GENESIS (GODS CHAIN) (4 page)

Scott missed his older brother, a lot
.
T
hey used to have such great times, wrestling like
the pros
!
Why d
id
we have to grow up?

The photograph pinned up on the wall was one of Christopher wearing camouflaged trousers and similar styled vest top
.
W
hat a
p
oser!
Scott smiled to himself
,
wishing
that he could be more like his brother.
Christopher had always been photogenic
—his
angular features
gave
him a kind of rough
,
model appearance and his
somewhat
long
,
marine
-
styled black haircut, fashioned with thin tramlines
,
display
ed
openly a degree of vanity very unlike the papal cloth that he so worshipped.
His tall brother held a large spear in one hand and a wide-brimmed green camouflaged hat in the other. Proudly he grinned from ear to ear! A natural pioneer, Chris was truly in his element in the Amazon.

His photograph
was
set against a background of dense greenery with
lines of
large
, fat
t
ree
tru
n
ks
.
Long sweeping vines and
thick
creepers
cover
ed everything!
The l
ush green and
brown foliage
was
so
ubiquitous
that it almost grew out in th
e
picture
in a cascade of
coloured flower
s
.
The picture felt somehow alive!

Scott
’s
bedroom
walls were painted light
blue and
plastered with
posters of his favourite football team
interspersed
between posters of
w
restling
h
ero
e
s and
c
omputer games.
There was a small television and an old game console sitting in
one
corner and a bookshelf with his magazines and several
advanced
school books on engineering science
in the other.
The rest of the
room was a complete mess
—
clothes l
a
y on the floor, abandoned
after
weeks of
wear,
causing no end of anguish for his mother.

“Scott!” shouted his mother
.
‘Dinner!’

Yes
!
His mind
leapt
into action
. Dinner was going to be
a favourite
of his—
cheese burger
s
and chips! Scott ran down
the
stairs
, almost drooling with hunger.

‘What were you up
to
,
son?’ asked his mother.

‘Nothing much
,
Mum
,
’ replied the boy.

‘When are you going to get a haircut
,
my lad?’
L
aughing
,
she ruffled his thick
,
dark
-
curl
ed
mop.

‘Dinner?’ Scott smiled a little to himself
,
knowing
that
he had no inten
t
ion of anything like getting a haircut
.

‘You can ask
Cammy
over to the house tomorrow night provided you tidy your room
,
’
she granted.

‘Aye sure,’ Scott confirmed coolly, still with no inten
t
ion of tidying his
hair or his
room
.
Mum
was a complete pushover.
Scott attended to his food. His
smiling face wiped away,
transformed
from delight
to disappointment,
losing all signs of coolness from his youthful composure
.
He stared at his plate in
miscomprehension
—
boiled potatoes, silverside
,
and broccoli
steamed up at him.
‘Aw
,
yuck mum!’
he cried. Tonight’s dinner was
his worst nightmare on a plate!

‘Cheeseburgers tomorrow,’ she promised.

Later that evening
,
Scott
toy
ed
with a computer aided design project
for
school.
He
had already
worked up
part
of
a new wind-turbine system, attempting to increase the Betz limit and so reduce
the
overall costs of manufacture
.
A
young rebel he was
;
engineering science was one of his
true
interests
,
if not
his
passion
,
along with computer games,
al
though he had painted some outlandish
graphic graffiti
on
the
outer-structure
sketch of the turbine, just to
annoy his tutor
.

Afterwards,
tucked up warm in his bed
,
Scott
listened carefully as the wind outside began to rise
,
blowing through the deciduous trees over at the manse,
scattering
single leaves
from near-bare branches
and flying
them
through the air
until they
slammed
against his bedroom window.
The trees would soon be
all nude
.
Pulling
the
covers up over his head
,
Scott drifted into a disturbed sleep.

**********

As
Scott walked to school
the next morning
the wind was still quite strong and breezy
.
B
lack crows flew
through
the air
haphazardly
, pitching loftily above and then quite unpredictably diving down in steep swoop
s
,
squawking
as they
fl
ew
past
his ears.
T
he hand held
school
bell
swung
up and down
,
clanking
metallic
ally
and
waning in the gale
as
Scott walk
ed
aimlessly
through the open iron-barred gates
of the school
, unperturbed by the mentors
who
wav
ed with
great urgency to all the stragglers.

The school had been a primary
school
for many years
but,
due to
the
declining population
of the village
and
subsequent decrease
in school roles, most
of the
younger kids
received their
schooling
from
a much larger school
in a nearby town
.
Scott’s school
had been converted into a very successful grammar school for some of the
area’s
most talented young students.
Located remotely in this secluded village, far enough from the media mainstream, seats here were very limited and only for a few exceptional or privileged students. This suited some well-to-do parents, who pulled strings to include their children, while other youths, like Scott, were simply of exceptional ability, and
of course
the educational body was obligated to provide a certain number of places for students who lived in the local community. They would all have to pay, of course. Scott was blissfully unaware of the personal sacrifices his mother made to keep him at the school.

Like most other buildings in the area
,
the school
was built with red sedimentary sandstone, mined
from
nearby quarries centuries ago. Stone
mason
ry
was
eviden
t
throughout
the village
,
al
though
the masons’
fine skills
and trade secrets were no longer in use
.
The majesty and intricacy of these projects
have never been surpassed by
today’s modern
mode of
construction
.
The main school building and
outer stone
structures
bore enigmatic messages with detailed inscriptions
describing the
hidden story of their intricate and
esoteric works
.