Eritopia

The Golden Age

On an untidy allotment, in late afternoon sun, two men were digging.

'This ground is rubbish,' Beetle muttered to his son as he laboured. 'Dry as you like—'ow's a man supposed to make a living with soil like this?'

He bent to pick a handful of earth and stood upright, free hand holding the small of his back. He let the soil trickle through his fingers. He was a small man, with a busy manner. That characteristic, together with a shuffling gait, earned him his nickname.

'Pick up those loose potatoes, can't yer?' he said.

His son, Martin, did as he asked and dropped them into the wooden barrel to the side of them.

'Not the earth as well,' Beetle snapped.

Martin looked at him. 'Do you want me to help or not?'

'We can't eat earth,' Beetle said. He went over to the barrel and spooned soil out with a cupped hand, crumbling it in front of his son.

'Potatoes,' he said.

Martin continued to heap soil and tubers alike into the barrel. He wasn't much interested in what his father had to say. He would rather be doing anything but digging.

Their allotment was one of many on the northern side of Eritopia, on land that sloped down to the Great Green River. From where he stood Martin could see the water, the late sunlight glinting off it as it flowed westwards to the sea. Beyond it lay the open plains, which used to be farmland before the One War brought an end to farming. The slopes of the Six Hills were prominent to the west. Away to the east, though he couldn't see them, rose the lofty peaks of Steepling Ridge.

The allotments were handed down through generations. Some owners died and never left the land to family, often because they hadn't any left. Or a relative might arrive within the Council's designated time to renew the process. Any unclaimed allotment would be taken over by its neighbours, who squabbled for a share. The Guardia would intervene in the case of dispute, although no one ever wanted that. They were the feared authority of Eritopia, City at the End of the World.

Martin liked to imagine that earlier age, when carts trundled along the busy roads, with goods and people transported to and from the city and the farms. It was nothing he knew first hand of course: there were no farms, goods or transport in his lifetime. Nothing but abandoned tracks, and the memories of bitter men who talked of the good old days when farming and industry flourished in the city.

Everything had changed after the One War. Schools taught how the first King Barnabas used animals to drive the wagons to the Forest. They brought back wood for the fires and stone from the quarries to build homes and enlarge his Palace. But men treated the animals cruelly, and many died. The animals had revolted, with some escaping across the horizon. They returned with a horde of fiercer creatures and fighting men from across the Cold to lay siege to the city. 

Led by a man called Reed, the army of animals drove the citizens living on the plains back across the river. When the King finally emerged, with his own forces, it was to face humiliation and defeat. The result was the loss of animal labour, save for a few, and the slow decline of the once powerful metropolis.

Martin became aware of his father leaning on his spade, looking at him.

'Is this what you call 'elping?'

Martin looked once more across the river. What must it be like out there, he wondered? It was said that a dark and dense Forest lay past the hills. While beyond even that animals now lived in peace without the interference of men.

'Well?' his father said.

'I'm thinking.'

'Thinking what? Daydreaming more like. We're 'ere to dig potatoes. Yer mother said—'

'That I wanted to come? Not likely. I'm here because she asked me. She doesn't think you're strong enough, worries about your health. She's right. You can't dig for more than a minute without stopping to draw breath.'

'Don't be cheeky.'

Martin knew he wouldn't win an argument with his father. He had an answer for everything. Always going on about how ungrateful children were. And how it was his generation that kept the City together.

'What are you looking for, anyways?'

'I like looking. Haven't you got an imagination? Don't you ever wonder what it was like in the old days?'

'I don't worry myself with things that are past. We're 'ere to dig up these potatoes.'

'They're your potatoes. I don't even like them.'

'You eat 'em,' his father said.

'That's a joke.' Martin bent down and lifted a potato from the dirt. 'There are hardly any left once you've sold them to your mates to make into hooch.'

'You should have a drink sometime,' Beetle said, facing his son. 'It might calm yer down.'

'I don't need calming down.'

'Huh.' Beetle stood back. He followed his son's gaze but, since Martin was a good foot taller than him, he could only make out the distant hills.

'There's nothing out there,' he said. 'It's open land. Are you 'oping for someone to rescue you? Well there's just abandoned farms and deserted mines and quarries. The Golden Age is gone, son, it ain't ever coming back.'

'So you say, old man.'

'Martin, do not talk to me like that. You need to...' He squared up to his son before backing down again.

'A drink, or a girlfriend, that's what you need,' he muttered as he shrank back to his digging.

Martin ignored him. Let him believe what he wants, he thought. There was no way he was going to inherit this flat and lifeless patch of soil, and grow potatoes for the local Jug Watch. Or end up drunk and ignoble like his father.

Glancing across to the river sparkling in the sunlight, he continued harvesting. On either side allotments spread across the slopes, a patchwork of greens and browns. He started to dig again, and put some effort into it this time. His mother had asked him to.

He tried not to look at his father's smug face as he did so.