Glitch in Eternity Read online

  The Glitch In Eternity

  by

  Earl T. Roske

  Recountal of the Five Finders

  Ebbe, the first Finder to whom was revealed the Gates of the Temple of Eternity.

  Rabbi, the second Finder who was shown the way to the Altar of Forever.

  Onder, the third Finder to whom was given the words of Translation

  Chris, the fourth Finder to whom was whispered the location of the Hall of Listening.

  Groush, the fifth Finder who was given a vision that led to the Hall of Seeing.

  May Father Sol shine upon them.

  May Mother Terra comfort them.

  Year 326 - Early third quarter

  With one arm and a quick motion, the Elder swept the lifeless body of the rat from the Altar of Forever. The rat smacked the far wall and dropped to the floor. Trudee screamed. The Elder froze in place, her sleep-raw eyes wide. Trudee dashed across the open space between altar and wall. Her shoulder slammed into the wall as she stopped, sliding down to scoop the lifeless creature into her arms, cradling it like a mother would a child.

  The Elder recovered from her shock and slowly began to move. She approached Trudee, warily. Several steps back from where Trudee rocked the dead rat, wetting its fur with her tears, the Elder stopped. She started to squat down to Trudee’s level but grunted sharply and slowly stood, rubbing one knee.

  “Child? Are you okay?”

  “No!” Trudee’s shout bubbled from her throat. Her face shined with tears. A string of snot snaked from her nose and laid itself across her upper lip.

  “You’re upset,” the Elder said. She’d opted for bending at the waist, hands braced above her knees.

  “Because you’re mean.” Trudee wrapped her arms around the small furry body, pulling upward until it was cradled under her chin.

  “There was a rat on the Altar of Forever, dear.” The Elder spoke as if that gave her reactions logic. See a rat on the altar, get the rat off the altar.

  “His name is Ebbette.” There was fire smoldering in Trudee’s eyes. Her chin stopped quivering, the tears on her cheeks drying. “And I put him there.”

  The Elder stood, winced with pain, and then stared down at Trudee, once again wide-eyed. “You put a rat on the Altar of Forever? Good Mother Terra, why would you?”

  Trudee moved Ebbette so she could see his tiny body, stroke his head the way she used to do after he’d eaten seeds and lettuce leaves she’d pilfered from the growing chambers. Her voice, still charged with rage, came as a whisper. “So he could go to Eternity.”

  The burst of laughter from the Elder shook her tunic and echoed down the passageway beyond the altar room’s door. Her laugh subsided to a chuckle and then evaporated as she noticed the hard glare from Trudee.

  “Rats don’t go to Eternity.” The Elder’s voice was lecture toned.

  Trudee pushed against the wall, using it to help her stand. “He wasn’t a rat. He was my friend.”

  After her mother and sister had succumbed to ash cough, Trudee had been disoriented, like a person in an ash storm. Then one day she’d found a very tiny and very weak rat huddled in a corner of a back passage down where she lived. Without a thought, she’d scooped him up and hurried home with him. Her father and uncle had been resistant to the idea of a rat in the family’s rooms but capitulated when they both finally understood that this was more than just about saving a rat.

  “Nevertheless,” the Elder said. Her voice still in lecture mode. “Rats, animals, pets do not go to Eternity.”

  “Why not?” Trudee’s question was a demand. Why shouldn’t Ebbette go to Eternity? He’d been a good friend. Besides, the Altar of Forever glowed as she’d recited the Application of Translation, just as it had in every translation ceremony she’d ever seen. True, only an Elder was supposed to perform the ceremony. But Trudee had mouthed the words just like the Elders. The altar had glowed. So why not Ebbette, too?

  “Because,” the Elder said. She looked around and then busied herself, picking up a basket and cloth near the altar. She gathered them up as she continued to lecture. “Eternity is for the People. A gift from Mother Terra. We go there so our families can still be with us, so we can provide guidance.”

  “I want Ebbette to be with me. Just like my mother and sister and grandmother and aunt, and all the others.”

  Trudee took the basket and cloth. She laid Ebbette’s body inside the basket and once again covered him with the scrap of cloth.

  “He can’t be with you when you go to Eternity,” said the Elder. She went silent and once Trudee had Ebbette covered in the basket she put a firm hand on Trudee’s shoulder that held even as Trudee flinched. “Eternity is for the People. Come.”

  She pulled gently, but firmly, on Trudee’s shoulder, compelling her to move towards the doors and the passage beyond.

  “It’s not fair that he can’t be with me.”

  The Elder guided Trudee up the passageway, “That is how things are, dear. It’s always been this way.”

  Trudee spun and faced the Elder who almost collided with her. Her eyes shined with a new defiance. “No one’s ever said that. I’ve never heard anyone say that.”

  Her father and uncle had said that, but she’d challenged them for proof, just as they’d always encouraged her to do. Reluctantly, they’d conceded they had no proof but they weren’t going to take part in a translation ceremony for a rat.

  The Elder redirected Trudee up the passage once again. “You’ll understand when you are older.”

  Trudee groaned under the weight of the oft-repeated statement. It made as much sense as the words spoken during the Application of Translation. Maybe if someone explained that statement and what words like “scan” and “system” meant, she’d better understand the adult world that they kept hiding from her.

  Her musings silenced her long enough for the Elder to guide her to the Chamber of Greetings and across its ‘crete floor to the water cistern and the inner doors. The Elder stood in the silence, decorated with a benign smile, as Trudee slipped on her headscarf, cinching it closed under her chin. She layered the two veils over her face, the thinner one that allowed her to see and the thicker one that kept the ash out of her mouth and nose.

  When ready, Trudee stepped into the ante-chamber, the ash brushes hanging on their wall pegs, the ash buckets below them. The outer doors waited with their thick glass windows that she wasn’t yet quite tall enough to look through. In her mind, she had a dozen more points of argument that she wanted to lay before the Elder but her fires of anger and passion had burned down, leaving her tired. She gave the Elder one last look and then put a hand on the outer door handle.

  “Speak to your family,” the Elder said. “They can help you understand.”

  She shut the inner door, leaving Trudee alone in the anti-chamber. Trudee stood in the silence for a few seconds, her one arm cradling the basket, the other putting light tension on the door handle. She couldn’t take Ebbette’s body to the Reclaim, nor to the compost. He wasn’t People and he wasn’t plant matter. She’d find a nice place for him to stay.

  She pushed herself past the doors and out into the gray world of the dead city. The area outside the Chamber of Greetings was a wide open circle, surrounded by broken buildings covered with the ash Mother Terra had pulled from the sky in her regret, leaving only a thin veil of it to hide her disfigured form from Father Sol. One day, it was said, Mother Terra would be beautiful again and the last veil would be pulled away and Father Sol’s bright glory would shine undiffused upon the People again.

  Until then, the People live underground, surrounded by ‘crete and steel. That was no place for Ebbette to rest. But once, while walking with her father on
a side street from the temple to entrance of their neighborhood, she’d seen a small patch of green in a sheltered corner of some broken stairs. She’d snuck back out when her father and uncle had gone to help with a well pump. What she found she knew only from the old books her father brought from the Stacks. She’d found dandelions. Their yellow flowers were paler than the sun-yellow she’d seen in a book about ancient flowers, but she recognized their shape. She also knew the very person who would like the dandelions. So she’d harvested half of them and brought them home. Ebbette had enjoyed the treat.

  Now he was no longer capable of enjoying their flavor. He could, however, enjoy their company. Once she’d made her way to the dandelion site, Trudee pulled away some of the busted ‘crete excavating a small hole and stirring up some ash and the accompanying smell of sulfur. She wrapped Ebbette’s body in the cloth scrap and laid him amongst the small broken bits of ‘crete and settling ash before gently stacking the larger pieces over him. She added several layers to keep him safe from whatever might wander his way.

  As she stacked the broken ‘crete she mulled over her experience in the room of the Altar of Forever. She still didn’t understand why Ebbette couldn’t go to Eternity. The reasons were flawed. Even she, ten years alive, knew they were flawed.

  If there was something wrong with their argument, maybe there was something wrong with Eternity.

  Year 330 - Late first quarter

  Trudee waited in the company of frustration and two Elders from the education program. She slouched into the worn couch of her family’s living room in stark contrast to the elders who sat straight-backed on the edges of two ancient, padded chairs. Trudee was practically supine when the door opened and her father entered.

  The Elders might not have recognized him, buried under his scarf, two-piece veil, and ash, but Trudee knew. She had studied her father all her life and could not only identify him by the way he moved and stood, she could tell his moods by the way he held himself. Right now he didn’t look surprised, but he did look wary.

  His hand was still on the door as he paused on the threshold for a ten beat. Trudee knew from experience that an ashy print would remain long after his hand had released the cool, pitted metal. And like the door handle, her father was dusted with a light coating of ash from head to toe. An occupational hazard from his work in the dead city.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked as he slowly closed the door behind him. Even in that short time, a small drift of ash had piled along the door jamb.

  Trudee opened her mouth to speak but was beaten to a first explanation by Elder Clementia. She was one of the oldest Elders, her grey rope of braided hair hanging over her shoulder like a beaten rat snake.

  “Trudee caused a serious disruption in classes today,” Elder Clementia said.

  “Again.” Elder Lincoln added a hard glance at Trudee.

  “Did she?” Trudee’s father had taken the ash brush from its wall peg and was slowly brushing the ash off his headscarf and veils. The ash drifted downward, a slow-motion ash-fall. “Again?”

  “I didn’t mean to.” Her words were blurted with enough energy to yank her into a sitting position. A position that just as quickly began to melt under her father’s hard glare that only she was aware of from behind his veil.

  “Trudee has taken it upon herself to tell lies about Eternity.” Elder Lincoln looked at Trudee for several more seconds before turning his attention back to her father. “She told several of the children that Eternity wasn’t real.”

  There was a long silence as Trudee tried to find something on the floor to apply her attention to. She heard the sound of her father removing his veils and scarf. She could hear the whisper of the brush as he applied it to his tunic, could see, on the edge of her vision, the ash slowly piling on the ‘crete floor at his feet. No matter what happened in the next short while, she would have to carefully sweep up all the ash before going to bed.

  “You heard her say this?” her father ask.

  “Well, now,” said Elder Clementia. “Of course we didn’t hear first hand.”

  “But one of the children came to you with this information.” The ash brush moved again, rasping as it wiped the ash from Trudee’s father’s trousers.

  “Yes, several students reported the incident to us.” This from Elder Lincoln as if it was all the evidence anyone would require. “They were in tears.”

  “Friends of Trudee’s?” The brush had paused as he spoke but was now slowly sweeping across the tops of his foot wrappings, careful not to disturb the ash already on the floor.

  Trudee could feel the Elders pausing to look at each other.

  “No,” Elder Lincoln said. His words came slowly as if feeling their way through dangerous debris. “I don’t think they are her friends.”

  Trudee wanted to speak. She wanted to tell her father that they’d been bullying some of her friends. She wanted to say they hadn’t cried, no matter what the Elders told him. They’d sneered at her before running away. She wanted to say a lot of things she’d been thinking but her father spoke first.

  “So they could have made this story up, then? To get Trudee in trouble?”

  “One of those children is my grandson, sir,” Elder Lincoln said.

  The ash brush clattered as Trudee’s father dropped it on its peg. “I see,” he said. “And your grandson has never lied or elaborated a truth? He’s nothing like the other children?”

  Trudee bit her lower lip to catch the giggle in her throat. She and her father were opposites when it came to their standing amongst the Peoples. Despite some working to keep him from Elder status he was still respected and often sought for mediation or clarification on People’s doctrine. Trudy was never going to be an Elder.

  “Of course no child is perfect,” said Elder Clementia. Her voice had that mincing sweetness like too much syrup in the morning rice. “But there’s no reason for them to fabricate something so offensive.”

  “Unless you want someone to get into serious trouble with the Elders.”

  “Fine, sir,” Elder Lincoln said. His voice was as hard as the ‘crete floor. “Does this sound like or unlike something your daughter has said before?”

  Trudee stopped breathing. She heard her pulse pounding in her ears. Her face began to flush. She could well imagine the blank look on her father’s face echoed in the stony silence.

  “I think that you should leave,” her father finally said. “And I will speak to Trudee as family.”

  There was a quick rustle of clothing as the two Elders stood.

  “Perhaps if you did more than talk, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Again.”

  “I will take your advice into consideration” The ash on the floor swirled briefly as the door was opened a little more forcefully than her father had taught her.

  “Children are sensitive,” Elder Clementia said. She’d wiped smooth her tunic and adjusted the lay of her braid. “Words spoken in haste, or anger, can have a powerful impact on them. It may not be a good thing to question their beliefs until they are strong enough.”

  Trudee had an answer to that but settled for pressing her lips hard against each other.

  “Thank you for that advice.” He stepped back from the doorway to make the exit more clear. “Good day, Elder Clementia. Elder Lincoln.”

  The room felt as cold as the world before Mother Terra pulled back the veils of darkness.

  “Doleen,” Elder Clementia said to Trudee’s father. “Trudee.”

  Elder Lincoln removed himself without acknowledging Trudee or her father.

  The door shut slowly before Trudee’s father spoke. His voice sounded weary. “Trudee.”

  “I’m sorry, father.” She kept her gaze cast upon the hard floor. “They were so mean and just….”

  “Annoying?”

  “Yes!” She threw herself back into the worn cushions of the couch. “Why are people so ash storm mean.”

  Her father took up
the ash brush again and was pushing the swirled ash back into a manageable pile for her to scoop up later. “Why do you have to be so ash-headed?”

  “Am I wrong?” Trudee asked quietly.

  Her father sighed. His shorthand for, here we go again.

  The door clicked and opened slowly. Trudee looked up and saw a man similar in build and posture as her father. He nodded and moved into the room, closing the door behind him.

  “I saw a couple Elders, stiff-backed and looking angry enough to scare an ash devil. Something to do with Trudee, was it?”

  Her father looked at her so she answered.

  “Yes, Uncle Keegan.”

  Her uncle took the brush offered by Trudee’s father and began to slowly wipe the ash from his clothing. “Spouting heresies, again?”

  Trudee shrugged.

  Her father spoke as he went to the kitchen nook. “She told Elder Lincoln’s grandson that Eternity doesn’t exist.”

  Trudee’s uncle hung the ash brush and then removed his headscarf and veil. “Did he pee on himself?”

  Trudee laughed and quickly stoppered it with both hands. Her father returned with a jug and three cups. A frown on his face. “Don’t encourage her, Keegan.” He handed each of them a cup which they accepted with two hands each. He filled their cups half full before doing the same to his own.

  He held his cup up. Trudee and her uncle emulated his actions.

  “May Father Sol shine upon you,” he said.

  “May Mother Terra Comfort you.”

  They all drink and then wiped the inside of their cups with a finger. Each held their finger to their nose and sniffed in the last drops of water.

  Trudee gathered up the cups and pitcher.

  “What exactly happened?” Trudee’s uncle asked as she set the cups and pitcher in the kitchenette and covered them with a cloth.

  “Apparently Elder Lincoln’s grandkid has a bully streak in him.” Trudee’s father had settled himself in one of the old chairs and was unstrapping his foot coverings.

  Trudee turned, leaning against the counter. “Fremont. That’s his name. He was being mean, saying stupid stuff. Pushing. So I told him that mean people don’t translate to Eternity. He said that he would go to Eternity because his family has the most Elders and that I wouldn’t get to translate because I put Ebbette on the Altar of Forever. Except he said, ‘dead rat,’ which made me mad and so I said it.”