Monsters

by Peter Cawdron

  “It's nothing.”

  “Oh, no you don't. I know the wheels are turning inside that little head of yours. What are you thinking?”

  Bruce laughed. “Seriously, it's nothing.”

  “It's something now,” Jane protested, her good hand resting on her hip.

  “It's silly,” he said. “Your smile. I really like your smile.”

  She laughed.

  “And your laugh.”

  “OK, Bruce Alexander Dobson. Why did you come here? Why did you bring me flowers?”

  Bruce raised his eyebrows. She'd done some homework on him. He wondered what else she knew about him, not that there was anything to hide. In some ways, it was quite flattering to hear her say his whole, formal name aloud. Bruce swallowed the lump in his throat and figured now was the time to be blunt, just like her.

  “I came here because I'd like you to teach me to read.”

  She paused, only for a split second but it was long enough for Bruce to see her mind running, weighing his request, wanting to understand his motives. She had to be thinking about denying being a reader, but as the moment lingered, it became harder and harder to deny. To lie, you had to be quick, and he knew that better than most. She'd been caught off guard, she wasn't quick enough.

  She stuttered in defense. “I—I.”

  As one second stretched into two, he could see the anguish on her face, the sense of being trapped. It was too late to deny it. For better or for worse, she'd have to come clean with him and he knew it before the words left her lips.

  “How did you know?” she blurted out.

  “I knew," he replied, “because you're so confident in what you know.”

  “Who have you told?”

  “No one,” Bruce replied, raising his hands in his defense. “I haven't told anyone, and I won't tell anyone.”

  “How did you,” she stopped mid-sentence, and he understood this was scary for her.

  She looked at him with suspicion, as though she were trying to figure out whether he had an agenda, whether he was fronting for someone else.

  “I guessed. You... You were so assertive at the tollgate. You knew about rabies. You knew what to do. I figured the only way you could be so confident was from reading.”

  Jane pulled up a chair, sitting down at the table, her hands just inches from his. Her visage changed, her smile dropped.

  “This is bad. This is very bad. I've been too careless—reckless. You cannot tell anyone,” she pleaded. “Men are scared of women who read.”

  Bruce reached out and held her hand, saying, “Not all men.”

  Her fingers were warm, soft to touch. He should have let go, but he couldn't. Somehow, by reaching out, he'd broken through an unspoken taboo.

  He ran his fingers up over her hand wanting to reassure her of his intentions. She breathed deeply as his hand ran around her wrist. Her skin felt as soft as fine silk. She flinched, and he could feel her sense of hesitancy. Jane clearly wanted to pull away, and yet she did not want to let go of the moment. He could see it was too much for her, too soon, so he pulled back, saving her from a decision either way.

  Jane laughed, relieving the tension.

  “Why now?” she asked. Her eyes cast upwards looking at the roof. She wasn't talking to him. He wasn't sure who she was talking to and figured she was speaking metaphorically. “After all these years, I finally find someone that wants to learn, and yet I probably only have weeks to live. Why now? Why not five years ago?”

  She looked him in the eye, as though she were trying to read his very soul. “You want to read? Do you know what you're asking? Do you understand the burden you're taking on?”

  “I want what you have,” he replied.

  Jane breathed deeply in response to his comment. She ran her good hand through her hair, ruffling it as she thought for a moment.

  “I'm dead anyway,” she said with a sigh.

  “You'll survive,” Bruce said.

  “Now, look who's full of confidence? Lesson number one: when it comes to knowledge, there are two kinds of confidence. The confidence that comes from understanding, and a fool's confidence, the bliss that comes from ignorance.”

  “But you will survive,” Bruce said. “I'm sure of it. I can feel it.”

  “I appreciate your sentiment, really I do, but lesson number two: your feelings are irrelevant. This cold world cares not for what you believe, for what you think, or for what you feel. There's no magic, no wishful thinking, no earnest desire that can bend nature to your will.

  “You want to learn to read? OK, I will teach you to read. In the days I have left, I will instruct you, but I warn you, with every privilege comes a burden. It will take you years to learn to read properly.

  “Reading is far more than picking words off a page. It is to breathe in another's soul, to walk in their shoes. When you read, you lose yourself and inhabit another's life, the life of one that went before you on this Earth.”

  “Sounds fascinating,” Bruce replied. “When do we begin?”

  “Hold on, cowboy. It's not that easy. This isn't something you can pick up in an afternoon. At first, you'll struggle. For months if not years. You'll wonder if it's worth it. You'll lose patience. You'll lose interest. You'll think it's not worth the danger of being caught by the villagers, but if you push your mind, drive it hard like a plow horse breaking the frozen ground in spring, then you'll learn what it really means to be a reader.”

  She paused before continuing, looking deep into his eyes and he felt as though she could read his very soul.

  “This isn't a game. This isn't some curiosity or hobby. To read is to understand the mind of the past. To read is to open your mind to another. For all your life there has only been one, there have only been your thoughts, your will, your reason, but all that will change.

  “When you read, it is more than simply looking at words on a page and knowing their meaning. To read is to see inside the heart of another human being, to hear their thoughts inside your own head, to think as they thought, to see the world through their eyes.

  “There was a time when everyone could read. Well, not everyone in the whole world, but at least here in America, and yet even that was short lived, just a few hundred years.

  “For most of history, there were just a handful of people that could read in any generation. And those that could read often abused that power, manipulating others. History abounds with those brave souls that stood up to this abuse: Socrates fought the Senate, Christ fought the Scribes, Luther fought the Pope.”

  Socrates, Christ, Luther—Bruce knew these names. He'd heard them talked of in legend, sung of in nursery rhymes, but he'd never met anyone who actually knew something about their lives. He was electrified to think of all Jane could teach him.

  “Make no mistake,” she continued. “Words are powerful, they drive agendas. Words mold people. A handful of words can bring about more change than all the years of a man's life. Words have the power to bind or to set free. Here in America, slaves were lashed for reading. Books were banned or worse, burned, such was the fear of what could be wrought by the written word. Who would have thought such scribble, the dark marks of type on white paper could stir the soul, rouse the slumbering masses to action?

  “Nations have fallen to the power of words. Do not be deceived, words cast a spell far greater than any conjurer could ever imagine. Their magic lies not in the supernatural, not in some mystical power, but in moving the hearts and minds of men. Knowledge is alchemy, turning lead into gold, turning letters into words, words into concepts, ideas into power.

  “Reading is both a blessing and a curse. Once this door is open, it cannot be closed. Once you know, you cannot forget. Oh, you may try, but once you have drunk from the well of knowledge, there is no turning back. Once awake, you can never sleep again.”

  “I'm not afraid,” Bruce said, holding his gaze on her eyes.

  “Ah,” she said, laughing. “You should be. These peasants, they have no idea. They hid
e behind their superstitions. Just a few years ago they killed poor Helena because she could read, thinking she could conjure up some dark curse. If only they knew the curse they already bear, the curse that befell this world from outer space, the curse that humbled the strong and the mighty, the curse that turned their cities into a wilderness.”

  “Who was Helena?” asked Bruce, sensing Jane's comments about her were more than factual.

  Jane wiped a tear from her eye. “Helena was my friend. She taught me to read.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “Don't be. Helena lived a thousand lives. Helena soared among the planets, she climbed the highest mountains, descended into the depths of the ocean. She traveled back in time. Helena sat at the feet of Aristotle. She watched as Rome fell. She saw the wars of men devastate this world time and again, but through it all, words survived. For Helena, though, there was no greater treasure than the dawn of reason, the rise of science. She spoke with Newton, struggled with Einstein, watched as Darwin sailed the Galapagos.”

  “And as they burned her at the stake, after torturing her for days on end, she spoke no ill of them. She bowed her head, refusing to cry out in anguish. Hers was a life like no other I've known.”

  Jane paused, and Bruce could see she was lost in thought, reliving her emotions in that moment. Tears ran down her cheeks.

  “Will you teach me to read like that?” he asked softly.

  “I will teach you,” she said. “Even if I have only days left to live, I will pass on what I can. I will teach you for Helena's sake, because that is the way of readers.”

  Chapter 02: Library

  Bruce approached the crossroads beyond the village as the dark of night gave way to the first hint of the coming day. A faint orange glow sat on the horizon. At first, he thought Jane hadn't come, but she was there, dressed as a man. In the low light, he didn't recognize her until she came up to him and spoke in a harsh whisper.

  “You're late.”

  Bruce was taken aback by her appearance. Somewhat surprised, he didn’t say anything in reply. He followed Jane, fascinated to see her wearing a baggy shirt and farming trousers. Her hair was bundled up beneath a broad-rim hat. He was walking his horse, just as she had recommended, and had to hurry to keep pace with her as she marched off along the southern track. Although he doubted anyone would overhear them in the dark forest, he whispered in reply.

  “Where are we going?”

  A fine mist hanging in the cool air as they spoke.

  “It's called a library,” she said, signaling with her hand for quiet as they marched along the path. “Once we clear the borders we can mount up, until then it would attract too much attention.”

  Jane wasn’t taking any chances. They walked in silence as the sky lit up in blood red hues, slowly softening as the sun crept over the horizon. Birds called in the breaking dawn, which was a good sign as birds tended to be quiet when some large beast lurked nearby.

  After an hour, they reached the old raised highway with its slabs of concrete slowly separating with each winter. The slabs had once been continuous, with just the narrowest of gaps between them, but over the decades the ground had shifted, moving the slabs on various angles, allowing grasses to spring up between them. Occasionally, the rusted hulk of a car or truck sat to one side, or off in the ditch, a casual reminder of a long, lost world that seemed more of a fairy tale than a past reality.

  Bruce climbed up first, using a rope ladder to mount the huge horse. He reached down, helping Jane climb with her injured arm. She sat behind him with her arms resting gently on his hips. She didn't have to, the saddle was large enough for several people, with leather hand-holds spaced on either side, but he had no complaints.

  “There was a time,” she said, pausing for a second, distracting herself with some other thought and he wondered what she was going to say.

  “A time?” Bruce asked, curious about the past.

  “There was a time when horses were small enough to fit through a doorway.”

  “Really?” he replied, trying to get his head around the concept.

  “Our horses are closer to the elephants of old, both in terms of their size and their nature. They can gallop a few hundred yards, but once they would run for miles and miles.”

  “What’s an elephant?” asked Bruce, unsure what that creature was.

  “I'll show you some pictures. But they were big, lumbering beasts, with tusks like a wild boar, only their tusks extended out in a curve over ten feet long. They were like spears on either side of their heads. And they had a nose that was anywhere up to fifteen feet long. Imagine that, a nose with the dexterity of a hand, a trunk as thick as your leg that could pluck a single blade of grass. Elephants used their noses to pull on branches and pick fruit.”

  Bruce laughed. Such an animal was preposterous, unimaginable, like the fabled Griffin, the lion with eagle's wings.

  “Surely, you're making this up?” he said. “Next you'll be telling me that dragons are real, flying through the air and breathing fire.”

  “Oh, but they are. Or at least they were. They were called pterosaurs, and they lived hundreds of millions of years ago. There was one with a wingspan of 36 feet.”

  “So these things were bigger than a bat?”

  “Easily twice the size.”

  “And they breathed fire like a dragon?” asked Bruce, incredulous, looking up at the sky, trying to imagine a bird with such a broad wingspan.

  “Oh, no. Silly,” Jane replied. “But these were the real monsters, far more dangerous than anything we see today.”

  “Oh, I don't know about that. I once saw an eagle carry off a farmer. The poor man screamed, but there was nothing we could do for him. The monster took him up high, probably over a hundred feet in the air, and then just dropped him, watching him plummet to the ground. Then it swooped down and carried off the bloody mess that had once been alive. I've seen them do the same thing with goats. And I've heard of bats that have taken women and children in the still of night. Were pterosaurs as fierce?”

  “Probably,” Jane said. “But there were no humans around when pterosaurs flew the skies. They ate fish, I think. But I'm not sure.”

  “No humans?” Bruce asked. “How is that possible? Where were the humans?”

  “We didn't exist. We hadn't evolved yet,” Jane replied. “Back then, there were no birds, no horses, no men. I know it's hard to imagine, but science has shown us that all the life we see came from a few simple forms billions of years ago, slowly branching into different plants and animals.”

  Such a concept was mind boggling.

  Bruce said, “It's no wonder people are scared of you.”

  Jane laughed, saying, “And why is that?”

  “You speak of science, but it is as though you speak of witchcraft,” Bruce replied.

  “Oh, it's not witchcraft,” Jane said. “It's reality. The problem is, we're fooled by our own eyes.”

  “How so?” Bruce asked.

  “Ever see a full moon rising over the forest?” Jane asked. "Looks bigger than when it's high in the sky, right?"

  Bruce nodded.

  Jane said, “If you get a bit of stick and measure what you see at arm's length, you'll find the moon is always the same size, but our eyes fool us into thinking it's bigger.

  The villagers are scared of science, but science keeps us from being a fool.”

  “I'll have to try that,” Bruce replied, surprised by the notion.

  They rode on for a few minutes in silence as Bruce marveled at the realization that there had once been monsters even bigger than those they faced.

  “So if elephants were once as big as horses,” he asked. “How big are elephants now?”

  “I don't know,” Jane replied. “Elephants were around six tons in weight, but once there were dinosaurs, monsters over a hundred feet long, over a hundred tons in weight, so I guess elephants could be the monsters among monsters of our day.”

  “Where are they?” asked Bruc
e. “Why don't we see these elephants?”

  “They're native to a land across the sea. A continent called Africa.”

  “I'd like to go to Africa some day.”

  Jane laughed, saying, “It's over a thousand miles away across the ocean.”

  “We could build a boat.”

  “Sure. We could build a boat,” Jane said, still laughing.

  “No?” he asked.

  “No,” she replied. “It's just too far.”

  “But once, they could get there?”

  “Yes, once they could. But not now. Too much has changed. Too much has been lost. See these highways? Once they powered the nation, allowing metal carts to travel hundreds and hundreds of miles in a day. They called them cars. They had engines, powered by the decayed remnants of life from hundreds of millions of years ago.”

  “I'd heard that,” Bruce said. “But I thought it was a myth.”

  “Oh, it's no myth. As fantastic as it seems, it is our day that is the surprise, not theirs. It is our day that should have never happened. We should have continued on to new heights. We should not have been humbled by the elements.”

  “It all seems so fantastic, like a made-up story,” Bruce said, being honest. “I mean, it sounds like the fairy-tales my mother would tell me before I fell asleep.”

  Jane sat back, taking a sip of water from an old wineskin.

  “Oh, it's real all right,” she replied. “Reading will open new worlds for you, worlds that defy the imagination.”

  They rode along for hours, chatting idly as the miles passed, their brute horse shuffling on relentlessly. They stopped for a light lunch, allowing the horse to drink from a stream. Bruce was taken by Jane's confidence. He was sure other women were just as confident, but he'd never noticed this trait in anyone else before. They talked about their families and their backgrounds growing up, but Bruce didn't mention Jonathan's death. That wound was still raw.

  By late afternoon, they approached the outskirts of an abandoned city. Looking down into the valley, seeing the wreckage of the buildings in the distance, Bruce became nervous. Cities were dangerous, the haunt of monsters. It was ironic that the habitat of man should become the refuge of animals.