Free The Arrival of Missives by Aliya Whiteley Page A

kind and welcoming, and they do not speak. They do not need to, for they simply will their thoughts into my head. They are undoubtedly human, even though they possess this strange gift of wordless communication; I feel a kinship with them that cannot be denied. They smile upon me. They are very wise. They send me the thought of welcome, and then the thought of now. This moment.
    Then there are layers to the thoughts they implant, as if they have peeled an onion to reveal more inside than out, layers upon layers, going down, deeper, through time itself, reaching back from the now and also forward to the future. The perspective alters, turns on its side, and I no longer see layers but veins. Each family history is a vein in the body of the human race that will one day exist, and some veins are so very important amongst the others. Not the brightest, or richest, not even the best of us in any discernible way. It is, in part, chance; but at this level of consideration it seems chance and destiny are entwined, inextricable.
    The wise ones guide me, pointing out things, showing me each vein in turn, every family being a separate journey that is only the stroke of a paintbrush upon a giant canvas, the millions of which form a perfect image of wholeness, togetherness. Then I realise that there is one tiny error within the part of the image that I am being shown – an error that contains the possibility to become a disease within time, spreading darkness over the picture until it is spoiled and dead. That error is a family line.
    After that realisation I mourned. I mourned for both the world and for my lost mind; for either I was mad, or the future was already lost simply by the existence of this family. But it came to me that I had not been given this gift of foresight to torment me. I had a choice. I could decide that madness had claimed me, or I could find a purpose within it. So I searched for a purpose. I became well versed in that image of the completion of mankind in all its glory, and at the place where it all went wrong. And I began to see how I could change that place, and save the world.
    So you see, Shirley, I have no great answers for you that will make sense of what you already know.
    I would wish this responsibility away in a moment if I had remained a whole man, but I am now more rock than flesh, and I feel the rock consuming more and more of me. I am hardened inside in ways you cannot begin to imagine. You will not understand this, I think, until you are much older. Then you will look back on this, on my next request, and see it in an entirely different light, and not a good one. Time changes everything, does it not?
    But I must ask it of you. And you will do it, if you do it, because you are good and true, and you should remember that, always.
    Does it matter if we save the world if we have lost our souls? Mine is already lost, and so I have no fear on that score. Your soul is an infinitely more precious commodity, but even so I am prepared to risk it. You see, I feel the stone in my heart; more so every day.
    I have heard in the village that you have agreed to go with Daniel Redmore to the May Day celebrations. That is good. And now I must ask you to be a good friend to him, and more besides. Allow him to find peace, and contentment, and love in you. If he gazes at you with all the ardent admiration that a young man can feel, then let him. Cleave to him, and do not remonstrate or resist.
    I stop reading. I look around the corner of the school hut, where the children are engaged in skipping and clapping and so forth. As I gaze upon them as if through the wrong end of a telescope, I realise how very little they all mean to me.
    …do not remonstrate or resist. It would not be a sin to give him comfort, Shirley. It would save us all. For it is the Redmore line that condemns us all to a bleak future, and Daniel is the cause. If we can change his behaviour on May Day we will change everything for the better.
    I told you