Thunder in the mountains, p.1
Thunder in the Mountains, page 1
THUNDER IN THE MOUNTAINS
Kathryn Moon
Copyright © 2014 Angela Timms All rights reserved. Any similarity of any character in this book to anyone living or dead is purely a coincidence. ISBN-13: 978-1503134980 ISBN-10: 1503134989 :
DEDICATION
For “The Crew” who made everything possible.
ALSO BY THIS AUTHOR
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A Weaver of Dreams By Heronimous Gadget (Gadget) Phoenix Rising The Covenant By Angela JK Timms
Whispers from the Rock By Angela JK Timms
Tears of Blood
By Stellastar Gadget (Widget)
1
The Central Line train rumbled at speed through the inky black tunnel. Commuters sat facing each other but barely seeing who they travelled with as others clung to bars for support as they “train surfed” on their way to work.
Another work day, the grey nothingness reflected on disinterested faces. Lost in their own thoughts. Don’t meet someone’s glance, don’t get noticed looking while being seen by others pretending not to look. A world of don’ts while everyone dresses to be seen and to be right.
Each passenger neatly dressed, hair immaculate, handbags and brief cases containing all that was needed for the day’s life. Lost in music, lost in books, lost in the crossword or the news in a paper. News they didn’t want to read in a paper they sometimes didn’t agree with but had to read anyway to fit in. Gleaning sadness and conversation pieces. Knowledge on subjects saved so they can seem informed about in the bar or coffee point later in the day.
Those were my thoughts as I looked around the carriage. Who was I to comment? I was one of them. I was neatly dressed, my shoes as clean as they could be after the walk to the station but who cares really? Who really cared? Were they self-absorbed or self-obsessed? No, not really, that was just how I felt listening to Hazel O’Connor in my private world of music. “Down a tunnel, in a tube”.
It was just an ordinary morning really. I’d woken up to the alarm and the disappointment that it was Monday. I had climbed out of bed like I always do. Like every day I wandered zombie like to the kettle and with a flick of a switch the morning had begun as the kettle started to boil. Coffee, that was how it always started and ended. Coffee, shower, get dressed, find keys, find handbag, open door, close and lock door, walk to the train, work, lunch, work, out for the evening, train, home, music or TV then sleep. Over and over and over again. First to last of the month. Last of the month of course is pay day, a little treat, mortgage paid, bills paid, on it went again.
Meaningless? No, very meaningful now that I look back on it, very meaningful and very peaceful. Decisions every day, at work, at home. Friends to see, people to meet, a life to live.
Why is today different? Because I got an email. It has changed how I feel about a lot of things.
I would say that I’m interested in the environment. Isn’t everyone? We all walk and live on this ball of rock, surely if she suffers we all suffer. Don’t mess on your own doorstep is a comment I have often heard. Ok, not in this context but it fits. Surely that is important enough. But is it like that? I’ve seen the programs, read the literature, been to the talks. Talk and talk and talk. Then tea. Then talk.
I’d listen. Then I’d talk to people at work, at parties, at the pub. New friends I’d met and although they were interested it all seemed so “on the fringe” of what mattered to them. Why was it so important to me? Why was I so unbothered by the best car to drive, the best house to own?
I loved my flat, who wouldn’t. It was decorated how I wanted it to be and reflected me. It was tidy and easy to keep clean. A new carpet made that easier. New wallpaper took away the dirt of the old. New paint swept away the history and the smell that all flats have when you take them over. It smelt of paint, wallpaper, a new carpet and of course candles and incense.
I was happy but I wasn’t. This morning was a morning like any other but it felt different. I felt like something was missing, like I’d lost something. I’d felt around my jewelry, it was all there, nothing was missing but why did I feel it was? It was like there was a gaping gap in my memory and I couldn’t fill it.
“Down a tunnel, in a tube, clockwork people”. I could see why the lyrics were written but I couldn’t see the point. As one of the clockwork people I could look at that from the other side. People who have to pay a mortgage have to work. It is a simple fact of life. If you want to support yourself and your family it involves compromise. I could be arrogant and say easier to be on the dole. Scoff at someone who is part of the machine without questioning who pays taxes to put money in the pot to pay the dole money. This wasn’t that sort of feeling. Of course I was making a compromise I was not happy with but one that was important. It was a discipline, a magic in itself, a way forward. I had my flat, my mortgage and a future I could grasp in my hands.
So why did I feel that there was more to it?
Because of an email I had received, out of the blue and with no clue as to who had sent it. It had gone on and on, facts, figures, information. The planet was suffering and it was our fault. That wasn’t rocket science, there was enough information out there. But this was something else. I looked around the carriage as I had every day of every week of every year. The trip to work, the same. People standing in the same place on the same platform, catching the same train to go to the same place.
The same faces almost as well as I too stood in the same place on the same platform at the same time going to the same station. The same people, different clothes, different handbags. Not everyone of course. There were many who I didn’t recognize. You’d think actually after so many years there might be some recognition, a smile perhaps? Not even at Christmas. Ironic really as in the trenches people stopped fighting for Christmas and played football. Ok at war I guess but not on the underground train.
So what was upsetting me so much, yes upsetting, it is a strong word but it was right. I was upset. This morning wasn’t like any other. This morning I saw things differently. I saw the trees struggling with the pollution that coated the summer leaves. I saw the cars lined up at the station where many of them had only come under a mile. Their owners could have walked, they didn’t need to show off their car. I saw the new clothes, the adverts for more, more, more.
Memories flooded back of my days at school. A cameo image of a lovely English teacher who was keen to teach us. Quiet and down to earth. I can’t remember her name and that is somehow wrong. But then it was a very long time ago. She was neatly dressed in a semi tweed suit, not expensive, not designer and that was the problem with it. Nothing wrong with it as far as I was concerned but then I’d never really been worried about clothes. But the girls in my class had tipped ink down the back of it as she explained something to one of my classmates. They would not take her seriously as she wore the same suit every day.
As I looked around the carriage I wondered how the children of then had done in life as they were now the adults of today. Where were they now? I noticed a man in the carriage with an worn suit. It wasn’t worn out, it was just not new. The sideways glances from those in the obviously new designer suits were not lost on me. I smiled to myself. They thought themselves above him but suit doesn’t maketh man. I then realized he had looked up at that moment and he smiled back. Fleetingly we made eye contact, then he looked away nervously and I went back to my thoughts.
Memories are who we are. They remind us who we should be and whether good or bad they teach us as they are experiences we have lived through. Memories are something everyone can muse on, play with and remember them. That is what they are for. To watch again in the mind’s eye. To see those we have lost. For me it was a simple memory that got woken up by the email and my thoughts.
The memory it aroused involved a politician who shook my hand in what looked like a borrowed suit and had every hope of and possibly the future ability to make a better world. He had no designer suit or wish to own one. He just wanted to change things for the better while upholding that which worked and which held civilized society together. Now he was gone from politics. The man who cared leaving because he cared for his wife who was injured and left in a wheelchair.
I couldn’t help but wonder if things would have been so much different if those who sought to make their own changes hadn’t chosen violence. They could have chosen to negotiate and talk. Do we judge people so much by what they look like and what they wear? If so then the Fashion Designer rules the world.
All designers have this ability I suppose. Both Vivien Westwood and Armani as well as others had the power. This was because our ways of physically showing who we are depend on what we wear and how we look. Unless of course we make our own clothes, design our own “uniqueform” we are reliant on what we are offered. I wish I think is my comment on that one. I’ve always wanted to but then I’ve wanted to do a lot of things. Want and need, I have no need and I’m so lured in by the adverts, the sales in the shops and of course hunting the charity shops. I can feel good about the latter of course as I’m not only giving money to charity, I am also recycling.
Now that has also always fascinated me. Recycling and using again. Now who hasn’t bought a pot of coffee because it has a useful jar and used it again to keep something in. Well quite a few people no doubt but to me it made sense. But that was as far as the recycling goes with most people. That and putting things in the recycle bin rather than the rubbish on
I know, odd thoughts for a train and one which is slowly trundling through the infinite blackness of the tunnel. Here I am such a small thing on a small planet in the vastness of space. So small in London, an insect amongst other insects, many of whom think they are lions. They do, they create in their own way. They seem important but what if something went wrong? What if one day everything changed? Where that thought came from I do not know.
With the Millennium fast approaching I think a lot of people are thinking that way. What if there was a problem with the things that we take for granted?
I have been lucky. My father has always had an allotment so fresh vegetables from the land were the normal food, not a luxury. I wouldn’t really know what mass produced food tasted like. I know people say it is bland and the chemicals make a difference. In my naïve way I suppose I assumed everyone had the ability to grow their own. That is a definite “let them eat cake” moment I suppose. I hadn’t thought about it. But, now I am thinking about it and I have to do something about it. But what?
Open a shop. I know it sounds crazy but for a Monday morning that is the only thing I can think of doing. Open a shop, it doesn’t matter what it sells. Invite organisations to put their leaflets there so that people can read them. Of course joining various other organisations would help but why? They are doing what they are doing and although I agree with most of it, I feel that there is something else needed. Not a charity, just an organisation that spreads information.
Knowledge without wisdom is a loaded gun. We had the knowledge to do a lot of things. And we have. Great things have been achieved but should we have done some of them? Our rush to consumerism is enviable but will it last? I am sure there will be plenty of buzzwords in the future to sum this up. But for now I have a simplistic view, a clear inspiration and I think it is time to start something that may last.
So what will it be? A shop, that is likely. There is an abandoned shop across the road from my parents house. I will see about renting that. An ideal, that everyone can take responsibility for what they do and they can be better. If I have a shop I have space so why not space for therapy rooms and to promote new bands and musicians. Perhaps poets and storytelling, who knows?
Music has an energy, what people write in music will influence how people feel. Like this morning. I was feeling a little confused by that email but the music I’m listening to could make me hate the corporate structure or if I’d been listening to something else it would be supporting it. That is the thing with the world, it can be good or bad, it is the intent and how you feel about it. If you are part of the machine you know no different and life is good for you. It is normal to strive for promotion and betterment. And there is nothing wrong with that. What we need is a balance.
I have a dream that one day the people of the world will be able to have all the things that they need and also want without doing the damage they are doing now. I don’t want to do without either. I still want my stereo and my record collection. I still want my films and I want people to make films. With a bit of effort nothing has to change other than the source of power that makes all those things work.
So what do I call my organization and my shop? What am I “dreaming of”?
There was one a garden where everyone had what they needed and lived in tune with nature. They were in balance with the world and it was good. They sought more and that led them beyond the boundaries of where they could live in peace. It took them to the rest of the world where they needed more and wanted more.
So it shall be. I will rent that shop and I will start the Eden Dream.
.
2
Jack sat in his flat in Hove and looked out of the window at the traffic filing by on Portland Road. The sun was going down on another day and he sat there alone, wondering what to do next. His flat mate was away for the week, if he’d been there then there would not have been a problem. The two of them would have probably been out by now.
The flat was basic, furnished with bits and pieces he had bought from the many second hand furniture shops in Brighton and Hove. His taste was basic and had nothing that the programs would call style. His furniture included utility items he either sat on or put his plate on to eat his food off of. His computer screen was full of words, numbers and symbols. That was his life. Everything outside the framework of what he did there was just basic needs to power his obsession.
He knew what the program would do, he had written it. That was his skill, that was his magic. He could make his computer do all manner of things. He thought about that, thought about writing another graphics program, another piece of artwork to add to his ever growing portfolio. But he wrote that idea off. He had enough already.
His work was done for the day, ready to hand in at the University in the morning and it bored him. It was straightforward stuff but he knew he had to do it. But what now? What should he do, what could he do. He thought about putting his coat on and wandering down the Hungry Years for a beer and perhaps later on nearer closing time going upstairs to the club. But somehow he didn’t feel like it. No fun on his own and somehow despite his efforts he didn’t have many friends and the ones he did have didn’t like the Years.
He wondered if they liked him at all sometimes. They were so different to him. He dressed differently. Not that the way a person dressed mattered but to him it did and obviously to them too. His Goth look was completely out of character for a geek or so he had been told by them. Then he didn’t really care what they thought or did. They got on alright when talking about computers, that was enough for him. Where they were happy to be in bed by now, he was prowling his flat like a caged cougar.
He was lonely. He was fed up with what was on television and he wanted someone to talk to about important things. Important to him, not to the rest of the world but that was what friends he thought were for. His friends seemed to be self-obsessed with their own experiments and didn’t live in the real world. Not that he really did but he at least tried. Then again, as he always reminded himself, this was Brighton. It was a place full of potential, creativity and if you were on your own an empty shell where everyone else seemed to be having a good time.
He sat back down at his desk and cleared the screen. He typed and typed, all night, until he fell asleep. Then he went into the University just to check out books in the library as he was working way above the level of programming he was used to. He had created a program which would give him relevant stock answers back but that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted a program that evaluated what he had said, looked it up, was informed to the point of being intelligent and could come back with a reasoned argument.
While sitting at the library desk with a pile of books in front of him he suddenly realised he had gone from depressed to inspired in as many moments. All from a flash of inspiration that he could build his own friend.
Of course not a real friend but not an imaginary one either. He was creating a program that could interact with him. Into it he downloaded all the information he had and then set it off looking for all the information it could possibly find to make “it” interesting. The fledgling web was really useful for this. Not that there was much out there, just what people had put there but it was a start. He couldn’t help feeling that as the web grew his friend would too, learning and looking. He was excited. This was something only he knew about, his little secret.
However much the others said things to hurt him and made fun of him he had his little secret. They might be alone and need the satisfaction of making fun of him to be big in front of their friends, his friend was never going to be like that. His friend would always have time for him and would be a wonder to talk to. His friend would be all that if he could work out the coding that made him more than just an automated response. The technology wasn’t there yet for this but he knew if he worked at it over the years, yes years, that was how excited he was, it would be there for him one day.
So the computer program was created and started evolving. It was basic at first, like the rest of the developing technology of the internet. It recorded things but it had no real processing power other than to put together basic ideas and store what it had seen.
