local settlement date 36,006
Heaven is where one perceives it.
King Namor Zujahrah
31 birth of tourism
Namor's book. ‘Instinct for Comprehension', was being sold out of the printing presses.
Everyone had heard or read about its arrival on the world market. His classes at the first university of Angel Island were attended by people from everywhere.
The Old King was also enjoying his success with his book, ‘Maintaining Paradise'. It had become the Bible for the building or rebuilding of large and small communities.
His most popular proposal for sustainable business in a closed environment was Tourism. The housing, feeding and entertaining of people from somewhere else.
The small fishing villages along the endless shores of Barbancor enjoyed the quickest growth. The cleanest air and water. Beaches of warm sand. Building technology from Angel Island. The villages quickly became small cities, with a fishing village at its center. Baiting tourists with its old world dirty raw appeal.
Janyah had learned to swim like her mother and moved like her mother. She, however, loved attention from her father. Attended his classes and understood as well as any and better than most.
Estan was already a great fisher and hunter. His interest in books was limited. At ten years he spent most of his day playing. He fought with his Mother every chance he got. He wanted to be a professional fighter like his famous mother had been.
Estan taught fighting classes at Barbaralba's theater school. Theater was one of Adrone's biggest exports. It appealed to the Royal Family more than any other advent to their lives. There had been many plays written where Barbaralba had been asked to play herself. Her theater appearances were very profitable.
Namor was discussing the concept of waking from the waking world with Priest Myast after one of his classes when Janyah came through the reluctant to leave crowd.
"We would have burnt you when your mother was your age."
"You are very flattering, Priest Myast."
Janyah smiled politely at the priest whose lust for her he could not hide. She knew she was an angel. Everyone told her and she knew both her parents were.
Namor could tell from the way Janyah put her arm around him and dug her fingers into his side that he was about to be ushered out. He made a quick farewell to Myast.
"Enjoy your trip, King Namor. I will preach your word till your return."
"Teach, Myast. And we will be back."
"Estan and Mom. And a hundred passengers are waiting for you."
"Then I must be in heaven."
"Angels are always in heaven."
Barbaralba, the ship, was never long in Salt Lake 36. I stayed long enough to unload passengers and cargo and load other cargo and the next passengers.
When it moved up the canal, Barbaralba, the ship, was pulled with magnetic fields, and when it moved down the tunnel it was pulled with magnetic fields guiding it along.
Barbaralba and Namor watch Salt Lake 36 vanish quickly behind them. Since the end of the war, Salt Lake 36 had been their home most of the time. After only three days, the ship glided gently out beyond the reef and dropped sail.
It was the first time in twelve years that Barbaralba and Namor had left Angel Island. They had been busy doing what had to be done. It was the first time for the old King. It was the first time for Zauqir, Orthia and Lexus to leave Angel Island.
Lexus still managed a certain distance with Barbaralba. More from fear than lack of love. Lexus was a good friend of Janyah.
Barbaralba, the woman was happy to have Lexus around. Orthia and Lexus knew things about the luxuries of being a woman that Barbaralba could teach no one. She knew how to fight. Peace had threatened to put her talent into the history books but the beast in her, like the beast in anyone forced to action, would never die. The beast would find its way through carbon-based creatures and any other base it could motivate into animation. A fight was not always a battle. It could be a dance. I could be theater.
And as far as Barbaralba could comprehend, even with the world's greatest teacher and lover, ultimately. There was something to fight for. Even it the only fight was to ward off apathy.
"They have us booked, Drave King. In every city and town."
"You know what I would like to do."
"Much of the time."
"Of course. But I meant, I'd like to take the kids to Magalax. Without reporters. There has been no more burning. I've seen pictures but I've never stood down by the rocks."
"If you think the world can go on without us. We can also take them to Snow City."
"I do. It will be good training for them. The people getting on without us. And for the children it will be a good learning experience that will help them know and appreciate their world."
Barbaralba knew and was happy to know that Namor put his time with her on the top of his wish list. He took his role as the great teacher. The modest king of kings. Partly because he believed life depended on his contribution. But mostly because he believed she would love him. That she had always and would always love him.
Namor held Barbaralba with his nose on her head smelling her, breathing her in, watching, with her, the waves, the sky. And the creatures of flight.
There were many ships in the harbor of Gadavida. From Adrone, from three salt lake cities, Havatara City and fishing boats from nearby fishing villages.
Barbaralba, the ship, had three days for unloading of books and tools. Fruit trees and passengers.
Twelve years had done the city good. The air smelled of salt hanging on the wind and the smells of burning fat meant the frying of meat.
Gadavida was still a religious city. Barbaralba was written as an avenging angel and Namor was written as the word. The salvation through belief in Love and compassion. Estan thought it was cool. Janyah knew it was a disease. She could see, like Barbaralba could see, Namor did not like it.
The rest of the people soon found out how much he did not like it when he gave his talks before large assemblies.
On the third day, in the early evening, Namor and the Old King were through with talking and they and Janyah hurried off to the first major theater in Gadavida. At least the first grand theater without real blood.
"You always get trapped by people asking you questions."
"We'll make it, Janyah."
They hurried through the city trying to ignore people as much as they could so that Namor would not need to answer questions from the curious and the reporters. They had seats near the front of the theater and it would not be permitted to enter after the piece started.
It was the performance of a play that Barbaralba and Namor had written together. They had a cast of 24, including Estan and Barbaralba. And used many locals as extras. With the use of her name and a little promotion, a grand theater once used to preach the words of ancient religions, was filled with 20 thousand spectators.
Namor and Janyah found their way to their seats where the rest of the family was waiting for them.
"You like to push it to the limit, Namor."
"It was such a wonderful audience tonight. They didn't want us to leave and had Janyah not been there I wouldn't have noticed how long I had been there. The Old King would still be explaining evolution."
"Quiet now."
Namor laughed at his mother.
The story was a tale told a thousand times on another world. A family that had become royal through the stories of their royalty and use of authority. They armed their loyal servants with relative luxury and superior weapons. They plundered what had been plundered by others and made slaves of those they did not kill.
Many local stand-ins were slaughtered in the bigger scenes. Sometimes it was a little funny to see some of them smile when they were cut down with wooden swords and had to lay dead on the stage till the end of the scene.
When the plunderers had taken all there was to take, raped all there was to rape and made grand temples to proclaim their superiority over the slaves, they gave the slaves lies to live by and the fear to live without the protection and authority that the plunderers graciously imparted on the frightened lower class of slave creatures.
The crowd was fascinated with the fight scenes and the costumes and the movements that most often looked like a dance.
At the end to the rule of the lie, a ship was built to escape from the desperate land. And the royal family took along the most obedient and talented servants and skillful craftsmen to search for a new world. To build their business of being royal.
When they arrived after a long voyage at a world suitable for war and obedience and slavery, they took mineral riches out of the ground to build luxury and weapons. They populate the land with lie loving war and plunder slaves to serve the royal family luxury for the elite business. They made the slaves sick with fear and sold them chemical pills to help kill their pain and desire to live.
And then came the age of enlightenment. The angel in the slave creature awoke and saw that life was holy, that living creatures were gods. Gods were not to be locked in cages for the many to serve the few.
There was a great uprising to throw the elite from their high place of metal luxury and no other creature was given the chance to murder their way to the top of luxury for the god creatures refused to be slaves to any bunch of insane murdering dictators of the grand business of lies and poisons.
The play had been a hit in Adrone and the cites of Angel Island. Partly because people loved to watch acting and colourful costumes and painted sets. It was a theater they all knew. But this was a theater where the slaves were acting the part of slaves and got up from the stage when the act was over. It was obvious that the theater was their theater.
After the play there was a party for all those who had taken part, most of those people were from Gadavida and they wanted theater in their city. There were a few that decided they would go to Barbaralba's theater school at Salt Lake 36. Everyone wanted to be next to Barbaralba. To have her touch them and look at them.
When the party finally came to a close, Barbaralba gathered up her family to go back to Barbaralba the ship. In the morning it would leave to continue its journey east.
The Old King had not seen the play before. He had not found the opportunity. Perhaps the interest had failed him. On the ship he was glowing with excitement.
"Although, now that I have seen it and all the events that have led up to it, this almost seems obvious. A theater group with Draves, royal family and Adronians working together with Barbancorians. Playing together like one creature with many bodies. How would anyone believe such a thing from inside the castle. Such a story would have been impossible and had it manage to come to be, everyone would be executed at the end. Hung and tortured."
"You can move mountains if you have the faith of a mustard seed."
"I've heard that somewhere. But it makes no sense to me after having understood some basic genetics. How much faith does a seed have, King Namor."
"I don't know so much about genetics."
"Well, I will tell you. Faith is not part of a seed. It might be found in God fearing creatures."
"And with a little bit of work, Old King, we will write faith and fear into our plays of fiction and God will never be written in singular form again."
Namor and the Old King laughed.
"Have no faith. For faith is a form of fear."
"I'm glad I lived long enough to join you on this ship."
"Tell no lies. For they will return to plague your mind and hide the real."
"Yes, King Namor. We have been cursed by ancient lies."
"And they are ultimately our lies. Back from when we as a creature saw how much one could torture others with them. Torturing for fun and control. We are short sighted, Old King. We don't see that we are all of us and that we and only we are in it. It is a lie to sell death as a domain where we go to. Death is nowhere. We always end up here. Somewhere here. Us here. I can see that. I saw that clearly when I first saw Barbaralba."
Janyah came out to see her father and the Old King. And ask them if they would be joining them for a little late night early morning breakfast that Zauqir had prepared.
"What did you see, King Namor."
"I saw that I knew her from another life. And since then I have seen so many others. I no longer have to speculate that if there are to be gods then we are to be them. I can see it."
"I believe it."
"Don't believe anything, Old King. Believe none of it. See it."
chapter 32
|
