Dreams of the Past

Year 23211

Month of Autuoe

Aeryn Aodh (age: 11)

The feel of Aeryn’s rough textured curtain brushed against his cheek. Stiff muscles ached as he lifted his head off the windowsill. A string of saliva stretched from his hand for a few seconds before it broke. I fell asleep. He stretched and yawned. Falling asleep had not been his intention. Lifting the curtain, Aeryn looked to the sky. Trying to judge the time with the pale light that reached over the Pincer Mountains was about as hard as taking on a full grown vilka for him.

He listened to the subtle sounds of the house. Soft creaks of the age-old timber filled the otherwise silent home. Aeryn smiled. He slipped on socks and snuck to his door. He had intentionally left it unlatched. Sneaking out to the living room wasn’t too hard to do, so long as he remembered to leave his door open. He’d memorized where all the creaking planks were.

His fingers brushed over the plastered walls, keeping his equilibrium in check as he walked. He turned the corner and entered the living room. There was something about being up before anyone else in the house. Aeryn knew he wasn’t like the other boys in town. He much preferred to learn and talk about the tech era, an age of the past, as opposed to fine-tuning his future trade. Early morning was the best time to read all about it.

Today, he planned to build a tech era machine. Well, a prototype. As much as he wanted to be able to build the things from the past, he was missing a vital piece. Electricity. What he did have was a tight-coiled metal, some thin-wound rope and old round bins. Determination fueled him at such an early hour. Aeryn wanted to find an easier way to wash the laundry.

He took a partially used candle from the mantle above the fireplace. That was easy, however finding a way to light it proved harder than in the past. Father must have moved the starter. He set the candle down on the small table that sat in the corner by his mother’s chair, and shuffled slowly into the kitchen. Quietly, he checked the cupboards. High above the stovetop, he found it. Aeryn returned to the living room with the steel rod and sparkers’ rock. He found the worn down spot on the stone and set the rod over it. Holding it close to the candle’s black-tipped thread, Aeryn quickly pushed the rod across the surface of the rock and watched as a large spark landed on the top of the wax candle. He blew softly on it, keeping it aglow until the thread caught.

Pleased with how quickly he was able to light it, he moved to the wall beside the bookshelf. He looked over the books his father kept. The Aodh’s that came before them wrote most of them. His favorites were the ones written by his great grandfather Tristin Aodh. He had sketches of the carrier ships that flew in the sky. How such large metal ships could fly was among the many mysteries Aeryn wanted to solve.

“You’re up early.” A deep groggy voice sounded from behind.

Aeryn’s entire body twitched with a nervous jump. The book he had halfway pulled from the shelf slipped and fell, landing on his knee before sliding off to the floor where he knelt.

“Father.” Aeryn picked up the book and turned around.

“I hope you’re getting enough sleep.” He moved from the hall into the living room, taking a seat in his chair that sat opposite of Aeryn. “I never would have thought that teaching you to read would result in you being up before the sun.” he chuckled quietly.

“There’s just so much I want to know.” Aeryn picked up the candle and moved closer to his father, sitting on the floor in front of him.

Aeryn opened the book and flipped through the pages. He felt relieved that Emory, his father, wasn’t going to send him back to bed. Somewhere inside this book, he knew there was a picture of the machine he wanted to re-create.

“You look like you’re on a mission. What is it you are looking for today?” Emory leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

“That machine that cleans the laundry. Great grandfather said it was one thing he missed the most after the Calamity struck.” Aeryn curved the book and lifted his thumb slightly to increase the speed at which the pages flipped by.

He watched intently as the pages turned. A dark page flipped by and Aeryn stopped. He turned the few pages back to the dark one he had seen. The images sketched on the page looked like a before and after picture. He stared at it.

His father sat back with a sigh. “The Calamity.”

Aeryn didn’t recall having seen this sketch before. He hadn’t read through all the books yet, but he thought he had gone through this one. He lifted the book and read the spine. “Records of time before and after.” The sketches looked like Great Grandfather’s from other books, but his name wasn’t on this one. He looked back at the page he’d kept with his thumb.

The picture was of a great city with tall buildings of varying sizes. They looked like they brushed the sky. Some as tall as mountains and others built so pristinely, he wondered how it had been done. In the after sketch, not one of the buildings still stood. How does this happen?

“Father?”

His father hummed out his acknowledgment.

“Why don’t we build buildings like the ones in the past? How does this happen?” He lifted the book, turning it around and handing it off.

“Well…Marmidon has her way from time to time, and I guess everyone decided it was too much of a fuss to get everything back to the way it was.”

“What exactly is the Calamity?” Aeryn knew it had something to do with their world’s cycle. He didn’t understand why adults talked about Marmidon as though their world was a person controlling everything in nature.

“This world, Marmidon, lives like you and I, albeit, not in the exact same way. Every now and again, she sends out reminders to those that live upon her. Some come in the form of great tidal storms, some in the form of earthquakes, or volcanic eruptions. All great spectacles of nature are Marmidon’s way of setting things straight, or bringing about a temporary balance.” Emory handed the book back to Aeryn.

“What causes Marmidon to be out of balance?” Aeryn wasn’t sure he understood.

“It’s all about good and evil, Aeryn. Calamity will strike when evil and darkness in people’s hearts tip the scale too far. The last one happened barely seventy-nine years before you were born…making that now…ninety years ago. Your great grandfather, Tristin, fought hard through it.”

“The Calamity took away all the technology?” Aeryn looked down at the sketch, the flying carriers above the towering buildings that touched the sky. How he longed to see such things, to understand them. Among the tall buildings and flying transportation, there used to be powerful weapons, weapons that harnessed the power of nature.

“It took most of it, yes. Great grandfather Tristin would have loved to indulge your curiosity of such times.” Emory yawned and stood. “Since you’re up early, let’s get to work.” He waved at the bookshelf, indicating that Aeryn should put the book away.

With some begrudging emotions inside, Aeryn put the book back and went to the front door with his father. They put on their boots and then blew out the candle before stepping outside. The air was a bit cool, but more pleasant than not.

“Let’s start off by getting the horses fed.” Emory pointed out at the distant barn in the fields straight ahead.

Wanting to get back to reading, Aeryn jumped into a sprint. He ran through the field to the antique barn. The wood held more wrinkles than the oldest person he’d seen in Farthvevire. The cracks peeled outward in places and the door creaked when opened.

The age of the structure was more apparent from inside. Light bled through all the cracks, and the wind entered at will. All it was good for was keeping the rain and snow off the feed and tools. Reaching out for a block of hay, Aeryn heard his father enter the barn.

“Can you carry it all the way this time?” He stood in the doorway, hands casually halfway in his pant pockets.

Aeryn nodded and took a sling to the hay, wrapping it and slinging the straps clumsily over his shoulder. Once secured, he followed his father out and across the field to the stable on the east side of their home. Aeryn looked at their home. It didn’t look as old as the barn. Cemented large stone covered a third of the base floor, and rising from it, horizontally laid logs, smooth and sealed. From what he understood, Aeryn concluded that the House had been repaired after the last Calamity, and the barn was left alone.

After reaching the stable, he unloaded the hay into the trough as he’d seen his father do before. “Do you think things will ever be like the tech era again?” He handed the sling off to his father as he was ushered out of the stable.

“Hmmm. Maybe.” Emory locked the gate and they walked back to the front porch. “Help your mother with the chores, she should be up now. I’ll be back at lunch.” He placed his hand on Aeryn’s head. “My, how you’ve grown.” He smiled and rubbed at Aeryn’s shaggy auburn hair.

Aeryn returned inside. He looked to the bookshelf in the living room to his right. Setting his shoes aside, he walked over and pulled the same well-worn blue leather book from the shelf. He turned through the pages, looking at the sketches of the Calamity’s aftermath on several of them. Such images of destruction were beyond his understanding. How could such structures of metal be brought to the ground? Marmidon must be very powerful.

“Aeryn! You in here?” His mother called.

“Yes Ma!” Aeryn placed the book back.

He rushed to find his mother. He found her in the kitchen cleaning the ashes from the fireplace.

“Would you take over here?” She offered the pan and brush.

Aeryn nodded. “I can do that. Someday I’ll build you a great machine that will do all your chores!” He smiled, feeling proud in his declaration.

His mother smiled and rubbed her fingers through his shaggy hair. “Maybe you should be more concerned with building a contraption to cut your hair. I swear it grows faster every month.”

Laughter filled the air. This was home.

Aeryn fixed in his mind, Marmidon would not get to take his home from him as it had taken all of mankind’s technology. He would stop it, somehow.