120,000 years ago
the IO (f) people dwelt in what
is now known as Antarctica. At that time, the earth’s climate was warmer, the
icecap had melted and Antarctica experienced a temperate climate.
The f lived in a
civilised, industrialised society, but they had developed into hermaphrodites
(intersexuals), the birthrate was falling and the climate was turning colder,
soon to plunge the earth into the current ice age.
The IO
Manuscripts document the quest to save the f people, destined to be the modern humans that populated the
whole world.
About 120,000 years ago the f (pronounced io)
people lived in what is now known as Antarctica. This was at a time when the
earth’s climate was warmer and the Antarctic icecap had melted to enable
Antarctica to experience a temperate climate. Then the southern seas cooled
down again and the current ice age commenced.
The f called the land
mass th landz. The magnetic South Pole at that time was located
slightly further south and further east of its present position, just outside
latitude 60° and almost on
longitude 100° (note that north
and south here refers to the magnetic poles and not the poles of the axis of
rotation of the earth). There were lakes and hills in the temperate northeast.
To the west lay a wet, stormy, mountainous archipelago extending northwards.
Vast grass plains in the midlands were bordered by marshlands to the south, wet
mountainous fjords on the west coast, and a sunny, hot mountainous desert along
the east coast. A dense rain forest covered the wide, hilly southern peninsula
where most of the mineral deposits lay.
The people of th
landz called themselves f (a combination of their symbols for the sexes i.e. i
for male and o for female). There were five f peoples with differing physiological characteristics. The
white skinned (chaulk) lived in the west, on the archipelago.
They were small and wiry with long faces and had fine features. The black
skinned (kaabun) people lived in the hot, sunny east and were of
medium height with round faces and flat features. The red (kopuur)
skinned people lived on the central plains and were tall and well built with
oval faces and fine features. The grey skinned (tin) people lived
in the marshlands to the south of the plains and were of medium height with a
stocky build and flat features. The yellow skinned (sulfuur)
people lived in the far south and were small and slim with round faces and flat
features. The average life span was about sixty years. Originally, the
population was mostly male (i) and female (o) but some were
hermaphrodites (f) with mixed male and female reproductive organs but were
either more male or more female. Eventually, due to a genetic defect, all the
people were hermaphrodites.
For many
generations the peoples lived nomadic lives as hunter-gatherers in extended
family groups. Eventually, all but the kopuur people became
agrarian and settled on the land and lived in permanent settlements. There was
tension and friction between the peoples and, inevitably, bloody wars.
Eventually the kopuur acquired key technologies from the southern
sulfuur people and, with the increasing threat to their nomadic
life, the kopuur developed rockets and motorbikes, which they
used to conquer the other peoples and too rule over them for a long period
under th kopuur rool. The kopuur introduced a
standard oral and written language to support the rule of law and developed
standardised time, measurement and naming systems. During this era
technological development was slow, being restricted by a lack of natural
resources. The only plentiful metal was copper but they had no gold, coal or
oil, and little iron. The level of technology was roughly equivalent to that of
the Victorian age, with steam power being the main form of propulsion.
Then there was a natural
disaster when an asteroid hit the earth, landing in the ocean to the north east
of th landz. This caused an enormous tidal wave, which flooded
the coasts and lowlands of the northeast and resulted in a continuous winter,
which lasted for several years. This almost wiped out the whole population and
the flora and fauna was devastated. Few animal and plant species survived and
those that did often developed differently to those found in the rest of the
world.
This disaster
gave the other peoples the opportunity to rise up against the kopuur
people and after a long war, or series of wars, the kopuur rool
was overthrown and a unified, multi-coloured, multi-cultural, democratic but
rigidly controlled society, called the sivileeun society was formed.
Intermarriage of the peoples was encouraged and the mixed-race bronz
coloured skin became desirable. The sivileeun society was
organised around the nuclear family and childbearing became imperative, as many
people were infertile. Most of the remaining kopuur were
integrated with the other peoples but some of the kopuur realised
that the only way to save the species from extinction was to try to recreate
the fully male and fully female (i and o) people again and they
coupled this objective with an attempt to preserve their traditional nomadic
way of life on the vast central plains, which had been their homeland. But this
movement was resisted by the rest of the people, and especially by the strikt
sivileeunz, who believed that the kopuur were only trying
to breed a super-race to rule all th landz again and they also
believed that the only way to raise the birth rate was to force people to marry
young and to have as many children as possible.
The kopuur
knew that there were occasionally full males and full females born, and the qest
was established by the kopuur to seek out these throwbacks. If they
discovered an i then they aimed to preserve the sperm by freezing it and
if they found an o then she would be artificially inseminated with the
stored sperm. But i and o children, being regarded
as freaks by sivileeunz, were usually killed at birth. Eventually
an i was located (RKSMKL) and the sperm was stored in a
freezer facility in a castle in the dethmist maashz to the south
of the plains as there was a constant supply of marsh gas available there to
power the freezers. The tradition was then started that the eldest i
child ov th RKS family would lead the qest too
find a fully female o and would be trained to carry out the
artificial insemination. A long time went by before an o (eroita)
was found but it turned out that she was infertile. Then within a few years
another was located (uloila).
The f manueskriptz were written in
the final flourish of the sivileeun civilisation and document the
qest led by amioka to found the new dynasty of i
and o people. But already, the signs of a breakdown in the sivileeun
society were becoming obvious, due mainly to a change in the climate and the
falling birth rate. Soon the f were to disappear from th landz as the current ice
age set in. The kopuur, being aware of the climate change, plan
that if a new race of i and o people can be
produced then they will have to leave th landz and settle in what
is now southern Africa. The kopuur knew that these people would
inevitably descend into a primitive existence which could last for millions of
years until some change in the environment once again produced the conditions
for the f to flourish and
spread throughout the world.
I once knew a gentle, intelligent
man named Jack Hill. He was a distant relation of mine, and he was about ten
years older than me. I called him Uncle Jack but he was really a cousin on my
Mother’s side of the family. We occasionally met at various family occasions
and he seemed to take a liking to me. Over the years we had a number of rather
strange conversations about religion, philosophy, science, technology and the
arts. Of course, I did not understand all of what he told me - but it certainly
had an effect on me. We lost touch for several years, then, in 1992, I met him
again by chance when I was in London on business. I hardly recognised him but
he certainly recognised me, even though we had not seen each other for years.
It was a dark,
wet November evening. He seemed nervous, as though he was being followed, or being
chased by his own demons and I thought him a sad, dishevelled, figure. My
conscience was pricked by the thought that I should really have made the effort
to see him more often when I was in London, but he just seemed so pleased to
meet me again. I knew that he lived in a tower block south of the Thames and
that he had never married, but apart from that, I knew little about his
personal life. He looked as though he liked his drink, a little too much
perhaps, but that evening, though we visited several pubs, he only drank one
single malt whisky, well diluted with water, at each pub we went into.
At first, I was
merely being polite by going on a pub-crawl with him, but after we had talked
of family matters, on which he seemed well informed, he started to open up. He
told me a long, disjointed story that was, quite frankly, unbelievable, but
over the past years much of what he said has become more and more believable.
We parted on the best of terms when the pubs closed but next morning I woke up
with a thumping hangover. I promised myself to look him up again when I was
next in London – but never did.
About a year
later I received a letter from a firm of solicitors in Walthamstow. Uncle Jack
had died. He had no money and an insurance policy barely covered his funeral
expenses. He had insisted that his funeral should be carried out without any
religious ceremony, with his body being cremated. One peculiar request, which I
later saw the significance of, was to have his ashes put into the nose-cone of
a large firework rocket and then fired into the air over London. This I did for
him and I must admit it seemed a good way to mark the end of your life,
exploding into the night sky - going out with a bang. He left what little he
had to me. This consisted of the contents of his flat and a safe deposit key
and a letter. This seemed quite intriguing, considering our conversation the
previous November. I was curious to know what he had been working on.
The letter merely had the address
of a city bank on it. So I went along to the bank, showed them the letter and
opened the large safe deposit box. Inside was a large, heavy metallic object,
about the size of briefcase, along with a thick file, some notebooks and
another letter, which I reproduce below:
Paul,
When we talked
that evening last November I did not explain how I came to find the f manueskriptz.
It is not a tale of which I should be proud - but I did what I did and I have
no regrets. Now, as my life draws to an end I feel the contents of the f manueskriptz
should have a wider audience. I know that I should have revealed the existence
of the manuscripts much earlier and made them available for analysis by
scholars who would have been much more able than myself. But frankly, I do not
think anyone else could have done a better job. I have devoted many thousands
of hours of research into deciphering the f manueskriptz and it is only recently that some relevant
discoveries have been made by others in the scientific community which support
what the f manueskriptz
tells us and this will make it easier for people to believe what I have
discovered.
After graduating
from Reading University in 1955 with a second class honours degree in Geology,
I joined the British Antarctic Survey. Why? Well I suppose I should say that it
was because I had a burning desire to push back the frontiers of science by
uncovering the secrets of the geology of Antarctica. But in reality it was the
only job I could get! Not many people wanted to spend half the year living in
sub-zero temperatures in very primitive conditions, so I was very readily
accepted. After a summer of training and preparation I found myself on the
Endurance, the Antarctic exploration ship, destined for the British Region of
the Antarctic. I had met most of my colleagues before we left and had trained
with some of them but it wasn't until we landed that I fully realised what a
strange bunch of misfits we were. I rapidly found that I had very little in
common with any of them.
In particular, I
seemed to aggravate the temper of the senior geologist and to a lesser extent
the expedition leader (I will refrain from naming names - but they could easily
be identified). They seemed to think that I was a bit beyond the pale. They
were both Eton and Oxford, whereas I was minor (very) public school and Reading
University. In a place like the Antarctic minor social differences became
grounds for murder. At best, I was tolerated, as long as I didn't speak unless
spoken to. But the spectacular landscape I found myself in, and the exacting
and fascinating work, more than made up for any minor personal irritations. I
kept myself to myself and immersed myself in my work.
One day in
February the aerial survey reported that a huge landslide had taken place and
that this had uncovered a pristine rock face in an area of uplifted sedimentary
deposits. Eventually, when other work had been completed, it was decided that
'somebody' should be sent to investigate. It was not deemed to be an important
mission so I was teamed with the other young and inexperienced member of the
team to investigate the slip. This was quite late in the season and I was
already looking forward to returning home.
The journey was
not too unpleasant with clear blue skies and a warm (relatively speaking) air
temperature. We made good progress to the edge of the ice sheet and were then
only half a day's hike away from the landslip. The weather had been
particularly warm in that southern summer and the ice and snow had receded from
the coastal mountain areas to reveal previously unseen bare rock and soil. We
made camp for the night and left some stores there for our return. The plan was
that next day we would split up, one going north and one going south along the
line of the landslip, leaving the dogs at the temporary base camp. We would
spend one night at the landslip and then return the temporary base camp the
next day.
Early next
morning, we set out, I headed south, inland. The going was quite difficult but
I was enjoying the prospect of the remote chance of finding something
significant. This thought drove me on. The chance of putting one over on those
scientific snobs buoyed me up. A set of dinosaur tracks or even better a
fossilised dinosaur skeleton would be superb.
The terrain was
difficult and I scrambled over the loose rocks and soft earth, taking frequent
samples. Then, to my amazement, I started finding pockets of petrified wood
and, more curiously, localised intrusions of other types of rock and metallic
deposits that appeared to be copper based. This was most curious, in fact,
astounding! I had never heard of anything like this before. At one point I even
found a long discontinuity in the deposits with traces of the metallic
minerals. After a few hours I gave up trying to log all these finds and sat on
a rock to contemplate this puzzle. I had definitely found something but what
the hell was it?
I then realised that I had been so engrossed in my work that I had not been aware that it was growing dark. Much to my consternation, I also discovered that bad weather was closing in from the pole. I hurriedly started to clear some loose rock and earth to form a flat area to pitch my tent. Suddenly, my spade struck something metallic. I scraped the rocks and dust to find that there was something imbedded at an angle in the loose shale and partially fused into the soft sedimentary rock. The object was about fifteen inches long by ten inches wide and four inches deep, smooth and apparently made of bronze.
My heart missed a beat
when I realised that this had to be a man-made object! Either this object came
from space or there must have been an industrial civilisation extant here in
Antarctica in the very distant past. At that time we only had a vague idea of
how long the ice had covered Antarctica, possibly some 30 million years, but
there were also theories that there had been warm periods when Antarctic
experienced an ice-free temperate climate. We knew that there was a warm period
about 135,000 to 120,000 years ago, at a time before homo sapiens had started
to migrate from Africa into the Middle East, in the early stone age. But the
question that came to my mind was: what if they had first travelled from Africa
to Antarctica? Then another, more devastating question entered my mind: what if
homo sapiens had originated in Antarctica and not the African Rift Valley and
had migrated from Antarctica to Africa? The level of human development could
have been far in advance of that in the rest of the world at that time. We
wouldn’t know about this as about 120,000 years ago the seas around Antarctica
cooled once more to plunge the world into the present Ice Age, which we only
started to come out of about 10,000 years ago. In those 10,000 years we have
developed from the stone age to today’s advanced technological
civilisation.
I considered these
exciting possibilities whilst I hurriedly erected my tent over the buried
object and prepared and ate a meal. Then I endeavoured to set the object free,
as a full-blown storm roared around me outside my tent. With my geologist's
pick I chipped away at the soft rock until I finally held the heavy metallic
object in my hands.
All the while, I
had been trying to work out how it got there. I had a sick feeling in the pit
of my stomach that this might turn out to be the most important find in the
history of modern mankind. You may wonder how I came to these conclusions so
quickly, but it was already becoming clear to me that the other remains I had
found earlier were also the remnants of an ancient industrialised civilisation.
Not a civilisation thousands of years old but a civilisation over 100,000 years
old, before the accepted dates for the earliest civilised humans, only 10,000
years ago, but those early stone age farmers would not have been able to make
metallic objects like this, or have been able to alter their landscape as was
apparent from my other finds.
Then there was
also the question of what was inside the object. I scraped some of the
oxidation off and found that there was a seam all the way around the object,
half way down the short sides. This indicated that the object was not solid.
Could it contain the remains of some long forgotten king or ancient artefacts
or even written material? If it was the latter I was certain that it would have
disintegrated a long time ago. That would be very disappointing.
My attention was
brought back to the present by the screaming storm outside my tent. I had
hardly been aware of it for the past few hours. Now I could see that the snow
was pressing down on the tent, soon I would be snowed in and the tent would
collapse. I went out and cleared the snow away. The storm was so bad that there
was only a dim greyness in the sky when there should have been full daylight.
Going back into the tent, I wrapped the object in some of my spare clothes and
put it into my sample bag underneath the rock samples I had collected the
previous afternoon and placed them all back into my rucksack.
For the next
three days and nights I slept fitfully, ate and drank sparingly. I occasionally
forced myself to leave the tent to clear the snow away. Finally, the storm blew
itself out and I packed away the tent into my rucksack and started back to the
temporary camp, some three days late. The terrain was somewhat different from
that I had traversed four days ago. The landscape now covered by a thick layer
of newly fallen snow. I was constantly falling into deep drifts of the soft
snow. This made progress gruellingly slow. The weather continued to improve all
day and it was a fine sunset that illuminated the final part of my journey to
the camp. I was spot-on with my navigation as I could see the flag that we had
planted as a marker. But that's all there was, apart from a box of supplies and
some snowshoes. Oh, and a note:
‘Base radioed that a front was coming in. I waited as long
as I could for you. Have been ordered back to base. Yours etc.’
So I was alone,
and over a hundred miles from base camp, without dogs and a sledge. He had even
taken the radio! I could only hope that they would send out the aircraft to
search for me. But then I remembered that we had already dismantled the
aircraft and stored it for the winter.
The next few days
were a blur to me. The weather was atrocious and I just had enough food to
sustain me. I was most afraid that I was going to miss the boat back to England
and have to winter in Antarctica, all by myself, a most unpleasant prospect.
But this would have been my lot if they hadn't sent out a patrol to search for
us, a few days before the ship left. And by some fluke they found me. I was on
the point of exhaustion and suffering from frostbite, I lost three toes, but at
least I was brought safely onto the ship. No trace was ever found of my
colleague and I have always wondered whether he had found evidence similar to
that I had discovered. The doctor looked after me on the voyage home, nursing
me back to health. For the first week or so on the voyage home I was delirious
but I eventually came round to find that my rucksack, containing my sample
pack, was by my side. Evidently I wouldn't let go of it from the time I was
picked up.
By the time we
arrived in England I was quite recovered but I was determined to keep my
discovery to myself. The site of the landslide would, once again, be covered in
snow and ice and would not be exposed again for many years - if ever. The
Antarctic Survey people were a bit embarrassed about what had happened to me,
and my colleague, and they were most keen to get me a safe berth in
post-graduate research in Geology back at Reading University. Of course I chose
to study the geology of Antarctica. But this was only a background to my real
work.
I first analysed
the metallic deposits I had collected and some scrapings from the object. I
found both to be sophisticated bronze alloys that would have been impossible to
find in natural form. Later, when radio-carbon dating was developed, I was able
to get access to the first equipment and analysed the petrified wood. This
confirmed the age as being about 120,000 years old.
After some time I
finally managed to get up the nerve to open the bronze object. I borrowed a
hacksaw from the University workshops and, late one Sunday night, I started to
cut into the object, at the weld line around it. After cutting in about half an
inch, I felt a 'give' and saw the metal filings being sucked momentarily into
the object. I had to stop and sit down at this point for I suddenly realised
that whoever had made the object had evacuated the air from within the object
to form a vacuum to protect its contents. I knew then the significance of the
small round weld at one end of the object, it was a sealed up hole where the
air had been drawn off.
I finished the
cutting lifted the top off. The two halves of the object had lips on them,
presumably so that as it was welded up the contents would not be damaged
inside. And I must say that the contents more than matched my hopes for a
significant find!
There were two
manuscripts, each slightly larger than an octavo book, and placed side by side,
with a bronze separator between them. This was another safeguard, so if one
side had been damaged, possibly the other might remain intact. But I was in
luck; both seemed in perfect condition. Then my heart sank - the writing had
disappeared! The pages were blank!
Then I calmed
down as a possible explanation came to me - the manuscripts were the wrong way
up! I gently touched the top page of one of the manuscripts; it didn't fall
apart in my fingers. The paper felt smooth and firm, almost like plastic. Then
I noticed that there were regular indentations on the paper. I leapt to the
conclusion that there was writing on the other side, or rather, printing. I
slid the top page off its pile and very carefully turned it over on the desk. A
horrifying thought crossed my mind at this point - what if there was some terrible
virus trapped in this time capsule?
Dismissing this
thought, as I was so excited that I didn't really care, I took my first look at
the writing. At first I was disappointed, as it looked as though it was a hoax.
I had expected strange hieroglyphics that would take years to decipher, if at
all. But it almost looked as if it had been written in some European language.
True a number of the characters were quite different to those used in modern
languages but equally some looked almost identical.
Once I had got over that shock I then realised that the writing did not use punctuation, except that each sentence seemed to be separated from the next by a hyphen. The writing was all in lower case, i.e. no capital letters, a blank line was used between what could be paragraphs and some lines were indented. What struck me most of all though, was that the text looked so very simple, logical and well ordered. The printing was superbly clean and accurate. Suddenly, I had a sensation that the person who had produced the manuscripts was in the room with me. Even though I am not a superstitious person, a tingle went up my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
I must have stood
there for an hour or more, just staring at this one sheet of paper. All sorts
of questions and possibilities went through my mind, mostly without any
resolution. Eventually I forced myself to think about what I was going to do
with this discovery. I admit that, once again, I acknowledged that I should
really give this task up to others who would have the skills to decipher the
writing and unravel the mysteries of this lost civilisation. I also admit that
I immediately rejected this idea. I had an overpowering feeling that fate had
decreed that I should find the manuscripts and have the opportunity to study
them.
My first task was
to make sure that what was on the pages did not deteriorate in the atmosphere.
So that very night, I started to copy them out, using a pen, and making a
carbon copy. After three months of working at the copying, evenings and
weekends, and getting very little sleep, I put the original manuscripts back
into the bronze case, soldered the two halves together again and, after
evacuating the container, using the services of the physics laboratories at the
University, I stored the manuscripts with the carbon copy in a safe deposit box
in a bank. I left the key with my solicitor with instructions to open it if I
died. I was somewhat alarmed to note that even over this short time the
printing and the paper had had obviously started to deteriorate.
Over the
intervening years I have spent many hours working on translating the
manuscripts, all very enjoyable, if not always fruitful. But slowly a
translation shaped itself. In the translation I have tried to present the
manuscript in as close a form as possible to that written. I know that I have
had to make a lot of compromises. Some references are very obscure and I could
find no supporting references to them anywhere else in the manuscript. Quite
frankly I didn't believe some of the things I translated, either because they
seemed so fantastic or because they seemed so like our own experience that I
would often wonder if it really was just an elaborate hoax. But then I would
reflect that this might be the true state of a previous civilisation. Wouldn't
the civilisation be very similar, yet very different?
The logic of the
characters used and the grammar used was quite stunning. I got to wondering why
our own language and writing could not be so simple - it would so aid learning
but without damaging the richness of the English language. I spent hours trying
to envisage how their language sounded but found it impossible to imagine. I
made very many compromises to make sense of the manuscripts in our modern
English language and literary forms. Others may be able to improve on my
attempts. The thing that struck me was the similarity of some of the written
characters to the ones we know. This may be a case of parallel development from
much the same origins but it may also show that there is some long distant link
between us and those ancient people. After all, recent research has shown that
modern man is descended from a small community living on the coast of the very
tip of South Africa - is it a coincidence that this is the nearest land to what
we now know as Antarctica? Maybe the remnants of the people eked out a living
there after the Antarctic ice cap formed. This would also mean that the search
for the ‘missing link’ in human evolution is completely nonsensical. They are
looking in the wrong place! This thought kept me amused when I was tired and
almost on the point of giving up this work.
In my translation
I have used pseudo-phonetic spelling and retained the sentence structure and
punctuation (or lack of) in the manuscripts. My own feeling is that this is
easier to read than modern English. It appears as though what we have now is
overly complicated, sometimes nonsensical and even perverse at times! Why do we
need upper case characters, punctuation, speech marks etc etc? I have also kept
the f system of
naming, along with their time and measurement systems and their number system,
which used a base of six.
When I commenced
the translation I was expecting to find that it was a formal history of the f people but it
soon became apparent that it was something like a saga. Yes, there was
information about the social and political systems and the technological
achievements, but only as a background to the lives and loves of the members of
the people involved in the qest. I was surprised about this but when I thought more
carefully about it I realised how clever this was. Surely the best way to
discover what life was like in any period of time is to have first hand accounts
that explained the little details that formal histories miss or gloss over? I
also discovered that all f people were
required to keep an account of their lives, not so much a diary but a personal
history. I suspect that modern historians wished that they had access to such
material for their research! The manuscripts obviously drew on many such
accounts and though they were private during a person’s life they were archived
when a person died, thus providing a stunningly vast resource to their historians.
The biggest
problem was to fix on a style to use for the translation. I felt that I had to
relate it to some period that I knew and understood. The level of
industrialisation was approximately that of early Victorian times (but with
some startling differences) and the morals also somewhat paralleled this time,
so I decided that I would use a Victorian style of writing. It may be a
terrible compromise but I felt that I had to rewrite the f manueskriptz
into something readable by modern readers. I also found some difficulty in
visualising the topography and the flora and fauna. This would, of course, have
been quite different to our own experience but I could not help but have
pictures of some scenes in England in my mind for some locations and of the U.S.A.
for others. Other readers may have their own pictures in their minds. We are
only limited by our own imagination.
Another aspect of
the manuscripts is that they are quite sexually explicit. It appears as though
some sections of their civilisation thought of sex as an integral part of daily
life and therefore sexual experience was described in candid detail, though
there were other sections of the society who tried to repress this open
sexuality. This sexual content, though toned down, is one reason why I have not
considered publication before but it would be a shame to censor these sections
completely as the sex is essential too explaining the society, the
characterisation and the story development.
Well Paul, what
you do with the manuscripts, my translation and my notes is purely up to you. I
make no demands of you. Carry on with the work as I have done, publish the
manuscripts, make money out of them (if you can), use them to pursue academic
notoriety - I don’t mind. I came upon them by mistake and in doing so, nearly
lost my life, but I have had so much enjoyment in finding out about this
totally new theory on the origins of human civilisation, that I hope you will
too.
Jack
So this was the content of the letter. The safe deposit box contained the bronze case and letter, the carbon copy of the manuscripts. I found the top copy and translation, together with Jack's notes, which were very difficult to decipher in some places, in Jack’s flat. Over the past few years I have continued with his work. I am now publishing the first section of the manuscripts for all to enjoy and to correct the story of the origins of human civilisation.
The First Chapter
of th qest
(Part 1 of The IO
Manuscripts)
th qest
2523
1 1 1
th
duurt staend yooth pauzd at th oepun frunt dau ov th smaul 1 roomd roundhous -
hf
rithmiklee kuurld and unkuurld hfr toez on th ruf stoen daustep
- hf
klenchd and unklenchd hfr broozd fistz az hf held hfr aamz rijidlee bie th sied ov
hfr
slim lieth bodee - hf woz kloethd in a skrufee kaus kloth shift - haaf tukd intoo a paer
ov pachd kloth trouzuurz with th kros strapz fauling of hfr sholduurz - on hfr feet hf had a paer ov waun lethuur
bootz - hfr
silvuur sholduur length haer woz mated with dust and bloo untiedilee in th breez
- beedz ov swet ran doun hfr kopuur cheekz and mixd with th tin dust too faum daak mudee bankz
at eech sied ov hfr faes - a bludee noez and broozd cheekz shoed that hf had reesuntlee been fieting -
hfr
furoed fauhed shoed daak lienz ov dust and swet - but hfr kopuur ringd emuuruuld iez
luukd kaamlee at th seen within th roundhous
insied
th suurkuuluur room a famileeuur seen ov idilik domestik pees met th gaez ov th
kopuur skind yooth - at th faa sied ov th room - bie th oepun bak dau - a
slenduur puursun ov about 50 sunz wuurkd at th sink prepaering thf 3 meal - az hf wuurkd hf kontentedlee humd a chuen too
hfrself
- hfr
waest length silvuur haer glisund and gleemd in th slaanting sunliet that streemd
in throo th windoe abuv th sink - th kopuur silk skaaf around hf nek provieded a splash ov
kuluur and machd th ribun that tied hfr haer bak from hfr faes - th fuul length tin
kuluurd wuulun shift hung loos on hfr boenee fraem indikaeting that
th shift had eethuur preeveeuuslee belongd too sumbodee els au that hf had lost a lot ov waet sints
th shift had been maed - hfr hoemlee kopuur faes shoed lienz ov kaer and soroe but hf had obveeuuslee been atraktiv
wen yunguur
th puursun
woz skining a massam on a wuudun baud set besied th sink - th meet beeing
destind fau th steeming kopuur pot that sat simuuring kontentedlee on th
griduul ov th sentruul suurkuuluur stoen fierplaes - around th pot flikuuring
finguurz ov flaem flaerd up between th gloeing fierstoenz ov th gas fier too
lik th unduursied ov th pot - a konikuul kopuur funuul led th laezee haez ov
smoek and heet up and out throo th konikuul thachd roof
sudunlee
th yung puursun rezolvd too entuur th room - at th sliet slap ov th yoothz
fuutfaul on th stoen flau th oalduur puursun tuurnd around - hfr faes brietund az hf sau th yooth but then a luuk
ov konsuurn kaem oevuur hfr faes az hf tuuk in th chieldz unroolee apearunts
amioka - wot hav yf been geting intoo nou
hfr vois betraed a westuurn lilt
az hf
aansuurd hfr
oen qestchun
been fieting agaen mf see - and with ekiose noe dout
- hou iz it that yf 2 aa such guud frendz and yet yf aa aulwaez fieting eech uthuur
- yf
wil end up bie kiling eech uthuur noe dout - it woz oenlee th preeveeuus liet
that yf
wuur feesting and plaeing with ekiose at th seluurbraeshun ov th nue sun - nou
yf
hav been fieting agaen - yf 2 realee aa geting too auld too bee fieting liek lituul chieldz -
noebodee wuud beleev that yf wil boeth bee ov aej soon
amioka
gaezd bak at hf without enee chaenj ov xpreshun - amiokaz pael lipz wuur draun
tiet intoo a thin detuurmind lien but th kaunuurz ov hfr mouth wuur near too tuurning
doun and tearz fild hfr iez - hf luukd at th oalduur puursun fau sum tiem befau saeing eneething -
then hf
set hfr
faes in a puzuuld froun az hf faumd th qestchun in hfr miend - but anoina had
aulwaez taut hfr too kount too 10 and too think kaerfuulee befau saeing sumthing
impautunt - soe hf kounted - 1 2 3 4 5 10 - and then hf fienuulee aaskd th qestchun
that had fild hfr miend fau th paast spel au soe
anoina - aa yf mf real muthuur
anoina
staated viziblee at this qestchun and thaer woz a traes ov panik in hfr vois az hf aaskd kaushuuslee
wie evuur doo yf aask that amioka
amioka
plaanted hfr
feet fuurmlee apaat and klenchd hfr fistz in frustraeshun
ekiose sed yf aa not mf real muthuur and that mf real muthuur woz dround in th
see and mf
faathuur woz buurnt too deth - and mf siblingz too
anoina
luukd kloeslee at amioka
oe amioka - that iz not troo - at leest not aul ov it - it realee
woz not liek that
hf pauzd - hfr nukuulz shoed chaulk az hf graaspd th nief tiet
mf
doo not noe wot mf shuud sae too yf nou amioka - mf hav been dreding yf fiending this out but mf nue yf had too noe th trooth sumtiem
- mf
supoez that az yf aa soon too kum ov aej and wil bee oald enuf too bee mareed then -
yf
aut too noe th trooth about yfr familee
anoina
stopd agaen too think - sudunlee hf seemd too kum too a desizshun
goe get yfrself kleend up and mf wil get th 3 meal on - then mf think wf hav sum seareeuus taulking too
doo
amioka
noded sloelee - hf waulkd stiflee akros th room and out throo th oepun bak dau too
step doun ontoo th stoen paevd aereeuur at th rear ov th roundhous - hf stopd fau a fue beetz and
luukd along th paath that strechd awae doun th jentuul sloep ov th gaadun and hf staerd out oevuur th wied
safier wautuurz ov long faud eschuuree too th uthuur sied - thaer hf kuud see th baer braanchd
treez and buurnt bronz fealdz ov uthuur smaul faamz - with thaer chaulk paented
roundhousz and braas thachd roofz - nesuuld agaenst th opozit sloep ov th
eschuuree - then - beeond this qieut paasteuuruul seen - th nauth westuurn hilz
roez up az a daak safier waul ov haez on th horiezun - this woz a seen that hf had aulwaez tuuk hfr breth awae - noe matuur that
hf
had seen it evuuree dae sints hf had been a baebee
on
amiokaz left a smaul roundhous kontaend th klozet with th diejestuur and
kompresuur and th gas tank - fuurthuur doun th gaadun woz anuthuur roundhous in
wich th faaming eqipmunt woz staud - on hf riet a long chaulk paented
waul had huurbz groeing agaenst it - riezing from a bed ov uurth beneeth it -
in th miduul ov th paevd aereeuur a bronz wautuur pump stood with a kopuur
buket plaesd direktlee unduur itz spout - th buket beeing set on a slab ov
stoen with a waun draen hoal in th miduul
amioka
puuld hfr
shift oevuur hfr hed and tuuk of hfr bootz and trouzuurz - hf shuuk th dust out ov hfr kloethz - then hf staated too wuurk th long
handuul ov th pump up and doun until th fresh klear wautuur gushd out - hf puut hfr hed unduur th kooling floe
too wosh th dust out ov hfr tanguuld haer and splashd koald wautuur aul around hfr faes and nek with hfr hand and then aul oevuur hfr sinueee bodee - maeking shuur
that hf
kleend wel around hfr i and o between hfr legz - just az anoina had
taut hf
too doo wen hf
had been noe mau than a baebee - next hf stuud on eech fuut in tuurn
wielst hf
woshd hfr legz
and feet - amioka then shuuk th dropz ov wautuur of hfr bodee liek a kassoi befau hf retuurnd too th dau ov th
roundhous and reechd intoo puul a kloth of th draening baud - hf dried hfrself thuruulee and then puut hfr shift and trouzuurz and bootz
bak on
bie
th tiem this puurfaumunts woz oevuur anoina had finishd skining and guting and
woshing and kuting up th massam - hf went oevuur too th fier and
skraepd th meet of th choping baud intoo th bubling wautuur in th pot and then
plaesd th lid bak on th pot it befau retuurning too th sink too rints and drie
hfr
handz
anoina
then went bak oevuur too th fier and sat doun in hfr ruflee maed wuudun aamchaer -
hf
lifted th pot ov broo from th griduul and paud out a kup fuul fau amioka and
anuthuur fau hfrself - hf aded a spoonfuul ov hunee too eech - then hf sipd at th hot sweet liqid
wiel amioka setuuld hfrself in hfr oen chaer besied th fier - amiokaz chaer had been shautund
sevuuruul tiemz too enaebuul hf sit at th taebuul at th korekt
hiet az hf
had groen tauluur
thaer
woz lituul uthuur fuurnichuur in th roundhous - an oevuul taebuul and 2 kuurvd
benchz plaesd agaenst th waul - on th opozit sied ov th room thaer woz a paer
ov kuurtund bedboxz with drauz unduurneeth - a taul food chest stuud bie th
sink at th bak dau with anuthuur chest bilt in unduur th sink
aul
that liet it had been unseezunablee waum with a tepid breez bloeing in of th
nauth see - but it woz th uurth aaftuur th shautest uurth ov th sun - soe th
shaut wintuur liet woz aulredee waening - thf wuud soon need too shut th
dauz and kloes th safier paented wuudun shutuurz oevuur th unglaezd windoez -
but at prezunt a waum plezunt breez wofted around th room - mixing th smelz of th
huurbz in th gaadun with th apetietsing aroemuurz ov thfr meal simuuring in th pot
amioka
sat on hfr
chaer with hfr
aamz foalded akros eech uthuur az hf waeted fau anoina too speek -
amiokaz faes had a sootabuulee seareeuus xpreshun that shoed that hf xpekted matuurz ov sum
impautunts too bee diskusd
anoina
setuuld intoo hfr seet and luukd haad at amioka - hf obveeuuslee wunduurd wot too
sae too amioka - then anoina seemd too desied that hf wuud treet amioka az th adult
that amioka aulmoest woz - but hf aulsoe nue that amiokaz maask
ov asoomd machuuritee kuud stil slip too reveal th vulnuurabuul chield that hf kuud bee
anoina
tuuk anuthuur sip ov broo and komentsd hfr stauree
wel too staat with
anoina
sed unsuurtunlee
mf
do not noe hou ekiose haz found out wot hf toald yf - and ov kaus ekiose had noe
riet too tel yf liek that - but az mf sed befau - yf had too noe sumtiem and mf had wonted too tel yf wen yf had groen enuf too unduurstand
mf
riet - maebee that tiem haz nou kum
hf pauzd and fround
nou that iz od - mf woz oenlee taulking about yfr familee with iziobi laast daak at th feest ov th nue sun - mf wunduur nou if ekiose oevuurheard wf taulking - but noe matuur - yf