Attractor

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. It’s a notion found within many cultures possessing the necessary scientific awareness to comprehend it as a concept, albeit with inconsistent wording and to differing degrees of notoriety. It should seem an inherent certainty based on what can be readily perceived of the universe, barring one key discovery. The truth must be spread, the prior attempts at which will be examined in this broadcast, so that the next one much closer to home may be pursued.

The following passage has been translated, for which all nouns without equivalents have been replaced by exonyms for ease. The individual’s name was not determined during the neurobatim process. The species, dubbed ‘Doradoan’, were among those to experience the last fully-successful detonation as of the time of transmission.

~~~

Situated against a stretch of the Expansion Cap Perimeter, no-one of late had heard from 47, thus it was that I’d been selected as my colony’s latest yuux to that settlement. Unlike the rocky plains and commonplace ponds of Viong where our ancestors had initially defined themselves amongst the animal kingdom, a region forever loomed over by the volcano Behuiq-Phom, somewhere else I admit I’ve never been to myself, here the land had transitioned to hills of multicoloured foliage. Plants ranged from meagre to towering, surrounded by the sparce presence of greenish globules drifting in the air, a phenomenon found everywhere in the known world, this the ka that most life had adapted to avoid consuming, not that it was toxic but because it only got in the way. The terrain also lent itself to approaching the settlement from a specific direction, all positions funnelled to a point; my adherence to this environmental guidance was anticipated.

Ready to greet me at the tended slope into 47 was someone who’d opted to decorate the bristles at their waist and base of their trunk with fibres of rubbery bark, surely resulting in cyz standing out unless this was in fact the fashion in the area (it was not).

“So they send someone at last,” cy cheered without gusto, straightening cyzself up. “Welcome. I am Frerpt. Pleasure to meet you. You are?”

“How did you know I was coming?” I asked out of reasonable perplexity.

“For all that we may have shut ourselves off for the time being, this in itself was always going to draw attention. We’ve been taking it in turns to be on the lookout for the yuux that would eventually come to return us to the loop.”

“It can hardly be denied that we want to know what’s been happening.”

“Answers can wait until your act is done. You took the time to plan, rehearse and journey here I take it. We mustn’t let that be overshadowed.”

I appreciated the emphasis on my task, “Am I good to head to your forum?”

“No. That will have to come later.”

The rapid reversal of prompted expectations could have shaken a boulder loose.

As if nothing was amiss Frerpt pushed forward, “I assume you haven’t been to 47 before. Allow me to show you the guestrooms.”

Deciding I might be missing some local social customs, reinforcing the need for my presence, I followed cyp lead through the door of the nearest building.

With channels of water running down the corridor and into any adjacent rooms, the liquid’s glow providing illumination within all such domiciles, we strode along the wider dry paths in what I could soon tell was an inefficient route, taking us more along the edge of the settlement, not inwards towards where any spots of importance should be. There were indeed other ways to go off on the side every so often, but these each had sentries blocking the way. Even when we exited this first building it was to quickly enter another with the same characteristics. This had to be the long way around.

“I take it those lead more towards where things happen here,” I remarked of the guarded deviations.

“That’s not where you need to be.”

That’s all that was said on the matter.

My room itself was as you’d expect, with approximately-hemispherical dents moulded into the walls for seating, the pair of us wasting no time in leaning back into their comfort; Frerpt joining me in sitting acted to maintain the mood that we were equals in this situation. In orienting myself within the dent however I then spotted an extra feature of the space. Affixed to the opposite wall was an art piece, an unclear design comprised from the debris of nature.

“You’re part of a vital tradition,” Frerpt observed. “Entertain the population into unity of knowledge. What news are we sharing, how is our language changing? Obviously don’t tell me, the stage will be yours. Without the yuux how would we remain one over such an expansive territory?”

“It’d be worse if the ancestors had carried on spreading into what’s outside our limits.”

“Nature would have been worse for it too, more species disappearing or losing their routines.”

The dour hypothetical became forgotten as Frerpt noticed that the art was holding my eyeline.

“Cy must have ended up waiting longer than any of us for all the pieces cy wanted to fall available from their sources. Shame it didn’t turn out as good as cy’d imagined overall.”

With the same degree of conviction as it’s told that the Land’s Arches (reaching over the top of the sky at varying angles with shades of grey from wilds unknown in either direction) weren’t always there, rather there were once more pale suns which a forgotten number of generations ago saw shatter shortly before the Expansion Cap Perimeter’s creation, so too are there rumours about what marvels wait to be found if someone was to make it all the way up to the peak of any of them. What use are such tales though? The search for a foot of any of the Arches upon which to start climbing would take us far beyond said Expansion Cap Perimeter. With their nature forever over the horizon therefore, their only impact on our lives, besides the same manner in which the stars at night twinkle over us, comes when any of the greyish bands partially obscure the red sun on its travels, and it was during one such predictable time-regulating event that my first actual detour here began.

Another resident of 47, Rotchus, had come to guide me. As outwardly welcoming as Frerpt, cy nonetheless again led me on a route that to my foreign eye appeared needlessly indirect, in turn at the end of it bringing us to their Elze enclosure, something I saw no solid purpose in; every settlement has one. In fairness though, while yes we give Elze the premium treatment anyway (after all we feed them the ka we collect so that they excrete more of the material we build with, they the only species to do anything useful with ka not including the larvae that remove the stuff when any gets stuck in our bone-cages to moisturise their own segments with), this one took things a step further. With the enclosure’s walls rising high over all the other structures, their housing could afford to have an open top and other holes for sunlight in the upper stretches, being out of the reach of predators. This accommodates the inside, where their Elze are provided with twisting platforms of mabewc, a natural sponge which encourages climbing with its suction-like texture and which releases a pleasant smell every time it’s gripped into, the whole thing able to be reworked when desired. It’s a source for enrichment between the steps of farmed digestion that I haven’t seen anywhere else.

From one breed of animal to another (in a sense), once we were done observing the Elze I was swiftly moved into the care of Wilnisal, having me as the guest of honour accompany the party venturing out into the wilds. Further and further from the forum with each activity. I do hope my discontentment wasn’t misconstrued for ingratitude at being included, although on that note my wish to be elsewhere nevertheless persisted; it was a fact that I had a function to perform here and with every delay the dissonance in the Doradoan people could worsen.

At least I inherently wouldn’t be the only hunter out of sorts. Everyone present would have had to have been made to put aside activities they’re much more invested in to facilitate this process for biological needs. Another embodiment of that dynamic between priorities and instinct came in the form of the stretcher carried on the shoulders of a nearby duo, it ladened with the unused scraps of a body so that the wildlife might partake of them. Someone would now be developing embryos on the soft underside of their trunk, eventually to be deposited in a nest. With a jolt of shame I realised the sight made the retracted prongs on my trunk’s end tingle, like most folks I’d never siphoned the essence of a peer. I wasn’t even focusing on our route.

By the time night fell I still hadn’t been allowed to perform my role as yuux. Sat alone in the glow of the water pooled to one side of my floor, able to hear the faint sounds of my peers in further areas of the building, the unwelcome thought crossed my mind of what if by the time I did get asked to give my performance I had let the motions slip my mind. I’d been rehearsing it during my journey here, was it wise to stop now? But I couldn’t do anything where I might be seen or overheard, that would spoil the experience of the real thing. The wilds. That would do the trick.

That’s where I would hear it, brisk footfalls from a large animal originating past the next mound. Investigating, for this too could be an unwitting eavesdropper, what I found was not a Doradoan. With silvery skin, sporting small rectangles that couldn’t possibly serve the same function as the shell behind my own back, the creature was walking upright, I would soon discover at a height slightly taller than any of us, although not with the limbs that grew from its shoulders, those fell short at around the base of its torso, splaying at the end into what I would liken to arms, although an alternative term might be desired. Maybe ‘armlets’. There were no actual arms lower down for manipulating food though, not one let alone eight, no sign of a mouth at that torso’s base with its filter to prevent ka from getting in, no visible patches where food-waste-turned-corrosive-gel is secreted to help break up food to fit through that filter. In the style of other wildlife it instead had two more full-sized limbs growing down from the waist, I suppose they’d be its ‘legs’, they at least widening at the end like normal, the higher limbs their ‘arms’. As for at the other end, in the place of a trunk reaching down to where the mouth wasn’t, and without there being eyes atop stalks in their bone-cages on either side, was a lone substitute for a bone-cage, one that based on some glinting was solid all the way around even if the front portion was transparent. And where were the stomatnea? Without tiny orifices covering the torso how did they breathe or speak? Yet speech was possible.

“Non puoi andare!”

I should be clear that these words came from a second such silhouette, hurrying over to join the first, appearing much the same although with a different total number of armlets. They also definitely were words, not the grunts of wildlife, for all that these were singular (albeit complex) sounds rather than combinations of harmonies, meaning these were intelligent beings. How could I rationalise the existence of such fauna? They were something encroaching from beyond the Expansion Cap Perimeter.

“Hanno rifatto i calcoli relativistici. Non abbiamo tutto il tempo che pensavamo.”

And so a conversation had been initiated, the former stopping to turn back, “Quindi solo questi saranno testimoni della manifestazione?”

“A meno che non dobbiamo sfregiare nessuno di quegli altri dando loro un avvertimento ancora meno. Dovremmo assicurarci che la notizia torni anche alla nave, al capitano.”

“Se è così che deve essere.”

There’s no way I could flee such a ground-breaking scene, yet equally I couldn’t summon the coordination to move to a better vantage point either. The figures weren’t to act with respect to my being dumbfounded though. Whereas I was rooted to the spot, chest tight, they began to stride off in the opposite direction. Except...that would have been towards the settlement. I hadn’t had the chance to gauge whether these things gave the vibe of threats.

“In ogni caso, potrebbe non essere l'idea migliore andare alla ricerca di altri insediamenti da soli.”

“Vuoi davvero farlo?”

As they got further away my feet grew less stuck. I needed to stay on their trail.

I’ve never really had to be stealthy before. We’re not ambush hunters like certain other animals out there, we simply pick up rocks with our trunks to throw with honed precision. With this in mind I may have been a little too cautious in my pursuit, for I’d held back far enough that I had lost sight of the interlopers. All the same I remained confident that they would have gone this way as I re-entered the settlement. If I found them again I could ascertain their intentions, if I met a resident I could alert cyz to this infiltration, it was only a matter of which came first. As I drew up to a side-opening however, one that had been blocked to me when with Frerpt, it was to find the sentry absent. No-one to inform of the potential intruders. No-one to stop me from finally reaching the major body of this place.

In this instance I hadn’t made my way outside again. I was in a guestroom, akin to my own, except this one had been crammed with unnatural paraphernalia; yes our tools don’t occur on their own but at least you can tell what elements in the environment they came from. Foremost in the centre were black miniature mountains, evenly proportioned, broken up into layers. Against one wall had been placed a great slab engraved with an unsettling design that while unrecognisable achieved an aura of indomitability. The water’s glow from the floor, usually reassuring, accentuated in how it landed that these curious objects did not belong. As for the inhabitants, for there were three (none the ones I’d been chasing I don’t think), I got a better look at what grew from between their shoulders. There was definitely an extremity inside their version of a bone-cage, much more complex than an eye. It reminded me of what some other types of wildlife have in the form of ‘heads’, what could have been their mouth and other features present too. How could it work to have them all locked up in there?

Comparing this situation to the one in the wilds, I had the advantage here that my shock didn’t have me at a standstill, something paired with the disadvantage that I wouldn’t exactly have a mound to obscure me. A hefty block with blinking lights would have to do. In position, there was in my periphery a small artwork, impossibly realistic in detail, without any sign of what pieces went into making it, depicting…what seemed like these same creatures somehow without their bone-cages, stood with members of yet more unidentifiable species.

A vocal duo were assuredly focused on each other.

“Hai davvero intenzione di tornare fino alla nave solo per mangiare?”

“Non me lo toglierò con questa roba nell'aria.”

I seized the opportunity to steal a tool with my trunk, an item I could throw at a skeletal-looking frame on the opposite side as a distraction.

“É sicuro. I test hanno dimostrato che sono solo il prodotto di reazioni tra altri composti che vengono pompati naturalmente nell'atmosfera di questo luogo, prodotti totalmente innocui.”

“Perché allora non ti togli il tuo?”

As this discourse was indecipherably going down the remaining figure failed to concentrate on the mini mountains.

“Abbiamo solo così tanto anti-vuoto, se si è rivelato necessario e utile anche qui prima di salire; non ho abbastanza ragioni per farlo. Almeno questa volta la gravità è migliore, solo una frazione in più del normale.”

The third stranger brought cyzself to interject, “Possiamo concentrarci per favore? Per cosa siamo qui?”

Instantly the atmosphere in the room became overcast. Almost as one the three heads turned to the engraving, and with the same approximation to synchronicity they spoke:

“Giù.”

Some sentiments don’t require that you know what’s been uttered specifically. The general deep-set wariness drenched me too as the listener. This engraving must have had them intimidated.

“Allora facciamo i preparativi.”

The air of unease persisting, the trio took stations around the mini mountains. Fearing this would increase the chances of them glimpsing me, I risked shifting my hiding spot. Perhaps I needn’t have worried. All eyes were on the constructs they were hence scrabbling at. Whenever one gave an apparent proclamation the other two would repeat it, a determined edge to their tone.

“Le celle di potenza stanno raggiungendo la risonanza.”

In unison the mini mountains began to hum.

“I ricevitori stanno triangolando il segnale onesto.”

Every peak was growing steadily lighter. The hum, reverberating, was layering in pitch.

“Proiezione isolante.”

The peaks ignited dazzling beams, both between themselves and dissipating towards the ceiling, conjuring for a second the misty visage of a further construct, an assortment of horizontal and vertical lines blipping in and out of existence below it, before they collectively redirected into an extra item I hadn’t paid as much attention to. The core equipment went dead immediately, orphaning the smaller block in question, a scaled-down version of the apparition hovering over its face.

“Presto, Giù,” the third member declared, raising the block reverentially into the air, “ti sentiremo di nuovo.”

Another of them faced the engraving before gazing up at the ceiling, to what would be the blackness above, exhaling, “Giù.”

I threw the tool. Of course it hit the skeletal frame. I scurried away.

Back in my room, it was a little while before I saw anyone else, and it became immediately clear when I did that cy’d been looking for me in turn. This person, whom I would come to know as Jyjygandsi, breathed a sigh of relief as soon as cy spied me through the threshold, bringing their march down the corridor to a premature end. With my own mind still filled by what I’d seen, I remained in my dent while Jyjygandsi committed to pacing, without any further destination yet unable to bring cyzself to a complete standstill.

“We were wondering where you’d got to. There’s a number of people currently out in a search party.”

“I went back into the wilds for a bit,” I told cyz to an extent of the truth, “so I could make sure I didn’t forget my performance with all the delays going on.”

Jyjygandsi considered this, “I suppose you wouldn’t have had to tell us about that. You didn’t see anything unusual while out there, did you?”

“Nothing especially. Just what was out there before.”

“That’s what we like to h-”

“Why would I have seen anything unusual though? Are there things you’ve been hiding? Who was watching to see that I’d gone?”

“What would we be hiding from you?”

And with my next question I knew I’d be giving myself away, but it had to be done, “It wouldn’t have anything to do with...Giù?”

Even if I had practiced trying to make that sound aloud beforehand I doubt I would have found a way to do it, my stomatnea couldn’t make the necessary shapes. Nevertheless Jyjygandsi seemed to get what I was going for, tensing with trepidation in response.

“So you do know.”

“Not really.”

Jyjygandsi glanced back into the corridor, “Alright. Alright. If you’ve already found out...There’s no point in...Urgh okay. Here’s what you should know.”

Throughout this I could only watch the inner conflict manifest physically.

“They arrived not too long ago, we’re not sure what they are. We don’t think they’re a threat, not in the familiar sense, since they haven’t attempted to attack us. Instead some among them have been trying to communicate, we think they want to tell us something, but thus far no progress has been made in that regard. We don’t want word of this spreading to everyone else until we know for sure what’s going on, if that’s a state we can even achieve.”

“What does that mean for me?”

“I’m afraid we can’t let you go so long as we remain unsure, like I...As I say the issue has been with communicating ideas, and you’re here as a yuux...There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

“Before you enter,” Jyjygandsi heeded as we approached the room in which I’d recently discovered that ritual, “I should warn you, this one has mostly moved on from trying to learn or teach words. You’ll likely be met with art, pieces meant with some kind of symbolism. I won’t tell you what we think they mean, quite possibly we’re wrong and that would blind you to your own approach with preconceived notions, but we can discuss it after.”

With that I became faced with a space less populated than when I’d been hiding in there. A single stranger was present, sat in a hunched position. On registering mine and Jyjygandsi’s arrival the figure rose, already close enough that I could yet again notice a curious detail. While as I’ve mentioned their form of bone-cage goes all the way around, this individual had somehow managed to get something inside, thin sticks and clear scales stuck together, balanced on a few of the unfamiliar features.

Immediate recognition was shown towards Jyjygandsi, presumably the previous recipient of these interactions. An arm was raised so that its armlets came level with the shoulder, and attached to it was a glossy flat stone bearing the same mysteriously-changing lines as had been present beneath the beam-made illusion. Following a check of these lines came a hesitation, which if exhibited by a Doradoan I would have attributed to the making of a decision. By all appearances coming to a conclusion, the stranger ushered me over to a white canvas, Jyjygandsi by contrast retreating.

Producing a short black branch just as smooth as anything else these creatures possessed, the figure fiddled with its end before first hastily running it over what markings were already on the canvas. If I found it astonishing that those markings hence vanished when met by the modest tool, leaving no more than stray specks behind, the feeling was only magnified when after some more fiddling the next strokes of the branch conversely added colour in their wake. There was no sign that a substance was being layered on top of it, the material itself was being refashioned.

Commencing this new series of markings was an uneven shape I couldn’t identify, from an alcove on the lower-right side of which were additionally arranged gently-curving lines getting moderately larger with each one. All of a sudden the figure let out a short cry. It could have been a word, it could have been primal. The curving lines were tapped, then the noise was made again. For another ‘practical’ element, the branch itself was indicated before a similarly-shaped cylinder was symbolised, next to which came into being a square of nine circles touching one another. The stranger moved to splash the water illuminating the room, put some wavy lines on the canvas and some further circles albeit in this case without ordered columns and rows. Thirdly a gesture generally swept through the air, accompanied by the making of circles completely apart from one another. The previous curved lines were tapped, so were these dispersed circles, and the noise was made yet again.

A separate circle was made on another nearby part of the canvas, this one embellished with arcs looping out and around from one side of the central ring to the other, each at a different incline. We were both gestured to collectively in conjunction with a point being placed within this circle, following which a show was made of moving that dot to the outside. The dispersed circles were covered up, as were the curving lines coming out of the original shape.

Hurrying along without any immediate engagement from me, I was shown what might have been representative of a dust cloud put within the first uneven shape, following which I was looked at before another marking was added entirely, this one potentially mimicking a Doradoan torso, another ‘cloud’ highlighted as stretching between the shoulders and beneath the base of the trunk. If my starting assumption was correct, I could certainly take this to be one of the chambers we knew to be inside ourselves. Tapping the point outside the embellished circle, the stranger began a line connecting the two ‘clouds’, carrying it on across the canvas towards the far edge, stopping short only to add numerous dots around it at that end. A motion was made as if pulling those dots off the canvas itself. With that the line was continued, or rather the branch continued to travel along its trajectory, over the walls of the room; once off the canvas it ceased its colour-changing affect. On the stranger went until the branch reached the engraved slab.

“Giù.”

When the stranger’s mouth next opened it was for no sound to come out. Two armlets were held close together, the engraving was indicated anew and then so too was a side of their bone-cage. Back and forth every armlet went between the larger bone-cage and the engraving.

Returning to the canvas for a final time, extra rings were drawn around the perimeter of the embellished circle, the nearby marking of other untouching circles simultaneously tapped in reference. The line connecting the ‘clouds’ to ‘Giù’ was split to instead head for the rings. A point was made of said line not crossing those rings, not reaching the embellished circle. A hooked shape as added next to this, a dot beneath.

We were interrupted by another stranger entering the room. Endeavouring to keep track of any features by which to tell them apart, this one’s inner skin was of a different hue.

“Eccoti. Li hai fatti capire?”

The one I was with replied, “Non lo so ancora.”

“Siamo fuori tempo. Andiamo, a modo mio.”

The newcomer’s arm swung once from one side to the other. The artist seemed crestfallen, moving to exit the room, in the process repeating the same action only directed at me. I took this to mean I was wanted to do the same.

Outside we discovered locals faced with a whole crowd of these unknown creatures. Amidst the inner buildings and communal spaces had been constructed a platform, the rim of which curled upright in all but one place, currently sat with pillars around its edge. I kept up with my pair, although the one in front, who based on this and what occurred prior I have labelled the delegator, would veer off to instruct others of its kind. Scanning across the many residents of 47, I got the impression that despite having provided these newcomers shelter, they weren’t completely trusting of them, on the whole hanging back while the crowd sought to encourage them in some manner.

The price for everyone’s reservations was sudden. People were grabbed, dragged into a panic, a panic they returned. Left and right people’s backs were popping to retreat into the curvature of their shells, the air that had been in the cavity in between pushed out through gaps in the protective plating, gaps through which more air stored in the stomatnea could be expelled for propulsion if needed. Trunks with their harder exteriors stretched all the way down in front of torsos to meet the base of the shells, arms folded over mouths, meanwhile folding legs inflated to reveal a greater surface area of stickiness picking up tough stones from the ground, filling in more gaps in the armour (they’d have to wash that off before returning to normal to save from discomfort, it’s why we always dig plenty of water troughs), leaving just eyes in their bone-cages to be safely visible out the sides. Bristles straightened out through what seams there still would be between the different sections of plating now that people were curled up into mobile balls, ready to sting as well as allowing for clear hearing to continue taking place.

The intruders weren’t prepared to deal with this. Struggling to force their rolling targets into compliance, splashing water making the ambient illumination more fluid, their aggravation was sufficient to have it called that they should cut their losses. Far fewer of us ended up on the platform than could fit. To block out the horrific sight of the chaos I blushed, blood rushing into the thin skin covering my eyes.

From the platform’s vicinity the delegator bellowed, “Questo è quello che succede quando non siete abbastanza bravi ad iniziare un dialogo!”

As my feet were pinned to the floor by angular shells someone else began speaking with pace and force behind their words, “Non sono animali. Ricorda, hanno la capacità di fissarsi così acutamente su altre attività che possono escludere i loro istinti di base. Anche se dovessimo prima insegnarglielo, ci sarà utile. Non farne un nemico.”

I had to un-blush when someone touched my torso, spiking me with something, its purple contents disappearing. It was the stranger with the differing armlets, sustaining composure.

With everyone in position who was going to be, the assorted strangers took a hold of the raised rim. One of them raised an armlet at me, bobbing it up and down, with their other arm then separately indicating that cy had cyp mouth open. The next second the clamour of the melee was blasted away by a shockwave from beneath. Leaving the pillars behind, the platform accelerated upwards, launching us off the ground. It was as if the blurring colours themselves were pummelling me with pressure. Not that I could truly adjust to the rigorous vibrations, but as our height increased ever more I brought myself to witness the view. Uniquely for today my awestruck reaction was purely positive, met as I was by the true face of our world’s beauty. I could never have conceived of seeing Viong as a minor texture on a subtly-bulging collage, nor Behuiq-Phom framed miniscule against the marginally-brighter sky.

In no time at all we were on the level of the Land’s Arches, not close enough to touch by any means but from my perspective as high as them above my home. Fully within the night’s plain, the world shining below, I was foremost subject to a curious sensation preventing me from otherwise experiencing a complete sense of wonder. If I tried to put it into words, it’d be that my skin free from the faintest touch was being made taut, however throughout me was flowing a new viscous invigoration, even making up for the air escaping my stomatnea. As the platform came to an unsupported stop, it was if I had been nauseatingly released from something ever-present, my body set to drift away if it hadn’t been for what was placed on my feet. I caught the delegator holding the block that had come out of the ritual I’d spied upon earlier, its lines changing as ever, anxious relief expressed by those in the know at the sight of them. One of the strangers hit the platform’s rim with a strip of the same material; any expected sound because of it was absent. In the confirmed silence everyone watched what the delegator’s object was displaying, bracing themselves. The apparition erupted in a flash of light.

It seemed to come both from outside my bristles and inside my mind. Deeper and louder than what I ever imagined of Behuiq-Phom’s roars. Harrowing as despair, intense above fury, carrying with it also remnant embers of the pain that caused it, overfilling my thoughts more than emotions ever had. A scream.

When it was over the figure at my side took a firm hold of me, without egregious force mind you, and looked intently into my eyes. There may have been a difference in language, and these creatures might give away more through physicality in ways that I wouldn’t know how to recognise, yet I swear I could tell what was trying to be conveyed: ‘Do you understand?’

~~~

With the first dusk will come tremors...