Wyk

The Glade

“I thought you didn’t like the old man,” said Wyk, as they rounded the corner.

“I didn’t. But he was talking sense, in his own way.”

“He was?”

“In his own way.” Marie repeated. She appeared to be attempting to smile, before thinking better of it.

“But what did he mean? I seem to have more questions than ever!”

“Of course you do. None of this is happening as it should, not for you, not for me, not for this whole place.”

“The Ceecee?”

“Yes, the Saysay. Look, here we are already.”

Wyk could hear the gentle tinkling of water. Ahead, the path wound towards some larger trees, but Wyk could see a grassy hillside beyond. Her first thought was that it was another glade, but as the pair moved through the copse, she realised the grassy upland stretched as far as the eye could see, in every direction, every way she looked. She turned her head back the way she had come, to find the path was no longer to be seen.

“Oh, wow,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine a place more peaceful. What’s the…”

“Shhh…” Marie exhaled.

“Why do I have to be quiet? I…”

“I said shhh! Please. I just need time to think, OK?”

Wyk shhhed, and followed Marie as she mounted the first, grassy knoll. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered to herself. Butterflies fluttered in every direction, flashing red and gold, black and white as they danced across the longer grasses; above, songbirds shared their calls, swooping and circling, oblivious to anything but the sheer joy of flight. Water tinkled along a stream, tumbling delicately over iridescent stone. A rabbit took its languid time as it lolloped ahead of them.

“I could spend forever here. Maybe I should,” said Marie, breaking her own silence.

“What is this place?”

“It isn’t a place, it’s a feeling,” said Marie. “Do you know what poetry is?”

“Yes, of course. One of my characters loved poetry.”

“Well, this is where some poetry comes to exist. Not all of it, just the particularly wistful, the embarrassingly awkward. It’s every romantic young man’s idea of what poetry should be like… look, there.” On another knoll a wistful-faced fellow lay on a a chequered blanket, dressed in vintage wear. He gazed into the middle distance absently, before leaning over, grabbing a pen and jotting a few notes down on a pad. Marie smirked. “It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? Oh look, there’s another! It’s so…. sweet!” Higher on the sward, a young couple walked sedately, arm in arm. And in the distance, a boy skipped lazily across the brow of the hill. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Wyk looked puzzled. “But… poetry isn’t always like this.”

“No, but that is the thing. This doesn’t reflect reality, it reflects an idea of reality. As do we.”

“Are you saying we are like this?”

“There’s more — I could take you to Chick Lit Island,” laughed Marie. “Anyway. Shall we settle down?”

Before Wyk could respond, a young man (who looked decidedly like the waiter in the café, Wyk thought) appeared, with a picnic basket in one hand and a blanket under his other arm. Having placed the basket next to them, he flicked open the blanket with a flourish and let it settle on the ground. Nodding in a satisfied manner, he walked on.

“Do sit, please.” said Marie. This time, Wyk needed no encouragement. She knelt then shuffled her legs round, leaning back on her elbows and letting out a deep, satisfied sigh.

“There, you see?”

“What?” Wyk asked, somewhat dreamily.

“This place. It gets to you.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Wyk, letting her elbows slide out from under her. For a moment, she stared upwards, picking out butterflies and birds as they darted across her vision. Her eyes felt heavy: it wasn’t long before they closed of their own volition.

“Now, why are you here?” asked Marie, sitting down next to her.

“Oh, I don’t know. I thought you wanted me to be qui…” Wyk may have thought she was speaking clearly, but an onlooker would have heard a mumbled yawn.

“How about we start with what you do know.” Marie pressed on.

“Oh, I know that,” said Wyk, opening her eyes and shifting herself back onto one elbow.

“Go on.”

“Well, I know that its important to be liked but not as important as being kind. And I know all about cities, and buses, and the smell of a subway. And I know people can be dangerous. And I know about Tammy, and Sahil, and Adam, and Mo, and Lucy, and her little brother.”

“Okay, you know lots of things. But what does it all mean?”

“Well, that ’s obvious! We had all kinds of adventures, but when all’s said and done, and whatever happens along the way, it means that it’s not about who you know!” said Wyk, proudly.

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘It’s not about who you know’?”

“Ah, I get it,” said Marie, nodding her head. She laughed. “And, and I get why you don’t!”

“What do you mean?”

“Your name. Wyk. Who You Know.”

“I don’t get… oh!”

“You see, even your name is your story.”

“Oh.” Wyk looked crestfallen.

“What’s up?”

“It’s just… it’s just, I suppose, I don’t know. I know, everything you’ve told me, and I know, we saw the Arthurs, and I know, we’re in this place where everything is poetry, but I thought, and I know it sounds really silly to say this, but I thought I was… real?”

“But you are real, W-Y-K. You’re as real as I am. Anyway, what does ‘real’ even mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s all so confusing. I was confused already, and now even the confusion is confused.”

“Okay.” Marie took a deep breath. “Let’s stick with what you know, Who You Know. What happens in your story?”

“Well. There’s a problem with the money at the youth club. Tammy and Sahil have this idea that they can sort it out, they’ve heard of people who do that sort of thing. So they try to find them, but only get into more trouble when they do.” Wyk cheered up at the thought of it all. “It’s a modern tale, without too much moralising and a bit of a twist at the end. Quite fun.”

“That does sound fun. Tell me more about Tammy, and Sahil, and is it Adam? And…”

“And Mo, and Lucy, and her little brother.”

“That’s them.”

“Well. Tammy, she’s like the leader of the gang, but nobody says that. Sahil’s her best friend, they keep getting into trouble together. Adam and Mo, they live next door.”

“Where is next door?”

“Oh, it’s all in New York. In the Village. That’s Greenwich Village. It really is like a village, people know each other and get together when things get tough. Like the time Adam and Mo’s apartment got burgled, and Sahil came up with an idea about how to find what was missing, they took a brooch you see, which was really unique…”

“Something can’t be really unique.”

“What?”

“It can’t be really unique. Either it’s unique or it isn’t.”

“Oh. Anyway, they went round all the pawn shops they could find, and eventually they thought they were done, but they had missed one place, and that led them right to the thieves! It was Lucy, oh wait, I haven’t told you about Lucy yet, well, she’s possibly the most important person in the book because she’s actually telling the story, even though it’s not about her, it’s about everyone, anyway, Lucy spots the same people that they’d seen hanging round the park, she’d been with her little brother…”

“What’s he called?”

“That’s the funny thing, you never know his name, they always call him something like Sprout or Titch or something.”

“It all sounds very exciting.”

“Oh, it is!” Wyk paused. “I’m sure your story is exciting too.”

“I wish it was, but It really isn’t. I’m so dull!”

“What do you mean?”

“I could have been so much more, but they wanted to make it all about the science. It’s like I spent all day drooling over test tubes, my goodness, there’s more to life!”

“Ah.”

“Yes, ah! All my other characters, they had proper lives! I was just focused. So boring.” She smiled. “But that’s OK. And you see, it’s okay to be a story.”

“I suppose… ”

“And it’s okay to feel confused.”

“I guess.”

“Good.”

“But…”

“But what?”

“But there’s something else going on, isn’t there? Something funny. I am still working out why I’m here, but already, something feels wrong about it.”

“You mean, the confusion is confused, and that’s confusing the confusion?”

“Yes, it’s very…”

“Confusing?” Marie was doing her best not to laugh. “Oh dear, oh dear, my dear, I’m surprised you can think at all. If you don’t know why you’re here, how can anything feel wrong?”

“I don’t know, but I just know. Or at least, I think I do. It’s the sort of… the sort of thing that Tammy and Sahil and Adam and Mo and Lucy and her little brother might talk about.” Wyk looked around her before feeling her eyelids start to feel heavy once more. “At least here, everything feels a little better.” With that, she let her elbow slide from under her and turned, eyes closed, facing up towards the sky. Letting out a sigh, Marie did the same.

“You’re right, though,” said the scientist, after a while.

“What?”

“You’re right. Something very funny is going on in the Saysay. I wish I understood more, that’s why I wanted to come here. I always think best when I am here.”

A pause. “I was wrong,” said Marie, finally.

“Wrong?” Wyk still had her eyes closed, and decided to keep it that way.

“Yes. He wasn’t a deranged fool.”

“No, he wasn’t, was he?”

“No, he wasn’t.”

“Do you know what he meant? About the Pulpies? I’m not sure I like that term, it’s a bit, I don’t know, belittling.”

Marie chuckled. “You’re right, it is. But he is right, too. They’re all different, but they all seem to say the same thing. They don’t seem to have any… character to speak of, it’s like they’re all telling the same story.”

“And the edges…”

“…of consciousness eroding? I don’t know. But I’m sure it’s all linked: the moved arch, the old seaman, the Pulpies, even the fact you found me at the café. I don’t know what it all means, but I want to find out.” Marie spoke as determinedly as somebody could, lying in a meadow of gently wafting grass, with their eyes mostly shut. “Anyway, we can worry about it… very soon,” she said, equally determinedly, before falling fast asleep.

Wyk knew what sleep was, of course. All of her characters had slept from time to time, and, well, why was she even thinking about it? Of course she knew what it was. At that moment, however, she realised that she hadn’t slept for as long as she could remember, if ever. She was starting to ask herself what sleep even meant in the Seesee, when she found she couldn’t quite hold onto what it was she was asking about.

Five seconds later, Wyk, too, had descended into the deepest of sleeps. She didn’t know this, of course. What she did know, was that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, looking down over a vast plain. “Where is that?” she asked.

“That’s the past,” said a voice, behind her. It wasn’t a voice she recognised: young and cheery, boyish. She was keen to know to whom it belonged, but she didn’t dare turn around in case it went away.

“Why is it so flat?” asked Wyk.

“Because it has nowhere else to go. Only the future has contours, hills and valleys. In the past, everything is already done.”

To Wyk, this made perfect sense, which surprised her as it was the first thing that had made any sense at all. “But what about the present?” she asked.

“Ah, the present: that needs a map, doesn’t it!”

“Well, of course,” said Wyk, unconsciously turning towards the voice. As she did, she saw the only the briefest glimpse of its owner before they were whisked away, as was the mountain, and the plain, and everything else. Next thing she knew, she was plummeting into an empty nothing, an undefined, bottomless place. She screamed.

And woke. And sat bolt upright. Marie was still lying fast asleep, next to her. They were still in the glade. To their left, a couple of deer were grazing, and above, a buzzard drew circles in the sky.

“Marie,” hissed Wyk.

“Hmmmwh”

“Marie.”

“Wuhhhh…”

“Marie!”

“Wha… what is it?”

“I fell asleep.”

“Yes.” Marie still hadn’t opened her eyes.

“And I dreamt.”

“Yes?”

“I was scared.”

“Oh.”

“But I understood everything.”

“Oh? What happened?” By now, her eyes were open.

Wyk went to answer, and as she did, discovered an ancient truth about dreams. “I can’t remember,” she said, disappointed.

“Ah. Well.”

“What are we going to do?”

“How are you feeling? I mean, about everything?”

“Okay, I think.”

“Well, then. We’re going to solve this. Look, I think… you and me… you’re here for a reason, and I think I’m here for a reason, and I think we’re here, together, for a reason. I don’t know what it is, but I think it is tied up with everything else. And I want to find out about it, and about all that. What about you?”

“Okay. I think I do, too.”

“Thank you. It’s all a bit… complicated. For me as well. I have so many questions, not just about the Pulpies or the arch, but about you…”

“Me?”

“Yes, why are you here? Or indeed, why aren’t you somewhere else? You’re just a concept after all, are you sure you are in the right place?”

“But,…” Wyk started. She looked as confounded as a concept might be able to look.

“But what?”

“But, none of that matters.”

“Why not?” It was Marie’s turn to look flummoxed.

“Because, well, I’m not sure, I’m new here. But, I do know that I have a purpose. We can work this out. And we have to. I’m WYK, and I know what Tammy and Sahil, and Adam…”

“Yes, all of them…”

“Yes, they would want to sort this out. And so do I,” said Wyk, definitively.

“Okay then, let’s start with what we know, Who You Know! Before anything else, the one thing we can be sure of is: everything is here for a reason. Of course you are in the right place. If we’re confused, that’s because we haven’t worked out what the reason is, yet.” She paused, before starting to get up. “Right, I don’t think we have any choice. We’re going to have to start right at the beginning. You’re not supposed to go back, but, well,…” Marie sounded like she was talking to herself as much as to Wyk. “We don’t have time, but we have all the time in the world!”

“I’m not sure what that m…”

“It doesn’t matter, I’ll explain on the way. Are you coming?”

“Yes, I think s…”

But, and once again, before Wyk could complete what she was saying, Marie was already up and running down the hill, her skirts moving behind her. “Oh! Wait for me!” said Wyk, jumping up quickly and following in her wake. “Where are we going?”

“To the plain!”

“The plain?”

“Yes, the plain! You’ll see!”