Eritopia

A Chance Encounter

'Not me. I'm going to the Outside.'

'What for?' The little man didn't seem shocked. 'There's nothing there, nothing for you anyway.'

'You've been there then? To the Outside?'

'Of course, but I wouldn't recommend it.'

'Why not?'

'I don't want to talk about it, I've got things to do.'

He made his way across the misty Circle, with his box-on-poles bobbing along behind him. The loose bag slapped against his side. He went over to the remains of the fire, by now burnt out, and paced around it. Then he bent down and picked up one of the sticks that had escaped the flames. He tapped the end on a flagstone and started prodding around. As he did so he hummed, stirring the embers, turning over a log here and there. All the while rain fell out of grey skies, and the wind swept it over the Circle. Not-Bear sat on his haunches and watched him.

After a while the man shouted to him. 'You didn't leave any food then?'

'There wasn't any,' Not-Bear replied.

'No? That's very strange. There are usually things left over, oversights and spillage. I often fill my trolley in two or three trips. No food you say? That is very strange.'

Not-Bear became aware of his own hunger, the empty feeling in his stomach and the dryness of his throat.

'Extraordinary,' continued the stranger. 'Didn't anyone complain?' He shouted through the rain.

'Complain?' Not-Bear didn't understand what he meant.

'You know. Make-a-fuss. Ask for food?'

Not-Bear shook his head. The stranger said something else, but it was more words Not-Bear didn't understand.

Satisfied there wasn't any food, the stranger began to fill his box with the unburned wood from the fire. He muttered approving noises as he picked up logs and branches.

'Good wood this,' he said. 'Trust the Elders.'

To Not-Bear this seemed silly, there was plenty of wood around; they were in the middle of a forest after all. Why bother to take some from a burnt-out fire?

'Not the same at all,' was the reply when he ventured to ask. 'Different wood, you see, from the Inside. Oak, ash, maple, good burning timber, not like the soft pine we get out here. It burns better and lasts longer, he paused and lifted a piece to his face. 'Smells nicer too.'

Not-Bear began picking up bits of wood with his teeth, trotting over to the box and dropping it in. The stranger seemed happy with this, but a couple of times he rejected the choice. Each time he threw the offending piece to the side. Shortly they had the box filled, and there was nothing left to put in.

'Let's go then,' the stranger said, and they left the stones behind them and walked through the back of the Circle. They reached the surrounding trees and plunged straight into the gloom.

'What's your story then?' the stranger asked as they picked a way through the trees, his voice echoing from inside the hood. Every now and then he stopped and examined a broken branch, or a piece of bark torn from a stump. He would then move off again, usually in a different direction.

'What story?' Not-Bear asked. 'And what are those things you keep looking at?'

'Markers,' the stranger replied. 'I don't want to get lost, or followed.'

'Followed by who?'

'By whom,' the stranger corrected, 'and anyone I suppose,' he continued, as if he had never really thought of it. 'Thieves.'

Sometimes words made Not-Bear's head spin. 'What's a thief?' he asked.

'Don't you have them on the Inside?'

'If I knew what one was I could tell you.'

'Ah, so you are an Insider then, I knew it.'

'I'm not,' Not-Bear insisted.

'Of course you are,' the stranger mocked. 'What's your name?'

'I haven't got one.'The stranger looked at him intently. 'Nor I,' he replied.

They picked their way over a pile of fallen branches to get to another marker. Then they veered off onto a left fork, which took them into a dense space where there was little daylight. The rain was a distant zinging above them now, unable to penetrate the trees.

'Really?' asked Not-Bear as they negotiated the obstacles. He was better at this type of travelling than his companion, who kept tripping and stumbling. He seemed to find it difficult getting over stumps and fallen branches. Then Not-Bear noticed the stranger's hood had twisted round to reveal half a white face.

'What's that?'

'You said you haven't got a name.'

'Why would I lie?' he replied. 'I used to have one though; Jed it might have been. No one has called me it for ages, so I've forgotten. What's your excuse?' his revealed eye flashed in the gloom, as he turned to look at Not-Bear.

'I've never had one,' Not-Bear told him.

'What did your parents call you?'

'Parents?'

'Yes, parents. They bring you up, they look after you, they name you. Pa-rents.'

Not-Bear immediately thought of Bear. Was he a parent? There had only ever been one of him, although sometimes there seemed like two. There was the nice one who made food and played leaf-lie with him. Then another one who was scolding and serious, refusing to answer his questions. He had never named me though, Not-Bear reasoned, which only left the Elders. They hadn't named him either, so he stuck with Bear.

'One pa-rent,' he said.

'Only one? That's a shame. It's Jod, by the way.'

'Jod?'

'My name. I remembered.'

'Well, Jod, if you've found your name, will you give me one?'

Jod seemed touched by the request. 'I will,' he said, and began scratching his chin inside his hood. Not-Bear noticed his hand was fleshy, with not a great deal of hair on it. It divided into those horrible pink parts that seemed to hang at the end of the arm. The Elders had those too.

'Let's see,' Jod said, 'I'll call you Wolf.'

'Wolf?' Not-Bear tried the word out as he said it. 'Why is that?'

'Why not?' said Jod matter-of-factly. 'That's what you are.'