Free Veracity by Mark Lavorato Page B

words, maybe two, and would strain my neck into the air, ear cocked to the clouds, hoping to catch the sense of what was being said, but the birds' racket seemed to be drowning out everything important.
    Finally, clicking my tongue, I walked as close as I could to the tree and threw up my arms, hoping to scare them away. But instead of flying they became instantly and solemnly quiet, which, I thought, suited me just as well. Before turning around, I squatted to look through the thick leaves and saw a few of them hunched over, reverent, still - it seemed like it worked. So I turned my attention back to the conversation outside the walls, jotting around the courtyard to find the spot that had the best acoustics, and eventually found that standing on top of the table was as good as I could get. But the moment I stopped moving, the songbirds started up again, first twittering hesitantly, and then quickly gaining confidence, their volume swelling with each second.
    "...Actually, I think you're being a bit..." I caught one of them saying, before his voice was obliterated by the chorus. I looked over at the tree and shook my head. Then stepped off the table, picked up a rock, and pitched it into the leaves as hard as I could. An explosion of tiny wings burst into the air and spiralled out of the courtyard. I watched them until they'd completely disappeared from view, as if they might deviously manoeuvre back into the garden again if I wasn't careful. But they were gone for good. I stepped back onto the table and twisted my neck to the sky to listen. I could tell right away that this conversation was going to be worth every effort I'd expended.
    "...Well, no. I guess what I'm asking is, don't you think this might confuse things more than clarify them? I mean - he has enough on his plate as it is, without our introducing imaginative tidbits from obsolete cultures," said Harek.
    "Hmm. Yes. Well, to be perfectly honest, I would have a hard time calling anything in this book a mere 'imaginative tidbit'," retorted Dana, doing a horrible job of masking his irritation.
    A stiff pause followed before Harek said anything, and when he did, all of the melody in his voice had become flat. "Look. You've painted a few pictures in your time - some of them I even liked - but I'm really wondering if introducing this as a topic would be part of our collective mandate, or your personal one. I mean - what do you
really
see this book serving?"
    Dana cleared his throat. "Okay, I'll give you my reasoning. I was wondering what might happen if, while simply walking among the ruins, they stumble upon a striking piece of art or architecture. If we just pretend that humanity has never done anything exceptional, how do you think they're going to react to such objects? Do you think they'll doubt the essence of the person that made it, or do you think they might doubt their education, which, in its complete one-sidedness, made no mention of such things? Now, just think of it, if that
were
to happen - and I think we can both agree that it's a very real possibility - it would throw a lot of other things into question as well, wouldn't it? And to me, it's obvious that such precarious questioning should be done under our close supervision, instead of in a place where we have no contact, and never will again. If there are any weak points in our outlook, Harek, I want to nip them in the bud right now, not wait around crossing our fingers, hoping they never surface. To me, bringing this book in is an attempt to be proactive, not - I assure you - out of a desire to complicate things."
    There was a thoughtful hesitation. "Mm hmm. I see..." Harek finally murmured, and then broke off for a few seconds, sounding as if he were shuffling the soil at his feet with his sandals. "I really wish you'd brought this up in the last assembly. Then at least we could have some kind of consensus on it. It's just that... I'm not sure this is the kind of thing we should all be throwing our