Turning
the Page
By
Lazette
Gifford
Small
shops littered the streets of Nova's old sector. Built of hand-hewn stone from the first days
of settlement, they crowded around narrow paths following no grid.
Jamil
glanced at windows. These quaint shops had been homes for the first settlers
before they settled into farms. The city
had grown and built over the first farms, and farmers moved northward.
Jamil
tried to get his bearings. His parents
had given him vague directions. Walking
here with tourists from off world oohing and awing about how quaint the place
was gave him a sour stomach. He hurried
on, getting the duty to his parents out of the way.
At
the next corner he found the street name carved into the block at the house
corner -- Homeward Street, where it crossed Dreams Place. Prosaic names for what had been dirt and
stone hovels back then. Wasn't really
much better now, but it was oh-so-quaint for visitors.
He
turned down Homeward, counting the houses on the right and stopped at number
four.
When
his parents visited twenty years ago, they'd found a bakery. The place had become an antique shop, the
window lined with old book readers, boxes supplies had come in, and dusty toys.
Jamil
pushed the door open and found three customers browsing and an older woman who sat
on stairs that led up to the loft he had heard so much about. He looked up past her, grinning.
"Not
much up there," she said.
"Oh,
I know. This was my great-grandparent's
first home on Terra Nova," he said, and noticed how the others looked startled. Off-worlders, probably from Earth on
vacation. "I told my parents I
would stop and see the place while I was here in the city."
"Ah. Gone north?" she asked.
He
nodded at the common local term for anyone who left the city when it started to
look more like something from Earth than a new world.
"Farmers. I'm here on business with the government --
renewal contracts, that kind of thing.
How do you like the place?"
"Best
place on the block. I had the choice of
four." She ran her hand over the
step beside her and stood. "I have
something for you. Go up and look around
while I dig it out."
"Thank
you."
He
went up steps made of carefully measured stone, smooth and inlaid with colored
blocks. He could see his great-grandfather
and grandfather's touch in the contours of the windows and doors. This felt like coming home.
Jamil
found the north window. You could no
longer see the distant mountains since the city expanded. No one would dream of exploring anything if
they looked out here.
He
went to the south window and stared across the street to where his grandmother
lived. He felt a little shock when a
young woman glanced out the window. He
waved. She did as well and laughed.
Terra
Nova had been a different place when this was the only settlement of humans on world. Supplies from earth were uncertain. The first farms failed until scientists
worked out plant genetics to fit Terra Nova.
He had heard the tales of the harrowing first years, but he could almost
feel the history now, imagining this place with no more than a couple glow
cubes for power. Fever killed some. Horrendous
on the fourth year had killed more.
But
they held on.
He
reluctantly went back down.
"Here."
The woman tapped something wrapped in yellow cloth on the counter. "I did some rework on a wall after a
storm, and found this had slid between the walls.
Jamil
carefully unwrapped the cloth and his breath caught. "It's the journal my great-grandda wrote
before he left Earth and after he came here.
He thought it was in the stuff they took north. No one knew what happened to it."
"Probably
fell during the packing," she said.
Jamil
carefully opened the first page. Photos,
faded with age, sat attached to the page.
Words, hand-written in an elegant cursive script, covered a few pages. He shivered, realizing they'd been written on
Earth.
"The
pages are fragile," the woman said.
"I it professionally scanned.
Here."
She
handed him a chit.
"Thank
you," he said, still stunned. He
closed the cover; sky-blue and white.
Earth-made.
"I
used to read pages every night," she confessed and smiled. "I don't know anything about how my own
family came here, but it might have been something like your great grandda's
journey. He had such dreams, and I think
he made them real in this place."
She brushed her hand over the wall.
"I came to love this building all the more after reading how he
built it while they lived in a tent and about your grandfather being the first
child born here. Seventeen later everyone
on the block celebrated his wedding, making paper flowers and turning the place
into a garden. There are pictures. When he couldn't get the old camera to work,
he drew instead until he got a new one."
"I
heard those tales." Jamil felt odd to hear the stories from someone else.
"I'm
glad to finally meet one of you. Your
great grandda was a hell of a man. You
look like him, you know."
"So
people tell me." Jamil held the book close, a treasure beyond anything
anyone had ever given him. "How
much do I owe you?"
"Nothing. I had too much enjoyment from the
journal. I still have a scanned copy of
my own and I'll get a replicate made. You
take that back home with you. And thank
your family for me."
He
gave her a very proper bow.
"I'd
buy that from you. Good money," a
man offered, coming closer. "And
publish it on Earth. Sounds like
something fascinating."
"No. No thank you," Jamil said. "Sometimes you just can't sell
dreams."
The End
985 words
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