In search of meteorites

or, a return to long-lost friends

Apr 04, 2024

a blue and white rock — Photo by Rapha Wilde on Unsplash

A rippling wave of creativity flits in on the wind. I can feel it. I am soaked in its crepuscular rays, the fervent and verdant tendrils of you’d better hurry up and write!

So here I am. Writing.

I mentioned last week that I wanted to return to Renn and Brae and their journey. If you are new here (thank you), then I realise that may not mean anything. A year ago I began writing a novella about a pair of travellers, one infatuated with the other, the other not entirely truthful as to the reason for their journey. I framed the story as a series of journal entries, making it sound as though I had found a diary and was translating it page by page, entry by entry. But… none of that was a lie. I wasn’t making it up. I really did find a diary, written in a hand as strange the Voynich Manuscript or Codex Seraphinianus, full of maps, sketches of flowers, a language that—at first—I couldn’t understand. It took me many months to begin to translate Renn’s words and to unpiece what I took to be his recounting of events. Those were months in a fever dream, a luscious flurry of transcribing and retelling.

And then a fair number of months ago, I had a reshuffle and tidy at home, placing some things in storage, retrieving some others, and during that time I… well, I lost the diary. That caused me some distress. New entries from Renn about Brae dried up. I had to move on to other things.

Anyway, I found it again. I won’t say where. You’d only laugh.

I’m going to begin and resume that tale. I think that linking back to prior posts can be futile—an extra click represents a resounding barrier for you, the reader. I’d rather keep everything within. So, if you’ll indulge me, I present the first and short entry of Renn’s diary below as a means of a restart. In coming to understand Renn and his language a little better, I have edited it somewhat (I couldn’t help it; Renn fell prey to the naivety of adverbs, a slew of unnecessary “hads”), but not much. It will never be perfect—whose diary entries are?—but his words hold a charm and foreboding that, even now, make me smile.

If you have read before, I hope you enjoy a return to Renn and his bumbling ways. If you haven’t, then I hope you enjoy encountering Renn and his bumbling ways.

Feshen, 11-on-Rye, 568

The meteorite—if that is what it truly was—came three days after leaving Toӧr. It burned bright in the sky, a corona of cool blue cloaking a heart as fierce as ember. It was beautiful. Then it winked out, leaving us motionless, the night sky re-emerging in dim jealousy.

I had looked to Brae then, my mouth parted with a word half formed. There came an explosion. Or something like an explosion, for there was only the light, spitting forth from the horizon and illuminating the sky with a narrow, prismatic jet. Then that too was gone, lost to space.

We waited, expectant on a sound that never came. There was no rumble, no shockwave. If we had been asleep, we might never have known of its passing.

Or so I thought.

“What?” I said in whisper, the lone word finally finding itself.

Brae said nothing, motioning that we continue. She lit a torch, held it high as we walked. The light struck the myriad branches lining the path, casting each leaf and twig into darting shadow-shapes. Somewhere nearby came the low snort and rustle of an animal. Jackhog, most likely. Scavenging in the night, it must have been startled by our footsteps and flame.

In truth, if I am to be honest here in what I write, Brae’s insistence on the safety of fire unnerved me. We’d walked with the moon’s silver guidance for hours, so why the change? What significance had that meteorite brought?

“Why the torch?” I asked, words echoing thoughts as I brushed aside a branch.

“Would you rather I put it out?” she shot back, her first words in over an hour.

There was something strange in those words, something out of place, even for Brae. I could have answered her, I could have set forth a series of questions—it was what I did with Brae: ask questions to seek the slightest favour, often receiving nothing in return, hoping though that if my question nudged her just right, if I found her in a moment of peace or said something spectacularly stupid, I could glimpse the single thing that made me smile: her eyes, their edges, the way they creased. It was always enough, seeing those creases, thinking that perhaps it was I who brought a fleeting distraction to her life. I suppose it started as a game. One I had played for years.

But that night was no time for games.

I shrugged, though I doubt Brae could tell. By then we had reached a clearing and she was in the lead, sweeping the torch in what I felt were unnecessarily wide arcs until she caught sight of the forest hedge once more.

“I don’t care if you put it out,” I said, forgoing my own silence. “I just don’t see why we need it. There is moonlight enough. Why waste a torch?”

Brae stopped, whirling to face me. “Waste?” she said. In the flickering torchlight, her hair flared a shade more crimson than usual.

This was not going well.

“Not waste.” I held up an appeasing finger, like a banner pole bereft of any actual banner. “A flame at night, waste no light, drown the ghost, appease the blight.” I spoke the charm in my best lyrical tone. “Yes, yes, powerful and true and all that.” Brae was superstitious. I knew this, even from a young age. I just didn’t see how her superstition fit with what we had witnessed.

She stared at my unwavering finger, saying nothing. I let it drop and her eyes shifted to mine. They were deep set and cold, entirely devoid of creases.

“Brae,” I said. “What was that? What did we just see?” The meteorite already seemed the distant memory of dream.

“I don't know,” she said. “I don't know,” she repeated, her voice drained of any power. And then, in a moment of honesty juxtaposed to the impervious Brae I had spent so long trying to crack, she added, “but it is not the first I have seen.”

Not the first.

I wondered on her words that night. I wondered on their meaning, at the fear writ across her face, at what may lie ahead. Everyone, on occasion, sees meteorites, especially night rangers, those that wander unseen in the cloak of dark. Yet Brae’s words gave me pause. It is only with the silent passage of time, with deep regret and with my own slow stupidity that I caught her true meaning. It was no mere meteorite we saw. It was something far more profound. Something intangible, even for me now.

Brae shook her head, as though ridding herself of some unseen insect. “Let’s move,” she said. “The night is still upon us, and we have a ways before camp.”

I had almost protested, almost stopped and demanded some answers, or at the very least set upon her some questions. Instead I let it go, motioning an as-you-wish gesture with my hand.

It is a decision I have forever had to live with.

SLAKE

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