The Settlement

The Settlement – Alchem’s Hut – Markfarmer.

The smell of wood smoke tinged the air with a flavour of the past, bringing to his mind, child-hood images of a large group of people sitting around a bonfire. In the picture, it was almost sundown and the fire had spent its early burst of energy as any living thing does.

One minute a spark, the birth of a fragile flame, cupped with eager tending hands from the harsh elements around, until it can hold itself up alone. Then teetering steps as it starts to find its way across the ground running through the materials available, panting its hot breath over the ground like a dogs nose testing curiously at an object its other senses cannot define but won’t discard in case it has some value, checking to see what is edible and what is not.

Soon enough, the flame comes across something it can consume, and crawling all over it, in a second devours it and gives forth another spurt of growth, to move on again in its search to satisfy and endless appetite, while its progenitors take another step back to give their handiwork some room, and share a look of pride and a feeling of pleasure at their success.
Within a few minutes, the flame is as tall as its creators and could threaten their very existence if they don’t now keep a tight control over it. Others come, quickly, bearing gifts of bark, and waste packing materials, anything they can lay their hands on to appease this ancient deity, one of the old Gods.

His minds eye travels across the scene in his memory, there are people smiling and talking to each other in small groups of threes and fours and a molten toffee sun melting over the horizon, its last rays pushing through the sparse trees behind the gathering, but losing strength as the slim branches offer resistance to the radiated beams on their journey to join the others around the fire. Everybody in the vision appears happy and contented with their life. Everything they need is available to them, all they need do is listen to the sounds of the earth, the seasons, smell the air and observe the creatures that live within it, to hear the voice of the provider. Knowing this ancient language, they go out into the wilderness and seek what they know to be theirs, their food, their sustenance, their right to live, in and as part of this one great divinity, taking only what they need, only what needs to be taken to keep everything in balance.

The young mans mind comes back into the present, and the last wisps of the memory drift through his matted hair and dissolve in to the sulphurous atmosphere of the  Alchem’s hut.

He is concentrating on the task now, grinding at the thick pungent paste in the bowl in front of him with a large rounded stone. At thirteen years of age, the boy was chosen by Davidson, to be the groups next Chem-leader. He had shown strong instincts and a good nose for the plants, and the rains. He instinctively knew where to find the plants needed for the old medicines and he had proven all those who believed in him to be right, with the new antidote they all depended on for their sanity, that they all needed to stay in harmony with the oneness, the provider.

Each day, he would venture into the surrounding Terra, with his pack and his tools, and collect the special plants he needed to care for the group, to return at sundown, and be greeted back as a homecoming hero, cared for and fed as a member of each of their families in thanks for his ‘gift’ to them.

The paste was very versatile as an ingredient. It could be used to baste when cooking over the fire, and to help preserve meats. It could be used as a marinade, adding a spiciness and bite quite rare in their usual diet. Or it could be eaten in bite-size pieces, wrapped in the edible leaf of the ground plants that flourished nearby, taking the sting out of the  flavour and adding a pleasantly sweet aftertaste, giving the eater fresher breath. The only relief available to them from the smells of their own body.

The paste itself had no ‘magical’ properties, it was merely a herbal mixture that underwent various stages of grinding and mixing, then was left to stand for two days and nights. On the third morning, the surface would be skimmed gently to remove the oily residue, used in lamps and to rub onto grazes and cuts aiding quicker healing, and the paste left at the bottom was ready to be used. It was allowed to ‘rest’ however, as a sign of gratitude and reverence for the nature around them, of which they were part, and in so doing, gave themselves a period of reflection, to realize their place and worth within the earth and air through which they lived, and into which would ultimately lose themselves again when the earth called for them.

Before he had discovered the mixture, led by recurrent dreams, and the sounds of the earth all around them, the people of the group would suffer greatly with self doubts and night fears. Anxiety about the things of their lives that couldn’t be changed, low food stocks and the foreboding of the darker seasons when the world slept and they slowed their breathing in accordance with its rhythms. The madness would seize people of any age, strong and weak alike. Suddenly there would be a spate of ten or fifteen people not sleeping, they would begin wailing, quietly to themselves at first, but later rising in volume and pain to such a pitch they would rock and sob, unable to be soothed in anyway, by their loved ones or group leaders. It was only a matter of time then before they went ‘back to the earth’, the stronger ones would last six, sometimes seven days, the weaker ones and the children perhaps two or three.

Now, with the correct use of this magical paste, this gift from the creation around them, there had not been a ‘moving on’ in three full cycles of the seasons, and a new, stronger harmony vibrated through them all, bonding them closer together as a group and at the same time aiding their own individual connection with the ‘voices’ and the elements.

Children as young as four or five were telling their parents or neighbours the ‘knowledge’ they were receiving through inner hearing. What time the plants would break the surface, where to sow which crops this season. They were much more sensitive, so much more able to hear these messages from the ether than the older ones, and as such, took on a greater responsibility at a far younger age than ever before.

The whole group would sit around the fire every thirteenth night, and silently, using the taught breathing, relax into the sounds and smells of the air around them, until they could ‘feel’ each others living presence and the great presence that was forever about them. This bond was the breath and heart of the group and aided by the paste, was felt more fully, more freely and openly by all, bringing health and a deeper wellbeing and bond to them all, individually and as a single ‘force of life’.

If Dr. Phamber were to discover this miraculous paste, this mystical unguent, and have it analyzed and deconstructed in the laboratories at Core, he would find nothing unusual in its chemistry, nothing spectacular about its properties. Only an organic compound with signs of decay and decomposition you would expect from mashed and pulped leaves, berries and seed husks.
If however, he were to give this substance to a willing participant, and then try his world changing, life style providing marketing prosesses on that individual......he would be astonished, stunned, fearful, and perhaps angered, by the individuals self control and total freedom of decision. It would seem as though they had some way of shielding their mind from the beneficial and positive effects of his imitative ray interceptions.

“Freedom of thought, to concentrate and choose and disregard as they saw fit”

Worse than that, he may even notice a serenity in their eyes and facial expression, a look of someone perhaps listening to an otherworldly sound, clear eyed, totally engaged and independent, yet in some state of unity with a force or presence that could be neither seen or perceived by anything or anyone save the ‘willing participant’. The participant however, would have a very sound sleep that night and wake feeling refreshed and relaxed, and feeling they were in the very best of health with no need for anything in the world save this feeling of calmness and satisfaction at breathing and seeing and feeling truly ‘themselves’.

The hut door opens and the light pours in from the outside world, carrying the smell of smoke and leaves and soil. The air falls in behind bringing with it the sound of crackling branches, chatter and laughter and children’s raised voices shouting to each other as they play a game of chase around the settlement.

Davidson puts a fatherly hand on Markfarmer’s shoulder and leans over to look at the mixture. Turning his head to face the boy, he says nothing, but looks into his eyes and smiles gently as though listening to another, but sharing this experience with his protégé. Markfarmer smiles back in acknowledgement but breaks eye contact with the older man and returns his concentration to the task.

With a slow and deliberate inward breath, Davidson turns and leaves the hut, very gently closing the door behind him, and the young Alchem sinks back into his daydreams.
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