Chapter Seventeen
Wolram’s dark past
Chantel reached the end of the patch of houses bordering the clearing and soon found herself immersed in the jungle. The trees towered over her like skyscrapers but thicker and more enclosing. She found herself being diverted along a track that meandered through the garbage piles, forging straight into the darkness of the forest. Chantel could feel the air around her drop a few degrees in temperature when she entered the cavernous canopy of foliage and the hairs on her arm tingled with the sudden cool change. She continued walking with the rainforest now so dense that the trees completely obscured the sun above the dirt path and she could barely see two metres in front of her in the dappled light. The sounds of the insects droned on in the depth of the jungle, sometimes pausing when Chantel walked past, as if they were also mystified with this bizarre being that had the audacity to venture amongst their midst. The wildness of the jungle echoed around her. Chantel dreaded the possibility that there might be rodents lurking in the wilderness just as there were in the warehouse where she and Brad had ventured so long ago. The thought made her quicken her pace.
In the distance, Chantel could see the trees in front of her opening up and light shining down on the path. She started to move quickly towards the break in the trees, wanting to get away from the claustrophobic feeling of the forest. She emerged at last from the density of the shrubbery and found herself in a vast clearing. The intense rays of the sun shone unimpeded on Chantel’s face, blinding her momentarily. She blinked through the sunshine and when her eyes adjusted to the light she saw a sight that instantly transported her to her childhood on the farm. Nestled between two mountains of garbage lay a wide valley in which a running creek meandered, trickling and gurgling with much more vibrancy than the flaccid river they had floated down to get to the community. The land and garbage in the valley had been cleared and transformed into stepped agricultural fields. Rice paddies were hewn into the sides of the mountains. Rows of green lines mapping the contours of the hills created a neat, organised patchwork of vegetation that reflected a resounding sense of order and conformity. The contrast of the green paddy fields against the backdrop of the disarray that was the wasteland momentarily confounded Chantel. She regathered her composure soon enough though to take in the majesty of the landscape. Juxtaposed against the chaotic surrounds of rubbish, the tidily arranged fields were a soothing reminder of the innate comfort to be gained by imposing sanity on the wilderness. Chantel audibly let out a breath of air in admiration of the beauty she saw before her.
She knew what Auntie Bessie meant now when she had spoken of the community in the wasteland as being a Garden of Eden. Here, surrounded by garbage was the fountain of life essential for the community’s survival. The crops in the valley grew in abundance, thriving off the fertiliser deposited by the rotting rubbish. The fronds of the plants glistened with the light they soaked up from the sun. The free flowing creek provided a natural source of irrigation, spitting up a shroud of mist that hung in between the mountains like a low lying cloud. All these factors combined to create a mecca for agriculture. Chantel ventured down into the fields and wandered amongst the plants. The tips of the rice plants that had been lovingly planted in pristine lines peeked out from the mud, almost ready for harvest. She skirted around the ditches to the other side of the valley where the sight of further fields of crops greeted her.
Chantel wandered amongst the fields of vegetables and other crops that produced the harvest the community had feasted on the night before. She recognised the leafy tops of potatoes and beetroot protruding from the ground with much more vigour than those that had ever sprouted at her parents’ farm. Further afield, immaculately trimmed rows of trees stood to attention in similarly well-organised orchards. Even from a distance the fruits dangling from the trees were a strong indication of the healthiness of plant life that sprung from the piles of refuse rejected by the civilised worlds. Chantel could not believe that she was standing in the middle of a wasteland, and that it was so beautiful. The rumours that she had come to accept for as long as she could remember of the wasteland zones being nothing but dead areas of the world were laughable to her now as she struggled to comprehend the strange sight in front of her.
The further Chantel walked the more astounded she was at the range of produce being grown. She could see in the far distance, a handful of people tending to the crops and made her way towards them. She was surprised when she was close enough to see what they were doing. The people were leading a huge bull, dragging some sort of device around the field.
“What in the world is that?” Chantel asked.
The heat of the day was already intense and the people looked exhausted. The person guiding the bull seemed to be slightly irked by Chantel’s comment but responded diplomatically.
“What do you think it is? It’s a plough,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Chantel was confused. She remembered the huge tractors dragging ploughs which turned soil in preparation for sowing from her days on the farm. The equipment towed by the tractors was heavy grade machinery. The tractors practically guided themselves using the coordinates programmed into the GPS. She couldn’t imagine the same job being performed by this buffalo. Chantel suddenly realised how primitive the community in the wasteland was and resolved more than ever to make a proposal to Pangaea for the improvement of the community.
“But it’s so small!” exclaimed Chantel, almost without thinking. “And the bull dragging it is so slow. It must take forever to plough these fields.”
The people gathered around the bull looked dumbfounded.
“If you’re so smart, what other way is there to do it then?” asked the bull guide.
Chantel bit her tongue. She realised that she had been impulsive when suggesting that the antiquated methods being used by the community folk were, well antiquated. The realisation dawned on her that the people she stood among had probably never even been to the agricultural zone and it would be pointless for her to try to explain the advances in technology that had occurred since livestock was used for labour. Chantel could not imagine having to depend upon something as unpredictable and wild as a buffalo with the integral task of ploughing. She thought about how easy the job of ploughing was with the automated equipment used on the farm and how much less time was spent on agricultural duties without having to perform everything by hand. She marvelled at the difference that power had made to the civilised worlds. Here was a community, surviving in the wasteland without the benefit of electricity. There were no lights to guide the community at night, no power to fuel the engines for machinery, no energy to process the raw materials needed for cooking.
Chantel had seen the odd solar powered rechargeable battery lying around the community, no doubt a discarded relic rescued from the rubbish. She presumed that these were only used to fire up the projector screens and hard drives for viewing holograms and the like. Apart from the few batteries Chantel had seen in the entertainment room, she could barely see any other evidence of electricity being used for daily tasks. From her impression of the daily life in the community so far, almost all everyday tasks appeared to be performed manually. It was incredulous to Chantel that even the simplest, most basic tasks, such as ploughing, were still undertaken manually. She involuntarily chuckled to herself just at the thought that there were still people in the world that had been left so far behind in terms of technology. In contrast to the glittering towers of advancement that she was used to in Sydney, the wasteland community was like a civilisation starting from scratch. She reminded herself that regardless of how beautiful the wasteland community appeared to be, there must be deep seated difficulties in the society if the people didn’t even have electricity.
“What’s so funny now?” the man with the cow asked irritably.
Chantel regained her composure.
“Oh, um. Nothing is funny. I was just thinking how strange it all is…how we arrived here
last night…and the big party.”
The people gathered around the cow broke into their respective grins. The weary wrinkles lining each of their faces, each one looking tired and hallowed by the sun, made it impossible for Chantel to estimate how old any of these people were.
“You come here with the lady. I remember now,” one of the people said. “We all thought she was lost to us, but you found her.”
Chantel laughed politely but refrained from delving into the whole story. Instead she used the opportunity to segue into her next question.
“Have you seen Aunt-, I mean the lady by any chance?”
One of the community members pointed just past a large hill covered in orange trees.
“She up there at the big house. Wolram’s house. That’s where he live, with her when she’s around. But she been gone for a long time now. It’s a miracle she returned.”
Chantel thanked the people gathered around the cow and proceeded climbing the hill. Although most of the rubbish had been cleared from the fields, upon closer inspection Chantel could see that the orchard on the hill was not as pristine as it appeared to be. Lurking in amongst the orchard of trees the odd plastic container and empty box still lay half submerged in the ground, unearthed by the roots of the trees as they delved ever deeper into the earth in search of higher quality nutrients. As she rounded the crest of the hill, Chantel beheld an even grander sight than that which had introduced her to the community farms. There, sitting perched on the side of a hill was what must undoubtedly be the ‘big house’. The ‘big house’ itself was more than just big, it was a resplendent boasting of grandeur, an ornate multi-layered edifice that towered over the gardens and trees around it with an omnipresent, mocking façade. Its extravagance was in stark contrast to the surrounding levels of subsistence living in the community and indeed from anything that Chantel had seen in the wasteland. In front of the big house stretched an overabundance of orchards, a sea of undulating greenery cascading to the rhythms of rubbish in its midst. Chantel gasped again at the splendour of it all.
As she climbed the hill to the big house Chantel wondered again what all this was for. Why did Wolram and the community feel the need for such levels of abundance when there was really no one else here to appreciate it? It was not like the big house was a building in the metropolis that could be appreciated by thousands, if not millions of onlookers throughout its lifetime. Here there was nothing, no one to admire the magnificence of the building, except for the people from the community themselves. Chantel found it hard to believe that the people in the community would be able to appreciate something as spectacular as the big house, given how simple the people with the cow had been. Chantel shook her head again at the paradoxical impressions given by the wasteland community and wondered what Beren made of it all.
As she reached the big house she was confronted by two community members standing sentinel. She mentioned that she was one of the people that had arrived on the boat the day before and she was seeking Auntie Bessie, more commonly referred to as ‘the lady’. The people at the door, servants it would seem, ran to collect Auntie Bessie and Chantel beamed when she saw a familiar face again.
“Oh, Chantel! How did you find me here? Come in, come in. Come inside, out of the heat now. You must be baking! Did you walk all the way here?”
Chantel was glad to see that Auntie Bessie was her usual bustling self, despite the reverence with which the people in the community treated her.
“You must be thirsty after coming all the way here. Won’t you have a glass of juice to cool yourself down?”
With a terse command issued to one of the community members that were gathering around looking curiously at Chantel, a team of people were whisked away to prepare some fresh orange juice. When they returned with the drink, Chantel was once again treated to one of the most delicious embodiments of sustenance that she had ever tasted. She felt instantly revived. Buoyed by the drink and being reunited with Auntie Bessie once more, Chantel fired off a flurry of questions about the community, the house and what Auntie Bessie’s role in the community was. Just as Julie had been previously, Auntie Bessie was slightly circumspect in her responses but did try to address Chantel’s interrogation as best as she could. The more Auntie Bessie revealed about the community, the more fascinated Chantel became. She was more convinced than ever now that she would pursue her original inclination, to work with Pangaea for the betterment of the people in the wasteland. She had no doubt that once Pangaea were advised of the predicaments faced by a society living such backward lives that the company would commit to its altruistic objectives, and assist those in need.
The legend about the wasteland was that it indeed had been started by roaming pirates. Sometime hundreds of years ago, it was said that they had capsized near the shore where the Pedigree now lay cocooned in the sand like a butterfly turning back into a caterpillar. With no way to return to the civilised worlds and with only the discarded debris of civilisation scattered around them, the pirates decided to start their own world using whatever they could find from the material in the wasteland. Naturally, the Captain of the pirate ship was the leader of the original community and the rules that applied at sea, applied equally to the ship’s crew in the wasteland. With the passage of time, the original Captain eventually passed away leaving self-proclaimed Captains to vie for control of the community in the deceased Captain’s wake. The wasteland society erupted into anarchy with various factions forming amongst the ship’s crew, all contesting for leadership. Auntie Bessie couldn’t be sure how they functioned as a society in this time, marked by such a constant struggle for power and unrest.
According to Wolram, this was how he found them. Conversely, according to who Auntie Bessie asked, this was how fate would dictate the leader for the community. Auntie Bessie relayed her understanding of the story, a story that had been passed from mouth to ear so many times now that it had become the stuff of fables. From what Auntie Bessie could gather from the people in the community who would speak to her of such things, he simply wandered out of the jungle one day at a time that was fortuitous for both him and the community. If it had been at any other time when there may have been an established leader in place, he might have been seen as an intruder and instantly killed. As luck would have it, he came to the community at a time when they had become weary with fighting amongst themselves. The competing factions had been waging a perpetual battle to destroy the livelihood of their opponents since the death of the Captain. As a result, everyone suffered. Neither faction was able to rear the crops required for basic nutrition before they were sabotaged by a competitor. Life in the community had become a series of retaliatory attacks and reprisals and all sought to free themselves of this pattern of petty behaviour. When Wolram stumbled, bloodied, sore and bruised out of the garbage, the community declared it a sign of their destiny that he become the leader.
From Auntie Bessie’s recount, Wolram was terrified of these people when he first joined them two decades ago. The mentality of the warring factions had bred a people that were inherently suspicious of each other, a society tottering on the brink of paranoia. The tacit aggressiveness of the people put Wolram on edge and he remained apprehensive about assimilating entirely into the society ever since his arrival. The community thrust their own leadership aspirations upon the newcomer and he graciously accepted before he had time to think about what that entailed.
“Being a leader is different from just being in power,” Wolram had told Auntie Bessie. “A true leader uses his power to lead, while those who just seek power will have no idea how to control it once they gain power.”
Wolram was a quick learner and realised what he needed to do for the community to regain a sense of harmony. At his direction, the community set up the agricultural fields, built the houses and managed to maintain a sense of civil order. By the time Auntie Bessie landed on the shores of the wasteland from her pirate ship, seeking to barter with the renowned community, it was already a th
riving centre of fresh produce for sea travellers weary of snacking on preserved foods.
By then, the community had been flourishing for only a few short years and when Auntie Bessie arrived she witnessed the community at its peak of civilisation.
“I could hardly believe my eyes when I first saw this place,” gushed Auntie Bessie again.
She elaborated again on the beauty of the wasteland, the benevolence of Wolram’s leadership, the community’s unquestioning acceptance of Auntie Bessie when she joined them as Wolram’s partner. After the first glimpse of the wasteland, the lure of the subsistence lifestyle had been too strong for Auntie Bessie. She left the Pedigree one night, on a boat smaller than the size of the Saharan and that was the last she saw of her dear sister and the rest of her family. She accepted Wolram’s invitation to join him in the wasteland, to live as his equal and confidant, to share in making the decisions that would guide the welfare of the community, to be as much of an outsider as he was. Wolram would not take on a partner from the community. For all the years that he dictated the people, he was steadfast in his singularity. He maintained his distinction from the people he led by building the big house on the hill. He exercised a reclusive lifestyle and was only seen when he needed to be. Wolram was seeking someone from the outside to be a loner with him and Auntie Bessie acquiesced to this paradoxical request.
It wasn’t until Auntie Bessie unexpectedly saw Condor scavenging on the wasteland beach almost a decade later that she remembered what it was like to belong to a family again. The fact that she had abandoned her sister on the Pedigree and would never see her again wracked Auntie Bessie with guilt. When Condor begged her to leave Wolram and join him on the Kazaa, she was so filled with remorse for her dead sister that she agreed. Days of intense negotiations with Wolram followed in which Wolram agreed to Auntie Bessie’s departure on the proviso that he would keep the Pedigree. In his mind he could not give up something for nothing. There had to be some sort of trade off. Condor was enraged that Wolram would dare to propose such a bargain, especially when he had no use whatsoever for the ship, as indicated by the Pedigree’s currently decaying frame. Nonetheless, Condor agreed to the deal in order to have his dear Auntie Bessie returned to the fold and upon doing so, he swore never to return to the wasteland again. Wolram was alone in the wasteland once more and had remained that way it seemed until Auntie Bessie’s recent return.
Chantel found it difficult once again to digest all the information she was hearing. So many questions still remained. Where had Wolram come from? Who was he before he stumbled upon the community? How many other purebloods were there? Why did he have a chip implanted?
“Perhaps you can ask him yourself,” Auntie Bessie suggested as Wolram suddenly appeared in the room.
Chantel instantaneously found herself lost for words. The presence of a pureblood, right there in front of her was an intimidating moment. She wasn’t sure if she should stand to bow before this pureblood or what action would be the most appropriate. Auntie Bessie ended up coming to her rescue once again by knowing the exact right thing to say.
“Wolram, I’d like you to meet Chantel from Sydney. She’s come a long way to find you here, or others like you wherever they may be,” said the matriarch, opening up the lines of communication.
Chantel was still speechless. As she stood in awe of the presence of the pureblood, Wolram beamed the warmest smile Chantel had seen on anyone for a long time. She figured that this was how he had managed to win the hearts of the people in the community, needless to say, the heart of Auntie Bessie.
“Yes, Bessie has told me all about the little adventure that you and Beren have been on,” boomed the charismatic leader, winking at Chantel as he did so. “You guys came all the way here to the other end of the world chasing some random footage that you saw on some glitch, hey? That takes some guts alright.”
Wolram erupted into a bout of laughter so boisterous that it seemed to shake the walls and floors of the room as vigorously as an earthquake, a process which was uncannily effective in dispelling Chantel’s nerves. From that moment, an instant serenity washed over Chantel. She was captivated by Wolram’s charm and innate blackness. She recognised his uniqueness, his absolute exclusivity from anyone else she had ever before encountered. There was in his presence something ancient, something that heralded from a time before technology and chips in the brain, something that seemed to associate itself with the land itself – a primeval enigma that inextricably linked him to the earth as it would have been before it was consumed by rubbish. Soon, the sounds of Wolram’s chuckling made Chantel feel so comfortable that she was relaxed enough to utter her first words to the pureblood.
She attempted to probe him about his origins. Why was he the only one anyone had ever seen that looked like him? Why was he so different? Were there any others that he knew of that were different like him? Chantel tried to politely gather as many answers as she could but Wolram’s response was always the same.
“I can’t remember a thing,” was his steadfast reply. “It was over twenty years ago now. I walked through the jungle…for days it felt like, I don’t even know how I survived out there in the wasteland. I can’t remember where I was coming from or where I thought I was going to. I think I just followed the water as best I could. All of a sudden I came upon this clearing and there, thank heavens, there were people! I must’ve looked a wreck. They took me in, gave me a decent feed. That’s all there really was to it.”
Chantel bit her lip at the simplistic response. She wished Beren was with her at that moment. He knew more about the history of this land. He had read more about this place, this Africa that was now the south western quadrant of the world. He would know how to find the answers they were seeking.
“What if we go there,” Chantel blurted out excitedly. “Once you see what’s on the glitch…it will baffle you, you’ll want to find out what it’s all about. We have the coordinates of one of the places. I’m sure it won’t be far to go to get there. If we take you to this place, will you remember what happened? There are more purebloods out there, I just know it. When you see the proof, you’ll want to find others like you too.”
Auntie Bessie echoed Chantel’s enthusiasm.
“Wolram, you’ve always talked about how lonely it is…you know, being different and all. As soon as I saw the glitch, I just thought of you. I knew that I had to come back here to help you find out where you had come from. This footage Wolram…it’s unbelievable, you have to see it for yourself. You won’t believe your eyes, I swear.”
Under mounting pressure, Wolram was finally persuaded to view the glitch. Servants were called upon to collect the equipment from the boat and Chantel and Auntie Bessie waited, brimming with excitement, at the prospect of unveiling the answers that they had travelled across the seas to uncover.