Romanticism

Romanticism essay:

The mid-18^th-19^th century was marked as an era of social change. The Industrial Revolution not only transformed technology, but also traditional social structures, creating an obsession with obtaining an objective truth and filling humanity with the hope that these new found technology could sate all of humanity’s needs and desires. Romanticism manifested in a group of intelligentsia searching for an alternative social focus, believing that the comprehension of universal laws did not represent the entirety of human potential, and instead chose to revere individual truth and experience. Building upon the philosophies of Kant, Rousseau ad Berkeley, they acknowledged all experience as subjective interpretations, and the importance of self-expression. Subsequently, their art often engage the responder in order to evoke emotion and an interpretive experience. ‘The Voyage of Life’ a series of four painting by Thomas Cole (1840) and ‘The Scarlet Letter’ a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850) are didactic texts embodying in the importance of individualism and highly influential in the course of American Romanticism.

Romanticism is often described as the ‘cult of the individual’. Their interpretation of truth lies within the progress and development of the individual. This emphasis upon the metaphysical sharply contrasts with the Enlightenment’s firm anchor in the material world, which the Romantics believed to be inhumanely rigid and uncreative. In ‘The Voyage of Life’, the man is depicted to be alone throughout the four stages of his life represented by ‘Childhood’, ‘Youth’, ‘Manhood’ and ‘Old Age’. He is situated in a landscape of imaginative ideals; the first two painting are Edenic in their depiction, with the extensive use of expansive natural imagery, bright and warm colour palette, bright lighting and extensive use of warm yellow shades. The angelic figure’s close proximity to the man in both images and its positional upon the same earthly plane indicates his strong personal spiritual connection to the higher power. ‘Manhood’, though hardly idealistic in its imagery, are equally imaginative with its gothic elements. Dark grey, brown and red dominated color palette combined with the descent of the responder’s line of vision in correspondence to the river and the depiction of hellish ghostly figures allude to human suffering and hellish experiences. In ‘Old Age’ he is rewarded experience of the heavenly symbolically represented by the reunion of the angel and the man for his faith, reinforced by the ascent of the line of vision from the man to the heavens following the beam of light. Through ‘The Scarlet Letter’, Hawthorne criticized the repressive excesses of Puritan practices through irony. Historically, Puritans had escaped religious persecution in Old England in order to create a better, visionary world, which is first introduced to the reader by Hawthorne with the image ‘a throng of bearded men, in sad colored garments and gray steeple crowned hats’. The solemnity of the aged men and their lack of joy is thus closely attributed to the ‘steeple crowned hats’ alludes to their religious ardor metaphorically ‘capping’ them. In comparison, when Hester is able to cast aside the judgments of society and follow her own emotions, she is alleviated of her sin in accordance to her own moral values. The favoring of a higher power towards Hester is captured in the scene where she enters the forest with Dimmesdale.  The forest is described to be a ‘moral wilderness’, its geographical remoteness indicative of its separation from the restrictive laws of Puritan society through its description as ‘that wild heathen Nature…never subjugated by human law’ personifying nature as a state of complete freedom . Hester is able to reveal her repressed emotions metaphorically represented by discarding the scarlet A - ‘she undid the…scarlet letter, and…threw it to a distance’; where upon her immediate physical revitalization parallels her soulful recovery. Her new found freedom as suggested by the removal of the cap, a symbol of the serving class and social etiquette, and the choice of verbs and adjectives in the description, ‘played, beamed, glowing, rich, softness’ indicate the completion of her emotional state. The extravagant language here evokes an awe-inspiring aesthetic appreciation for Hester’s renewed physical beauty, further emphasizing that her previous state was unwholesome. America was and continues to be a religiously devoted country, and this manifests in Romanticism through the emphasis upon a personal connection to and search for higher moral powers.  In both these texts, the importance of faith in one’s own moral values and emotional strength perseveres to deliver joy and freedom to the individual.

Romantic art readily embraced the individualism of the responder and worked to engage the responder to derive personal responses, and communicating their message thus. ‘The Voyage of Life’ emphasizes the ability of subliminal aesthetic experience to evoke emotion. In comparison to the scenery, the figure is always rather miniscule and dwarfed by his landscape. The role of the individual is further diminished by the expansive spaces portrayed in the paintings, and the depiction of a blurred or fading horizon in contrast to the limited distinct detail that frames the figure in the foreground. There is a continual use of angular, jagged lines to portray rocks or mountains, evoking an instinctive sense of danger and foreboding within the reader. The irregularity of the imagery also creates an overwhelming feeling, adding to the emphasis upon the need for faith and piety to survive the challenges of life. In the Scarlet Letter, there is a continual discussion of the symbolism of the letter A upon Hester’s breast. Firstly, the sign readily acts as a symbol for adulteress, the intended meaning of the sign. But as Hester’s situation evolves, the sign comes to signify a wide variety of things. Pearl interprets the sign as a replacement for the father she has never known as a result of the letter, and thus to her, it stands for Arthur Dimmesdale. For the sick of the town, they have come to appreciate the internal strength of Hester as shown by–‘she is our Hester’ , where the tone of ownership and affiliation communicates their  admiration. To them, the A communicates Able. The same sign, a scarlet letter A in the sky at the death of the Governer is interpreted to indicate his union with the Angels. The extremely diverse and complicated meaning of the symbol A in accordance to the context and people that interprets it contrasts sharply to the seemingly obvious parallelisms in the novel’s allegorical form, highlighting the need for the responder to develop their own interpretation of the symbols and parallelism throughout the novel, enriching its didacticism. Both the ‘Voyage of life’ and ‘the Scarlet Letter’ engage the responder actively in the interpretation and evocation of their own imagination and emotions, using their form and structure in order to highlight the necessity and importance of individuality in the realization of meaning and art.

Both these texts display a distinctive reverence of subliminal aesthetic experiences in nature, metaphysical strength of the individual and an advocacy for liberation in the ‘Scarlet Letter’ typifies American Romanticism in its context. The Second Revolution of the Jacksonian Era had seen rapid industrial development and westward expansion that had idealized the ‘New Frontier’ with its reverence for nature and both its beauty and terrible power. The increasing tensions in the conflict to abolish slavery and sever last ties with colonial Britain that would eventually lead to the American Civil War appealed to the Romantics in their support for the rights and equality of all individual creative minds, and thus liberation and freedom features strongly as a result. What the enlightenment project had regarded as an obstacle to obtaining the objective truth, the Romantics revered as a spark of divinity within each individual, representing their potential for truth. They developed their own stylistic and thematic character, moving away from portrait and historical events illustrated in painting to rugged landscapes and fear evoking gothics and the creating of the novel in response to a growing literary market. While they had the same goal of obtaining and experiencing an ideal world, they had created a ‘new voice to sing a new song’, with fresh interpretations upon the avenues in which to achieve their unique, individual ideals. Ultimately, Romanticism was rooted as an objection to the Enlightenments acceptance of only objective truths, instead embracing the myriad of contradicting truths that come with each individual.

New World

 Once, the world was one bustling monolith. Great lumbering machines carried the population from one continent to another; roads crisscrossed from one coast to another, boats traversed the waves and airplanes made road of the sky. People flocked from here to there, crawling and ploughing in a global migration each to their own winter or summer grounds.

Then, people became dissatisfied, mother had said. People who believed that some places on earth should only been seen those who are worthy, people who didn’t like that there were so many others. So they had sent men, rows and rows of marching men, and they passed through the earth in their own crawling, flying machines and encircled all the special places that once were everyone’s to share. They sowed special seeds, and so grew the great forest wastes. Bigger planes than before were built, transporting building materials, weapons, more seeds and other machines in a ceaseless stream feeding that strange beast hidden by the wall of tall trunks. Then, silence had followed. A few people had wandered into the barriers they had grown, and came back to tell stories of wondrous cities built into the skies, built into the earth.

‘The rest of us were left here, and we built our own cities and keep the forests at bay’ Zora’s mother said, lightly flicking the nose of her infantile daughter.

As for Zora, the first sound she heard as she entered the world was that of marching though she did not remember it herself.

Rows of rain drenched men passed as she lay dreaming in her nest of white sheets. At that time she had not known the significance of their departure had not heard her mother’s cries and had slept on peacefully. But what she did remember was how everyone had whispered in corners, and hunched over newspapers that flew about in the air. There was a strange smell as well, tangy and sharp, permeating even the softness of her mother’s embrace.

*******

“Zora! Wake up!”

Her eyes stung underneath the zigzagging bar lights. The thin material padding her sleeping capsule felt damp. Her skin stuck together. The hazy edges of a dream clung on to her mind, probing her consciousness into an uneasy wakening, something to do with someone close to her…

‘Mother?’

The young girl who’s arms Zora had batted away seemed unperturbed by her unique response to a wakeup call. Zora crawled out of bed, letting the girl’s voice trickle through her mind.

“ Time to get up. I’m quite nervous actually. The inauguration is in less than three weeks, there is so much to do…”

Zora walked over to the schedule that had scrolled down blinking on the intercom screen. Despite the crescendo in the hum of activity in their company hive, her schedule remained untouched. The workers worked, regardless of rain or shine.

Itinerary: 36^th day of the Wiwardian Moon, 16^th Year of the New Era

6:15	am	Breakfast dispensed
7:10	am	Doors open, ensure all living equipment is packed away and sheets dispensed down respective chutes. Fines apply
8:00	am	Arrive at briefing room. Late fees will be automatically detracted
8:12	am	Miss Nefas arrives. Begin brief.
8:28	am	Breakfast for Miss Nefas is served.

             

But today, all manner of schedule halted there. The pitcher of cranberry juice danced upon its silver platter. It leaned towards the table as Zora tried to grasp it between her fingers, but the natural crystal slid out of her fingers. She watched the stream of red in its elegant descent, gaping as it painted graceful patterns against Miss Nefas’ white RealSilk© dress.

The reverberation of the slaps could be heard rebounding off the glass walls, but was drowned by the ringing in Zora’s ears. Her left cheek tingled. Her right cheek stung. But even the ringing in her ears could not drown out Miss Nefas’ wail of dismay. The rest of the room was reawakened by the unearthly cries, and rushed to bustle around the inconsolable woman, dabbing at her dress, stroking her hair soothingly or soaking out the mess on the floor. Zora stood watching the people mill around her for a brief moment, before lunging through the carbon fibre doors.

The human traffic in the corridor rushed by at the same hurried pace, oblivious to the commotion on the other side of the glass. Zora slid in between two people buried in their Holocoms, speaking soundlessly to blue, projected figures. Her steps were smooth, mindless, crossing from one conveyor to the other with an ease of motion that only came with practice, and soon she’d found herself in an alcove, watching figures glide past in the white corridor without being watched herself.

Though preferring to be soundproof, Miss Nefas had always chosen clear walls for her floor. One sheer curved surface offered a panoramic view of the entire top floor of Eden City, its magnetised rails and roads a layered, spherical web (indeed, the complex was called the WEB) of silver silks glinting in the golden light of the artificial sun. White rounded capsules dotted one such string in the distance, some sort of traffic delay, and Zora was reminded of a string of pearls she’d once seen in a picture. The ground was but a few slivers of green from here, green grew in clumps along the web as well, and if she pressed herself outward and craned her neck upwards, she could just glimpse the shifting, swirling LED sky. Even after all this time, Zora was stilled awed by every angle of this city.

But the keenness of her gaze faded as she turned her attention inwards. The dream swelled again, buried underneath a thin layer of forgetfulness. She willed it to rise, felt pushing against the fragile screen. One more push and familiar images began to tumble through her mind. She was in a field, half rippling gold under the sun, half shadowed by a looming wall. Two silhouettes were leaning on a broken fence. It was early evening, always. A chilling breath of anxiety would blow over from the woods, rippling the grass and once again, she ran towards the comforting figures.

 They had already reached the edge of the forest before Zora’s calls could be heard, and the forest began to engulf their shadows. But one turned back at the last minute, her eyes piercing, and a smile would linger on that featureless face. And then, only the shadows between the trees remained.

She had been compelled; the nonsensical sensations drew her forwards. The darkness had felt tangible in front of her groping fingers. She would stretch. The darkness would pull.

The image flickered, and she was back in her first Auto Pilot Aviator, watching the entrance to the city gaping beneath the transparent floor as they hung there. Instead of offering a peak into the wondrous city below, there was only a swirl of grey. The terminal was busy, the traffic ordered. A shudder ran through the stiff capsule, and then it plunge downwards. She felt the air compressed out of her lungs, the walls collapsed inwards like a popped balloon. But then, there was no reassuring pressure of deceleration. Her breathing grew laboured, her limbs limp and the patch of red sky now receding forever into the darkness swallowing her…

Bip.

The watch vibrated against her wrist, breaking Zora from her daze. She raised it to face level, face upwards, and a blue flickering face popped out the top. Miss Nefas’s smile sent veins of ice through Zora’s veins, but her smile never faltered. She was being summoned. If she had not turned to walk back down the corridor at that moment, she would’ve seen her string of pearls begin to glide again, reflecting the sun on their backs, and showering the greenery below with beams of gold.

*********

Smile. It was the first thing the men had said to her after they had taken her away from home, from where mother under a headboard of stone and a blanket of soil. People like girls who smiled. At first, Zora had smiled endlessly to the blank faces that came in through the half open door. They came in to ask her questions, about what she liked to do, what her favourite pastime was, in pairs, and she’d smile, and nod. Even when she was angry, or sad, or that persistence ache had throbbed within her heart and drugged her limbs were teasing tears from her, she smiled. They’d frozen the smile on to her face.

The people that came to see her wore smooth clothes, clothes that would slide over skin and feel warm in winter and cool in summer, clothes that shimmered even in white fluorescent lights.  They smiled too, freezing smiles that stared right through her. People smiled here, but no one ever laughed, or made a joke. Faces cast out of the same mould. The endless streams of people came, and went through the door. She’d slept and ate and smiled and cried, but only at night.

Eventually someone came and led her away. The first place they took her to stank of sweat and sharp wine. Zora was pushed into a blank corner shielded by a blank door with her smooth uniform. It was silky to touch, deep red and slick black. She’d never worn something so expensive.

Her job was simple in principle. Go in. Deliver. Come out. The contract stood in a corner of her room, signed, dusty. She remembered the waitresses back at home, chatting to the customers, laughing amongst themselves and getting scolded by the manager for spilling an order. The same principles applied and she was not a clumsy child. To be honest, Zora was excited. The pumping of upbeat music from the floor-speakers accelerated her heart in sync with its bass. People here came together in one squirming mass instead of the blank faces of daylight. Colours flashed. The manager winked at her as she left for the dance floor with drinks in tow, clamping his hand on her waist.

“Just remember girlie, the customer is always right. Give’em what they want”

He patted her appreciatively. Zora brightened at the gesture. The dress seemed to fit her.

Her tray lightened quickly as the bulge of crumpled notes in her back pocket grew. A customer, finding no place for the tip, could only place it down her dress. Zora supposed it was tight enough not to let the notes fall. She began to head back to the lighted oasis of the bar, but the writhing bodies around her seemed to draw her back into the dark dance-floor. Then she felt a hand touch her. Her hands flew to her pocket, securing her wages. She glared at the man. His face was smiling, a face of innocence, a face that pressed into her field of vision in a strangely assertive way. His hands were held up in mock defeat.

“Woah, calm, calm. ”

He reached for his wallet, drawing out a wad of paper money.

“How ‘bout we relax and enjoy ourselves?”

Zora watched him, hesitant but delighted. She wondered if she could, and her thoughts drifted over the manager’s words. She smiled. The pink umbrellaed glasses looked sweetly tantalizing. His hand drifted towards the hem of her skirt, guiding her back into the masses.

She awoke next morning with her uniform torn. Her back pocket was empty. Her head hurt. The piercing light of the artificial sun pounded into her brain. She stumbled to her feet, leaning heavily against walls towering into the distance above. The ground swirled smooth and green underneath her feet. That was her first experience of Ground Level. She’d never seen the city from this point of view. The deserted bottom of the city was a mosaic of dark shadows and patches of brightness printed upon a canvas of green by the skyways and apartments above. The city stretched eternally upward, outward, until it engulfed the earth without touching even it.

In that moment of confusion, Zora felt almost at home again, amongst the dappled shadows of foliage, feet in a green carpet of grass, leaning against a cool trunk. She remembered that day when she’d first climbed above her home city. She’d run to Clara’s house for breakfast like any other day. She’d trekked down that path connecting the city and fields with her usual chattering group, through the crumbling wall overgrown with vines, to the juncture between building and forest. They’d played there, pretending to be kings and ladies, drifting between marble columns and pointing out the beautiful things they’d see or clambering over the rocks, finding shiny slivers of pottery wedged between rocks, and moss carpeted caverns walled by fallen trees. But the joys of her usual games had eluded her that day.

Sitting there, next to the ancient trees and just outside of her world, she suddenly felt small, insignificant. She wondered what it would be like to see the city from the forest’s point of view, and what it had seen over the New World Wars. When she burst through the canopy that had long been the focus of her upward gazes and turned her vision down, her vast city seemed small too, cowering behind its moat of golden fields. The towers and buildings looked like doll’s houses, the people like figurines. Every street and alley and road was sprawled out underneath her in miniature. She could not see her house. Her fingers had trembled as they grasped on to the swaying branches. The height had been dizzying.

Zora slumped down to the ground at that thought, making the green ripple out as if she’d been dropped into an algae infested pond. No point in thinking about it, she couldn’t begin to recall that moment of acrophobia. She lived below the Surface now.

*****

Miss Nefas wasn’t in the best of moods today. Each attendant looked on, attentive should she find the slightest fault in them. Zora had been staring out the window, into the city below.

            “Hey girl, stop gazing out like you’ve lost your brains and do what you’re paid to do.  Where’s that one with my agenda?”

Since the juice incident, Zora had cajoled her way back to Miss Nefa’s circle of personal attendants. She found it funny the Miss called them girls, even though she could not have been more than two or three years older than Zora herself, and being almost identical in height size and build. Her hair stood on end at the harsh bite in Miss’s words, but her pliant bow betrayed none of her annoyance.

            “Yes miss I’ll call Caitlin right away Miss”

Miss Nefas gave her best scowl.

            “I did not ask for you to call her idiot, I asked you where she was”

For Zora, patience had been an acquired virtue.

            “Probably still searching for the pen you asked her to bring”

            “Oh everyone here is absolutely useless! Daddy always complains when I take more than an hour to debrief but it’s never my fault is it. I promise that if Atlanta ever tries to attack us I’ll leave all of you behind to die here in this wretched hole …”

Zora scoffed at the idea of Atlanta attacking. They didn’t have enough firepower to bomb through the surface defences, and weren’t stupid enough to use nuclear weaponry to pollute half the country’s water stores. Besides, no one wanted jungle wasteland. There was plenty of that around.

Caitlin ran in at that moment, grasping the pen in her hand. Miss Nefas shrieked at the sight of her. Caitlin jumped in surprise and inched closer to Zora for assurance. Zora was watching something else altogether. A tiny light flickered in Caitlin’s back pocket.

‘A Holocom. Probably from that boyfriend of hers.’

 Zora’s rage began to simmer. Irresponsible. She lifted her eyes to see Miss Nefas eyeing their mingled limbs disapprovingly, but her arm would not untangle from Caitlin’s grasping fingers. That shadow of an insufferable smile still clung to the corner of her lips. Zora smiled back and Caitlin’s grip tightened around her upper arm.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Zora found herself pulled towards the opposite corridor she had headed towards by a strong arm. Miss Nefas released her once they stepped on to a conveyor leading to a foreign part of the complex. They stood in silence. Minutes past and passing traffic thinned. Miss Nefas finally stepped off the conveyor, down a windowless corridor. Zora guessed they were in the heart of the complex. A tall glass tank was set starkly against a blank white war at the end of the hall.

‘Come here, look at this Zora.’

They bent to stare into the tank.  A lump of grey shell melded into a rock at the bottom of the tank. Inanimate.

‘What is it?’

There was a pregnant pause, as Miss Nefas stared almost adoringly at the lump. Zora watched her lips part.

‘It’s an oyster. No, not the type you eat. It’s a pearl oyster’

Zora knew what a pearl was, but did not know it came from such lumps of rock. She continued to stare warily at Miss Nefas’ back, wondering whether this had any relation to the purpose of her presence. Miss Nefas scoffed then, a noise of disbelief to uncharacteristic to her un-crinkled features, and turned around to reveal a smooth smile. She clicked towards Zora in her smooth heels, stopping a little way away, her gaze sweeping up from Zora’s blue translucent glass heels to her neat silky skirt, ruffled bodice blouse and elaborate hair bun. Her smile widened a little.

‘So much potential’

‘Pardon Miss?’

She turned to rest against the tank.

‘Zora, I was talking about you. So much potential. Do you know why this oyster is here Zora?’

‘No, miss’

‘It’s making a pearl for me. For my inauguration as the Director of this company.’

‘Congratulations Miss’

She looked out the window.

‘Do you know what a pearl is Zora?’

‘It’s a sign of the Elites, it’ll will gain you access to the highest level of the city, it’ll…’

‘Yes, yes I know what it gives me, I’ve lived here longer than you. But do you know what it is?’

A shake of the head.

‘It starts off as a spot of sand, nothing special. Just like the billions of over sand particles in the ocean. Mind you, the ocean was different then, two hundred years ago. Many different types of creatures lived there, it was almost inhabitable. But a cut any pearl, and you’ll find a spot of sand in the centre. The important part is when it enters the oyster. The oyster, my dear, is an entirely different matter. It wraps it in layers and layers and layers of translucent shell, and it grows and grows, each year growing larger, more lustrous, and more beautiful. And then, we take the oyster, we pry it open and take the pearl, and only then it becomes something to be prized and sought after’

They remained contemplating the pearl oyster for a while longer, before Miss Nefas’ voice rang through the hall again.

‘One day, you can have your own pearl too Zora, but you must find the right oyster. Do you understand what I am saying?’

Zora stood there, stock still. The image of the pearl ran through her mind, lustrous, illuminating and glowing pinkly. To wear a pearl, it was to have everything. There had to be something Miss Nefas wanted in return for such a high prize. But to have a pearl, could she? Could she…

‘Lose the girl of a tail you have, and maybe you’ll find the oyster’

Zora started at Miss Nefas’s words, only to stare at her back already halfway down the hall. She ran her fingers across the cracked wooden charm tied around her wrist absentmindedly, wondering how it would feel to stroke a smooth, rounded surface instead.

*****

‘Zora? …Is she very mad at me?’

Caitlin perched at the edge of her pod, watching her legs sway in the space between the floor and the bed. A pitiable figure.

Zora quietly reflected upon the girl, only a few months younger than her, crushed so utterly by such a flippant remark. Her perk so readily dashed to tears. It was too much. Had she ever been that susceptible to scolding? Perhaps so.

‘No, no, she’ll like you fine tomorrow’

Caitlin remained unconvinced. Her eyes were watering, as she held her pillow close. Her own bracelet was clenched in her palm, a small ceramic bead. It came out as a blubbering murmur.

‘I want to go home.’

Zora didn’t say anything. Watching Caitlin, she felt something stir inside her as well, a wrench that had slept peacefully for so long. Home. Most of the workers here would’ve come from different places. Many different settlements, perhaps even other cities. Caitlin’s blubbering had increased in confidence, and all the anguish came pouring out of her eyes. Zora half listened to her talk of her mother, of her city and working in the fields, of the festivals they would have, and how warm the sun had been. The sun…how long since she’d last felt it? Caitlin was crying for her mother now. Zora drew the sobbing Caitlin into her arms to quieten her. It did not look well to have one’s ward in the company removed for psychological treatment. The gesture could almost be considered maternal. Mother. Her mother was a shadow in Zora’s mind, a silhouette against a bright window. Her fingers played unconsciously with the charm upon her own wrist.

It had rained for two weeks once. Two weeks continuously. Their clothes were soggy, the windows fogged and everyone huddled around a small whirring heater straining on its ancient generator. Zora’s mother had sat with grey blankets drawn about her thin shoulders during the entire time.

Ever since her mother had seemed a little more breakable. She didn’t like going outside as the wind made her head sing, the sun made her thirsty and faint, and the cold made her cough. But no one really took notice, as colds were common.

Then her breath had wheezed in her lungs. It disturbed Zora to hear someone breathe so loudly; even when she ran, her pants were lighter. But her mother was lying in bed. She clenched at those icy fingers in her palm, feeling how cold they were, and yet, still clammy with sweat. Her aunty was crying, somewhere in the next room. The desire to run swelled suddenly in her stomach, stronger than before. Maybe when she came back, the wheezing would’ve stopped.

There was anger too. Anger at how she was only allowed to visit her home now, at how everyone whispered behind closed doors, how everyone seemed so unsure that her mother would get better and how no one seemed to know what to do. She hated being passed from one house to another, the look in everyone’s eyes and how they all told her that she needed to be responsible now, to look after herself and cause no trouble so her mother could get better. Sometime she would see the doctor come with his suitcase of medicines, and leave shaking his head.

And always, there was the constant hum of

“Who’s going to pay for that?’

           

Time passed painfully slow, and yet it was all too soon when Zora felt her mother’s embrace again. She sat in facing the door, a thin blanket drawn about her skeletal shoulders, eyes searching wearily for the cracks that let in breathes of gusty rain. Zora tried to warm her by climbing into the bed, but the adults pulled her back despite her struggles. Her mother could only reach out feebly, with water eyes. At first, Zora bit at the hands, clawed and cried, and yet quieted immediately as her mother spoke, lifting a white hand to wipe the tears of her cheek, smiling. They let her go. Mother shuffled in the bed and even such a small moment left her breathless. But in her hand, there held a little carved lotus in glazed white paint caged in her fingers. Zora moved forward to stroke the little charm gently, marvelling at how smooth it was. It was tied around her wrist, with a smile from her mother and a whisper,

‘I will stay with you as long as you want me to.’

Zora let herself be folded into an awkward embrace as she had leant over, and sobbed of all the things they’d do when Mother was better. She had let herself drift into a world of folding white sheets floating in the wind and waking up to make butter pancakes together.

A few days later, two suitcases stood against the door, one for clothes, the other for the various bits and pieces Zora had collected and would not be parted with. The day was uncommonly fine for autumn, with piercing blue skies and warm golden sunshine. Whether even the day was mocking her or looking best for her farewell, Zora could not decide. Mrs Eves, their neighbour had walked in, her long-suffering tone dipped in sympathy for the first time in weeks.

“Zora, Mr Carey is here, time to go now”

Mr Carey was going to take her away. He was going to take her to Eden City and give her a better life. Her mother had arranged everything beforehand.

            “What If I don’t want to go?”

Anger, white hot anger.

            “You ungrateful little rascal. No one is going to feed you here; we’re all doing bad as it is. Your mother went through all this trouble to give you an opportunity we’d all dreamed of…”

Mother died. She was alone now. It had first begun to seep under her skin then, chilling her to the bone. All alone. They were going to take her away to a better city. It scared her, the fact that she did not recognize this dark tall man. He looked cold, thin without being frail. His eyes were hidden by sunglasses. His skin was pale too. So stoic. Zora wondered what the man would do if she hugged him. But eventually she, along with her belongings, was loaded into the back seat of a rare APA (Air Propelling Automobile). The occupants of nearby streets gather to gape at the vehicle as they passed as they had probably only ever seen them in movies. A few even remembered to wave goodbye to Zora as she slunk into her seat, hugging her cases close.

Soon the settlement wall was but a dark line in the rear view display.

Soon they had flown over Zach’s machine, watching it roar with life with a set of new hands.

Soon she had watched the boundary between the city and forest wiz past below.

Zora wished that, for an instant, she could recall that nostalgia wrenching luscious tears from that child in her arms.

******

‘Here is the man. Find him, talk to him. I want his resignation.’

Miss Nefas shoved the picture into Zora’s hand with a malice disproportionally directed towards an inanimate object. She felt the piece of paper crunching between her fingers. Rare, precious paper printed with ink. Too bad the picture did no justice to the precious material.

‘What do I say?’

Miss Nefas paced at the entrance to the bar, the vision of a Grecian goddess she’d imitated. Not a wrinkle marred her frown. They were at an event. Such occasions were opportune for social relations and sealing deals in the heat of the moment that would’ve frozen to death anywhere else. Zora waited for her reply, and was rewarded only moments later.

‘He’s old, he’s lonely, I want him to sign a deal and you’re going to convince him. Take that girl with you’

Caitlin froze like a trapped rabbit by the doorway. Zora sighed, and dragged the stiffening girl with her.

The cocktail dress shifted between cacophonies of colours as it adjusted to the flashing lights of the bar. Zora would’ve imagined herself as something akin to a fireworks display in the middle of the dance floor, if not for the array of even more outrageous costumes adorning some of the other women. She shifted through the sea of shoulders, scanning for a particular face.  Stare a little longer, and her tail in the shape of Caitlin could be seen struggling along in an inappropriate shift. The crowd that seemed to melt around Zora returned with double the solidity in her path. The Holocom in her pocket flickered to life then, emanating a pool of attention seeking heat at her side. In that momentary downward glance, Caitlin was lost in the crowd.             

---------

The old man, General Keyes, had been a strapping general in the New World Wars; ‘the unshaken Incorruptible’. Now he was contented to surround himself with invisible soldiers, leading them just as successfully in the intangible stream of currency as his previous self had upon the battle grounds. The hardness of youth had given way to the roundedness of age, though a trace of the soldier he once survived with glistening vitality in his beady eyes. Worn, worldly and weary, but not senile.

Upon catching sight of Zora and her ridiculously bright attire, he had burst out laughing. His chins rippled, his body vibrating with his belting humour. He looked her up and down. The sweat beaded off him. His piggy eyes squinted until there were lost between folds of lard.

Zora swallowed. She had first pitied the broken, obese body sinking in to the plush pillows. It had bothered her a little that were she to succeed, this larva of a man would surely perish upon being ejected from his titular cocoon. But now his eyes only held pity as they surveyed her youthful potentiality. He motioned for her to sit beside him. For all her efforts, Zora could not refrain the slight cringe upon her face; he took up the entire sofa. He seemed not to notice her disgust, but his bulk shifted a little to the right. Zora was reminded of a jellyfish flaying almost motionlessly upon the sand.

‘Here, something to get you out of trouble. Tell your little vixen of a boss that it’s not that easy to get into Eden girly.’

Keyes handed her a cream envelope. He stared out into the crowd with empty eyes, and one could tell he was once again lost in an ocean of nostalgia as ones past their prime are wont to do. The guttural sighs confirmed this. It mattered not who listened now, only that someone did.

‘I know her well, little Miss Nefas. I’ve seen in her blue floral dresses with bows in her hair. She was a sweet child, back when the Director and I were still young and strapping.’

His voice had slipped into a whispered mumble, and Zora had to strain to hear him above the loud bass. She took the opportunity of his distractedness to scan around for the missing Caitlin. Her ire was increasingly hard to contain.

‘…but he’d gone and disappeared, and Missy Nefas never did account for that did she. Her daddy no longer there to coddle her. And though I’m useless to the company, she can’t do what she wants, and she can’t wipe me out.’

That shook all the warning bells. For all the softness of his speech, it had taken on a hard and bitter edge. Time to settle shaken feathers; it was not wise to ruffle the head of the coop if one wanted to stay.

‘Sir, we, Miss Nefas, the company, would never dream of evicting you from the company. It is only a temporary arrangement until the Director should return or he be found…’

Keyes swatted her away from his shoulder with a look of benign disbelief. The shake of his head sent ripples down his body.

‘Little girl, little, little girl. Even you know very well, the Director will not return. Pity really. He understood it all’

Keyes gestured not to the walls, or the people in the room, or the entire city, but to his own form.

‘…And she’s still reckless, won’t listen at all. You know, the Director and I, Adalric and I, spent so many years constructing a relationship with Atlanta City Company, and she wants to bomb them to death for a spot of irritation and arrogance! The child…’

For all her efforts, Zora knew when she was welcome, and when she will no longer be received. His head had shrunk back into the mound of his body, and there he remained, dozing perhaps, in the better days of the past. In her hand, another correspondence was framed delicately in her palm. Gold lettering on milky white adorned the dense card, address to Miss Nefas, from his sincerely, the General Secretary of Eden City.

Caitlin finally came staggering through the crowd, her face lighting up as she spotted Zora walking towards her. She reached for Zora, unwilling to lose her again, only to have her hand brushed aside. She struggled after Zora again, as her bright dress was engulfed by the crowd once more. In the background, Keyes watched Caitlin’s arrival and rapid departure, eyes glittering with an equal mixture of envy and pity.