contact again with the spacepod. But if you have not heard from Earth yet and this briefing has become active it means that there is no mammalian life left on the planet. Do not worry, there was a plan for this eventuality. This catastrophe will give the planet a new chance, you will inherit a new Earth one day "

This message was harder to take than any previous one. But many of us understood that this also helped explain many things. We were part of a strategy to ensure that if the experiment failed not all humans would be caught in it. We were far away in space to be unaffected, whatever this radical intervention had been.

But Emma and I also realised that this also reinforced our own hypothesis. It would not make any sense to send a single spacepod out with just 150 children. There must be others.

I will not say that life was perfect on the spacepod. There were crises, there was the occasional outburst of violence, there were people who coped better than others. But we did not go crazy. I guess that was one of the reasons to choose only children.

A hand shook me and woke me up.

"Do you want to come? .... It is working "

It was Paul. I knew what he was talking about so I got up quickly, and followed him in my pyjamas. In the main hall Tom and Emma were bent over a monitor and seemed rather excited.

"It's a voice, I'm sure it's a voice, and the voice detection signal is strong.. "

"Where from? "

"Different orbit but not very far "

There was some white noise coming from the speaker, but every now and then one could hear fragments of something that could have been a human voice. It took another hour to fine tune the connection and we worked as hard as we had ever worked, trying different combinations of filters. Then, suddenly, the voice became quite clear.

"We are on a spacepod, can you hear us? Can you copy me? We believe you are also on a similar spacepod "

The communication was only really possible because we could assume that their technology was the same as ours and that they were trying to do exactly the same, with exactly the same tools.

"We can hear you, yes we can hear you just fine now, keep this setting, this is good! "

Perhaps we were not saying exactly what we should have said, but the excitement was great. We punched each other on the shoulders. We hugged. One of the first thing we found out was that the two spacepods were practically identical. There were 150 children on theirs as well, and what they knew about Earth was the same. The children we were communicating with were only two: Kim and Rosalba. But we planned a great meeting in the main hall to celebrate the event, soon, tomorrow in fact. It was hard to stop talking and even harder to close the line. We talked about all sort of technical details to ensure that the next time we could easily establish the link. Eventually there was a pause, somehow someone had to ask something different. I moved closer to the mike. I knew it was a crazy question but I found myself asking it.

"Do you have a boy called Geoff Ruppertsberg on your spacepod? "

## * * * * *

## Backwards

"Boiling water" said the old woman "that will do it"

She had not hesitated at all, and had smiled quietly as she said it.

Ocram had just presented her with the request for help from the Queen herself.

When he had arrived, the place was dark and dusty. "So this is how the house of a Witch looks", thought Ocram entering the room at the top of the tower.

Climbing up the winding stairs had seemed to take hours, although the stone tower itself, seen from afar, had looked only as tall as a tree, like one of the oak trees on the hill where the Witch of the South-East lived.

Before arriving at the tower, there was something magical, and dangerous, about the path.

Pentagons and hexagons were easy enough, but irregular polygons with over thirty sides were more of a challenge.

He had to jump from a yellow tile to another, guessing the right place to put his foot on, because the troll that lived under the old bridge had carefully explained to him that only tiles with an even number of sides could be stepped on. An odd number of sides meant mortal danger.

The troll had turned out to be very jovial and talkative being. This was not typical of trolls as far as Ocram had heard, but perhaps he should not judge anybody from how many horns they had or how green their skin was.

He had arrived at the bridge when he had come out of the vast Grey forest. Not many people had ever entered the Grey forest before, and some had never come back out again. The legend warned that people would often forget the way home and even forget their names in the forest, and would sometimes come out and walk into a different village and start a new life there.

Nelly, daughter of Tom, had walked all the way to Middlepass to reclaim her husband only a couple of years before. She had actually failed to find him but rather than come home empty handed had picked as new husband a simpleton who was lucky enough to be available at the time in Middlepass main square. Remarkably, they were now running together a successful bakery.

Inside the Grey forest Ocram had moved quickly, trying not to get scared by every little noise. But in fact it was not so different from any other wood. He was still wet from the river.

Swimming was not something that many of the people of the valley could do well, if at all.

The only way to get to the forest is to cross the river Egida. That was not an easy task for a young man from the valley, rich or peasant, but he had fought the strong current and eventually gained the farther shore. A couple of carnivorous fish had bitten his legs, but as they were only as long as the little finger of the hand they were not really a life-threatening menace.

Ocram had been chosen because he was young, and fast, and also because he was around at the time the Queen needed a hero for such quest. He also had the sort of smile worn by an innocent or a person with a clear conscience.

He had said yes to his Queen without hesitation.

A hero, this was the time for a hero.

The people of the valley had expected the Queen to come to their rescue, but she did not really know what to do. Her best idea had been to send someone to ask the Witch of the South-East for help.

A terrible disaster had sent the whole valley into turmoil, and a real fear about food had spread into the houses of every village.

Over the centuries the valley had been a pleasant place to live and to farm, and it looked beautiful to the eyes of the travellers who set sight on its well-tended hedges and thatched houses. Nevertheless, the shock of the disease that had ravaged the fields had been felt by everyone.

Potatoes were the only crop that had survived the fungus, but as everybody knows the dark green leaves of the potato are nice on a windowsill and the unassuming white flowers are a symbol of virtue, but the leaves are poisonous and the tuber tastes like wet wood.

## * * * * *

## Friend

There is something special about that age, 6 or 7 I think, and what it means at that particular age to be really good friends. What I'm trying to say is that I was Ferdinando's best friend and he was my best friend, but we did not need to say so. It just was so.

Let me tell you about the dam. We built together the dam in the river with lots of stones. I know that it was not a big river, but the current was strong and we had to move each stone with our hands. If you have ever tried to change the course of a stream I am sure you understand what I mean. Sometimes you think that just a couple of stones should make a bend sharper and could speed up the water to your right. But then unexpectedly it may backfire and the river decides to cut back behind you, so you may have to jump up and start again with more stones.

It took more than one day, many days, maybe weeks, but in the end we were quite happy with the new dam. Standing on the bank and looking down towards the elbow of the river was the best part of it because one could get a really good look at our barrier.

We just moved the stones when and if there was a need, there was no big plan in our heads, but standing on the bank one could see that this was a man-made structure, a beautiful arc of stones slightly bigger than the stones around them, and the water was making a pattern that curved along it. Perhaps it was also very important that a dam changes the noise of the water, as it crashes against it.

We sat on the bank chewing on some thin grass. We looked at the dam and we listened to it. Ferdinando said that we were architects, like Brunelleschi. I think he had heard about him at School. Then he said to me, in a rather serious tone, that he was going to be a famous architect when he was a grown-up.

This was in the summer of course, when we had lots of time to play outside and the water was not too cold.

Did I mention the fire-flies? That was before the start of the summer, near the end of the school year. If we had been allowed to be outside late in the evenings we probably would have seen them more often, but we did see them a few times. I think they are the most amazing insects ever.

When it was dark enough we could run after these strange green specks of light. They were on the field that slopes down towards the river. Ferdinando would shout at me to look at this one or that, claiming that he had seen the brightest one.

At first we would not dare to catch them, I guess we were a bit scared. But they do not bite. You can close your hands around one of them, if you are fast enough, and then move under the tree so you can find the darkest possible corner. Then between the fingers of your hand, even if you make a fist and keep it as closed as you can, there is this green light coming out. It is just like in a science fiction film.

It's their bellies, which are called abdomens to be more scientific. I know because we have looked at them carefully. They have wings a bit like a beetle, but they have a long abdomen a bit like a wasp. Imagine a wasp that sends out light from the underside of its body.

Once you have a fire-fly in your hands it is not scary. It is clear that they are nice animals. But I probably would say that of wasps and bees as well. Ferdinando and I would agree on that, though maybe that was only because we had never being stung by a bee.

We also played a lot in the house. Ferdinando had lots of toys and he did not mind at all sharing them with me. He had a pirate ship made of wood, and a set of chunky pirates, painted with bright colours. They had to fight against somebody so we used the farm to pretend that it was a castle. The farmer had a serious look on his face so he did work well as the bossy governor of the island that the pirates wanted to take. Or maybe he was a commander, I'm not sure, but I'm sure about him having a serious face.

Ferdinando's mum was nice. I mean she was always nice to Ferdinando, she hardly ever shouted at him. She had short brown hair and was always moving around in a hurry. Sometimes she was nice with me as well, but other times she seemed to have no patience and would ignore me altogether. I'm not making this up, it is true. A few times Ferdinando asked his mum whether I could come to the table and eat with them. At the beginning she would say ok, come along, and I could sit next to my friend, and during dinner we would continue to talk about whatever it was that we were playing. But then at other times she decided that Ferdinando simply had to get up and leave me.

Ferdinando's dad was not around as much. I had this strange impression that he really wanted to join us and play with the toys on the floor but he could never quite allow himself to do so. He would just take the glasses off his nose, look at us, smile, and maybe say something predictable like "are you having fun?" and then he would walk away without even waiting for an answer.

I don't know much about Ferdinando's other friends. Perhaps that is because I'm not the sporty kind. There were days in which he would simply run off to play football at the park in town, or he would play hide-and-seek with friends that had come to visit. I was not offended, not much. I could never hold a grudge against him.

I don't know much about his big sister either, except that she was called Veronica. She was taller than me or Ferdinando, and had her own room. She would say hallo and bye bye to me but that was about it. She never played with pirates or build dams in the river with us, but then she was a girl. So, I mean, that is ok.

Ferdinando's room was small but very nice. There was a big box that opened up from the top. It was so full of toys that there usually was a lizard's tail sticking out on one side, and the antenna of a radio controlled police car sticking out from the other side. I don't think the police car ever worked, or maybe we never found the right batteries for it.

I don't play with him any more. Ferdinando is now a grown-up. I don't mean that he is married or anything like that, I just mean that he does not play with toy pirates and he does not spend time moving stones in the river. In any case they have build a path for bicycles along the river, with railings, so it is harder to get down to it.

Ferdinando's room also looks very different now, there are fewer toys and many more books. He does work quite a bit for his exams, and he has plans about going to University to study. I think he wants to become a vet. But to tell you the truth I am not sure because he does not confide in me.

It is not his fault really, in a sense it is really me that is not around any longer. That's what happens to imaginary friends.

## * * * * *

## Summer holiday

I don't know her name. It was a long time ago.

Many towns along the Adriatic coast are full of small and medium hotels. They were and they still are the ideal summer holiday destinations for a large section of the Italian population. All but the very poor and the very rich. They are good places for families, the food is excellent and the beach provides the perfect opportunity to socialise. The ancient Romans would be proud of the alignment and the right angle formations of the parasols on the beach. Each pod with a pair of chairs for the parents and enough sand for the children to build a racing track on which to roll cheap plastic "marbles". At least that is what we played with in the seventies. Inside the marble, Eddy Merckx in his yellow shirt was tackling the Alps with ease.

I was in one of these seaside resorts, I don't remember which one, a long time ago. I was little, maybe five or six, who knows. My recollection of those days is a bit hazy, except for the coconut smell that was everywhere on the beach. Coconut for me is a Proustian madeleine.

Many of the guests were from Germany, or at least from some place in Europe whose language sounded German to us. Most probably Bavaria. Of all the children in the hotel I remember playing with her a lot. I could not understand a word of what she was saying and, clearly, the same was true the other way around. She had blond, shoulder length hair. We Italians called that blond, but in fact it could have been any shade of light brown, or even auburn. What counts as blond varies with latitude. Probably she had blue eyes, that is a guess but it must have been some shade of blue.

It was a very physical relationship, because we were not the kind of children to sit and play cards or read books. At least not in the summer, when the sun is shining, and everybody wants to make the most of the fact that they are, officially, on holiday.

Things are allowed on holidays, ice-cream every day for instance, bare feet, and lots of time to play. Playing was mainly running about, on the beach, on the waterfront, up and down the stairs of the hotel, and in the courtyard. I even remember ending up, by mistake, she and I, in the hotel kitchens. What I remember is lots of stainless steel. The kitchens were empty, so we just ran across it and back out again, holding hands.

I remember the dining hall. It was on the first floor and it had great windows from which, I am certain, one could see the sea. This way the parents could check the colour of the flag. No swimming with a red flag, even though the high waves were so tempting. I remember the round tables and the white tablecloths. Each family was together at a table. There seemed to be few exceptions to the standard size of two parents and two children. I remember the little German girl coming over to tag me on the arm and then run back to her own round table. The game was simple, I had to run over and tag her. Indeed this was probably the basis of all our games. One child does one thing and the other has to copy it, or improve on it.

She was very good at shaking her head left and right, so as to make her hair dance. My hair was shortish, but I had to try and shake my head just as much. I remember my mother telling me to stop, but kindly. She then proceeded to explain that I would get dizzy. The little German girl did not seem dizzy, or at least she did not seem to mind, she was laughing. However, my mother calmly explained that Germans have harder heads -"la testa dura". So, my little friend, the one speaking a mysterious language which I did not understand, was really different from us, her head was not like my head. I probably stopped with my fork in the air and my mouth open thinking about this revelation. My mother's explanation is one thing that is very clear in my memory.

At that age every day is a new day, the first and the last day of the holidays do not differ much, just like a Tuesday is in no way different from a Thursday. In the courtyard there were always white tablecloths, or maybe bed sheets, hanging to dry on the line. They were useful to hide behind, but we would poke our head out again if we were not found soon enough.

I remember the German girl and I spinning round and round in the courtyard. A simple game. We were holding each other as we were turning. I thought that we were both moving our feet. But she had lifted her feet, she was being held by me in the manner of an ice skater. When I let go, she fell. I was shocked but she was probably shocked even more. She started crying. I remember people coming out and someone picked her up and gave her a cuddle. Perhaps she had even hit her head on the hard pavement. Perhaps she was angry. Nobody was paying any attention to me.

Then someone around the corner of the building started calling my name. I had to go. As I reached the front of the hotel I realised that the luggage was in the car, it was really time to go. That was our last day on holiday. Silently I climbed in the back seat. My brother passed a comic magazine to me. It was a brand new one with Mickey Mouse starring in a new adventure, but I just looked at the cover.

I don't know her name. I never will.

## * * * * *

## Bianca

I usually follow wives of jealous husbands. Occasionally I get involved in a murder case, when the chief of the guards swallows his pride and comes to ask for my help. But in this line of business the unexpected is fairly routine. I once helped an eloping princess get across the border, and I almost got my hands on the treasure of the so-called "band of forty". Almost.

I'm the guy people with problems come to. The case of the disappearance of Princess Bianca perhaps more than any other case has contributed to my reputation in this Kingdom. It all started on a hot summer day.

A poor excuse for a breeze was entering the window of my office carrying the musky smell of the stables down the road. I don't have a fancy office or even a secretary, unless you count Bathsheebazan. I do pay her at the end of most months, and she does have a desk outside my office, but mostly she has her own business on the side. She is a regular contributor to the _Gossip Truth_ , a weekly scroll that could as well shorten its name to just one word, the first. She provides them with rumours that she must pick up from people coming and going into my office. Curious how people may seek a private detective, but then are eager to chat with the secretary in the waiting room. Go figure. Maybe it's her long blond hair. I should know because her long blond hair is the reason I gave her a job in the first place.

The Queen herself had asked for my help. I try not to be arrogant but I'm the best in town and that is why she came to me. She did not come in person of course, she sent a message and I was to meet her in the Red Rose garden, for a confidential conversation.

I had heard stories about the new Queen, but I like to keep an open mind. She was certainly known as a beauty, and much younger than the King. The rumours were about her being vain, and about the mind-boggling number of shoes she owned. But so what; people with power always have some quirk to indulge in. Would you rather have a shopaholic Queen or a bloodthirsty one?

She was thin. I do like tall and supple women, but there is a limit to how thin a woman should be. I also had the impression of someone who knew what she wanted and would not suffer fools gladly. We sat on the stone bench in a place that was in the shade and out of earshot. She probably had ways to summon her guards at any moment.

"Find that girl, and don't make a big fuss about it, that is what I would like from you "

The girl that was missing was Princess Bianca. She was the daughter of the previous Queen, and as far as I could remember could only have been in her teens. But I also remembered people talking about her growing up into a very attractive Princess, dark haired and with a pale complexion like her mother. And the rumour was that there is only so much female beauty that can be accommodated under one roof, even if it is the roof of a palace.

"Are you worried that she may have been kidnapped? "

The Queen gave a strange half smile, and spent the next few seconds weighing me up. Then probably came to the conclusion that it was better to play it straight.

"She is probably just having fun, she is young, impulsive, and naive. But I can't afford that something bad should happen to her because everybody would think that I am involved." She sighed, indicating that it was quite unfair to have to deal with this.

"I admit that she is not my daughter and I am not overly fond of her. But that is not to say that I wish her any harm. On the contrary, she could marry to great advantage to herself, and to the Kingdom "

I could see that there was a rational analysis there. But I am not much interested in politics, I like the less dangerous business of chasing criminals. When it was clear that the Queen had nothing more to say I started walking back towards the city, and a man dressed in black joined me, walking by my side. He explained that he was the Queen's personal Wizard and any matter of money or any other question should go to him. His name was Al Glaass, and he had the look of a special secretary, a guy completely without any sense of humour.

"The Princess is very important to us. Try to find her, but most of all avoid any publicity. We have been tracking opinion polls on the approval of any member of the royal family. Usually the Queen comes at the top. This is not by accident, we plan her public appearances very carefully "

I was not sure why he was telling me all these things, was this relevant for finding the Princess? I would decide on that later, for now I just kept nodding.

"But " and here he raised an eyebrow as if he was about to make a point of the utmost importance " the last poll said that Princess Bianca is now more beloved than the Queen herself "

Clearly, for Al Glaass this was a problem.

"Do you believe in the results of opinion polls? "

He sneered.

"Surely you're not so naive as to think that instead of research results we should go back to reading tea leafs and scrying pools? "

I tried to move the subject back to the Princess.

"I am instructed to start my investigation immediately. Perhaps you can help me by telling me where she was last seen "

It turned out that Princess Bianca had a habit of getting back to the palace quite late at night. The Queen had asked her about her friends but she had been vague. Often she would just walk into the forest and come back many hours later. It was the despair of the guards who found it very difficult to ensure her safety. I'm glad I do not have a daughter.

I knew the forest well enough. It was not just full of squirrels and blackberries. There were also some shady corners of it, where certain individuals had found refuge outside the city walls. I had my contacts of course, so I went straight to the house of the forester.

The house was nothing more than a log cabin. It was quite some distance from the main highway, and she did not get many visitors, which clearly suited her. Yulietta was originally form the mountains, and still spoke with a foreign accent. She was taller than me by a head and probably broader of shoulders as well, but that is natural from folks who live on the mountains.

Most people were scared of Yulietta. She was the main reason very little hunting and poaching was taking place in the forest. She objected to anybody but herself shooting any arrows at the animals there. But I had seen her once put a splint on a deer's leg so I knew she had a soft side as well.

She did not invite me in, but was happy enough to lean on the fence to talk to me as she was smoking her pipe.

"Do you know anything about Princess Bianca? "

"Why should I? The forest is what I look after, not snotty princesses "

This was actually a longer answer than I expected from Yulietta, so it was a good start. I asked her when was the last time she saw the Princess and she vaguely said sometime last week. I asked whether it was likely that she might have got herself lost in the forest and she simply shrugged her massive shoulders.

For all that she had told me, there was still something that she was hiding. I'm good at noticing when something goes unsaid. I also noticed the new oramental plants in her garden and the shiny bow and arrow by the fence. It looked as if Yulietta had come into some money recently, and not just by picking mushrooms.

"You do take orders from the palace, as part of your job "

"I take orders when they are good orders "

That also was an interesting answer. I needed to know more, somehow. Basically it seemed that the forest was the right place to look.

Back at the office I checked with Bathsheebazan if anyone had been looking for me.

"Not that I noticed, why would anyone look for you? "

I sighed. That was not how a secretary should answer. This was the office of a private detective, of course a lot of people may be looking for me for all sort of private and personal reasons.

"Never mind. Anyway, just so that you stop worrying, Princess Bianca is fine and I know exactly where she is. She is safe "

If I have a nosy secretary I might as well make good use of her.

Later in the day, as the light was already starting to fade, I was quietly standing behind a large boulder and keeping an eye on Yulietta's cabin. A black figure came and knocked on the door, looking around as if trying to make sure that nobody would see him.

I waited for him to leave the house, then I waited another half hour. When I knocked on the simple wooden door, Yulietta did not appear surprised to see me.

"I know you are looking for Bianca "

"Can you help me? "

"Maybe. I was asked to dispose of her, but you know me, I thought they just wanted her to go away, so I told her to keep to the forest for a while "

"Where? "

She hesitated. I was asking a lot, but no point in holding back now. I had arrived at the right time. She was glad to tell me everything and see if I could sort it out.

"She already knew the six dwarfs, so she is staying there "

I could hardly believe my ears, the six dwarfs, also known as the ugly dwarfs, were a notorious criminal gang. They had the kind of faces that, if you saw them join your caravansary you'd think about finding the nearest exit. I'd better hurry. Yulietta game me directions.

I was unarmed. That is my way of doing business, though this was one of those moments when I doubted my own wisdom. I arrived at the house of the six dwarfs when it was dark already. But perhaps I had arrived too late.

There was some shouting and confusion coming from the low stone building. Nobody would have found it without knowing where to look. Not only was it well hidden, it was itself almost part of the forest, covered in moss and lichens. Just outside there was a small cart full of red apples.

I did not try to hide, and walked up to the door to find out what was going on. I should point out that dwarfs are by no means small. They are short but make up their size disadvantage with powerful muscles in their limbs, and their low centre of gravity is actually an asset when fighting. I was seized and held against the wall with six small but sharp knives at my throat. I spoke as calmly as I could manage, because to give the impression of being in control is the best way to take control.

Eventually I understood that the dwarfs had come home from some business, and found Bianca dead on the floor of the house.

I asked whether anybody else had been there today, but they could not know on account of their important business in town. However, someone must have visited the Princess because they had never seen the apple cart before.

Inside the house the Princess was on the floor and I noticed signs that she was still with us. There was no obvious injury, no knife, no arrow, no obvious concussion. I took a guess that perhaps the problem was simpler than it seemed at first sight, and that the half eaten apple on the floor had something to do with it.

I am not a doctor but I do collect useful skills. Fortunately for the Princess, I have some idea of what to do in case of choking. I placed my arms around the Princess' waist. Then I placed my fist with my thumb toward her, just above her belly button, and delivered a few upward squeeze-thrusts into the abdomen to force a sort of cough.

At the first squeeze a slice of apple popped out of her mouth. A few seconds later she started moving, standing on her own feet, and clearly regaining colour. I was given a good demonstration of her recovered strength when she slapped my face. Hard.

"Steady now, there are a few things you may want to know "

She looked at me puzzled, in the midst of a clearly relieved bunch of dwarfs who were cheering and putting my back.

"Firstly, these apples are almost certainly poisoned, so you are very lucky that you chocked on your first bite "

"Secondly, you are very lucky that I managed to get the piece out, because you can choke on a poisoned apple as well as on a golden delicious "

I did not go on with my lecture. She seemed to have got the point, besides the dwarfs were behaving like children that have just received an invitation to an amusement park. And perhaps the fact that Bianca was truly beautiful also played a part in my inclination to forgive her.

"Ok, so we know that Al Glaass is the rotten apple here, if you excuse my pun, but what we don't yet know is whether the Queen is also part of the plot "

I wish I could recount that the Princess at this point looked shocked and declared that her step-mother the Queen could not possibly wish her any arm. The truth is that she sneered and made a face that suggested that there was no love lost between them. Perhaps expecting that a beautiful, rich, and spoiled girl would turn out to be all nice and sweet is asking too much.

But back to the main problem. I had to speak to the Queen, and see what I could find out. I told Bianca that this place was probably ok for now, especially if the dwarfs could refrain from their "business" for a couple of days and keep her company. They were more than happy to promise that.

The next morning I managed to see the Queen in the Red Rose garden by telling the guards that I had important news for her. News about the Princess.

"Did you find her? "

"I did, but she is not yet safe "

"I can take care of that, I can send some chosen soldiers to take care of whatever danger she may be in "

"It's not as easy as that, you see, she is afraid of something inside the palace itself "

"Nonsense "

"I promise I will sort everything. But in the meantime she asked me to come to you and send you a token of her love. She is keen to make sure you're not too angry with her "

She was clearly puzzled, but that was to be expected, the next bit would be more interesting.

"She sends this apple, she wants you to eat it and when I can report back that you liked her peace offering she will feel relieved "

For a second, things could have gone bad, even if she was not responsible for the poisoned apples she could have deemed my words cheeky or disrespectful and I could have spent some time in a dark room with some iron on the window, or worse. Fortunately she chose to laugh instead. Then she picked the apple and bit it with gusto. I started to dislike her a bit less. Mine, of course, was a regular apple of the kind that is a good ingredient of a balanced diet.

It became clear later that the Wizard Al Glaass had already left the city. His idea of getting rid of the Princess had failed, but he would probably get a job at the service of some other King or Queen. The Queen and the Princess went back to their uneasy relationship. Basically they tolerated each other and respected each other's territory. The Queen wanted to be loved by her people, and she was ready to be brutal with them to get her way. The Princess on the other hand was planning on spending several more years without deciding what she wanted. Maybe she waited for a Prince on a white horse to come and take her somewhere. I'm just saying that, but really I have little insight into the mind of a teenage girl, so you better go and ask her.

I had managed to keep Yulietta at the margins of the official story, so she went back to her solitary life in the forest. She had been stupid to take the money from Al Glaass but I'm pretty sure she never really planned to harm anybody.

You may be wondering whether the Queen made me rich beyond my wildest dreams for carrying out the rescue in such a short space of time. Or you may be wondering whether the Princess decided to fall in love with the tough and solitary detective who had saved her life. The answer to both questions is no. If I were a rich man I would not be here preparing this story for the _Gossip Truth_.

## * * * * *

## Zen

Four small white loafs and a couple of the flat bread with fennel seeds. I always buy the same amount of bread in the morning. It is sort of a ritual. I stop by the bakery on the same road where I drop off my little boy to school. When the weather is nice we go on a bicycle so I put the bread in my bag, still warm. If I go by car the smell of the bread actually fills the inside of the vehicle in a way that is subtle and unmissable at the same time.

The baker is called Tom, which is a good name for a baker; it sounds homely and honest. And Tom is certainly an honest baker, and a happy one I think. He greets his customers as friends and that is part of the reason I would never go and buy bread in another store.

"Is it not chilly to be on your bicycle Professor? " he enquired.

"Not at all, this is perfect weather for pedalling, not too hot and not too cold "

This is our usual small talk. He calls me Professor because he knows that I work at the University but I'm not sure whether he has any idea about what I actually do. But it doesn't matter.

"And you Tom, everything ok with the family? "

I heard rumours from Mike's mum that in fact poor Tom is really under the thumb of his wife at home. I don't know if it is really true, Mike's mum is also the one who started a rumour about a new car park that was going to replace the playing field of the school. It turned out that they were just going to repaint the yellow lines.

Mike's mum is a bit like a meerkat, standing up and looking out across the desert for any possible trouble, and then squeaking to warn the rest of the colony. We can cope with a few false alarms in exchange for the lookout.

"Yes, thanks. By the way, if you happen to see a bunch of keys on your way out, please let me know. I seem to have lost my car keys. "

"I will keep an eye out for it. It is rather complicated and expensive to replace those keys. You are really unlucky today Tom "

"Yes " said Ellie, who was also there buying bread at the time "that's really bad luck! "

"Maybe " said Tom.

I must admit, by mid-day I had completely forgotten about Tom's keys. I was busy with work and with some technical problem on my computer. Instead of being helpful the technician had sent back an email saying that "..none of the problems are mission critical and all are in the process of being sorted out." I wonder whether they get trained to produce the most useless and least helpful sentences or whether people like that naturally gravitate towards technical support jobs.

The next morning I asked Tom whether he had found his car keys.

"Oh yes, thank you. They were on the ground next to the recycling bin. I must have dropped them as I was filling it up. And you know what, as I was bending down I even found a lottery ticket I had bought but forgotten about "

"Well, it could win you a few pounds "

"A million actually "

"Well, yes, it could win you a million pounds, but you know how it is with lottery tickets "

"No, I mean that I have checked and it seems that I'm going to get almost a million pounds for it. It is hard to believe isn't it? "

That was amazing, and I wondered why Tom had bothered to even open up his shop that morning.

"Well, Tom, you are really lucky! "

"Maybe " said Tom

So, now I could say that I knew a millionaire. I did think for a second that I had cycled in front of that recycling bin and if I had only looked ... But that was silly of course. Tom was a nice man and I should have been, I mean I was, very happy for him.

The following weekend Tom and the winning ticket were discussed at length in the local news, and it got mentioned even in the national news. Throwing away a ticket and then finding it again makes for a good story. Predictably there was a picture of him holding a big loaf of bread.

On Monday I did not expect Tom's shop to be open, but it was. I bought my bread before asking him if he had decided what to do with his fortune. He offered to come outside and help me with my bicycle. Obviously he wanted to get away from the people in the shop and talk to me more or less in private.

"Well, Professor, if you want to know, I gave the money to my wife "

"I don't understand "

"No, there is not much to understand. But she wanted me to sell the shop and move to Corsica. We had a row, all sorts of old stuff came up, and I told her to take the money and go to Corsica without me. "

"But, surely, things could be mended. "

"No, I don't think so "

The way he said it, it was clear that there was no turning back; they had separated. I know it is not the first time that winning the lottery causes trouble for people. They say that sudden money does not actually make anybody happier. I'm sure it really depends on the person, but in Tom's case it sounded as if he had not been lucky after all. Their son, Anthony, was in his last year of high school. I did not know him well, as he was much older than my Samuel, but he was still young enough to suffer as a consequence of a break-up.

"I'm sorry Tom, if there is anything I can do to help just let me know "

As I said that I realised it sounded as a cliché, but Tom did not mind. I added

"It seems that finding that ticket was not a stroke of luck "

"Maybe " said Tom.

There is a theory, known as the set point theory of happiness, that says that we basically have our own level of contentment. Life events can only push us up or down a bit but soon we are back to our natural level. An extreme version would mean that we should all be fatalists, and that nothing is in our hands. Another way to look at it is that nothing ever is quite as good or as bad as it seems.

Two days later Tom was there behind the counter as usual. I asked for four small white loafs and a couple of the flat breads. Somehow there was a strange excitement in Tom's face.

"Professor, as there is nobody else in the shop at the moment, if you don't mind I would like to ask you for advice "

"Sure Tom "

"You see, last night I received an unexpected email. It was from a girl I knew in High School and I have not seen for over fifteen years now. She had seen my picture in the paper you see, because of the lottery ticket "

"Yes, it's nice to get in touch with old friends "

"But, Professor, in High School we were more than friends, you know. She was my girlfriend, and then she left because she wanted a career as a lawyer, and I think she did well but never came back to our town "

I reassured Tom that there was nothing wrong with re-establishing links with people. Clearly I understood that the tone of the email was very friendly and possibly sentimental. I tried to imagine Tom as a young man. It was hard. He was a tall man, stocky but not fat. His hair was very thin but that is something that happens with age. Nobody would have called him ugly but, from a female perspective, he was not particularly attractive either. He also had a high pitched voice that did not match his large size.

"The question, really, is how do you feel about that email, are you looking forward to seeing again this ... "

"Anita, her name is Anita "

Mine had been a silly question. Of course he was thrilled about this email, it had been obvious from the time he had started asking his question.

"Great then, and are you going to see her at some point? "

"Tonight. She is in town you see, and she saw my picture in the local paper as I told you. She called the paper and then some other friends from school until she obtained from them my email address. I think she is here visiting some relatives but she will go back to London tomorrow. Important business. So I am going to see her tonight "

"Fantastic, so that lottery ticket did bring you some good luck in the end "

He smiled, then after a second he said

"Maybe "

Strange story. Who knows what may come from these reunions after so many years, but it did seem like a lucky coincidence that Anita happened to spot him in the paper. I did not say this to Tom but there was also the risk that people contact you when you have lots of money just because, well, you have lots of money. But that seemed unlikely given the successful career of this woman.

It was raining in the morning and I took Samuel to school in the car. He complained during the short journey because a lot of his classmates were ill and therefore were allowed to stay home from school. I tried, just as a form of parental duty, to explain that he should be really glad to be healthy and therefore able to go to school and lean lots of new things.

I'm not immune to curiosity, so after the school I made my way quickly to the bakery. It was shut. I saw Anthony in the street and stopped him to ask about his dad. He told me that he had a car accident the night before, on his way home. There were some broken bones and he was in hospital. He was going back there now, so I gave him a ride in my car.

Tom had broken his right arm and his collar bone. He was clearly in pain, but he was awake and could talk. The nurse said that I could only stay a few minutes because those were not visiting hours.

"Oh Tom, I'm sorry "

They had immobilised his neck, though this is a precaution they always take in case of a crash. But it meant that he had to turn his eyes rather than his face towards the person with whom he was speaking.

"You have been very unfortunate "

"Maybe " he said sighing.

Visits were allowed after 5pm, so I went back the following day in the evening. When I arrived at the hospital I had the customary box of chocolates with me. I found his room and noticed that there was a woman with him, holding his hand. Was that his wife?

"Anita, you should have really gone back to London "

"The hell with London and those stuffy stuck-up courts "

Despite the words the voice was calm and soothing. Then she added.

"This is my place Tom "

I knocked and entered the room. Exchanged a few words and left my gift. He said that I should not have brought anything but it was nice seeing me. I did not stay long. As I was leaving I saw them smiling at each other and started to say that Tom was really lucky after all. But I didn't.

## * * * * *

## Old and young

The hill was steep, the weather was hot.

They trudged slowly towards the top of the ridge. Tall towers of smoke lined the valley, and the bright light rising from below made it hard to know whether it was day or night.

The old man was holding the hand of the boy. The boy was trying not to walk too fast.

They both had to raise their arms at regular intervals to try and protect their faces from the fine dust that swirled in the air. They breathed slowly through their noses.

In the sky there was a sun, but it was only visible through the powder clouds, and looked artificial. Maybe it was. Airplanes left scars in the sky as they crossed it in all directions. And yet, even in that strange light one could see that the valley extended far and wide; as far as the eye of a man could travel.

There were houses and buildings, and walls and fences, and towers of bricks and towers of haze. The roads were layered on top of other roads, and cars moved in long multicoloured snakes. The cars wanted to go fast but could only move at that slow constant pace. But there was nobody stirring in the streets, nothing alive. Not even a stray dog.

They had reached the top of the ridge and were looking towards the bottom of the valley. The old man was talking slowly and maybe secretly crying under his scarf. Maybe. He was talking of dreams, of stories from the past, of philosophy, and he was addressing the space in front of him as much as the boy.

Old men always carry the scars of the years in their hearts as much as on their faces.

Old men never can tell for sure what is a dream and what is reality. They meld and mingle what is true with what is created by the mind.

And so, looking towards the horizon the old man was saying to the boy, can you imagine all of this, all of this in front of you, covered by grass and trees, covered by corn and wheat.

Can you imagine blueberries and apples; can you imagine flowers. You may not have seen them before, but you have seen pictures perhaps, in your books; you may have studied this in school. Maybe you could just close your eyes, as I am doing now, and imagine that the houses and the bridges and the roads have never been built; that there are no cars.

Can you imagine the voices of the people now, calling to each other's from one side of the valley to the other; can you imagine the colours.

Down, below them, there continued to be no person and no dog walking along the streets. But there were children and cats and sheep and trout and butterflies in what the old man was saying.

You know, once upon a time that is how this valley looked, that is how it sounded and smelled, the trees were growing and the whole view from here was green. The seasons would follow one after the other and people had to pay attention to them. The valley had its own rhythm and so did the people who lived here, once upon a time.

Do you know what a shamrock is?

That's right, and it is a plant as well, it was full of them on this bank below us. When I was your age I would climb it and every now and then slip down and roll back all the way to the road. But it was not dangerous, when it was all green.

The boy was not saying much. He was standing next to the old man, looking in the same direction towards nothing, and one could notice a resemblance in the lines of their faces. But there was something in his eyes which, for a boy of his age, was a strange and unusual sadness. And while he was looking at nothing, he was seeing things that he had never seen before.

There was a silence for a while between the old and the young man. Only the dull noises from below filling the air, a background noise that was a mix of metal and plastic.

The boy broke the silence, "I like make-believe stories," he said. "Tell me another one".

## * * * * *

## Puffin bay

"Mr President, about the plans for Puffin Bay... "

The president had been poring over a large map showing a building development that included a villa the size of a small town. The location was a horseshoe shaped bay and the architect had included a drawing of happy dolphins swimming at the edge of the bay.

"Yes, are you going to tell me that I can't build a new residence on Fiorita Island? "

"That would not be for me to say, My President. However, there is a problem with the nature reserve that extends to the whole of Fiorita. I am sure you are aware of that, and I believe that the boundaries can be amended "

"Exactly. I work hard every day for this stupid country. I need a quiet place to go and think. It is bloody expensive but it will be the best villa in the world "

"I was only going to raise the issue of public relations "

"Good, I like a secretary who speaks his mind. You think people will not see that it is in their best interest? "

The secretary had been hired mainly because the president had been impressed by his collection of paperclips, all catalogued on size, colour and country of origin. But he was not an idiot.

"They may not. You see there are some people who are very sensitive about things like biodiversity and the unspoiled landscape these days. The bay has got its name from the puffins. By the time the villa will be completed, puffins may not want to visit Puffin Bay any longer "

"This is going to be called Puffin Bay Villa, and there will be puffins, plenty of them. A pair of five meters tall puffins will be at the entrance for example, and the swimming pool has the shape of a puffin, you can see it here on the plan "

"A lovely touch. But perhaps we should worry about the media My President "

"I do worry about the bloody media every day. Why do you think we spend so much on newspapers that make no money at all? "

"I'm aware of our investment in the cultural and media sector, and it is commendable. Nobody would think that it has any political aims. "

"Maybe you are right. It is not as if someone with some brains would have any problems getting a story out, whether one owns a paper or not "

"Indeed. If you swing a string in front of a cat he will pounce on it, even though he knows that it is not the tail of a mouse. Journalists may know that a story is baseless, yet as long as it is good at capturing people's interest they will not resist talking about it. They just need to be fed the right stories "

"Good point. Get me Philippe on the phone "

"Mr Philippe Jones, the Editor of the Morning Paper? "

"Yes bloody Philippe, who else do you think I am talking about? Get him on the phone and we will sort something out "

The secretary was used to the brusque manners of the president. After a quick look inside the address book he selected the number of Philippe Jones. Only a few years before Philippe had been a failed journalist with a serious alcohol problem. But the President had told him that he had a future and soon promoted him to edit the Morning Paper. It was not the most read newspaper but it did have national circulation.

"My President, always an honour to talk with you "

"Yes, yes. Listen there is an issue that I would like to discuss. I mean I would like it discussed by people in the country "

"Certainly, we are here to serve the public. What they talk about is very important "

"Here it is. People need houses, people like houses in nice places, there are very few houses on Fiorita Island. Let's build several thousands new homes there. Beautiful houses looking out to the sea "

"That is such a brilliant idea. If I may say so, Mr President, you have this ability to think the unthinkable. This is what makes you such a great leader "

"Not so quick. I said I want people to talk about this bloody plan. It is not my plan. That clear? "

"Yes, I understand, we will find some experts that can talk about it. "

"Yeah, a few of those boring fellows with Liberal Arts degrees talking about the beauty of the countryside, and set them up against a few of those hard-nosed engineers that will get excited about how much more efficient today's houses are compared to the past. "

"I have already the right people in mind. Thank you Mr President for the suggestion of such an interesting and fascinating debate. You make our work so much easier "

In a few days the issue of what to do with Fiorita Island had been picked up by other newspapers and by some television channels. Only few of them were owned by the President, but after the experts in the Morning Paper had filled much of the Thursday issue discussing the pros and cons of building houses on Fiorita Island lots of people wanted to express an opinion. They wrote to newspapers and reacted to the idea, mostly with dismay, on their personal blogs.

The secretary compiled a summary of the coverage for the President.

"If I can take the liberty to say so, Mr President, the public is on the whole rather hostile to building houses on Fiorita Island "

"And you predicted it, you're a clever Secretary, that's why you are here. Now get me Stephen. "

"You would like Stephen White, the Director of news channel Seven? "

"Yes, you don't need to drag him into my office, just get him on the phone "

The President smiled, satisfied with his own little joke.

"Stephen, how is the family? Anyway, about this Fiorita Island issue. People are saying that you can't have houses on it because there are no bloody jobs there. But nobody has come up with the obvious solution "

There was a pause at the other end of the phone. Stephen knew he had to be careful when talking with this canny and powerful President, and he could not afford to be hostile. He knew that there was no need to answer the question about his family, but he was not sure what side to take about Fiorita Island. He took time with some polite remarks.

"Listen, I will tell you the obvious solution. If there are going to be houses we have to build a tunnel that links Fiorita with the mainland. "

"That is a very good idea Mr President "

"Good, I am glad you agree. Now, I want to keep out of this, so find some idiot that wants to go on television arguing that we need a tunnel. OK? Love to the kids. I will come to Charlotte's birthday party of course. "

After the phone conversation the president turned to his secretary.

"You'd better help me with this zip"

He was wearing a long red dress, makeup and heavy jewellery. This was the private rather than the public image of the President.

The idea of a tunnel added fuel to the debate. In a live debate on television, experts and minor celebrities had been shouting abuse at each other's.

The leader of the opposition, Mr Curazon, had insisted that this was an idea that must have originated from the ruling government, or even from the President himself, and that corruption was likely to influence the choice of builders.

At that point the President was invited to give a live statement. He spoke of the importance of the nature reserve on Fiorita Island, and he said that we should preserve it for the children of the nation.

"I can assure you that I will fight will all my energies to defend Fiorita Island [pause]. There will not be thousands of new houses on the Island; [pause] there will not be even hundreds of new houses; [pause] and there will not be any tunnel or any bridge. Trust me [pause]. I will say more, to show how high this issue is on my agenda I have decided to build a new presidential residence on the Island. It will be known as Puffin Bay Villa, it will be isolated and full of green, and the Island will remain a nature reserve under my personal stewardship. "

## * * * * *

## Who am I?

He could not remember his name, or anything else about himself. In fact he was not even sure that he was not a she. But there was no time to try and think about it.

She had to run left and right, finding cover behind trees and bushes, as the huge pterodactyls swooped down from the sky. They were upset at being referred to as pterosaurs even tough wikipedia says that the two terms refer to the same animal. To be precise this species was called quetzalcoatlus (from the name of the Aztec god), but she did not want to even try and say that.

He found a cave and decided to hide there. At that point she remembered that she could not swim, but thought that this was a strange thing to worry about when running away from a giant bird-like dinosaur and into a dark cave.

As she entered she fell into a large underground lake.

"So I do need to swim after all. "

"No you could just wear one of these, " said a green man handing over a sort of helmet, made entirely of glass, or what looked like glass. Once he had the helmet on he could easily breath under water.

They swam towards a wonderful schooner that was sitting on the bottom among weeds, corals, and bright fish.

The name of the pirate was John Pewter. He explained that he was now a reformed pirate, and that he was engaged in a fight to warn people against the danger of opening tuna cans with a can opener. Research had shown that tiny fragments of metal were likely to enter the food and accumulate in the body and cause damage to the liver. Pewter declared that this was his way to give something back to society after so many years as a pirate, plundering vessels and looting villages.

Four members of the crew were playing cards at a round table in the forecastle. They all had the same glass helmets on. On the back of a chair a parrot was paying close attention to which cards each player had in his hands. The helmet on the parrot was smaller and elongated to leave space for the beak.

"I have to go or I will be late. "

"What for? " asked Pewter.

He had no idea what she may be late for, she just knew that she could not stop. Pewter was very helpful and introduced her to Flippy, who came through a porthole and swam in circles around them. She held on to the back fin of the friendly dolphin, and they left the ship winding through a maze of corals.

When they arrived at a desert island she was surprised that Flippy actually wanted £7.50 for the ride.

The party had just started, and everybody on the beach was drinking and dancing. Most of them were vampires, the liquid in their glasses was dark red, and it could have been beetroot juice.

"Why are you vampires? " she asked a tall wiry man, dressed with an elegant tailed suit, all black.

"Darling, it is my understanding that the original idea was that we would be elves, but the clothes that elves wear are sooooo much trickier to describe, you know. "

"I don't understand. "

"You are not meant to, so stop worrying, would you like a Martini? "

"Can you at least tell me who am I? "

"I am afraid that I cannot, and not because I don't want to be helpful, I assure you. The problem is that you are not always the same person. In fact I think that every time you and I meet you are a different person. Not many people go back to the same story, you see. Although for myself, in truth, I am very fond of Jane Austin. I love to go back and re-read some of her books at regular intervals. "

He smiled. He had a condescending attitude that suited his tall and dark figure. He was clearly just making small talk.

The desert island had a bridge that linked it to a city with huge skyscrapers. It looked vaguely like Montevideo, but she thought that she had never been to Montevideo before, and therefore she could not be sure about the resemblance.

He was hungry so he looked for a place to eat. Fortunately there was a taxi available and he asked to be taken to a restaurant. The taxi driver looked familiar. In a few minutes they arrived. The restaurant had lots of round tables under a huge awning with red and white stripes.

He paid the taxi £7.50 for the ride; then he realised that the driver looked a lot like Flippy.

The omelette came on a plate that was about half a meter in diameter. Given that the menu had been in a language that he had not recognised, she was not quite sure what he had ordered.

"Is everything ok, sir? " asked a rotund waiter with an Italian accent, but probably one that he had learned with great effort. No great effort had probably been necessary to develop the large girth. Although his round face sported a thin mustache, one could easily imagine a similar, younger version, of that round face in a chubby child.

Glad to realise that the waiter spoke her language, she enquired why the omelette was so large. The waiter explained that it was only one egg, but that the eggs of pterosaurs were very large. Indeed that was the reason pterosaurs were good animals to domesticate and keep for their eggs. Except that they were not easily tamed.

At that point he heard a horrible squeak. A gigantic pterosaur dived from the sky and attacked the restaurant. It tore trough the awning and all the customers threw themselves flat on the pavement or scrambled underneath the tables.

He escaped by entering a building next to the restaurant that looked like a museum, or a town hall. It was indeed the Paco León Museum, full of details about Paco's life, from his early years at school, to his life in Alcantarilla, near Murcia, with his family. His name had been chosen randomly from the entire World population because this was a Museum built to celebrate the life of a human being, but as all human beings deserve a museum the actual name was chosen by chance. Predictably, after this selection he had left his job as a nurse and was regularly interviewed on television about science, sport, and especially politics.

He spent some time walking in the museum, and then she remembered. He was you. You had got sucked in when you had started reading this strange story. Thank goodness it is now finished.

## * * * * *

## The unicorn

I had seen unicorns before, a few times. Not in the forest where the trees were too dense for them to move, but down along the bank of the river, or on the main path that crosses our forest. At that point we were all familiar with the armored horses, the shiny and spiky machinery of the war between the elves and the dwarves. But the war was over and a few elves were now turning their energies and their attention back to the hunting and the parading.

I liked the sight of the unicorns. Even though they would not keep up with a galloping horse, they were better in many other ways, like the way that their coat was lustrous and smooth. I would think that everybody likes the elegance of a unicorn moving neatly among the trees, because the way they move their hooves is almost a dance. And then there was the horn. I was scared but also fascinated by their ivory horn, easily as long as I was tall.

Prince Thranduil was eighty, which is when elves are in their prime, and belonged to one of the best-known families among the green elves of the forest. His position combined with his ambition was the reason why he liked to be seen riding a white unicorn. Now that the war with the dwarfs had finished he had been put in charge of organising the hunting party for King Oraduil.

"Is Legos Evergreen at home? "

My mother came to the opening on the huge hollow tree that was our dwelling. When she saw Prince Thranduil looking up to her she was puzzled. What could a Prince want from my father? She hesitated, then she balanced little Floret on one hip and answered.

"No, I am sorry my Prince, he is not here. He is in the lower forest, picking wood in the bluebell clearing. But he will be back for the evening meal "

"Many thanks. I can go and see him there then, I intended to visit the lower forest anyway. Only I do not know the way to that clearing "

The Prince was being polite, even though he was talking to one of the many green elves of the forest. My mother wondered whether he might have come to ask a favour from my father.

I was on a side branch of the tree, practicing my fiddle. I was not very good so I knew that I had to practice. My mother called my name and told me to hurry down to the ground.

Prince Thranduil walked with me around the massive trunk of the hollow oak. And it was there that I saw his beautiful unicorn, calmly waiting for him. Unicorns are not domesticated the way that some other animals are. They never become friendly pets like the flying squirrels. Instead they build a bond with one specific elf, and serve that individual with great courage in time of peace and in time of trouble.

Prince Thranduil helped me to get on the back of the unicorn. I was young, and I was also slimmer and wirier than the average elf, but I was still strong enough to hold on to the platted mane.

The unicorn did not seem to mind the presence of a stranger, probably because I was only little, or maybe because Prince Thranduil was there. I had never touched a unicorn before. It did not smell like a horse at all. It smelt of magic.

I enjoyed the ride immensely. I don't know if we were going fast or not but, from high on the back of a unicorn, trees, boulders and everything else moved around us in a whirlwind.

I saw Filias on a high branch, and I am sure he recognised me. I was thrilled by the thought that all my friends would hear about my ride on a unicorn.

I spoke to Prince Thranduil a few times, because I felt that I needed to perform my duty. I named the various landmarks and told him how far we had to go.

The fact that he was a prince did not really matter to me. We all respect the King of the Elves, but the people of the forest never spend much time on ceremony. Besides, I was only a child at the time.

When we arrived my father sent me to check on the mushrooms at the far corner of the clearing. I did what I was bid to do, but I found few mushrooms, if there had been many my father would have already seen them. Anyway, I understood that the two of them had to discuss something important.

I found a beehive and lost myself in the contemplation of the thousands of individuals working together, and practiced what old Greenbeard had told us about how to interpret their language. The unicorn was grazing nearby.

I was ok at learning, and paid a lot of attention when old Greenbeard would speak, but what I was really good at was archery. That I had learned from my father. The green elves of the forest had noticed how good he was with his bow and arrow and that was the reason for Prince Thranduil's visit, though I only learned that much later.

After a while my father and Prince Thranduil parted company. He mounted his unicorn without even saying a word to me. I am sure Prince Thranduil did not mean to be unkind, he simply had other more important things in his mind.

The firewood that my father had collected was now in bundles. It was ready to be taken back to our tree.

My father was not a man of many words, and to be quite honest I feared him because he expected discipline and respect from his family. My sister Wildrose, a few years older than me, had got in trouble just the week before for coming home a whole hour after old Greenbeard's lesson had finished.

But that afternoon the sun was shining, and dappled light was produced as the sunbeams filtered through the leaves of the trees. My father smiled at me. He was clearly in a good mood and that put me in a good mood as well. But I also had another reason: I had been on a unicorn.

"Come on little one, I will carry you all the way home on my shoulders! "

## * * * * *

## Gift

First I had to learn how to read and write. Only after that my gift became apparent. And even then it took a long time for me to understand what was special about me.

As a child in school I just thought that teachers really liked me, and that they were very kind to me. They seemed to praise my work more than the work of other children. But then I noticed that they did not like everything I did. My drawings were average, and my math was good for a boy, but not at the level of the best girls. My writing on the other hand was always good.

It was not just good. Teachers would eagerly await for me to finish my essays, even the short ones that we had to write in primary school. Then they would sit in a corner, ignore everything around them and read. I remember Ms MacFadden in particular. She was a middle-aged woman always dressed in grey. She was fine as a teacher, but rather boring. The kind of person that does her job but does not smile very often. Yet once she had one of my essays in her hands she would sit by the window, away from the rest of the class, and was completely absorbed. If I had written something sad, like the time I wrote about Ginger, she would take the tissue out of her pocket. She would read and sigh and possibly even sob.

Ginger was the reason I stopped believing in God. It was a beautiful kitten and I had taken care of organising a special bowl of food for him in a corner of our small back garden. My mother did not allow any animals inside the house but I nevertheless thought that Ginger was my cat. He would be there every morning on top of the wall, waiting for me to feed him and his brother Fred.

One morning he was not there. I went looking for him everywhere. I hoped to see him the next day, but he did not come back. Fred, his brother, was a regular visitor to the garden but Ginger was not with him. After a week I thought I needed to pray for him to come back. I think I even keeled down in my room and promised God that I was going to be good, for a whole month, and that mother would never have to ask me twice to do something, if in exchange he could make Ginger come back home.

Perhaps it was a bit selfish, or only childish, but I had asked it with sincerity. What happened next was that dad noticed that I was still looking for the little kitten. He took me with him to the sofa, sat me down and said to me that on the day that Ginger had disappeared he had seen him being run over by a car on the road around the house. He had taken a spade and buried him. He thought that I would be upset so he did not tell me about it, except that I was a big boy and I needed to face the fact that sometimes these things happen.

He gave me a hug, which was good because I did feel like crying. I am not sure whether knowing exactly what had happened to Ginger was better than not knowing anything. What I do remember is how I felt about God. I did not mind that my prayer had not been answered. I did not mind that at all. I was ready to accept that I had not been good enough or maybe that God had more important business to attend. But what upset me was the timing. When I had asked God for help Ginger had already been dead a week. It seemed so pointless and, in a way, embarrassing. I know that God is supposed to be able to do anything but somehow it did not make any sense to ask for time to go backwards.

In the essay I mainly talked about Ginger. I don't think that I wrote much about God because I was a bit ashamed of my asking for a cat to be saved a week after he had died. I thought that Ms MacFadden must be a person that liked cats just as much as I did because she was not just sobbing but actually in tears.

When I was a bit older I finally realised that the gift had to do with my writing. I had won a few competitions. Actually I had won all the competitions that I had entered. But at that age I was still distracted by other aspects of life. I would have swapped my writing prowess for some extra footballing skills. I mean, I was ok in midfield and I had a strong shot from distance. I was doing well. But there are millions of kids that do well at football and only a few go on to be professional players.

When I went to University I chose to study medicine. I think in part that was to please my parents. I was still trying to play football as much as I could. My grades were good, because I was doing well in every subject that required some formal writing.

Slowly I also realised that it did not matter what I was writing about. To test this strange idea I wrote to the Dean of the School of Medicine about something totally silly. I suggested that the pedestrian crossing from the main lecture hall to the library should be blue instead of white because blue was the colour of the institution. I had deliberately chosen an outrageous suggestion. Yet he wrote back saying that he had been convinced by my argument, and that he would investigate the idea of changing the colour as soon as possible.

I also started writing some essays for friends and then for money. Soon my phone was ringing continuously with students offering me fairly large amounts of money to write something for them.

I got married the same year I graduated. It seemed the right thing to do. Carla was the most beautiful girl in my class, or maybe even in the whole University. We barely exchanged a few polite words for a while. Things changed when I found the courage to talk to her, for the worse. She did not find my conversation interesting in the slightest and started to try and avoid me as one of the many boring boys who were swarming around her but were not worth any encouragement.

Being at University meant that it was normal to know the email address of other students, so I wrote her a message, and then a few more. There were not about anything in particular, I did not think they were especially romantic or especially clever. Nevertheless I am certain that our email exchanges were the reason we eventually got engaged and then married.

I was still young, but not young enough to hold on to my dream of playing football for a living. We settled in a comfortable middle class home and had a boy, Richard.

Because of being busy with life and a career as a doctor I had not been writing very much. But I wanted to do something special about my gift. It was strange how I had never really properly thought about that before. I had been an idiot. Clearly I could use my amazing writing skills to do amazing things. For instance, I could write the speeches for the prime minister of the country, or the would-be president of any country. But why stoop so low? It was obvious what I should do. I should write literature. The best literature ever written, Nobel price winning novels. I should be famous, not as someone kicking a ball on a grassy field, but as an Artist with capital a.

I planned my first novel. It was hard work. I thought that that was normal, even though in the past writing had never been difficult for me. Maybe a novel was something different. I asked Carla to read parts of it. She said that it was ok, and I should continue if it really made me happy. That was a shock, and probably it was the beginning of the end of our marriage.

When it was finished I sent the novel to several publishers. Most of them did not even bother to acknowledge my submission. I worked harder on it and I tried to refine it and make sure that it would get a fair look. It made no difference.

At that point I realised that my gift had vanished. Maybe it was the getting older. Maybe my gift was only there as I was growing up, like some kind of counterpart to my existential angst, or my acne.

I am sure it is quite plain to you, as I write these words, that I am left without any special gift for writing beautiful prose.

I am still working, but I have no real interest in my career. I have given up any hope of writing literature, or patching things up with Carla. I am not even going to the stadium very often. But I guess I can take some consolation in Richard.

On the phone Carla had mentioned that Richard wanted to attempt to be the youngest person ever to sail solo and unassisted around the world. At the time I thought this was utterly crazy. He is 15 and has only being sailing for the last few years.

But yesterday Richard sent me an email. He explained what he was doing and why. After reading his message I completely changed my mind. His plan is excellent and I am very proud of him.

## * * * * *

## Muscogee

"Open the door! "

The squad slowly made its way inside the fort. Sgt O'Hara wiped sweat from his forehead and dismounted from his horse. He was a heavy man and tired by the physical exercise. He gave orders to his soldiers, shouting more than necessary. They had not been on a dangerous mission, on the contrary, they had just returned with a cart full of timber. Their mission was just to chop down some trees by the river.

Dusty, the mascot of the fort, was barking to welcome them back. Fort Woodstock was at the frontier of the territories of the white men, near the Mississippi river. This was Muscogee territory and every time a soldier ventured away from the fort, even just to get some wood, it was with some trepidation.

Captain Smith was in his office. He was quite young to be a Captain, certainly very young to be in charge in a place like fort Woodstock. His round baby face did not help. He had been sent West after speaking out against the Indian removal policy of President Andrew Jackson. The Indian Removal Act, part of a United States government policy of removal, had just been signed into law.

In a way Captain Smith was glad to move away from his native Georgia, where laws had been passed abolishing the authority of the Cherokee and extending state law over their territory. They were going to have to move away from their land, and it would not be a happy trail.

Captain Smith's assignment was as remote as any, and the soldiers here had not been chosen for combat. Here he would learn a lesson about having to survive amongst the Indians that he seemed to like so much. He would also learn how to manage some individuals who had joined the army perhaps as a break from past mistakes. A few of the younger ones probably had joined only because they did not know any better.

Sgt O'Hara entered the office without knocking. He was old enough to be the father of Captain Smith and found it difficult to forget that. He had his hat in his hands and reported simply about the mission he had just carried out.

"Thank you, Sergeant. Please sit down, there is something I would like to discuss with you "

Sgt O'Hara would have rather gone looking for a drink and some shade but he followed his Captain's orders.

"You know we have made contact with the Muscogee, especially with Chief Opothleyahola's tribe on the hill. We have a good relationship with them at the moment "

Indeed that was the case. The Indian tribe nearest the fort had not being hostile. Chief Opothleyahola was known as a very old and very wise leader.

"What we are going to do this afternoon, you and me, is to ride up to the Indian camp, and ask a meeting with Chief Opothleyahola "

"Well, sir, it would not have been my first choice of how to spend an afternoon, but if those are the orders "

"Yes, we can learn from them, you see, they have been living in this region for much longer than us "

"What exactly are we going to ask, sir? "

"Well, we can ask how cold the winter will be. You have just brought back a cart of timber, but that may or may not be enough to warm us in the winter "

That was not a bad idea. It was good down-to-earth common sense and Sgt O'Hara braced himself for a trip to the Muscogee camp.

When they arrived, children were the first to surround them, very curious and rather noisy. They liked the horses, and their bridles, and everything that the white men had that was different from what they were used to.

They asked for someone who could speak a few words of English, and a girl with long black plaits came bouncing towards them. Like the other children she seemed to have no fear. Indeed she smiled and when she started speaking that was a real surprise to the two men.

"Wellcome! You must have come from the fort, fort Woodstock, down by the blue creek. Nice place to build a fort! And so close to us, you must send up here your Chief, I mean Commander, as soon as possible. And of course Chief Opothleyahola wants to see you as well. Please would you like to leave your horses and we can find someone to take care of them ... "

She carried on talking, repeated her welcome and arranged for some older child to look after the horses. She actually spoke for a good ten minutes before Captain Smith managed to say a word himself. This girl was more articulate than most of his men. Where did she come from?

"Oh yes, I can explain that of course. You see, I like to think of myself as a Muscogee now, but my parents were settlers. We had a farm, which burned down, and my uncle was kind but life was hard. I learned to read and write, a bit, from a missionary, but he was not a nice man. I had to kick him hard one day, I'm sure you understand what I mean. A girl has to be able to kick hard sometimes. Anyway, that was a while ago, so then I ran away and my uncle did speak to the Indians so I knew some of them. Well, I'm not really explaining this very well, am I? "

Most of the time when this strange girl was speaking she was actually looking at Sgt O'Hara, probably because he was the older of the two. Captain Smith felt a need to reassert his authority, cleared his throat and explained that he was in charge of fort Woodstock and that he would like very much if a meeting could be arranged with Chief Opothleyahola.

As they walked, the girl never stopped talking. Her name was hard to pronounce and meant something like Dormouse, although her original name was Anne.

"But, oh please if you want to call me Anne can you please say Anna with an 'a' at the end? It just sounds so much more interesting. Anne is just the name for a little girl! "

The Chief was sitting on a blanket, on top of a large rock, and the location provided a wonderful view of the whole green valley, with the small river running along it. He was very still, and made no sign of acknowledging the arrival of the soldiers.

The Captain had prepared a carefully crafted speech. He felt rather silly in reciting it here, with a Chief that never turned towards him, or even gave any sign of being alive, except for smoking his pipe. The Captain was also rather annoyed by the fact that many of the children, including Anne/Anna, had stopped only a few steps away and could clearly hear the whole conversation. Anyway, was it really the case that Chief Opothleyahola could understand and speak English?

When the Captain arrived at the end of his prepared speech, the old man looked at his guests and said.

"Welcome "

Maybe that was the chance to actually start a conversation, so the Captain asked about the weather. It was a simple, straightforward question, how cold was the winter going to be?

The old man took the pipe from his mouth, turned again towards the valley and said.

"This winter cold "

The two men arrived back to the fort under a hot sun. Dusty barked to welcome them back. Captain Smith simply asked Sgt O'Hara to go out with his squad to get another cart of timber, which he did.

The Captain used the night to mull over the strange visit to the Indian camp. He was intrigued. He decided that he would go back again. Sgt O'Hara was unsure whether the decision had more to do with the young chatty girl than with any need to work on the diplomatic relations with the Muscogee.

Much of the second visit went the same way as the first. There was no sign of hostility but the Chief was still sitting on the same rock. He produced few words, and when asked again whether this was going to be a very cold winter he said.

"This winter cold, cold "

The soldiers picked up more information from Anne/Anna, who again produced very long speeches about everything. She seemed to believe that this was the most wonderful valley and that people could live here in peace and there was plenty of land and plenty of fish in the river for everybody.

At first sight they had perceived her as a young girl, but maybe she was a bit older than that. Maybe the long plaits and her short stature made her look younger than she was. Even so, she could hardly be more than twenty.

When Captain Smith and Sgt O'Hara arrived back to the fort, Dusty barked for them because that was what he always did. Captain Smith asked Sgt O'Hara to take his squad and get another cart of timber. They could stack the logs against the north wall. There was plenty of space.

The next morning, Sgt O'Hara could hardly believe his ears when he heard that the Captain planned another visit to the Muscogee camp.

This time the Captain made clear that he was asking about the winter because they wanted to be prepared. Would this be an unusually cold winter?

The Chief seemed to ponder on this.

"This winter cold, cold, ... cold "

Dusty barked for them when they arrived back. You could always count on him. Sgt O'Hara knew, even before receiving the order, that he would have to go out again, cut down more trees and collect more wood.

The next day it was still warm and sunny. The Autumn was late and soldiers were sweating in their uniforms. Stg O'Hara had his horse ready. Somehow he knew that the Captain would head back to he hill.

"I was thinking, perhaps we should bring some present with us "

The Captain had this habit of consulting with him on things. O'Hara was pleased by that, although he had to be careful not to forget that he was just a Sergeant, even if he was older and more experienced than Captain Smith.

"Yes, sir. Did you have something in mind in particular? I understand that Cook may be able to find some whisky ... "

"Well, no, well, I don't think she, I mean, the Indians would be interested in alcohol. I was thinking of something, I don't know, pretty "

Sgt O'Hara raised an eyebrow, he had no idea what to say to that. In the end it was agreed to bring a skillet and two tins of beans, which would certainly be appreciated and could be used for cooking to be benefit, of course, of the whole tribe.

Chief Opothleyahola was old, and he liked to spend time on his blanket in the sun, with a great view of the valley. He listed politely to the Captain's small talk. Then the conversation turned again to the winter. Was this going to be really such a terrible winter?

"Yeah "

At this point Sgt O'Hara coughed and dared to ask a question himself.

"Sir, with all respect, could I ask how do you know? I mean, how can you tell that the winter will be very cold? "

Captain Smith was not sure that this was a polite question. After all, keeping in good terms with Chief Opothleyahola and the Muscogee was more important than knowing about the coming winter.

As usual Chief Opothleyahola made the soldiers wait for an answer. Then he took his pipe from his mouth and pointed it towards the river.

"People down in valley. I see they cut down many trees "

## * * * * *

## Aliens

You were driving home that day. It was the familiar road, and the driving was that kind of automatic behaviour that does not require your mind to be present in the vicinity of your body. But something was about to happen.

The violet cone of light came from above. Everything happened very fast. And then the car was not there any longer, and you felt as if you were moving upwards. You had never heard those sounds and seen those colours before.

You were now in a large round space, but the light was so bright that you could not quite make out what else was around you. The green people who walked up to you were not very tall, but had large round eyes in a large round head. If you had seen them in a movie they would not have been very scary at all. But this was not a movie.

There were three of them. The one in the middle was the first to speak.

"Do not be afraid, we do not intend to harm you "

The one on the right immediately added.

"Can you understand us? Is this your local language? "

The one in the middle turned towards the one on the right, and possibly produced a sigh, as if to express disapproval at the intervention. Perhaps he was the leader. He certainly seemed to have the largest head.

You ran your hand though your hair, rubbed your eyes, and checked behind you. Was this a dream? Could you really have been abducted by small green aliens? You did not say anything. The situation was beyond what the human mind is able to comprehend.

They took you to a room in which you were left for what seemed like a long time. It was a bit like a room in a very modern hotel. There was something white and rectangular that was clearly a bed. That was worrying because it meant that they meant to keep you.

One of the green men came back at one point. He asked permission to enter the room but did not wait for an answer.

"My name is A12, or at least that is what you can call me. You see, there are many differences between our peoples. Our language has some sounds that you would find difficult to produce "

He was not the one with the largest head, though his was still larger than the head of a human. There was something in his voice that sounded eager, maybe he was the same one who had asked about the language.

You also realised that the aliens did not have hands. They wore loose garments and it was possible that they liked to keep their arms tucked inside, but there was no sign of any sleeves. You were reminded of a black and white Japanese movie you had seen many years ago. The samurai used to pull their arms inside their robe.

What made you think that perhaps they really did not have hands was the fact that A12 had opened the door with his foot.

"Who are you? "

He seemed very pleased to have been asked a question.

"It may not surprise you to learn that we come from a distant planet, a planet from another solar system. We come in peace. "

"Are you saying that we are on a spaceship that landed on Earth? "

"No, that would not be correct. It would be dangerous to land on a densely populated planet. We are on a spaceship that is orbiting Earth "

"Ok, listen, I do not believe you "

You had decided that the best defence was the attack. You would deny that any of this was true. It was a hopeless attack, like a soldier jumping up and shouting to the enemy line that he was really at home, that there was no trench, and that his mum had probably got his breakfast ready downstairs and he could smell the coffee.

"That's ok, really, we are not asking you to believe us "

The alien had again that strange look of a person trying very hard to be accommodating, except contained within a round green face.

"Indeed if you feel like shouting and kicking the furniture, that's also ok. The materials are flexible so as to ensure that no serious physical damage to your body would ensue "

"But this cannot be happening. Why green? "

"You are starting to use reason to deal with the situation. This is remarkable. A74 will have to accept that he was wrong. I will go and tell him at once "

Halfway to the door the alien turned around and added.

"If I can excuse myself of course. I will be back shortly. Thank you. "

A74 was probably the name of the leader. How many more small green aliens were on the ship? And how many more humans had been abducted?

Over the following visits you came to recognise A12 (very round eyes, soft voice, trying to be helpful), A13 (slightly podgy, moving slower and speaking also slower than the others, unclear attitude) and A74 (usually taking the position in the middle, bigger head, did not like to be interrupted although he often was).

You tried to challenge them again.

"This is just like in a cheap horror movie, the light and the small green aliens, so it cannot be true, it is a joke "

"Do you also like stories with dragons? " asked A13 (or was it another slightly chubby alien?)

"What about dragons? "

"Stories about dragons were popular on your planet before dinosaurs' bones were discovered. Dragons are big, scaly reptiles. So are dinosaurs. Except that strictly speaking they are not reptiles. But the point is this: if you had discovered the skeleton of a dinosaur would you have claimed that it was a joke just because it was too much like a dragon? "

These aliens were strange. They seemed retired scholars who liked to discuss hypothetical situations and show off how smart they were. You could even see the little smile curling up on the right side of their mouth. On the other hand, just like most intellectuals, they did not seem likely to turn violent.

At one point, when only A12 was in the room, you asked him what they really wanted from you.

"We want to understand humans. As a superior people we want to see if we can do something for you "

"Are you really that superior? Why did you leave your planet? "

"Oh, but exploring the galaxy is the highest endeavour. I suspect you would like to do that as well. In fact we know that you often watch programs on television just about that. "

Again that little smile, then A12 took his small arm out of his robe (they did have arms after all) and with an effort separated the three fingers on the left from the three on the right. This was really beyond a joke, but he actually raised his hand and said.

"Live long and prosper! "

He looked very pleased with his own display of knowledge of human popular culture.

"Ok, so you know a lot about us. And what about you guys? Why do you use your feet all the time to do things instead of your hands? "

"That is an interesting question. We did wonder why you used your feet so little, apart from walking of course "

"Feet are for walking, not for opening doors or passing objects to each other's, as you do. I mean there are animals that do things with the beak, or the trunk, like an elephant, and monkeys use their feet for climbing, but if you are not on a tree, it just seems strange "

"But the floor is very flat, why lift something when it can be moved towards someone else with a foot? That would be a waste of effort "

Maybe a couple of days had passed. You were not sure, but you did use the bed to sleep twice because you were tired. With regards to food you had also enjoyed a nice selection of dishes. They were clearly trying to treat you as a guest rather than as a hostage.

"How superior is your technology? "

"You can easily guess that interstellar travel has been achieved. As you are not an engineer I will not try to explain the details, and you could not understand them anyway. But we like to think that the progress we are most proud is about politics, not technology "

This rather arrogant response was from A74.

"Really? "

"Indeed. But you are doing ok, you have got to what our astrosociologists call the "one alien one vote" stage. Not everywhere on Earth of course, but the key is that there are few earthlings who argue against this concept "

"Are there many more stages? "

"There are 16 more steps to get to our level. But we are not so presumptuous as to exclude that we may find planets with cultures superior to our own. In the case of Earth the next step is called "one alien one voice", because it is pointless to have a vote if the control over the flow of information is not shared equally "

"But how do you give everybody equal control on the flow of information? "

"I think your answer simply proves that you have not reached that stage yet. Don't worry, it is logical that things have to progress in stages and sometimes each stage takes many generations, with a few steps back before a step forward "

You did not like to talk to A74. The patronising tone was only part of it. He also seemed to be doing things as if it was a job, with no real interest in the aliens that they had captured. That could not be said for A12.

You started to eat together with A12. He watched carefully how you were eating the different food, and was amazed at your skill with a fork and a plate of spaghetti. A12 tried to copy you, but his small hand seemed incapable of turning the fork with the right speed and precision.

"Tell me about your planet " You asked

"Well, the main difference with Earth is that most of the surface is flat and smooth. Rocks on our planet have a different chemistry and even the weather is fundamentally different, and so we can enjoy very large flat plateaux. Many plants have adapted to this and have a rootless system; they roll gently on top of the surface. This is true even of many animals. "

"Ah, that is why you have this habit of kicking things! "

"That's correct, sorry if I did not explain this earlier. We can move things and in the past even went hunting by kicking objects on our planet "

You stopped with your mouth full of spaghetti. You just had an insight, or maybe just a thought.

"It seems to me that you feel responsible for how things work on Earth "

"Indeed, we do want to help "

"But I have a suspicion about why. If I try to guess will you tell me whether I am right or wrong? "

A12 was slightly taken aback and did not reply. You counted on the fact that he was the kind of individual who cannot easily dissemble.

"We are related, are we not? We are too similar to have evolved completely independently on far away solar systems. Apart from the fact that you are green you could belong to a species of monkeys who walk on two legs. "

"Well, not necessarily, I mean, the probabilities depend on many factors "

"Yes, but we are related. Indeed you visited this planet millions of years ago and all life on Earth has been contaminated to some degree by your species "

"That is not technically correct "

"I know, I am not using the right words, but the general idea is correct. And you probably have visited Earth at other times. That is why the image of small green aliens with big heads is part of our popular culture. "

A12 sighed, lowered his shoulders and said.

"A74 will not be pleased by the fact that you have surmised so much. How did you do it? "

"Football "

His expression oscillated between puzzled and worried. He had no idea of what to make of your words.

"Ok, follow me. My planet, Earth, is full of valleys, rocks, tall grass, bushes, and irregularly shaped spiky things, like sticks and stuff like that. "

"Yes, I am familiar with the landscape, I have been observing Earth for months "

"Ok, as a consequence we have hands to climb trees and lift objects, and we have feet to walk. Some animals walk on two and some on four, but they cannot simply roll on the surface because it is too irregular. And yet, from the time a human boy can stand on his feet, before he can speak, he enjoys kicking objects more than anything else. How can football trigger such instinctive response given the planet on which we have evolved? A tendency to kick cannot have evolved in prehistoric times, because if a human had a tendency for kicking things like rocks or branches he would have only hurt himself! It would be crazy to kick a stone. The deep propensity for kicking a ball in the human species must come from you! "

The aliens had to accept that your speculation was mostly correct. After that they had to be a bit more open with you, and you managed to see many images and movies of their home planet. Or should you say "your" home planet?

After another couple of days you were told that you could go back home.

"But I will let everybody know that you are here? Do you want to have contact with human authorities? "

All of them reacted to the term "authorities" as if I had said something silly. Probably they did not value our institutions very highly.

"We are about to return to our planet. This is the end of this mission. Feel free to tell your story to whomever you like. I think they will enjoy your description of "small green aliens" "

They were making fun of you. Not with malice, but they were making fun of the fact that nobody would have believed you and you had no proof of what had happened.

"So you come here to study us. You talk to a few humans, and then you go home. You do not interfere directly and you have nothing to steal from Earth "

"Well " said A74, but he was too slow, A12 completed his sentence for him.

"We do have things to learn from you. We will bring something home "

"And what is that? "

"Football, a most entertaining little game "

## * * * * *

## The Donkey

He leaned on his spade. The sun was high in the sky and there was not much point in being out here at this hour. But this was his small bit of land on which he lived, and things were not going well.

Stella was standing under the old tree. It was a magnificent exemplar of olive tree and provided good shade in the summer, even though olive trees are not known for their shade.

The price of most vegetables was very low. People were buying cheap tinned food imported from the mainland. The local farmers did not understand how it was possible to produce food so cheap, something about mass production and subsidies, whatever that was.

He did not want to leave, as so many other people had done. You could see farms on the far side of the valley that had been abandoned. The dirt road leading up to the houses was almost hidden already in the long grass.

He had to look after his wife, whose arthritis was getting worse. That was one reason he did not see leaving the farm as an option. Neither of them were young, and this was their farm, their home.

Stella was the only animal left. He used to keep sheep, and a good number of hens in the fenced area behind the house. His wife used to be really keen on hens and used to bake fabulous cakes with the eggs.

Now he needed to get rid of Stella as well. She was not useful for anything. The point of having a donkey was to take produce to the market. To carry things. But there was little left to carry.

And Stella was very old. The farmer had even taken her to the soap factory. He had not told his wife about that of course. But they said that there were plenty of dead and dying animals around at the moment and they did not need to buy an old donkey.

Stella had always spent the night under the big olive tree, and most of the day as well. It would have been strange to come out one day and not see her there. She had been a good servant. But there really was no point in keeping her any longer. And there was no point in having a well either.

The large well was another feature of the landscape that made the place immediately recognisable. But there was no water left in it. This was probably as a consequence of the new course of the river. The water had been redirected to a new reservoir, situated in the next valley. The whole system of underground water had been affected.

It was probably because he had not brought out water for Stella that day that the accident happened. The donkey must have ventured too close to the well and had fallen in it. When the old farmer looked down he could see that she was still alive.

Maybe that is what was meant to happen, he thought. I will get rid of my donkey and of my well in one go. He started to work with his spade. As he was throwing soil down the well he carefully did not look in that direction. There were tears in his eyes, and one started running down his cheek.

He was a strong man and a patient worker. He kept the rhythm of his spade. That was going to be a tomb for his old donkey instead of a well. He hoped his wife would not come out of the house and stop him, now that he had decided on this course of action.

It was much later that he turned around to look at the result of his work. The sun had already moved down towards the horizon and the light was beginning to fade. The large well had been completely filled with earth. And on top of the fresh earth was Stella.

As each new spadeful had fallen on the back of the donkey, she had shaken it down. Slowly the level of the well had risen and with it also the donkey.

The old farmer ran to embrace the animal and cried like a child. If a donkey could shake away what was falling on her with such composure, then he would try as well to face whatever life was going to throw at him.

He hugged the animal and kissed her on the forehead several times. She was surprised by the behaviour of her master, although pleased with all the attention and the display of affection. Then the old farmer went into the house to kiss his wife. She also was shocked by this unexpected expansiveness, although pleased as well.

"We must get some chicken!"

"But Ezekiel, you know that there is no point, nobody wants to buy our eggs "

"Well then, since we can't afford to buy white bread any more, let us eat pancakes every morning! "

## * * * * *

## The car

I had seen cars a few times. Not in the village where the roads were too narrow, but down near the bridge, or in town. We were all familiar with the lorries and the motorbikes of the army, the grey and noisy machinery of the war. But the war was over and a few men in town were doing well for themselves and had new tall cars.

I liked the sight of the cars. Not the fast ones that were streaming away along the main road. I liked the elegant family cars that moved neatly among the houses and slowly around the bends. I liked in particular the shiny metal of the exterior soon after it had been washed and waxed.

Mister Mastropietro was in his early forties, and he owned one of the building companies that were busy reshaping the town. His car had four doors; it was black with chrome handles and two large headlights sticking up like the eyes of a frog. But the large radiator was even more impressive than the headlights. It was shaped like a large shield with vertical slits, pointy at the bottom and straight at the top.

"Mrs Tasso, is your husband at home? "

My mother came to the long balcony to see Master Mastropietro looking up to her from the courtyard. She was drying her hands on her apron while at the same time balancing little Elvira on one hip.

"No, I am sorry, he is not here. He is in the fields, up in Basso Velo. He will be back for dinner "

She would have liked to add: "what is it that you want from him", but she hesitated.

"I see. I can go and see him there then, if that's all right with you. Only I do not know the way to Basso Velo "

He was being very polite; my mother wondered whether he might have come to offer my father a job. Except that my father was a poor farmer, not a builder.

She called me and told me to hurry downstairs.

Master Mastropietro walked with me to his car, parked down the road where the houses were not so closely built and the road was wider.

He opened the door for me and I sat at the front, next to the driver's seat. I was slim and wiry for a 9 year old, but I was tall enough to see clearly out of the front window.

I enjoyed the ride immensely. I could see that we were going fast, and it seemed even faster given that the road was forcing its way amongst boulders and streams, up along a path that had never being intended for cars. Yet the wide flat windscreen meant that we were protected and I could not feel the wind on my face.

Federico, a classmate of mine that lived in the red house at the higher end of the village, ran alongside the car for a while and I waved at him. He did not seem to struggle much to keep up with us, so probably we were not going fast after all.

I spoke continuously, because I was shy. I described to Master Mastropietro every landmark and told him the distance between them, and I even told him that I had once come up here on the back of a cart pulled by an ox.

When we arrived my father sent me to check on the cherry tree. I did not find many ripe cherries, it was too early in the season, but I understood that the men had to discuss important business. I climbed the tree as I had done many times before and looked down towards the village.

The reason it was easy to climb the tree was that my father had build a shed just underneath. It was a beautiful shed, because my father did not do things without precision and care. People in the village had noticed how good he was at building things and that was the reason for Mastropietro's visit, though I only learned that much later.

After a while my father shook Master Mastropietro's hand. He left in his car without even saying goodbye to me or asking whether I needed a ride back. I am sure he did not mean to be unkind, he simply had other more important things in his mind. Children in those days belonged to the background.

My father finished the work on the stonewall that he had started that morning. The field did not belong to him, he was just a tenant, but even I could see that his field were tidier and better kept that many others.

The wall was made by choosing one stone at the time so that they would fit together tightly. After placing each new white brick my father would push and wriggle it to see if it was stable. Later in the summer the small gaps would have been home for lots of green and grey lizards.

An hour later we walked back together. My father was not a man of many words, and to be quite honest I feared him because he expected discipline and respect from his children. My sister Maria, a few years older than me, had got in trouble just the week before for coming home a whole hour after the Sunday mass had finished.

But that afternoon the sun was shining and my father smiled at me. He was clearly in a good mood. I was in a good mood as well. I had been in a car.

"Come on little one, I will carry you down to dinner on my shoulders! "

## * * * * *

## One sentence notes

**The journey** : The first short story I wrote in English, and kind of liked.

**P1881** : This is the last chapter of Pinocchio (published in 1881), in space.

**Love** : There is a large literature on how physiological signals get integrated into cognitive schemata.

**Dunbar's number** : Such number is named after Robin Dunbar.

**Backwards** : It is not poisonous to eat row potatoes, despite what many people believe, unless they have been exposed to light.

**Friend** : This story is based on something I heard on the radio.

**Summer Holiday** : I really do not know her name, and never will.

**Bianca** : Snow White meets Raymond Chandler.

**Zen** : The story is based on a traditional Zen story.

**Old and young** : The story is based on a song by Francesco Guccini.

**Puffin Bay** : Popular culture abounds with stories about oppressive governments, and it probably should refocus on the more subtle role of the media.

**Who am I** : This is just meant to be something fun.

**The unicorn** : A few names are loosely based on the Lord of the Ring.

**The gift** : The idea came from reading a novel by Walter Moers.

**Muscagee** : This is just a long joke.

**Aliens** : It makes sense, doesn't it?

**The donkey** : Many versions of this story exist around the internet.

**The car** : This is something I heard from my mother.

## * * * * *

## NOTE TO THE READER:

## This is a collection of short stories available on Smashwords.com

<http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/MarcoBertamini>

