Red Reflection

By Phil McNamara

When fire rips through the Woodland Country, everything changes for Ellin. No longer do the People want to live in the Red. Fear makes them want to harness and control it. They now live in the Blue where fossil-burning and Making help destroy every form of discomfort; their charismatic leader, Low, has convinced them to live that way. But Ellin

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Third Fuse Project
• Release date: May 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9780645074918

Book preview

THE 3,682nd DAY OF BLUE

Dear Little El,

My name is Ellin. I am your mother. You were born yesterday, on the 3,682nd day of Blue. Your father is dead. I do not have long to live. You will be an orphan girl. But these abrupt first words are of little consequence. They are not sad facts. There will be more urgent matters for your worry as you grow older.

The world has changed and the Blue is everywhere. The air is thick and soaked with an oily stench. Even the sun struggles through. Everything I touch is greasy Blue and at night the ever-present high-pitched rattling is maddening. It is in our lungs and bitter on our tongues. How will you ever survive? It was only yesterday that the ants refused to come out of their nest. They closed off every entrance, and it wasn’t even raining. So what hope is there? Why do I write these words? I must be quick. Otherwise, how will you know about the time we walked with bare feet and could feel the coarse sand beneath the cool water of our creeks, and feel the contrast of the stony ground, the crackling of fallen branches, and the soft leaves of sedges between our toes? How will you know of the familiar smells of pollen and freshly killed meat of our prey, the endless upward-reaching branches and cover of trees and bushes, and sounds of birds competing to be heard as the sun rose each morning? But why tell you about the Red if there is no hope for its return? I will be fast. There is still hope. The people’s survival depends on at least part of the Red returning. Their survival depends on you, Little El. And here we are already. So soon in my story, so soon in your short life, and I have come to the most important part: a request for you to consider your life’s purpose. It is simple enough and I won’t waste words getting to the point. Little El, the world needs you to grow to be a great and wonderful poet. There, it is done. I have asked the question and now I can relax. If I die tomorrow, sufficient words are here for you to know what must be done.

Slower now. As you grow from this vulnerable child that I hold in my arms, you will come to know and love two people, Pen and Chough. They will care for you when I am dead. They are here with me now. They are good friends, although looking at them you’d never tell. They are fighting over whose turn it is to hold you. Pen will win though. She’s older and wiser than Chough, and she’s always been the strong one. Not physically. She’s quite soft in that way, with fullness about her body, like she’s always been well-fed. That one feature led me to the unfair assumption that she was part of the Blue from the beginning. It’s only now I see she is part of the hope that I also see in you. So it is not her physical presence that leads me to the notion that she will hold you next. Rather, there is something in the way she talks that will persuade Chough to listen and agree. She has a gentle confidence that Chough knows well, having lived with her for so long. They live down there, at the bottom of Woodland Hill, in a small stone shelter that never progressed into a modern one like the rest. Pen is a good person. You will have something in common with her before long. She became an orphan when her parents died in the fire on the first day of Blue. Chough’s mother, brothers and sisters also died on that first day. Every family had losses. I guess that’s why Low wanted to change the world and rose up to force Chough’s father, Oot, out of power.

Chough is a good person too but he is getting more like me every day, preferring to hide away when there’s too much conflict. In many ways, he’s the exact opposite of Pen. His hair is thin and greasy while hers is thick and bouncy. His posture is stooped and gangly while she is straight and tall. He is perennially undecided while she is certain and forthright. Chough does have a win every so often, like yesterday: he named you. When he held you for the first time, you shied away with a huge frown and he yelled, ‘Little El!’ Of course he said it was your dark eyes and your thin arms and legs, but I knew he saw my worry in your newborn face.

As for me, I live on Woodland Hill because the people won’t find us here. This is where I grew up during the Red. I know this place so well, and all the good hiding places. I spend most of my time here now, at the top. You were born just over there, on the ants’ nest. It must be going to rain. The wind is up and there are a few ants out today. They’re excavating inside the nest and building up their entrance edges with the finest of sand. They don’t get much shelter there. It’s the highest point on Woodland Hill and for some reason the trees only grow around the edge of the summit. I wonder what came first. Was it that the trees didn’t want to grow there because of the type of soil and rock, and so the ants moved in? Or was it that the ants arrived and made sure no seeds of the tree grew by collecting them all and storing them underground? I have a million similar questions in my head. It’s unfortunately in my nature to want to find reason. That’s my scientific mind at work, wanting to know why all the time. Pen is just far enough away from the nest so you’ll get some shade from an overhanging branch when it’s her turn to hold you. She’s keeping a reasonable distance from the ants because she doesn’t have the same affinity for them that I do. She thought it a little weird that you were born on top of their nest, and this will probably sound weird to you too, but the nest made me feel there was hope for you coming into the world. Woodland Hill is the last place left untouched. It’s the only place outside what Low created. One single hill, that’s all. One small remnant of what the world was like before the first day. It’s the only place in the world where I can look in any direction and not see a transport line. I look at the ground and all I see are plants, insects, sand and the ants. The ants are now my gauge of hope for the Red’s return. They comforted me when you were born, when you lay on my stomach and exhaled your first Blue breath. That’s right, Little El, the Blue is even in you. It scares me to think that you will grow up only knowing the world like this, with the Blue seeping from our minds, into our blood and onto our skin. If only I had been a poet instead of a woman of science. Maybe then I could have done more to stop Low. Oot used to say, ‘The knowledge of the poet is shared by everyone. We cling to it as a necessary part of our existence, our natural inheritance. The knowledge of the scientist on the other hand is more personal and slow to come to us, and not easily shared with our fellow beings’. Unfortunately, Low was a great poet, which turned the people against Oot and toward the Blue. Now the world needs poets of a different kind, like you, to bring back the Red. Then you will be able to roam endless hills of trees and dappled light while searching for something to eat. You will chase down your prey and kill it with respect. From hunger and toil to feast, it will be the most rewarding food you will ever eat. And the Red will bring wonderfully hard winter days when you are so cold that when spring arrives you will embrace its warmth and long for it to never end. That is the beauty that the Red holds for me.

You’re asleep now. It’s hard to believe that your little body is actually breathing, except for those involuntary twitches and nose scrunches you make now and then. It’s difficult to think that you will grow up one day to talk, and walk, and hopefully laugh. Pen’s here. She’s come to take you for a cuddle. I hope she doesn’t wake you. Chough will get his turn eventually. He’s still sulking over there. I’m not sure if it’s because he didn’t get to hold you first or if he’s still angry at me about mentioning his father. I think Oot is still alive while Chough and Pen think he’s dead. It’s the only thing we argue about. It is true that Low ordered my father and two other men to go searching for Oot shortly after the first day. I saw it. But I’ve seen Oot since then, here on Woodland Hill. He’s been here all this time guarding it, like the ants protecting the nest’s entrances. Why else would Woodland Hill have been left this way? He’s here somewhere but it’s best for me to keep quiet. Chough gets so angry, in his shy way, when I try to tell him about his father. I see it in his eyes, a lack of trust and respect for me.

Pen didn’t wake you. I’m going to rest now myself and I’ll write again soon. Goodnight, Little El.

POEM ONE FOR LITTLE EL

Sweet Red Reflection

That day, the last,

my young dead brother — everlasting

sweet Red reflection.

Your mind already gone,

I found you in flux — departing

in sweet life’s succession.

THE RED

My most fond memory of the Red, Little El, is when I was ten years old. It was a day in the middle of winter. Winter was the hardest of seasons for us back then. It was bitterly cold and the wind and rain were punishing. Worst of all was the scarcity of food. Birds and mammals disappeared and our meals were often small and bland. But it shaped us. It kept everyone gaunt, challenged and together each day.

This particular day my younger brother, Bin, and I were sheltering with Father, your Papa Rain, under the thickest tree canopy we could find. We had been hunting on the floodplain when the rain started and because we didn’t have time to get to any of our usual shelter places, like the rock wall at the bend in the creek or the tree with the hollow trunk, we ran to the closest berry tree. They have a thick and leafy top that directs the water toward the edge of the canopy and over the outer rim. Our naked bodies still got wet due to the distance we had to run up the hill, but at least we were out of the rain. The rain got heavier as we waited and it didn’t take long for Bin to get restless. When he looked at me with his usual cheeky smile I could tell he was contemplating a race through the grass and the creek. But then I got distracted by the sound of Father keeping himself busy by sharpening his hunting tool with a stone that went ‘whip’ with each sliding stroke.

Father was strong and bold in this hard life, and no matter what the situation he always looked at Bin and me with pride in himself and pride in us, his children. He loved us, and would throw an unconditional smile our way whenever we looked at him. When he smiled at me that day he yelled something that I couldn’t hear through the noise of the rain.

‘What?’ I yelled back with a grin. He reluctantly repeated his word and started to laugh. This time I understood. It was ‘Go!’ and my instinct sent me running after Bin who was already well ahead and in the open floodplain. I was immediately soaking wet and had to use my hand to shield my eyes from the stinging rain. The wind rubbed hard against my back saying, ‘Come on, you can catch him,’ but Bin was getting away. His legs seemed to be getting tangled with each step as he weaved through the clumps of high grass, and I thought, ‘You little bugger with your thin legs, you should be tripping over’. Then he disappeared into the creek. I slowed down as I approached but slipped at the bank and laughed as I rolled to the water’s edge. When I stopped, Bin was lying on his back five feet away with his eyes closed. He was motionless and his right leg was twisted and broken underneath him in the water. My heart was pounding from the run but for some reason I was not alarmed. I knew it was serious but Bin, seemingly not in pain, looked beautiful. He was calm and breathed deeply in his unconscious state. The rain came down hard on him. It had pushed his thin hair to one side and was cleaning his fair skin of all the dirt that had caked onto it since the last time it rained. I crawled to him and wiped his hair from his eyes to reveal the young and pretty face that I knew well. We did everything together — we slept nestled into each other when it was cold, we fought for play and we fought for real, and we learned about life and death together when we followed Father out hunting each dawn and dusk. He was my brother and my friend.

‘Bin,’ I whispered in his ear. When there was no response, I stepped into the water and lifted him up. He was thin and light but his leg, which was broken above the knee, was hard to support. I stumbled from the angle at which I held him but managed to climb to the top of the creek bank where I stopped and looked for Father across the floodplain. When he didn’t appear I started the long walk back to the berry tree, but I had only taken twenty steps when Oot appeared through the high grass and rushed up to us.

‘Ellin, are you alright?’ he asked, taking Bin from me.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Come on then.’

So we ran. Oot was quick and resolute about getting Bin to shelter and I struggled to keep up. When we got to the berry tree, Father ran to us and helped carry Bin under the dry canopy where they both carefully placed him down on the dry earth.

‘What happened, Ellin?’ Father asked.

‘He fell in the creek. I don’t know,’ I said standing in the rain. As Father and Oot examined Bin they glanced at each other as if they knew what needed to be done. But they seemed disappointed when Bin awoke and screamed high above the thumping sounds of rain on the leaves above us. Father waved his hand for me to come under the tree to help and, though I was scared to approach with Bin in such distress, I went in anyway. Father kneeled at his head and held him down at the shoulders. Bin struggled and wailed.

‘It’s alright, Bin. Ellin, lie across him,’ he said. It’s amazing how such simple words can make you mature in an instant. Confidence welled up in me. I lay over Bin’s chest and used all my strength to keep him from arching his back as Oot acted quickly. He moved his feet and hands into the right position and pulled with controlled force to put Bin’s broken bone back in place. Bin screamed and tensed his body with the worst of the pain. I hated seeing him in such distress and had to turn away. But Father reassured me with a nod that said, ‘You’re doing a good job,’ so I forced myself to look at Bin again and smile for his sake.

‘It’s going to be alright,’ I said, placing my hand gently on his forehead. As his body softened underneath me I smiled at Father, who nodded again, but this time with deep seriousness. I think he knew the gravity of Bin’s injury.

That night we settled into one of our higher sleeping grounds on the protected side of a hill — a small rocky outcrop that didn’t get much wind. There was a sandy base and good tree cover where Bin could rest in comfort and we could all sleep well.

It had been an amazing day but even more challenging days were to come. Despite all we had done, it became obvious that Bin’s leg was too damaged for him to survive. The broken bone was probably mending itself but the discolouration of his skin was spreading across his leg instead of retreating, and he became listless. Mother, your Nana Kay, tended to him as much as she could. She would go back and forth to the creek to get bark that had been soaked in the cold water to wrap his leg in. Oot had suggested it. He told us all the practical things we could do to help Bin, but it was Mother who seemed to know the reality of his situation the best. She felt his pain and knew his fate more than any of us. She loved him so much. At night, she would hold the cool bark on his leg while singing softly to help him sleep. I remember the words that she sang. It was our sleep song.

There are the moon and stars,

with a cloud afar,

and right here with me are Bin and El.

There is an owl in flight,

over the fire alight,

and asleep with me are Bin and El.

Now the water’s in flow,

with the fish below,

and along with me are Bin and El.

Here the land is glad,

and the life I’ve had

is in harmony with Bin — and — El.

Mother always sang that song to us when we settled down at night. Over and over she’d sing it until we fell asleep. During the day I would find myself humming to its marching rhythm while walking briskly through our Woodland Country. I’d make it match the beat of my footsteps. When Bin got sick it became a constant whenever Mother was tending him. I’d often wake in the night to her singing it as Bin struggled with the heat and sweat of fever. She was so gentle. There wasn’t much more that Mother could do than comfort Bin like that, and it seemed to work. Bin was happy enough.

One morning, maybe ten days after the accident, Father woke early and, instead of heading to the hunting grounds, went across the slope to where Oot and his family were awakening. The sun was just starting to provide some light across the hill as Father approached and bowed to Oot out of respect. I couldn’t see or hear them clearly, because of the distance across the slope, but Father seemed to speak in short sentences and nod at whatever reply Oot gave. Afterward, Father bowed to Oot once more and returned to our sleeping ground with a deep worry line in the middle of his forehead. That night I found out the reason for Father’s concern.

At evening meal time I carried Bin to our circle where Father was serving the food.

‘There isn’t much to go around tonight, Rain,’ Mother said.

‘I didn’t hunt this morning and didn’t have much luck this afternoon,’ he said.

‘Oot said there was no chance, didn’t he?’ Mother asked.

‘Yes. He’s right, don’t you think?’

Mother didn’t respond and Father placed the food in the middle of the circle but served just three portions: one for himself, one for Mother and one for me. As usual there was no food for Grandmother, who sat silently on the outer, but there was no food for