The Pole Shift

Toorak the Lord Vet

"Prophet!"

Invalid User. An erogenous voice replied.

"Prophet!" Roared Toorak but the voice in his earlobe spoke no other words. The people of the Island, a people who's grandfathers had been elite, had come to fear and love Toorak. The newcomer had cleaned up the island. He approached daily life as if the island were a ship. He would not abide sloth, laziness and idiocy. Chief amongst the idiocy he placed himself. He did not know things. He could read but a few words. He searched for knowledge and books that were brought to him he would study for hours. Understanding was difficult however, impossible, except for the children's books.

One night, the distant horizon was lit blue and red. Rumbles carried across the water. After an hour the reds faded, the blue increased.

"My Father! My dead Brothers! They are warring with the Himalayans!" His weathered face and great shovel beard nodded at the light show whilst his new people looked on at him in frightened confusion. He stared at them and cussed.

"See the blue, that is our weaponry! Victory! They will come here, victory!" But the people were lost to such information. They looked back at the horizon then back at Toorak, trying to understand but believing they were witnessing a natural phenomenon, finding it too hard to contemplate.

"Curs, fools! Understand this world! Stop eating limpets off the rocks!" The boy with conjunctivitis, now clearing whispered:

"I understand Lord Vet, The Lord Jimmy and the Dead Brothers fight the mountains and win! They will receive many shipping containers for their blue plasma victory." Toorak turned to him and a hint of gentleness touch his grey eyes.

"Yes boy, the Lords are fighting. They will come here, prepare for it! Learn things, be clean, strengthen your body. They will all come here and judge you for it."

A year passed. No one came. The people lived in tidier homes. They built a raft like ship, modeled on Toorak's lost vessel. Try as he might, he could not find a way to power it with the sphere. He needed the loop. No book he found talked of egg-like spheres or loops or guns that fired blue plasma. They rowed, they fashioned a square sail. It was a lucky day if they caught a shipping container, and days of work to tow it back. Smaller vessels were constructed, always based on the raft of his father. In rough weather the rafts sank.

Slowly things improved. Slowly. Toorak found himself sitting on a granite outcrop that was the shape of a flat head. It was a place to watch the seas, and the island below. He found himself looking at his people with less of a sneer. They were trying. Some had picked up books in imitation of Toorak, and using his small understanding of letters they leapt forward. He was astonished at their ability to learn. As if they were dry kindling waiting for a spark.

Toorak was often at the flat head rock. Previous observers had used the platform. He could see equipment placed in an array he could not decipher. He did not touch the equipment but used his imagination to handle their meaning. He arrived at various connotations but pursed his lips at all of them. The boy would often be with him. Toorak watched the boy try to read. Deep concentration moved the boy's eye brows as his vision travelled across the words.

"Wer, ah, tu, water!" The boy yelled and looked at Toorak.

"Show me." Whispered the man. He nodded slowly at the words - a boat floats on water. The accompanying illustration showed a merry boat with a smiling face bobbing amongst the waves. The children's book was thumbed and tatty, all the people had used it to learn. The people had gone further, they made the boat as depicted, even drawing a smiling face on the prow. The small vessel braved the seas where the rafts could not and Toorak felt small yet great accomplishment.