Islands in the Sky

3.9

Sema walked back the way she had come. She had paid enough attention as she went to make sure she could retrace her steps. Mostly, she was just following the road, so there wasn’t very much chance of getting lost, but she had been careful anyway because the city was big, and new to her, and it seemed like it would be easy to become confused.

As she walked, she thought about trading. She thought about what she had brought with her, and what useful things she could do herself. She thought about what she had which would be useful to other people in this new place.

She wasn’t sure there was much.

She had some plastics, and some old clothing, and she still had a few apples. That was all. That was all she had to trade, and it didn’t seem especially valuable, so she began to think about what she could do, instead, rather than what she had.

She could clean and cook and sew, but none really well enough to make a living at it. She could help around a farm, but she wasn’t actually a farmer. She didn’t know the reasons why things were done around a farm, only what people needed her to do, as they told her to do them.

She should have tried to learn more at home, she thought, before all this happened. She should have, but it had never occurred to her that she would need to.

She walked back through the crowds, slowly. She looked around. Everything in the city was complicated, she thought. Everything was more specialised than at home. That was her difficulty now. Everyone around her had a specific task or skill or thing to trade which fit neatly into everyone around them, and she had no place in that.

Her village had never really worked that way, not as purposefully as the city did, where one person did one particular thing and only that, ever. At home, there had been fewer people, so everyone had done a little of everything. At home, people had all each done different things, as each task had needed doing. They had all worked together when they needed to, harvesting wheat, or shearing sheep, or picking apples, or helping build a house or repair a broken roof. Everyone had done a little of everything, and so Sema had learned to everything too. She had learned to do everything, but she had never learned to do any one thing especially well. And here, in the city, she needed to one thing well. Here, there were so many people that everyone did one thing and nothing else, and as well, each person actually needed all the others to do their one thing too, so they could all help one another and divide the work and trade their skills together. And what was more, Sema thought, each of these people would probably become far better at their one thing, because of their constant practice, than anyone else was, and especially better than someone who did many other things too.

Someone like Sema.

Sema had no one thing, that was her problem. And because of that she had no place here. No way in which to fit, or eat, or be part of the city.

All she could really do was make a boat and sail it. And although that was a useful thing to be able to do sometimes, it probably wasn’t here. Not a wardrobe-boat in a harbour full of actual ships.

Sema walked, thinking. She wasn’t quite sure what to do.