Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash By Robert Scott The rain swept in along the western seashore and landed on the old promenade market. The stalls’ awnings clicked, hummed, and extended over their displays, while a wave of hoods and hats appeared on the heads of the crowds. On the low cliff, at the Collection Point stall, Drew and Angela continued their reading, ignoring both the commotion below and the light drizzle that blew in and sprayed over the piles of offerings that covered the large table before them. Their goods were safe in the rain. Angela dropped a plastic sheet down the chute between their wicker armchairs and glanced back to confirm that it had landed in the correct container in the collection vehicle. ‘I enjoyed that one,’ she said. ‘Sweet ‘n’ sour, though too short, I felt. I filed it in 2170- 2180, if you’re interested.’ ‘Another war one, then?’ asked Drew, without looking up from his offering. He rested his right index finger on the word time in the middle of the third line of the final stanza and waited for Angela’s reply. ‘Yes, but quite original – it was simply about the waiting, the sitting around. There was no attack at the end, no drones, no bots, no rescue, nothing. Just a chap gazing out at the stars from an exoplanet base, longing for home. I wonder if he made it.’ Angela paused. Drew made no comment. ‘I can get it back if you would like to read it. I put it in Military, War Poetry. The author, dates, web-checks, finder-verification all checked out, so I didn’t want to bother you with a war one.’ ‘All that soldier-poet crap.’ Drew regretted saying that. ‘Show me the next good war one.’ ‘Roger that, Captain,’ said Angela, with a smirk. Drew finished reading his offering and sent it through to Sonnets 2140-2150. He pushed his glasses onto his forehead, leant back, and stretched his arms, nearly hitting the low canvas covering. The rain was still coming in from the coast. The market below remained as busy as ever. A red umbrella popped up in the middle of the crowd – how exotic. It began snaking its way towards them. He remembered an umbrella shape-poem from the previous year – what was that about? The red umbrella disappeared. He turned and gave Angela the nod. She pulled out the next two acetates, handing one to him and turning the other over in her hand. The egg-timer hologram spun, and they settled down to read their offerings. Drew glanced out at the clouds again before he began. There was always enough time allotted by the childish timer hanging in the air between them. And taking a moment always increased the sense of expectation. Would it be lyrical, realistic, from near or afar, recent or centuries-old, mundane or magical? The rain was damping down the sand dust and freshening the air; it pattered about on the awning-top like a family of rodents. Neruda would love this, though Pablo preferred the sound of rain battering on the corrugated iron roof of his tiny reading room in downtown Bellavista, his ruka. Perhaps the great Chilean poet enjoyed desert rain during his postings abroad, or while touring the north in his own country as read his poems to the copper miners. Drew crossed his legs and wiped a raindrop from the cool acetate surface of the offering. A second brush of the back of his hand cleared the tiny trail of bubbles to reveal the Retrieval Data. Author: Name Withheld (2015-93) Provenance: Accra, Ghana. Web-checks: Confirmed. Finder-verification: Anon. Verified He fingered the hard edges and flipped it over. It was a love poem, set by the sea. How apt. Right on time, a waft of salty smirr reached their den. They had a prime pitch, up on the hill, overlooking the bustling show of the market. The low hum of human activity didn’t distract from the reading. On the contrary, it provided a sense-background to the messages from the past that lacked any physical sensuousness on their clinical plastic sheets. The Council knew that it was a good spot to tempts customers – to get away from the crowd, enjoy the sea-view, and most importantly it would attract more offerings for the Archive. Drew placed his finger on the opening line: Six miles of waves till I see you again … The darker shade of sky aided the reading; dulling the sun’s glare and ghosting away the reflections that usually fell across the laminated plastic sheet. Not an ideal medium for the eyes to focus on, but at least a means to overcome the painful durability of plastic - the cockroach of the human footprint - as it clogged the seas and choked all life wherever it went. As with life itself, for the written word survival had been a challenge. For decades, books were burned, discarded, bargained away, or simply turned to dust. Digital versions were lost in obsolete systems, wiped, stolen, or destroyed in wars and climate disasters. But at last someone in power made a good decision. What should a species preserve? Bottles, bags, plastic gloves? Or the words and poetry of the centuries? And what greater and worthier a mission as turning evil into good? Turning plastic into poetry. Before Drew got going, the camera-monitor pinged, and a man’s head came into view. ‘A walk-in,’ said Angela. ‘It’s my turn, I think?’ The timer stopped and they readied to face the public, the least enjoyable task of Drew’s otherwise comfortable peacetime desk job. A tapping sound came from below, at the foot of the staircase hewn into the rock. Metal on stone. It grew louder, with a second-long pause between each tap – tap – tap. A head and a shock of dark hair appeared, against the pale ochre shades of the cliff; like a portrait silhouette. Then a silvery glint and a splash of colour; the metal tip of a rolled-up tartan umbrella landed on the penultimate step. Tap! The visitor presented himself. He looked to be in his mid-thirties. When he spoke, Drew immediately recognised the accent – it was his once – thirty years earlier. Something else he had lost along the way. ‘Good afternoon,’ replied Angela, as she stood and bowed in greeting. ‘Welcome to the Archive Collection Point. Thank you for visiting us. Do you have an offering?’ The man accepted the offer of a seat and looked over and nodded towards Drew, who instinctively lowered his voice in greeting and tipped his hat forward. Angela took the acetate from the visitor and started to run through the usual checks. ‘Nice job on the transcription there – oh, I see who did that. They are good,’ she said. Something made Drew dip his head further when the man was about to look his way. ‘Do you know any more regarding the provenance?’ asked Angela. ‘It states, Family: probable. We ask because people do not always appreciate how useful such details are for us. They paint a picture around the piece. Could you elaborate?’ ‘No, I’m afraid not,’ said the man. Angela paid the man. As he got up to leave, he looked over to Drew and bade him farewell in his first, at-home, language. Somehow, the visitor had worked that out. Drew smiled and repeated his words. Angela was too busy to notice the exchange. As the man disappeared down the steps, he turned to Drew and mouthed several words. Drew gripped the arms of his chair, almost rose, then checked himself. ‘I’m going to look at this one now, if that’s all right,’ said Angela. ‘I love the walk-ins. They’re so much better than the heaps of anonymity.’ She flipped from one side of the acetate to the other, oblivious to Drew. ‘It’s called Come Home. No name. It’s very recent, thirty years old. It’s translated – only a content-level translation, it hasn’t been passed up yet, so it might still be clunky. Shame.’ Angela liked to read aloud the opening lines, before muttering through the middle parts, then returning aloud for the ending. ‘Here goes: Come Home Called to arms, as the fighting faded. My poet, turned soldier, Come home, love, before it’s too late. Every moment is danger, take care till the peace, And come home.’ Angela muttered on, ‘We’ll forgive and forget. You half came back, then left again’. Then she got lost in the poem, falling silent, then returned for the ending. ‘Come home, love, before it’s too late. That’s it. Oh. How sad! And mysterious. So, this person went off to war, survived, went home, then disappeared again.’ ‘I’m going to take a break, Angela. Back soon,’ said Drew, jumping out of his seat. The rain-damp rock dust stuck to his hand as he balanced himself, descending the uneven staircase. Halfway down, he stopped to gather himself. He scanned across the dark shifting morass. That umbrella should jump out like a warning beacon in the night. Nothing. Whoever he was, if he had come here, he would have to leave again. So, the transportation hub. Ten minutes’ away. Angela wouldn’t mind him disappearing for a while. Back at the stall, Drew slumped into his chair. ‘Are you all right, Drew? Where have you been?’ ‘Angela, do you remember the name on that offering from the drop-in?’ ‘No, and it’s gone.’ ‘What did you file it under?’ he asked. ‘War/Romance.’ Drew released a sound like a laugh that stopped before it began. ‘Do you know if we can destroy the acetates?’ ‘What a question, Drew! The new ones are virtually indestructible, as I understand it. That’s the whole point of the Archive.’ ‘So, we can’t destroy the past, even if we want to? No, we can’t.’ He answered his own question. ‘And time doesn’t do that either.’ He sat back, and looked at the clouds, sea and the market going on below. ‘I think I already knew that,’ he said. AuthorRobert Scott lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. He has short fiction in several magazines and a couple of anthologies.
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