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Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

Passing Through

The wind stirred, bending the blades of grass, moving like an unceasing wave up the hill and down and up the next. A shadow moved behind it as a cloud drifted over the sun.  

The two dozen or so travellers below looked up thankfully at this brief respite from the unseasonable heat. They were heading north, following the trails bison had carved through the grass. Scouts were far ahead with an eye for trouble or game, while further back mothers supervised children and dogs pulling travois. There were jests and laughter and a lightness that comes with the promise of a bountiful season to come. They paused here and there to rest where the hills blocked the sun, but did not linger in this place. 

Later others passed by, now on horseback, flintlocks mixed in with bows and arrows. They moved like the wind, with it, carried to the farthest horizons. Clouds of dust marked their passage when it was hot and dry, as it was now.  

The wind gusted, knocking the grass flat to the ground. The clouds seemed to cluster above, stuck in the sky even though the wind was so fierce below, the sun barely glinting through. 

Others came and left, measuring out the land and marking it with rods they plunged into the earth. All around newcomers arrived, setting up houses and breaking up the land. Here the land was left untouched, no one willing to settle upon it. Not entirely though, for the settlers, seeking permanence that had never been in the nature of the land previously, planted trees in a futile attempt to hold back the wind. Seeds blew to this place and soon enough grew in low lying areas where the water gathered in spring. Short and bent things, huddled close to the land against the wind. 

Later barbed wire fence was strung up, following the surveyor markers, and cattle roamed, carving new paths. A watering hole was dug where the spring runoff naturally gathered. From spring to fall the cattle wandered from the dugout to the eastern spring, finding shade in the copses that dotted the lowlands between the hills. People never lingered, coming only to bring the cattle and collect them when it was time to move to fall grazing, checking occasionally throughout the summer. 

The wind howled and groaned, whistling through the trees with menace, dark clouds massing to the north with the promise of rain and thunder. Dust whipped through the air, clouds of it forming, dimming the sun. 

When it grew too dry more of the surrounding lands were seeded back to grass. Better that than to watch it all blow away. The cattle remained, but the wire was stripped from the fences and the posts dug out or left to rot. Drones operated keeping the various herds separated, moving them to fresh pasture when needed. Only in the spring and the fall, during the great roundups did anyone pass through again – one or two only – supervising the drones’ work.  

Later, travellers passed through again, usually when crocus flowers gave way to golden beans. Usually they were on foot, moving in groups of two or four. They went slowly, stopping to camp on occasion by the eastern spring that still ran true. The bison herds from an earlier rewilding were sometimes still in the hills if the spring had been late in coming, as it often was. At night, as the wind stirred in the grass chasing away the mosquitoes, they would lie back and look at the specks of light in the vast sky above moving on their circuits through the stars. 

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Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

Notes on Certain Settlements in the Quarter

The Summer Camps: Before their exile to the north and east, under the terms of the Dominion treaties, both the Iron Confederacy and the Blackfoot Confederacy ranged across the Quarter, following the bison herds during the summer months and establishing regular camps. The arrival of horses to the territories increased tensions between the Confederacies, resulting in raids by band members on both sides to build their herds. This was exacerbated by the arrival of the Company in the area, allying with the Iron Confederacy to ensure access to the northern river system trade routes. With the loss of the bison herds and the steady encroachment of European settlers into the Quarter, the use of the camps was abandoned. The signing of the treaties ended their use entirely. 

Sybald (also Sybbald, Sebbald): A relatively late European settlement within the Quarter. New arrivals initially travelled south from Lakeview, the closest they could get by train. Within a decade a bustling community had developed, the largest in the area, and an important stop on the new train line. This initial fluorescence was followed by a long period of decline, precipitated by a fire that consumed half the town on the eve of the Great Depression. Many inhabitants left for the northern plains at the insistence of the provincial government. By the turn of the millennium less than ten inhabitants remained, though the surrounding farms still flourished. In later years the population remained relatively stable and it even regained its importance as a transit point during the disputes between the New Dominion and Greater Western Republic to the south. With the reestablishment of the Suffield Army Base as the key infantry base in the region, many of those living to the south moved north to ensure they fell within the perimeter of its drone defence system. 

Gloevers Crossing: As long as there have been people in the Quarter, the spring at Gloevers Crossing was a crossroads for travellers, due to the presence of a free-flowing spring. During the period of European settlement, the spring fed a large, shallow lake that locals flocked to on Sundays to swim. The lake gradually filled in becoming a pond surrounded by a small stand of trees. In more recent years with the continued depopulation of the region as people’s interest has shifted to the settlement of the stars, several wickiups have been established in the shelter of the trees by the spring. These are semi-permanent structures, occupied during the winter months by the O-Bannon Wanderers who migrate throughout the region. 

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Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

Form and Function

There has been much written about the mourning boxes that inhabit so many homes in the Quarter, enough to fill several volumes, yet their innate mysteriousness persists. Even those who possess them and have some inkling as to their origin do not understand the meaning of the objects. They are merely heirlooms, passed down through the family, occupying a place of importance and display in everyone’s homes.  

What they are called, of course, seems to offer a tantalizing clue as to their origins and original purpose, and yet the one thing everyone is certain of with the regards to the boxes is that their name and origin are unrelated. In the Quarter, as elsewhere, the dead are buried in the earth or burned on pyres. Any ashes are placed in urns, not within the mourning boxes, which are always empty and cannot be opened. Aside from being passed down from generation to generation, the mourning boxes have no apparent connection with ancestors or the dead. So why the name? It must be in reference to something. 

The latest research offers a suggestion. Most mourning boxes, especially the oldest, are marked with engravings. These have historically been seen as mere decoration, though it has been noted that the engravings follow similar patterns within families and regions. This was assumed to be because the artisans who made the boxes had a particular style they followed, but it has also been frequently noted that they share certain commonalities with various runic alphabets. A recent comparative analysis of the engravings of 5000 mourning boxes noted a number of repeating motifs that they argued could represent letters. Most of these shapes are angular and there are few horizontal strokes, typical of early runic alphabets.  

Yet the individual runes, if that is what they in fact are, appear to have no connection to any known alphabets and it seems impossible that those coming to the Quarter would suddenly take up an alphabet centuries after their ancestors had abandoned it. In every other facet of their lives they utilized the latin script we are all familiar with, except in this one instance where people of the region used a now forgotten alphabet that had no connection to any used by any of their distant ancestors. Could some runic symbology have somehow passed hidden through the centuries, only to become visible in strange, purposeless boxes in a forgotten and forgettable region inhabited by so many disconnected peoples? 

It is the emptiness of the boxes that I always return to. They are all built hollow, with the form of containers, yet without the function. I am of the belief that the mourning boxes were built to contain something, contents that were never to be disturbed given they were sealed in their construction. Nothing has been discovered inside any of the boxes, but there are few remaining that are more than a century or two old, and by then the meaning of the boxes had already lost, forgotten like the letters that mark it. As with so much of the past, we have the maps to mark the territory, but that is not the same as walking the roads that once crossed there.

Miscellanea

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Miscellanea from the Lost Quarter and beyond.

Your Dreams

You awaken from a dream-filled sleep, disturbed by all you have seen, blinking against the darkness that fails to resolve. The only sound a distant, beating heart. You aren’t sure it’s yours.  

Your house has many rooms and corridors. You go through door after door, but there always another awaiting you. You end up in the basement, but it is a cellar with a dirt floor and a low ceiling whose beams area layered with cobwebs. A salamander darts away into the shadows toward a tiny door. For a rat, but there are no rats here. You crawl through, dirt and cobwebs collecting on your back. A warren of tunnels opens up before you and you choose one. Something is gnawing at your ankle. 

You return home after many years, but everything has changed. The house that you grew up in is derelict, the roof falling in. Your mother is within doing the dishes, the plates and cups all blackened by fire. He’s out back, your mother says without looking at you. A man rides around on the lawn mower. He doesn’t acknowledge you. That’s your new father, your mother says, as the smoke rises from the grass. 

A tree grew from your loins, its roots spreading across the land, its boughs shading every hill and dale. The soil became untillable and people abandoned their villages, wailing about the lost sun. You held it all in your hand for the briefest moment, but then like water it all dribbled away. 

The sun has turned to ice, glittering in the darkness like a distant star. Fog blankets everything. Things move within it, just beyond your vision, as you hurry on your way. You meet on an empty street amidst the rubble of the last wars. We must rebuild, you say. Why, you say, with a shake of your head. It’s better this way. 

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Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

The Sorcerer Comes to Town

The sorcerer came to town at the end of November. Cold winds arrived with her leaving a blanket of snow on the fields and streets. They were northerners mostly, it was said, though he had driven in from the south. Anyway, it was hard going for a few days. The first cold snap of the year was always the worst as everyone remembered all over again what winter was.  

She moved into the Lang place, which had sat empty since Mabel had left town after Harold went to jail for touching the kids. Once it had been the locus of that end of town, half a dozen or so children heading there every day after school to spend a few hours until their parents came home from work. Most found it fitting that a sorcerer would move into a place like that, so shadowed with the weight of the past that everyone wanted to forget. They were disturbing sorts anyway.  

A few speculated on the logistics. Had the sorcerer bought it? Except it hadn’t been put up for sale, certainly not advertised. Was Mabel renting it? Again, there had been no advertisement. Did sorcerers pay rent and deal with landlords? They must, they were people, after a fashion. 

That he was a sorcerer was evident from the staff he carried, if not his dress. Most had not seen a staff before and they studied it curiously. Easier that than meeting her eyes. It was more like a walking stick, rising only to his waist, with a narrow point at one end. The whole thing was wrapped in thin bands of metal, perhaps silver, for it certainly shone like that. Each band was filled with runes, some only visible in the right light. There were a few left in town who could read the old tongue, but no matter how they were pressed they refused to speak on the meaning of any of the runes. 

The sorcerer wasn’t seen much about town. The odd encounter in the grocery store where everyone fell silent and eyed what she had in her cart. Cereal, milk, nothing unusual. She complained about the price of Doug’s vegetables, but everyone did. People did begin to visit him, though no one would ever admit it. Most entered through the back alley, but they were still seen. It was a small town after all and everyone knew everyone’s business. What transpired within the house was most certainly left unsaid. A sorcerer’s business was her own. 

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Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

Festival Calendar

Seasons have their rhythms everywhere and the Quarter is no different. Its inhabitants have their own ways of marking those cycles, events whose origins are sometimes obscure but which are unimaginable outside of certain times on the calendar. Just as winter warms to spring which unfurls into summer, so the spring socials turn to sports days and fairs. One could travel from town to town across the full deceptive breadth of the Quarter taking in the festivities until harvest begins. Autumn brings turkey suppers and harvest dances, while winter is an interminable time whose dark hours are measured out in card games and curling bonspiels.  

All of these celebrations, in one form or another, can be found in towns and villages across the greater western plains. There are others that are unique to the Quarter, like the First Drop in spring. When the ground is finally warm enough for seeding to begin, farmers across the Quarter will empty a bottle of rye on a chosen field for luck and good harvest. In some places this is a solitary, almost furtive exercise, in others a field is chosen and the whole community turns out for the ceremony, which is concluded with a potluck in the community hall. 

Another is the Fallow Ground, typically in October, although some communities wait until after the first snow stays. Always it is after harvest. Families and sometimes whole communities will gather at a field that has been shorn of its crop and there they will bury human figures made of bread or cake to restore the land. These figures are often marked with some representation of a deceased relative, an acknowledgement of the cycle of life and death in which everyone is engaged. In some cases, a sin-eater is present and one of the bread figures will be given to them, along with a glass of rye or beer, to consume. These individuals are scorned members of the community at all other times of the year, but on this one day it is for them to take the burden of everyone’s sins upon them to ensure next year’s harvest.

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Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

A Good Day

He loaded the flatdeck with the tractor and the post-pounder as the light was still crawling above the eastern horizon. Long shadows lay across the yard mirroring the archipelagos of clouds above, somewhere between white and grey, set against a dark sky becoming blue. The back of the truck was already filled with posts and rolls of barbed wire and a fencing connector and a five-gallon pail filled with fencing nails. The hammer and pliers were in his toolbelt, tucked behind the seat of the truck alongside the cooler with his lunch and thermos of coffee.  

He was on the road by the time the shadows had resolved to light, leaving a trail of dust that hung in the air long after his passage. Once he reached the pasture he had a cup of coffee leaning against the truck, listening to the wind stir the grass. The only other sound was the call of the birds, blackbird and meadowlark mostly, and the hum of the grasshoppers. A bad year for them. The cool of the morning, promised the end of their season was just around the corner. The cattle were out of the pasture, having been sold the week before. Winding down that season as well and getting ready for the next. 

The morning he spent on the west fence. There were no bad posts so he just used the truck, replacing nails that had fallen out and connecting a broken section of wire. Lunch was salmon sandwiches with cucumbers and carrots from the garden. Dessert was a slice of chocolate zucchini cake. He washed everything down with the last of the coffee. The north fence had a few posts that had broken off, so he brought the tractor and post-pounder around to deal with them. The bottom wire was going as well, so he decided to replace the full length of it. That took the rest of the afternoon with still some left to finish the next day.  

He quit when he started to get hungry. The shadows were already getting long, the clouds tinged with red as the sun drifted low in the west. He left the flatdeck, tractor and post-pounder in the pasture. By the time he’d strung up the gate and turned the truck onto the road home, he had to turn on the lights. They caught grasshoppers flitting ghostlike across the road, dodging out of the way of the truck. He turned on the radio to listen to the weather for tomorrow. 

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Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

Old Horizons

The truck sat forgotten in among the trees of the shelter belt that had once surrounded a farm yard. It was a late arrival, having been left sometime after the house had been moved, the foundation dug up and the concrete recycled. The quonset and bins had been moved as well, while the corrals were torn down and the laneways plowed under, so that the land could be returned to crop. Someone had decided they couldn’t bear to take down the three rows of trees that encircled the old yard and at some point the truck had been left with them by parties unknown. 

Wheat grew on one side of the trees and lentils on the other. Both were the latest drought resistant varieties, necessary because after a wet spring, June had turned brutally hot and that had continued on through July. The sixth year in a row of drought with no end in sight. Yet the crops showed no signs of suffering from the heat. It wasn’t just the new varieties, though that was a large part of it. The fields, like so many others in those parts, were also covered in solar panels, standing tall above the crops, adjusting their angle to the sun, providing shade to keep the little moisture that was left in the soil from evaporating away.  

The gravel road that ran in front of the fields was still in good condition, though it was empty now more often than not. Most of the farm sites that had populated the road as it wound its way north from the highway had also been turned back to crop land, the result of consolidation that always followed the arrival of more efficient equipment and techniques. First it had been tractors replacing horses, then decade after decade of larger and more precise equipment, enabling more bountiful harvests even in the face of continuous drought. The few people left now farmed vast sections of land, but with the depopulation brought on by their own consolidation they had moved to be nearer to town, which itself was shrinking. Some had even moved farther away, there being little need to stay close at hand. 

Automated drones handled most of the day to day work in the fields now, making daily passes to measure and record everything. They were nimble enough to be able to target herbicide directly onto any weeds that grew up and could even target pesticides as well. Seeding and harvest was largely automated as well, with fields well mapped. The work there was in transporting the equipment to the field. Once it was there and set up they needed only to keep an eye on operations on their phone. 

The drones paid no mind to the truck or the trees surrounding it. They were not part of the field and were therefore irrelevant. If the truck had been left there as a message it was one that was ignored. But they were not the intended recipient. There were still margins, however narrow and restricted, where the old ways still persisted, for whoever might be looking for those spaces. And there was always someone who was, driven by romantic, possibly foolish, ideas who would spot an old truck sitting useless among some trees and would lose themselves out in the deep parts of the Quarter chasing some forgotten horizon. 

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Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

The Rusted Edge of Things

The alkali slough was a shimmer of white on the horizon as they crested the hill, almost lost in amidst the faded green of the surrounding sea of grass. A well-worn trail led to it, following old cow paths and picking its way through the knolls and dells. They had been along it enough now that the path they followed was becoming dangerously visible. The grass was worn where the tires passed over it. Another year and the ground would be bare, if they were lucky enough to still be coming then. 

They had left the yard before dawn, as usual, so that there would be no trail of dust visible to mark their passage. Without lights in the darkness they couldn’t travel fast, but the road, once gravel but long since reduced to dirt, didn’t allow for speed anyway. It was washed out and overgrown, though the locals used it to avoid the highway where you had to pay tolls for safe conduct. No one existing out here could afford that, just as the Magnus and his Spartan Hordes and what passed for their government couldn’t afford to extend their suzerainty beyond the highway.  

There was nothing of worth out here anyway, at least nothing the Magnus and his followers saw as worthy. A few people trying to scrabble together an existence in among the remnants of the old ways, most of whom would be forced to give up and move on once it became clear there was no water to squeeze from these stones.  

No water in general. They could almost count on their hands the number of days they’d had rain or snow in the past year when they’d first come to these parts. The ground was cracking in places, weed strewn where once there had been planted fields. When the wind howled the dust swallowed the sky. The pastures had done better, especially with cattle now sparse to eat upon them. They roamed wide and free, like the bison once had, and various tribes followed them living off them as best they could. Deer and antelope proliferated. Moose as well. Wolves followed these burgeoning herds, but that didn’t frighten them. There were wolves everywhere now. 

The alkali slough wasn’t visible from the road, nor would their truck be now they were over the hill and into the dell. One of them stayed behind to watch the road and warn them of any approach. The rest descended to near the slough’s edge where they began to explore the area. Mixed in with the grey grass that seemed both living and dead were metal remnants. Pieces from trucks and tractors and things even older than that. Wagon wheels. All of it had been thrown here decades ago, left to rust and sink into the slough, eaten away by its salt. It was unclear why these scraps and pieces, most of them broken and useless, had been left here and not thrown away. Some old farmer had obviously thought they might be useful someday and had not wanted to part with them. 

Time and terrible events had made them, not just useful but valuable. The machines they had been part of were long vanished, but what was left could be refashioned and remade for what remained. That slowly fading past that all of them kept patching together until the only thing to do was leave it to rot somewhere. What they couldn’t use themselves they could barter for what they needed, even pay the tolls.  

They came as little as they could, to ensure no one noticed where they were going. Even in such an empty land there were always eyes watching. They took only a few bits and pieces they needed or could sell, always resisting the temptation to collect it all. Better to leave it here where no one but them knew of its existence. There was less now than there had been those first trips, less and less each time. Most of it was rusted almost beyond use. They took whatever they thought could be salvaged and left, wondering what would happen to them when there was nothing left. 

Miscellanea

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Miscellanea from the Lost Quarter and beyond.

Senior’s Discount

They pulled up to the fruit stand on the side of the road, a slight woman emerging from the shade of the awning to greet them as they stepped out of the van to stretch. The stand was overflowing with everything the countryside had to offer: mangosteen, lanzones, pineapple, mango, several varieties of banana, eggplant, avocado, kalamansi, jack fruit. Samples were asked for and provided.  

Try a mangosteen. Squeeze it until its purple shell cracks open releasing the white fruit within. It’s the same approach with the tiny lanzone. A knife is procured from somewhere and an avocado is sliced and proffered. Try this. Creamier than any you’ve ever had. The short and stubby bananas have a good flavor. Not too sweet. 

Serious negotiations ensue. Prices are offered and scorned. Counter-proposals are received with wide expressions of disbelief and pursed lips. Counter-counter-proposals incur further outrage and sorrowful shaking of heads. More samples are requested. Have you ever had fresh jack fruit? Gradually white plastic bags begin to fill with fruit as terms are arrived at, though no one appears happy about the fact. The driver emerges from his van to claim some sliced jack fruit, his commission for bringing customers to the stand.  

What about a senior’s discount, comes the suggestion, innocently offered as the final price is tallied and quoted. You look so young, she says earnestly. I couldn’t possibly. As though doing so would be grievous insult.  

With that, matters are finally settled and they return to the van, now perfumed with the smell of fresh fruit.