besides life, were a lovely variety of seeds, for which we are admittedly eternally grateful, and the less-than-lovely mass of leftovers infecting our oceans, most intensely so just north of our dragon islands.’ He motioned to a young man who wore a pair of curious, black, hollow spectacles over his eyes, and who sat across the circle from Ravno with his hand up.
‘Yes, do you have a song or dance to share with the group?’ Mr. Sunshine asked. The young man across the circle smiled with only his lips and tapped the black frames up with his pinky. Tap-tap.
‘I’m hoping you can explain why things go missing sometimes and where they go and if it has always happened, like people say. Are the ancients somehow involved?’ Tap-tap. Those who sat beside him looked quickly to Mr. Sunshine and hung on his every movement, the way the large apple of Mr. Sunshine’s throat hung and moved on every word from the young man’s mouth.
The porter’s cheeks dropped as he opened his gaze. The stubbled grooves of his smile retreated. ‘Yes, the casual disappearances are something of a knot in our time, aren’t they? Hmm.’ He breathed in discreetly. He swallowed and folded his large hands on his lap. ‘Perhaps one to keep tied.’ After a pause he said, ‘But why not? We can start with that as we chase our turtle through the sea.’ He recovered his grooves again and threw his hands in the air; he attempted to shake off the sudden feeling that shrouded him like Lurruna’s thick, winter steam-fog as it slides into the forest. The silent questions of those in the forum crept into Mr. Sunshine’s mind. Though it was the predominant thought among those in the circle, he knew better than to mention the Botorang. It was not the Wawasen way, of course, to say it outright. They probably also wondered why they didn’t ever see the Botorang, or whether a purposeful but unreachable power lived in the ether. Mr. Sunshine wished they would relax—it was simply a factor of life. Maybe people in botos took what Wawasens made right from under their seats, or maybe not.
Mr. Sunshine shifted in his seat and addressed them with confidence, ‘If you want to try understand the way of life before the Ada Era, with the ancient peoples hundreds of thousands of years ago, you need to try understand their beliefs in greater powers and supreme creatures.’
Ravno wondered what sort of creature sat before them today—what sort of creature he himself was becoming.
‘It’s tempting, when we don’t understand something, to put a concept or a being we can relate to on the other side of it,’ Mr. Sunshine said. ‘Before the Ada Era there were all sorts of myths and fantastic stories trying to explain the things they didn’t understand.’
‘Don’t we have that too, with our plays about how our islands were formed?’ a woman in the circle asked.
‘An important distinction we need to make, Aadi, is that even though our stories celebrate the milestones of our direct historia, we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Like the bird that flies overhead and lays an egg that, upon hitting the surface of the water, erupts into the first volcano of our land and creates a fruitful island and archipelago thereupon. Do Wawasens believe this happened, with our plays depicting how fat the bird must’ve been to accommodate such an explosive egg?’ Those sitting around the circle laughed knowingly with Mr. Sunshine as they saw the giant terns or other imagined birds in their minds, of plays and stories that had been around since the egg broke. ‘Of course not, we know it has something to do with the earth’s innards pouring up and making land, even though we don’t understand the process completely.
‘Whereas ancient peoples created similar stories as our bird, and sometimes much more fantastic, but held on to them as concrete and central truths,’ Mr. Sunshine said. ‘It’s elemental to note this when discussing how they lived, when understanding their behavior. How they perceived themselves on this sphere hurtling through space and how they interacted with the land and water and other life. The ways they dealt with other people. The ways they saw beginnings and ends, how they viewed equality, how things were valued, and why they put so much time and effort into some things and didn’t bother with other things.’
The thick black frames on the one young man’s face leaned his body undecidedly forward, with a tap-tap, ‘And what, can I ask, Mister, do the things they did or didn’t do have to do with our casual disappearances, as you call them?’
Even Ravno laughed with the others and with Mr. Sunshine.
‘Ha, yes, I was getting to that. Roundabout and eventual, if you’re willing to stay with me, is how I’ll grasp the slippery cucumbers or turtle legs, however you see them.’ Mr. Sunshine cleared his throat and the stubble briefly crowded his dimples. ‘We Wawasens could create an impossibly powerful Being that exists in some dimension we cannot see and who takes things, or makes things disappear, as it’s due for being so powerful. Instead of just existing, like other creatures do, we could attempt to explain why and how we got here using this Being. We could even give it a name—The Just Cucumber, if you like—and on our own accord gather things like lupine, magnolia leaves, or young children and toss them down a volcano spout. We could dance and sing and try to appease this Being into a cordial relationship.’
At this point Mr. Sunshine stood because his animated hands no longer reached high enough with his body confined to a seated position.
‘I could ask The Just Cucumber for advice on the next area of work I should try, about whether this person or that suits me as a maite or maitatu, or if I should stay todunasse. Or I could become servile and try everything to obtain its favor, as a sycophant. Many of the ancients wanted more than anything to join their great tutelary after they died—and that justified their entire existence! Almost as if the struggles of life on earth became too everyday and this gave them something to look forward to. They called it hope and wallowed in it.
‘But the casual disappearances just happen, and perhaps someone or something is behind it all or perhaps not. It’s unnecessary getting our capas all wrapped up around our necks worrying about it. Because there are enough flowers and bees and beautiful weeds for all of us aren’t there?’
‘There’s even enough for The Just Cucumber to take.’
‘Ha, that’s right. If that’s where things are going, let them go; on we live and die and there’s still enough for those that come after us, and the species we live with, if we act accordingly. Truly, that’s perhaps the most important part of all this in regard to how their fantastic stories shaped the way they interacted with the earth and all that was on it: Before the Ada Era most people thought they were on the top of a hierarchy of living things, as if other species could merely vanish to no grievous effect on humans, or even that the other species were created specifically for our benefit. This was of course because they had a special connection with The Just Cucumber who granted them the right to give and take or hoard as they pleased. Or, at the very least, they decided it didn’t matter because they had something greater and more fulfilling to look to after death. So The Just Crow is a better description, as that’s who we’ll be spending our eternities with.’
Mr. Sunshine paused for a breath and looked at the faces of the men and women seated around him. Some of them looked at the horned lark that darted across the ground as it briefly scoured the bare, red earth at the center of the circle. The lark flit up and over to the other side of the clearing. Some of their eyes and focus went with the lark. Some watched their own hands, and how their fingers made different shapes with each other. The porter analyzed their faces. He observed Aron flicking his glasses with his pinky and noticed the boy who had collapsed on the deck of the boto. That boy’s been watching me with impressive diligence, Mr. Sunshine thought. A boy with some insight, I’d guess. One I’ll have to keep my eye on.
More discussion followed about the idea of a powerful being in the center of one’s life and their comments strayed away from casual disappearances. The young man with the bobbing pinky and black frames speculated whether Mr. Sunshine knew more about things going missing, but he kept his thoughts to himself. Ravno fantasized about the incredible agenc
y this porter led, and himself as the newest recruit and what he might be expected to do. Was there initiation? How many others were part of it? Ravno imagined Kar, with her observational prowess, running around in the shadows and reporting to the porter what she saw. Or maybe Mr. Sunshine reports to her, which means Mr. Sunshine must know sign. Of course he must, most everyone does. And Ravno’s mind-stream splashed on and on, but slowed to a degree when he noticed a change of tone in the circle with the porter’s voice.
‘I feel like we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves. What I hoped to start out with today was the old concept of time. You know, they used to divide sections of time into miniscule moments, closely following those divisions throughout the day, often using a device like this.’ The porter faced the palm of his first hand toward them and showed the band around his wrist. The seated circle leaned toward Mr. Sunshine as iron to a magnet. The band had its own circle that sat on the inside of his wrist. He slipped it off and handed it to the woman who sat beside him. She looped her twiny fingers in it and tugged gently; the band became more like an oval, then a circle, then an oval again. The sun jumped into a