Rrrip .... rrrip .... rrrrip.
Liana and Herago were once again in the garden of the House of the Green Jewel, busily tearing up pictures of mountains, and finding other Impossible things to do for their showing. It was what they had agreed, but was it good enough? Liana was beginning to worry whether the whole idea would work.
'There needs to be more to it,' Liana said, looking at the pile of torn papers that now littered the garden. It was a cloudy day, and Liana's mood was not as sunny as it had been last time.
'What do you mean? There's plenty to it,' Herago said.
'Not really,' Liana said. She picked up a piece of paper, which had the peak of Greblara showing. She turned over the paper, as though there was something she needed to see on the other side, but it was quite blank.
Liana looked back at Herago. 'OK, you do something Impossible, then you do something else Impossible. Fine. But it's the same thing over and over again. I'm not sure it's interesting enough.'
'You might as well say "you sing a song, then you sing another song – it's the same over and over again"', said Herago.
'No, because songs are all different. And the point of this Impossible stuff is that it's a surprise. You can't keep surprising people over and over again.' Liana suddenly wondered what people would think if they saw her and Herago surrounded by all these bits of paper. She bent down to pick up some more. They really ought to clear up.
'Why not?' said Herago.
'Why not what?' Liana asked. She was thinking about where these pieces of paper should go. Had they done too much tearing up? She knew that wasting paper was a pretty awful thing to do, but at least old paper could be made into new paper again. She started to wonder if that was something to do with how Herago did this 'Impossible'. Could he have quickly formed the torn paper back into new paper? No, that surely wasn't possible. Then Liana remembered that, actually, she didn't want to know.
'Why can't you keep surprising people?'
Oh, yes. Liana remembered what she was saying. 'You can't keep surprising people because if they know they're going to be surprised, they won't be surprised.'
'But they can be surprised in different ways.'
Why didn't Herago understand? 'If you're surprised, you're surprised. There aren't different types of being surprised.'
'That's where you are wrong.' Herago smiled. 'There are quite a number of different types of being surprised. And there are a number of different types of Impossible.'
'A number? What number?' Liana asked.
'Tag,' said Herago.
Liana laughed. 'Tag?' She looked at the pieces of paper in her hand. Tag.
'What are these tag types of Impossible, then?' She spread the pieces of paper out, so that Herago could see easily that she had four pieces of paper in each hand.
Herago took one of the pieces.
'Ir,' he said. Ir was 'one'. 'Ir is the sort of Impossible where something vanishes.' Herago crumpled the piece of paper into a ball, and threw it across into his other hand. Then he threw it back. Once more he threw the ball of paper, but this time it seemed to disappear in mid flight. Liana opened her eyes wide.
'Deg,' Herago continued. 'That's where something...' Herago reached into the air just above the level of Liana's eyes, and there, suddenly, between his fingers, there was a bright red stone '... appears from nowhere.'
Herago took the second of the pieces of paper in Liana's hand, and let it flutter to the floor. He continued his explanation.
'Of course, you can combine ir and deg to make something travel invisibly from one place to another...' Herago stretched his right hand out to the side, then bent his elbow as he moved his hand slowly towards his chest. His left hand pointed at his right elbow, where the paper ball that had disappeared earlier was now sitting. 'That would be mek.'
Liana let the third piece of paper fall.
'One day,' Herago said, 'I'd like to do that with something bigger. Make something enormous disappear, and then appear somewhere else.'
'Like a mountain?' Liana said.
'That would be a bit too big. Maybe a person.'
The image of Ralkino disappearing suddenly came to Liana. Maybe his disappearing was not ir, but mek. Maybe he had just appeared somewhere else. Could that be? She pulled herself away from this line of thought, and back to Herago.
'So would you need deg people to do that?' Liana asked, 'Deg people who looked exactly the same?'
'Are you trying to turn an Impossible into a possible?' said Herago, and he shook his head.
Liana smiled. 'All right,' she said, 'what's Impossible number que?'
'Ah yes. That's where something changes size.' Herago pulled a small piece of cord from his pocket, and held it loosely between his hands. He started to move his hands up and down very quickly, so that the middle of the cord was spinning in a big circle in front of him. As he did so, the circle got bigger and bigger. Then he stopped, and Liana could see that the cord was now many times the size it had been at the start.
Herago tossed the cord in the air, and Liana caught it in her right hand, dropping the last piece of paper she was holding there. Liana looked hard at the cord and laughed. It was just an ordinary piece of cord. What would happen next, she wondered.
'Fay?'
'Fay is the sort of Impossible we've been working on, where something is destroyed, but then becomes whole again. I don't need to show you that.' Herago said. Liana was disappointed, but she dropped the fifth piece of paper from her left hand.
'Nay?' Liana asked.
'Ah yes. I'm still working on nay. But I'm nearly there. Look.'
Herago took back the piece of cord that Liana was still holding in her left hand, and tied a knot in it. There was something a bit strange about how he tied the knot, Liana thought. Herago held one end of the knotted cord, so that it hung down in front of him. He stared hard at the knot. Liana also stared, wondering what was going to happen. She looked at Herago's eyes, trained upon the knot.
Nothing happened.
'Oh well. Needs more work, I suppose,' Herago said. Liana was a little disappointed.
But then Liana noticed something strange was happening. The bottom of the cord had started to move, as though it had come to life. Slowly it climbed up to where the knot was, slipped through the gap, and made its way down again. The knot had undone itself.
'Ah yes, that's nay. Something that isn't alive moves as if it is,' Herago said. Liana dropped the sixth piece of paper from her left hand. She was just holding two now. Herago wrapped the cord twice around his arm. He handed the ends to Liana.
'What am I supposed to do with these?' she asked.
'Just hold tight,' Herago answered. Then he jerked his arm up. Suddenly, it seemed that the cord had passed right through him, and his arm was now free.
'Ept,' he said, 'is where one thing passes through another.' Liana dropped another piece of paper, so she was now holding just one sheet in her right hand. Herago took it and screwed it into a ball. He placed it on his open left palm. Was he going to make it disappear, Liana wondered. Herago beckoned her to come closer, so that she was looking directly down on the paper ball.
Suddenly the ball twitched. It twitched again. Was this another example of nay, Liana wondered. The ball moving as though it were alive?
But then the ball moved again, and this time it didn't twitch. It slowly rose up from Herago's hand. Liana stepped back, and the paper ball continued to rise. Soon it was level with Herago's chin. Herago clicked the fingers of his right hand, and the ball slowly moved to the right. Quickly Herago snatched it and handed it to Liana. She looked at it. It was just a piece of paper. How did Herago get it to float in the air?
'And that,' said Herago, is tag. Making something fly, or float in the air.
'Without wrist-flyers,' said Liana.
'Without wrist-flyers,' Herago agreed. 'So there you are. Tag types of Impossible.'
Liana was silent for a moment.
'Maybe not tag,' Liana said. 'Maybe sag.'
Herago laughed. 'Have you thought of another type of Impossible?'
'I think I have. But I don't know how we would do it.'
'What is it? Maybe I can work out a way.'
'All these Impossibles are about making something happen to a thing. What about another type with a person?'
'I told you, I was thinking about how to make a person appear or disappear,' Herago said. 'Or fly without wrist-flyers.'
'No, that's just treating a person like a thing. What about the thoughts in someone's mind?'
Herago looked confused. 'What do you mean?'
'Could we make an Impossible where you look into somebody's mind? Work out what they are thinking?'
Herago frowned. 'How would you show that you knew what they were thinking?'
'I don't know. Maybe it was a silly idea.'
'No, it's not silly.' Suddenly Herago grew excited. His eyes widened, and he smiled. 'Maybe...maybe there is a way. If we just...' He stopped and looked again at Liana. 'I'll think about it.' Just then the sun broke through the clouds.
But they were not the only ones who had imagined the sag type of Impossible.
Dear reader, thanks very much for reading this far.
It would be very useful and helpful to me if you could give me a little feedback on what you've read. What are you enjoying? Is anything irritating or difficult? Are you reading this to a child, and if so, how are they responding? Or maybe you're quite young yourself. What is the character you identify with? How do you think the story will develop?
Really looking forward to hearing from you, dear reader! But if you'd rather just read, and maybe make your comments at the end, that's fine.