Webber's Story Cubes

The Fabrics

I couldn't help but think what I'd thought every time I looked at the Metals too long: What are we to them?

To us, the Metals were attention-grabbing, and showy, and mesmerising. But what did they see when they looked out across the field to us? Could they even see us? Our village was composed of huts and tents; sturdy and homey as they were, they weren't much to look at it.

A shiver ran through me. I didn't like the feeling of it.

"Let's go, Leigh," I said. Letting go of her arm, I swallowed and turned around. I didn't check if she was following me before traversing the Bridge and heading back to the village.

{[~]}

     That had been over a decade ago. Leigh had indeed trained to live in the Metals. She became a councilwoman over there a few years ago, and I hadn't seen her since she'd finally crossed the Bridge. I didn't have much time to mourn the loss of that friendship, however. My mother had died just before Leigh left, and my father had followed in his grief soon after. With no siblings, that left their property to me.

I was in the marketplace, shopping for fertiliser, when I heard the commotion. "Excuse me," I told the vendor with whom I'd been discussing prices before pushing my way through the crowd to better hear and see the man yelling.

"Didn't you all see it?" he cried, his back turned to me. "A flash of great light, an echo of great noise!"

A murmur arose in the crowd, but the man continued on: "The clouds had been gathering for many a day, and last night they'd been particularly gray and bunchy." The man waved his arms in wide motions as he spoke, though that might have served to only further our confusion. "Then last night, I was awaken by a terrible boom and gleam. Everything in my tent seemed so bright, I thought a fire blazed outside! The beam holding up my tent shook almost as much as I did! I was terrified!"

The man turned around and I recognised him as the village's primary sheep farmer. I couldn't recall his name, though.

     "But things got worse!" he exclaimed. "After composing myself, I hurried outside to see what was going on. The rest of the village seemed to be quite asleep, so at least my nerves of the world ending died down. Before I could rightly go to sleep, I had to check on my animals, so I rushed over to my farmland. And— And, oh, I don't know if I can go on."

I knew what Leigh would say if she'd been there: "Is this some kind of melodrama? Out with it already!"

     Some people began to scoff or shake their heads and leave, but I found myself believing this man. At least, a little.

     "Wait! Please, wait!" the man said. "This is important, my fellow villagers. I am not making this up or exaggerating anything. I checked up on my sheep, one by one, and found one was dead. Not just of a heart attack or something. Burnt! Charred! Crisp! Violently set ablaze! Violently murdered!"

      Once again, people turned to themselves and whispered. A handful seemed concerned, but the majority looked to be mocking the poor sheep tender.

A marketplace order maintainer elbowed her way through the flock of people and to the man. "Please, sir," she said, "if what you say is untrue, stop your raving."

The man set his jaw. "I speak only the truth, Officer."

The order maintainer nodded. "Then come this way, sir," she said. She led the man out of the crowd and off to someplace we did not know, and that was the last of such talk.