This piece originally served as a prologue to the second
book, The Trout’s Road, which I wrote a good portion of but has since been
relegated to the bottom drawer. Enjoy?
Jason Rooke felt he had a responsibility.
The past had been parcelled out among the realms. What
history did not serve their end goals, the Bubble Blower had either imprisoned
or the Hands had buried. But there in his possession was his father’s book,
Science and Rationalism of the Hands.
Perhaps with the aid of the book and with the knowledge he
had attained in his travels he could give history back to the citizens of
Tapestry. Awaken them to the cold hard facts.
There was no taking an objective viewpoint. Neutrality was
only a further betrayal in light of everything he now knew. He wanted to talk
to the Hands, discover their secrets, show them how their governing had
affected the citizens of Tapestry, and how history had stopped being made.
Only everything he knew was in his head, and in his
sketchbook. His father’s book was only a fragment of history, not really a
foundation to start building something on. He wondered if he was thinking well
above his station.
The book was one in a series, perhaps not even the first
volume. How much it covered exactly, he could not tell. He opened it up and began
to read on.
So we have, as a response to the event that we now know simply as ‘the
disordering’, the appropriation of entirely new methods of division,
organisation, and control. These methods are characterised by the development
of individuals with concern to their environments.
Tapestry has a rich and diverse history, an inheritance that will soon
be divided. It is a spiritual nation where its inhabitants have always desired
to live together and be regarded collectively. The emergence of these new
methods I fear will lead us to a Tapestry that will in time be unrecognisable
to the one we once knew.
I will consider the implications of the planned realms I mentioned
earlier, which are by far the most important instance of these new methods in
motion. I would like to demonstrate how the realms will be fashioned and what
impact they will have for us as a nation. Also, with the form of abduction, I
will attempt to make sense of the Hands and their governing.
The truth about what the disordering was and what had caused
it had been concealed by the Hands. They self-diagnosed themselves with
amnesia. His father knew little about the disordering other than what he
discovered through his suspicions.
I believe their explanation for the disordering was little more than a
guess; a hypothetical one, founded on insufficient observation and evidence.
They managed to abduct a single explanation for its cause while disregarding
any alternative possibilities.
In mathematics, it is known that 2 + 2 = 4, but the answer can also be
a 5 since the Hands can will anything into existence.
The disordering was the reason
for the realms. He didn’t need to read his father’s book to know that.
Disappointment set in then when he realised the book contained no satisfying
answers. There was still so much being kept back. His only choice was to go to
Machine - the city of the Hands. Where he could access the archives, find the
whereabouts of his friend Augustus, and hopefully obtain all the answers to his
questions.
Jason Rooke felt he had a
responsibility.
