Authors: Mark Lavorato
These were the moments that started to make me wonder.
They weren't reacting this way because of a few shredded leaves on the ground. That much was impossible. There was something more, something around us that we weren't seeing - that we weren't allowed to see - and I wanted to know what it was. I decided to look for it; and the most obvious place to start was in my schooling.
Almost everything in our education revolved around the resources of the island; we learned how to make cloth from the fibres of trees, how to tend and harvest fruits and vegetables, woodcraft, fishing; and this all eventually progressed to studying different systems for getting water, using wind, and sailing. Then there were the things that we learned indoors: mathematics, reading, writing, problem solving, evolution; and it was there, usually in a corner of the Community Hall, where I started to venture a few devious questions, hoping to catch one of the Elders at an incautious moment. Of course, they saw me coming from a mile away.
I can remember the typical conversation perfectly. An Elder places a pile of books on the table, sits down across from me, slides a dusty volume off the stack, opens it to a page that has been clearly marked as the spot to open to, and tries to begin the lesson. He introduces the session as, 'the island's ecology', or 'the island's weather', or 'the island's geology', and my eyes light up. I happen to have an interesting question in the same vein, and the fragile moment seems to have finally come when it's appropriate to ask. "Where's the next island?" I would venture.
The Elder, regardless of who it was, would almost look nervous at first, but when he replied, his voice was clear and patient; he knew just what to say. "To be honest, Joshua, I don't think that's very pertinent to this lesson." Then he would slide the book under my nose and point at a picture, getting ready to talk.
"Oh. Sorry," I would say, not looking at the picture, "But... well - where is it anyway?"
He would stop, suddenly stiff, and lean back ever so slowly, his hands sliding along the table as his body moved away from me, the cloth of his shirt hissing along the surface. And once he was propped against the back of his chair, he would suck an enormous amount of air through his nose, his nostrils caving in, until his lungs were almost bursting with it. Then he would breathe it all out again, little by little, looking at me the whole time, making me shrink into my chair. "That isn't for little boys and girls to worry about. Okay?"
I would nod quickly. Okay.
After the lesson, I would think about what he'd said. What did he mean by, 'It isn't for us to worry about'? I wasn't worrying about it - I just wanted to know. It seemed like such a simple question to me, why wasn't there a simple answer? And with the answer that he did give me, was I to understand that when I was older I would worry about it? And if so, what was it? What could be out there or around us that was so scary that we were going to have to spend the latter part of our lives 'worrying' about it?
I don't think the Elders handled these questions very wisely, because by completely barring them from discussion, they weren't creating a wall, they were putting a hole in one. It only impelled me to ask more questions, watch more carefully, listen more fanatically; they, of all people, should have known how much carefully spoken words echo.
And once I started to look, the discrepancies were everywhere. There were books that we couldn't read, and of the books we could read, there were pages we couldn't see, buildings we couldn't enter, rooms that sometimes had many people inside but the doors were closed and locked, hushed voices behind them, the Elders' movements being projected as shafts of shadow stirring along the line of candlelight that fanned out from the doorsill.
Until eventually, I noticed that I wasn't the only one asking questions; there were others, just as curious as I. Though, soon after realizing this, a community announcement was made, which was intended to wipe such curiosity out before it could get out of hand. They asked that all of the children of the island - which were a definitive group, as we were all about the same age - respect the fact that some of our questions would not be answered, nor would we be allowed to hear certain conversations, or enter the Great Hall at any time. However, there was a right of passage that would be known, henceforth, as Coming of Age, at which point in time we would be told everything on an individual basis, and, rest assured, would come to understand exactly why it was so important that several things be kept undisclosed until we were old enough. We were told that instead of worrying about the serious duties of the Elders, we should concentrate on our education; that, and enjoying the blissful life of a child. Nothing more. Nothing less.
But a secret isn't sacred information, it's just information. The only difference between it and other information is that a person is expected to use a quiet voice to pass it on - and that's all - because it moves through a community just as readily, in fact, often even more so. By the evening after the announcement, there was a whispered rumour being passed from cupped ear to cupped ear. Apparently, what we were going to find out when we Came of Age was that something very bad had happened in the world, but that, somehow, we were going to fix it. We, the island, were going to make everything right again.
The children looked around at each other, nodding their heads, the hands that they'd used to help hear the whispers lowering sombrely to their laps. It suddenly all made sense. No wonder they didn't want to tell us, this was a taxing thing to think about. Hmm. Well. I guess they were right. We shouldn't worry. Instead, we should be playing. Come on, I figured out a way to make a slingshot. And they all ran into the forest in groups of three.
I remember that after that day, it was as if the children had moved back a step. They stopped asking difficult questions, stopped listening against the doors, stopped wondering; I think they actually believed that, for the time being, they knew enough.
Whereas I was stuck thinking about the different Elders I'd watched without their knowing, standing beside tables, their fists tight, eyes closed, lips pursed. Those people weren't thinking about saving the world, and they weren't thinking about fern leaves, either. No. There was something else.
3
There was another important event that took place in my childhood. And I consider it important, not because Harek used it against me when I Came of Age, but because I've always solemnly wished that it had never happened at all.
There is a line that every one of us consciously draws, which, I think, is our fumbling attempt to differentiate between right and wrong. Of course, there is no such thing as right and wrong, and if there were ever to be a physical line between the two, it would be immensely jagged, its boundaries hazy, the colours of both sides endlessly bleeding into each other. 'But,' we stop and say to ourselves, 'we have to start somewhere'. So we pick up a stick, put a contemplative finger to our lips, and squint at the bare soil in front of our feet. And here is the interesting part: because what is natural for a human being to do is lean over, scratch their own individual quavering line in the dirt, straighten up, nod with satisfaction at themselves, pause, and then look over their shoulder to see if anyone is watching and step over it.
We'd killed hermit crabs before, raising stones above our heads and pummelling them into the stiff sand, and we'd also taken the heads off of beetles with the tips of our fingernails, watching their arms twitch frenetically in the air for a few seconds afterward; but a part of us knew that what we did with the lizard was going too far.
I don't remember where I was walking to, but I remember stopping in my tracks and listening to the sound of their giggles for a few moments, there being something inside of them that was undoubtedly mischievous, luring. I turned and went to investigate; whatever it was sounded like fun.
As soon as I broke through the trees and saw the backs of Mikkel and Peik, I felt incredibly lucky. The three of us were probably the most promising and intelligent children on the island, so the Elder's often put us into the same group to learn or to do problem-solving projects. But as we were discouraged in having exclusive friendships with one or two people, outside of our schooling we didn't really get to enjoy each other's company very often. Had it been allowed, I think we would have spent a lot of time together, as the three of us were similar in quite a few ways.
Everyone liked Mikkel, and I think this was because he was equally amiable with everyone on the island. He was taller than most of the boys, and had blue eyes and dirty blonde hair, which was always a bit too long and constantly hung in front of his face. Peik was a bit shorter, had high cheekbones, brown eyes, and straight black hair. His skin was much darker than the rest of the children on the island (though it wasn't nearly as dark as one of the Elders, whose skin was almost black it was such a dark brown). I'm pretty sure that both of them were a little older than me.
They obviously weren't expecting anyone to come through the trees that day, and as soon as they heard my footsteps, they spun around and stood shoulder to shoulder, hiding what they were doing. They relaxed once they saw it was me, but I remember that there was something in their manner that was different than usual, that they remained a little tense, edgy, which only signified that the Elders would be genuinely infuriated if they found out what was going on.
"What do you guys have there?" I asked.
"A lizard," said Peik, trying to sound nonchalant, but I could tell that he was excited. He looked over at Mikkel, who held up a few pins that he'd quickly hidden in his hands when they'd turned around.
"And these," said Mikkel, almost proudly.
I smiled, not really understanding, and stepped forward while both of them parted and faced each other, their bodies opening up like a gate to reveal their prize. The two boys had stolen some pins, probably from one of our clothing classes, and had also managed to catch a lizard. They'd stuck one of the pins through the centre of its tail, fixing it to a stump. The lizard was bright green, its beady eyes black, and it seemed to be struggling half out of confusion and half out of pain.
"Cool," I muttered, as if to myself.
"We just caught it," said Peik. I nodded, and we all stood there looking down at it for a few seconds, silent, the lizard seeming to look back. Then, without taking his eyes off it, Peik reached over and found Mikkel's hand, took a pin from it, and crouched down to the stump. "Watch this," he said. He stuck the pin into one of the lizard's tiny feet, and it reacted by opening its mouth and, oddly enough, biting its own appendage above the pin. And to us, at that moment, absolutely nothing could be funnier in the world. We started giggling, hysterically, almost unable to control ourselves, leaning in on each other, pointing down at it, stamping our feet on the ground. Though I recall that we still had the presence of mind to keep our voices down, as not to be heard.
As soon as we'd recovered a bit, Mikkel and I each picked up a pin and crouched down to the lizard as well, smothering the stump in shadow, our heads almost touching in a circle. It was all so invigorating, intoxicating; it's hard to believe how formidable a tiny pin can make one feel, how powerful. This was because we could see, with the lizard's head jolting from side to side, that it was terrified, watching us all closing in around it. It had become desperate, trying to squirm free with every bit of energy that it had in its tiny body, wanting to find a nook to hide in, a branch to climb, even some open ground to scurry across or water to jump into - anything. But we weren't going to give it that chance.
I stuck my pin into one of its legs, Mikkel stuck his into the skin by its ribs, and Peik pinned another of its feet. Of course the lizard kept struggling, kept twisting in pain, biting at its own flesh; and we kept laughing, and then laughed harder, water coming to our eyes, our stomachs eventually becoming sore. It was great fun. At some point, we started competing to see who could be precise enough to pin the smallest appendage, and I remember that Peik won this game, managing to get one of its fingers just below the nail; and when he did so, the lizard held its head up to the canopy and opened its mouth wide, showing a tongue of dull pink. This led to shoving leaves and twigs into its mouth to see if it would bite down on them, and then giggling when it did. We brought our faces down to it as well, seeing how near its mouth we would dare to put our noses, jokingly nudging each other when we were almost close enough to touch it.
After a long while, the lizard became completely exhausted, its reactions subdued, sluggish; it had stopped squirming altogether, stopped responding. So we prodded it with our fingers, tried piercing parts of its body that we hadn't yet touched, but nothing happened, and it looked like our game was over. Peik, seeming bored, finally picked up a pin and drove it through its skull. It twitched a bit, and then stopped moving forever.
But the moments after he did this were by far the most poignant. The three of us stayed crouching around the stump, glancing at one another, the smiles that had adorned our faces the whole time slowly, slowly beginning to fade. We all looked down and watched Mikkel's hand reach out to run a slow finger along the lizard's back. When he was finished, he quickly put his arm back at his side and looked out at the trees. Peik, after seeing this, leaned in and began retrieving the pins from the dead creature's body, taking them out of its coarse skin almost gently.
There was no more laughing. We'd become quiet, sober. Because we knew - we knew that we'd gone too far, that we'd overstepped some kind of boundary, moved something that we couldn't put back in its rightful place. Yet that was all we knew. If we'd had the capacity to understand why we'd done it, what had driven us, I don't think we would have started in the first place.
As we stood to leave, Mikkel picked the lizard up by the tail and tossed it into a few bushes, out of sight, and we walked out from the forest and into the naked light of day. I don't remember what happened after that, if we ever talked about it again, or even mentioned it, but the details of what we did and how we did it, are still fresh in my mind. And they would need to be. Because what we did to the lizard that day was incredibly important in helping me understand The Goal later on in my life.