Malock the Elder

Nobody alive today could remember the sky being blue. How could they? It’s been over 100 years since the day that everything changed.

That day and the days that followed are described to our children as the “Fall of Mankind.”

Stories have been told about that time for over a century; stories that have sometimes been called exaggeration or myth. As a child I was told tales of large cities. It is said that the people in these cities numbered in the millions, a number I couldn’t understand. I have never seen more than a few hundred people in one place, so a number that large could not fit into my brain.

History tells us that the Asteroid ripped a hole in the atmosphere, many thousands of miles long. Radiation flowed through that gap like a waterfall and sickened every living thing on the planet– changing the colour of the sky from blue to the bright flickering orange that I was born under.

People, plants and animals were poisoned and left struggling for life. Anything that was left after that first year was now in a fight for the survival of their species.

Humans were high on that list as we were now Prey. Deaths by animal attack were eclipsed only by skyrocketing murder rates as society declined into savagery.

It was a time of survival of the fittest– a time when the worst of mankind ascended to leadership to form the government of the day.

Communities were ruled by corrupt governors with an iron fist. The people accepted their lot like sheep as there was nothing else they could do or nowhere else they could survive. But a select few of these so called sheep held a secret that could change everything.

My father was one of those people.

I was ten years old when he told me about Eden.

A land where birds still sang, fresh water still flowed and humans lived in peace. It was the land my great-grandfather spent a lifetime searching for and where my grandfather was born– a forgotten land known as the birthplace of mankind.

The government insisted that the existence of Eden was just another myth perpetuated by rebels whose only purpose was the downfall of civilized society.

The government’s plan consisted of using only community food stations. Water would be diverted from springs into those stations to grow crops and feed livestock. All meat, vegetables and clean water would be shared by daily allotment. It seemed like a great idea at the time, and for a while it worked.

The people were content. No person in society had standing above any other; or so they thought.

My grandfather worked at one of the food stations, the one on the governor’s property. After another year of drought, when rations were becoming scarcer by the day, what he saw on that property angered him to the point of revolt.

While the community had been surviving on gruel for endless weeks, the governor was feasting on roasted pig. While the people were subsisting on mere sips of water and families were washing in the same, filthy bath; the governor had a pool installed.

Grandfather and the other workers were outraged. They left Government house and refusing to settle for their daily allotments, took what they wanted.

After a couple of weeks, and as the number of dissidents grew, the government knew they had to do something to forestall the inevitable revolution. They proclaimed the rebels criminals, who were stealing food meant for the community. Rations would be reduced to every second day, until the rebel leaders were arrested and brought to justice.

It didn’t take long to turn the near starving community into an angry mob, determined to have the rebels arrested or killed. Most of the workers from the governor’s food station were arrested as traitors and anarchists, whether they were involved in the rebellion or not. Some were brought to trial and found guilty in what amounted to a kangaroo court, but most were slaughtered by the angry mob before the legal proceeding ever began.

My grandfather escaped the slaughter, but when he returned home late at night to gather his family, he was met with a scene of equal horror. His wife, my grandmother, had been slaughtered, with all of my father’s siblings. Only my eight year old father survived, as he hid under the floor boards.

The government was not aware that my grandfather had distant relatives in another community far away, and it was with them my father would be raised. Once he got my father settled with his new family, and new name, he disappeared.

The last time my father saw him, Grandpa gave him a rudimentary map scratched onto the thigh bone of a pig, and told him this was his escape route should the government ever discover his true identity. The map was a rough sketch of directions and written in the ancient language of my grandfather’s birthplace– Eden.

Grandfather passed this language down to my father, who passed it down to me but the map was not complete. There was only one other person that understood the writing, Malock, a weak minded elder from the lower village. He was rumored to have the gift of foresight and was covered in tattoos. People believed him to be a crazy old man who would shout gibberish at the children while pointing at his tattoos. But I knew the truth as it was told to me by my father– Malock the elder, was the other half of the map.

***

It’s been six days now– six days of running since we rescued Malock from the leader’s compound.

When the news reached my ears that he was snatched from the street and being held at government house, I knew it was time to act. Eleven of us entered the compound under the cover of night, killing several guards in the process before eight of us escaped with me carrying Malock on my back.

He had been tortured for three days and couldn’t walk or talk– in a state of delirium, he was lost in every sense of the word. He felt like a child on my back as he was less than five feet tall and couldn’t weigh more than eighty pounds. His body looked like a bag of skin and bones and his eyes were sunk back into his head like a man that had been dead for weeks. But there was a spark in those eyes when he looked into mine. It was a spark of recognition, understanding and hope.

My boyhood friend, Mika, died during the assault but his brilliant escape plan worked perfectly.

The compound backed onto a forested ravine which would be the fastest way out of the area. We started in that direction, setting fires along the way, but doubled back towards the village as soon as we entered the ravine. While half the guards fought the fires and the other half moved through the ravine towards the southern plain, the most obvious escape route, we entered the community latrine in the village center and waded in knee deep human waste for two miles before exiting at the base of a rock wall.

My friends and I had been climbing that wall our whole lives and, even in complete darkness, knew every foothold and handhold on it. We quickly scaled the wall and entered the dense forest at the top, which would lead us to the Northern mountain range. Running through the night we put at least a half a day between us and our pursuers before resting.

Yesterday at daybreak I spotted our pursuers camp fire smoke on the hill we crossed the previous night and realized that they were gaining on us– they were less than four hours behind. Quickly, we broke camp and started out at a jog, following the markings on the bone to the base of the mountains. Half a day later and nearing exhaustion, we finally broke through the last of the tangled brush to be met with a sight that stopped us in our tracks.

Less than a mile away stood a wall of ice. It had to be a thousand feet wide and at least one hundred feet tall and was as smooth as glass.

There was no way to climb this but the last marking on the bone pointed straight up. As we moved closer trying to find a route around or up this wall I could hear something that sounded almost like music or singing and realized what this place was. It was the place my father had told me about as a child. A place I thought was a tall tale– this was the Great singing glacier.

It was real!

As we started towards the western edge I could feel Malock struggling to get down from my back. When I let him down he took the bone from my hand before holding it to his chest and telling me to look closely. It took me a few seconds but I saw it. He was holding the bone along a tattoo on his chest which matched perfectly with the bone markings, but the tattoo showed something that was missing from the bone and more. The tattoo showed several vertical wavy lines at the eastern edge just before the straight up line on the bone and a long horizontal line just after it.

Malock held the bone to his chest and quickly led us to the eastern edge. The singing sound was getting louder the closer we got to the edge until we were within fifty feet and stopped in confusion. We couldn’t see it until that moment but right in front of us was a waterfall with no mist or sound. Malock released a smile of great joy before saying, “follow closely,” and disappearing through the falling water.

With great fear we followed.

On the other side I could see where the sound was coming from. There were several different sized holes in the rock wall, which looked to be handmade. They were somehow sucking away most of the water and all of the mist– creating whistling sounds that sounded like music.

Malock told us to follow before moving ahead towards complete darkness.

I asked, “Where?”

He smiled and said, “Home,” before moving ahead and seemingly disappeared through the rock wall.

Rushing into the darkness with my hands on the wall I quickly felt where he had gone. There was a large hole, a tunnel of sorts, twice the size of a man in the wall. We followed this tunnel slightly uphill and zigzagging back and forth for close to an hour before rounding a long curve and seeing a light straight ahead. It was maybe a mile ahead and seemed to be sharply downhill.

I could feel the air around us changing as we got closer to the exit, it felt cleaner somehow.

We exited the tunnel at the top of gently sloping hill that overlooked a beautiful lush green valley. It had a small river flowing down the center that several grazing animals were drinking from. The valley had several small stands of trees surrounded by every colour of wildflower imaginable. Hundreds of birds flew from the trees playing their flying games under a sky that brought tears to my eyes.

For the first time in my life I was seeing a sky that was blue.

It was the most tranquil and idyllic scene I'd ever seen, and I couldn’t help but think, “This truly is Eden.”

Mesmerized by the sight before me I didn’t notice that Malock and the others had started down into the valley until I heard him shout, “Aaron.”

I turned to see my group at the bottom of the hill walking towards a group of people, carrying weapons, coming from the riverbank. I quickly ran down the hill and got to them just as the two groups came together. An older man who seemed to be the leader of the group stepped forward and pulled Malock into his arms as they both laughed and spoke in the ancient language.

Although I couldn’t see him clearly there was something about this man that was familiar to me. I couldn’t put my finger on it but there was something in the way he moved and spoke that felt like home to me.

After hugging and talking for a minute Malock took the man’s hand and led him towards me. The man was at least seventy-five but moved like a much younger man. Malock held the man’s arm while looking at me and saying,

“I want you to meet the leader of Eden, Aaron the elder.”

I couldn’t speak as I looked into his eyes. He had the same eyes as me; eyes that my father said were unique to our family. But he also carried the same name as me, a name my father had given me to honour his father.

*****

As I look into Aaron's eyes and see my own, I can't help but wonder if he sees the same. Whatever happens next, I know I will be at peace. I can live in peace with these people, or I can die in peace knowing that I have fulfilled my father's final wish.

I have found my grandfather.

**

A special thank you to Cathy Holmes for her invaluable help with this story.