Time's Well

By Frank George

The time is the not-too-distant future. The place is familiar yet very different.

A cataclysm has happened, and a new yet strangely old world has emerged. Legends continue to be played out.

A novella in two main volumes, this is a tale of those legends. In the first volume, a man and a woman meet and go on a journey to fulfill their destinies. The first volume ends with the birth of their child.

In the second volume, the child tells his story.

The novella ends with the mothers reflection on what happened and the childs arrival at his destination.

This is a tale that explores the nature of the cosmos through the unfolding of a familiar legend in an unfamiliar way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504995023

Frank George

The author is a retired teacher living in the southeast of England. Mentally and spiritually, he roams the cosmos.

Book preview

Time's Well

A CHRONICLE IN THREE PARTS

FRANK GEORGE

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AuthorHouse™ UK

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: [phone]

© 2015 FRANK GEORGE. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/02/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9503-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9501-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9502-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015918811

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Volume I Andrea

Andrea A Fancy Book the First

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

Interlibra (1)

Book the Second

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

Interlibra (2)

Book the Last

I

II

III

IV

Volume 2 The Traveller

The Traveller Prelibra

Book the First

I

II

III

Book the Second

I

II

III

Book the Last

Volume 3

Andrea

The Traveller

Volume I

Andrea

Andrea

A Fancy

Book the First

I

At last it stopped raining.

It had been nonstop for four days, and the water around the island had been rising. Yesterday afternoon my jetty had become submerged. Now the water covered the first few steps of the path leading up from it.

The sky was beginning to clear from the south-west, and I knew the waters would soon recede, so that by tomorrow it would be shallow enough for me to punt across from the island.

Tomorrow would be market day, and I needed to replenish supplies. Besides, I wanted to see Andrea. We could eat scones and share a pot in the small tea room just down from the church, whose spire I could see as I looked out of my window.

We had chatted only that morning, but personal presence was so much more satisfying than video downlink. Since she had come into my life about a month ago, I seemed to be spending more and more time with her, either in person or on the Net.

That first encounter was when we both reached out for the same copy of Polkinghorne in the cramped little second-hand bookshop on the High Street. A meeting of minds, I thought as we chatted philosophically over a cappuccino in the coffee house next door. We did not notice the passing of time. An immediate empathy had developed, and we vowed to meet and talk again as we exchanged e-mail addresses.

By the time I got back to the island late that afternoon, she had already e-mailed me. We set up our own chat line and seemed to spend most evenings on it.

But what I really enjoyed was the personal contact. Since I had moved to the island, I had lost the stimulation of in-the-flesh intellectual contact with those of the younger generation. My teaching was now all done from a distance.

Andrea was a lot younger than me, by at least thirty years; I never asked her age, and she never volunteered it. Not that ours was a teacher-student relationship. We met as equals, both exploring the same questions but coming to them from different disciplines and so providing enlightenment to each other.

I had been procrastinating in a well-ploughed field, churning out the same old stuff for the same old students, most of whom saw learning as a utilitarian path to career advancement. I could see nothing but a continuation of the same ahead of me until my brain became so atrophied that I could do it no more.

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The late-afternoon sky was cloudless as I walked down to the jetty, where the punt was still securely moored. The counter in the prow was reading only background -- a good sign, as it was just after high tide. I did a quick water test; BoD showed clean, and nitrates and phosphates were very low. The late-summer algal blooms now seemed to be a thing of the past.

The water in the Levels was receding as the tide went out. I marked the high-water level; the highest this year but nothing to worry about.

I dreamily gazed across the water to the wooded banks rising to the town. There was the faintest of breezes. A dinghy was tacking its way round the western end of the island, heading south and possibly out across the channel.

I thought of the steam railway that used to follow a similar route to that being taken by the dinghy, before striking westward towards the castle. Its tracks had long since been submerged, but a museum in the old station in the town, just up from the public jetties, preserved its memory. People travelled less now. The Net had eliminated the need for commuting, and most of the passengers on the rapid-transit systems were travelling for pleasure. Still, the town could get crowded with tourists on summer weekends, arriving in their H-mobiles, on solar-powered coaches or transit buses from the international rail link. I tended to avoid the town at such times. Perhaps I was becoming too reclusive.

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Back in the house, a group was playing I'll Take the Rain on the wall screen. I had had it on for the test match, and now channel 27 was showing a millennium retro concert from the park. Interesting to see what had stood the test of time from my early years. I decided to open a bottle of local Chardonnay, poured myself a glass, muted the sound, and settled into my armchair with the novel I was currently reading.

II

The next day, I rose early. I knew the town would be busy, and I wanted to get into the market early, to avoid the later crowds. That way I could get the pick of the crop and be able to stay longer with Andrea.

I thought of taking the dinghy, but the exercise of punting would do me good, even if it would take me a little longer to cross the Levels and get up Newmill Channel.

It was just after eight when I moored at the public jetties. The town was already busy, a stream of H-mobiles and windbikes passing both ways along the broad main avenue. I dodged my way between the traffic and entered the market. There were the familiar fruit and vegetable stalls, the meat and fish stands. The sellers were mainly local, but there were a few from further afield. I bought enough to last me a couple of weeks. I took my supplies back down the hill to the punt and locked them in the refrigerated hold. I then returned to the market for a leisurely browse, reminiscing among the memorabilia stalls.

At one stall, something caught my eye -- an almost surreal wooden carving of something that could just about be recognised as human. The stallholder claimed it was from the Congo and represented a local deity. I thought, Andrea would like that, and I pondered whether to buy it. Giving her a present would add a new dimension to our relationship. I moved on, feeling ambivalent, but it drew me back to the stall like a magnet. I debated with myself and moved away again. But the