Memory

August is the month for wattles in flower and the first daffodils.  Natures signal that winter is passing.  I can hear the birds change their song from, I'm around, to, I am here where are you, our nest needs order.

The sheep in the paddock next door, they remember me, for the handful of grass tossed over the fence. Their owner, as far as the sheep are concerned, does not provide enough hay for nibbling.  I try not to toss too much grass over the fence, because when the sheep see me, they remember the handfuls of grass, and stand at the fence asking, begging for a treat.  For a little bit of quiet, I end up giving them more grass, habit forming I think.

While I sit typing this post, I can hear a young magpie warbling over the buzz of  lawn mowers cutting grass.  The days still have a chill, but I can see the subtle changes that a new season brings.

Memory of the dry, water restricted, smoke filled years of the last decade are fading.  They have been replaced with memories of drenching rain and floods.

picture courtesy Wikimedia Commons

But after the storm, the sun comes out and shines, the rainbow glows, and reminds me that God still has promise in place.  There will always be high ground.  God remembers.



Much better than I did. I was busy, that much I remember,  I just can't remember what the busy was about, possibly lost myself in a book, or was it the mending pile.  By the time memory kicked in, I had missed the deadline for the sign up to the Christian Writer's August Blog Chain.  So this is unofficial.  I do apologize.

2.

Norman stared at the door. You expect a door to open he thought.  He grabbed the door's handle pushing and pulling the door in the hope of shaking the door open.

"Hold on for a second, I'm almost finished," said a voice from the other side of the door.  Then Norman heard something that sounded like rushing water.  The door opened into him, first time in his life that he was thankful for large feet.  His nose was saved a bruising blow. 

"Sorry," said the voice.  The door opened after Norman stepped back out of the doors arc.  He found that the voice belonged to a woman with a pretty face and laughing eyes.

"Hi I'm Vicky, and I'm guessing your the translator."

"You have me at a disadvantage," said Norman. "But yes, I am 'the translator', I'm Norman, Norman Charring."  He was not feeling the humour in the meeting that Vicky seemed to be finding, his discomfort seemed to amuse her.  He shook her offered hand.

"I need to get back to my desk, but the en-suite is free now."  Vicky turned around and walked through the door in his room and through a door on the other side of the en-suite room.  Norman wouldn't have minded a chat, but it seemed Vicky had other things to do.

Curious as to what was in the room Vicky had stepped from, Norman thought that he might have a look.  What he stepped into was a 20th Century bathroom, but Vicky called the room an en-suite, the museum where he worked had examples of a room like this.  Something to check, he thought, their description might need updating, silly really, should have thought of the different words for the a bathroom.  This would, he thought, excite Samuel no end, to see a 20th Century bathroom that works.  Now that I'm here I might as well be comfortable.

Norman's curiosity was too strong, he knew where one door went; to Vicky's desk, and he assumed an office, but where did the door between his door and Vicky's door go.  There was only one way to find out, he opened the door.  

It was a storage room, there was bath crystals, soaps, solid and liquid, bubble bath, towels, shelves and shelves of towels. Underneath the shelves were laundry facilities. And not the 20th Century type either.  Handy to know that he could have his clothes cleaned while he relaxed in either the shower or bath, or the spa.

At the other end of the storage room, past the shelves, where racks of bath robes, blue on one side and pink on the other side.  Norman looked through the blue side, there seemed to be a range of different sizes, the pink robes were the same. Passing the robes, Norman stood at another door, he paused,  I've come this far, he thought, I might as well open this door too.

The room was a square, and had bench seats on three of its walls, the fourth wall had the door in it.  In the center of the room was an metal basket full of bubbly rocks.  A voice welcomed him to the sauna, and informed him that the sauna would be ready in 30 minutes.  He was asked if he wished to confirm? Norman had a moment or two of confusion, he was looking for the owner of the voice, this was not part of a standard 20th Century bathroom, he managed to utter "No," before he was asked anymore questions.

Norman turned around and walked back to the room where he had spent his day.  It had been a long day, arriving early morning, shown straight to a desk full of documents, he had thought that he would be finished by the time the ferry was ready to return to the mainland that night.  But the documents were like the shelves of towels. Never ending.  That raised questions too.  He wondered why the owner of the documents didn't simply scan the documents into a translator program.  He knew one or two programs that could do the job.

"Sir," said a voice.  Norman jumped, he was not expecting anyone to be in the room, but the man who had bought him his lunch, sandwiches, was standing in the room.  Norman also noticed that the documents he was translating had disappeared.

"My sincere apology, sir, I did not mean to frighten you but your evening meal will be served in the dinning hall in fifteen minutes, I am here to show you the way. "

1.

 Norman Charring stood up and stretched his body, he leaned and twisting one way and then the other way.   Then he interlaced his fingers and pushed his palms out and away from him, as far as they could go.  His body was stiff from spending hours sitting and his fingers were stiff from hours of writing.  He shouldn't complain, it was his choice to use the ancient format of paper and pen.

Samuel, his friend and colleague at the Museum was surprised that Norman had been offered the commission, which came from an unexpected sector.  Samuel made the point that the commission was perhaps too generous.  He had also made the point that the text on the sample page of the manuscript was not overly difficult and that he would be able to do the job.

Norman had agreed,  but for reasons unknown to them the private museum wanted him.

"Be careful Norman," Samuel said.  "The offer is too generous, there is something we are not being told."

Norman  was pleased that he had taken Samuel's advice, and packed his never ending paper. The documents he had seen were fascinating, and they appeared to be originals.  It was hard to be ninety nine percent sure unless you could run diagnostics on them.  At the moment that was something Norman couldn't do.  Even after the diagnostic test, there was always the chance, that the ancient pages might not be ancient at all.  Norman had to consider that some-one might have re-organised things a little, he suspected that there had been some nano enzyme repairs made to the documents that he was studying.  How much repair had been done he couldn't tell.  It was how the skin on his fingers felt more than anything, whatever had been done, was recent.

The owner of the documents, Ulrich, was in the habit of popping into the office every couple of hours to see how much progress was being made.  Norman did not need the pressure, ancient language was tricky sometimes, not that he didn't know the words, it was more the context of the word.

Take the word 'wicked', sometimes it meant very bad and other time it meant extremely good.  He was sure that the ancient people who used the word could distinguish the difference, he like a challenge he reminded himself, and that was the reason he was here.

He grabbed his cup and took a sip.  Oh yuck, how long has that cup been sitting on the desk, he needed another cup of coffee, and something to eat, something more than just the small plate of sandwiches he'd eaten for lunch. Norman grabbed his cup, he wondered if he could get a refill.  He turned the handle on the door only to find the door seemed to be stuck.  His heart stepped up its beat.

© M. J. McKay