Walking Dollar Bills

Chapter 8: Blighted Banning of Baleful Books

"Why would you block the staircase with all these chairs? Is there something upstairs you're trying to keep away?" asks Zala.

Zala pushes a wooden chair to the corner of the room. Six other wooden chairs occupy the same space.

"Perhaps" Granny answers. She stares up at the staircase for an extended period of time. Cobwebs and dust guard the empty hall that awaits at the top of the steps. She hesitantly places a hand on the handrail and squeezes.

"Follow me. Your room is up here" says Granny.

Zala and Granny enter a small room flooded with large text books. There are towers of books that pile on a small desk, books that sleep on the bed, and books that sprawl out across the floor.

"You must really like reading!" says Zala.

"I hate books!" says Granny sharply.

Zala pauses, and then turns to Granny.

"Oh..." says Zala as she returns her attention to the library of books stacked and scattered all over the room. The door shuts behind Zala, leaving the books as her only companions.

"Well you could of fooled me" says Zala under her breath. She walks over to her bed and carefully stacks all of the books on the bed into neat piles on the floor. She throws herself on top of the bed and shuts her eyes for a moment, and then opens them.

"I could use a pillow for once" says Zala grabbing a thin pink book at the top of the pile on the floor. 

"Sanguine Pamphlet? At least the cover is soft" 

She places it behind her head and looks up at the wood ceiling above her. Within seconds, she is sound asleep.

***

Granny pours a light-yellow liquid into a pot. The pot rests on a sturdy gas stove. A light cloud of steam rises to the ceiling.

"It amazes me how long the Hornet race has been around" says Granny tending to her pot.

Zala sits on the counter with a handful of herbs and potions on her lap.

"What's so amazing about us existing?" says Zala with a smile.

"Hornets are too reliant on the queen. If something ever happened to her, you all would perish. It isn't good for a society to rely too heavily on one leader or one resource or one anything. People must learn to do for themselves" says Granny.

Granny sighs and steps away from the stove. She lifts an old finger and points to the stove.

"My son built this stove." She points to the ceiling.

"My husband built this house." She grabs a few herbs from Zala's pile and throws them into a wooden mortar and begins to grind away at the herbs with the polished round end of a pestle.

"Bring me one of those papers on the ground in the other room" says Granny.

Zala leaps off of the counter and scurries over to the other room. She quickly returns and hands a sheet of paper to Granny.

"Dear, I would like for you to look at the paper" says Granny.

"Okay" Zala looks at the paper and furrows her brow.

"Are you an artist?" asks Zala.

She holds the paper up to Granny. Images of undecipherable symbols and scribbles fill the entire page.

"I can't read" says Granny.

She continues to pound and grind away at the herbs. The pot boils and more steam floats into the air. A thin cloud of mist enshrouds the room.

"Nevertheless, I have learned thousands of recipes and remedies. And, I have recorded them all in those papers you see all over the floor. I use those symbols to keep track of the ingredients I need to use and procedures I need to follow" finishes Granny.

"Wow! So you invented your own language! Granny that's incredible!" Says Zala. An enormous smile flashes across her face. Granny notices her approbation and blushes.

"As I was saying earlier, Hornets need to become more self-sufficient. No landlord can evict me because I have my own house. No hospital can misdiagnose me because I have my own cure. No government can starve me because I grow and cook my own food" says Granny.

"Dear, how can a dictator rule me, when I already rule myself?" asks Granny.

Granny scrapes the mashed herbs into the pot. Zala hands her a wooden spoon, and Granny begins to stir.

"Imagine if you Hornets could create your own queen's nectar? You could travel the world. You could meet people from all kinds of different places. You could be free" says Granny.

Zala frowns.

"But you don't look free" says Zala.

Granny stops stirring and stares into the white foam that bubble atop the pot.

"You talk about self-sufficiency, and believe me Granny, it sounds great. But, it also sounds so lonely. The old people at the bottom of this hill. They work all day in those fields and fight for every sip they swallow, every bite they take, and every sweet scent they smell. But at least they have each other. What about you? What happens if you get hurt and can't fix yourself?" says Zala.

She sighs, takes a long look at Granny, and continues,

"I think us Hornets are free. We're free because we stick together!" she says with a fist pump.

Granny smiles as tears race down her cheeks.

"You whippersnappers and your optimism. You sound just like Horatio. I wish I could agree with you, but I have seen this movie far too many times. Like you, Horatio believed in the power of the people. He used to stay up reading those darn books all night long and then go days without eating because those words filled his soul. That's something food can't do" says Granny.

Granny turns the knob on the stove and holds out her hand. Zala places a vial in her hand. Granny carefully transfers the liquid in the pot into the vial. Zala digs through the plethora of objects in her lap and pulls out a cork stopper.

"This here is artificial queen's nectar. Obviously, it isn't as effective as the real thing, but it should keep your body from shutting down. We'll have to see for how long, however," says Granny.

Zala takes the vial from Granny's hand and plugs it with the cork stopper.

"I apologize for snapping at you last night. I hate books. They filled my grandson's head with foolish dreams about equality and a government ruled by the people for the people. Books destroyed my family" says Granny.

"So that's why you blocked the staircase. You were building a wall between you and those books. But, why not just get rid of them?" asks Zala.

Granny wipes her eyes.

"I can't. Those books are the last traces of my grandson I have left. His fingerprints, his hair, his scent, all of it is on those pages. That's why I want you to be a sweetheart and burn all of those books for me" says Granny.

"I still don't understand" says Zala. She squeezes the queen's nectar in her hands.

"Why would your grandson and all of those other young people just leave and never come back?" asks Zala.

"It's those books. The Sanguine Pamphlet, specifically. It taught our children that we older folks were a hindrance to the country's success! My grandson promised to change this country when he passed his exams and joined the government. Instead, he gained wealth and abandoned me! They abandoned all of us!"

Tear droplets smack against the wood floors of the kitchen. Granny covers her face in a futile attempt to control her weeping. Zala loosens her grip on the vial and smiles.

"I don't think your grandson abandoned you. I think he was disappointed in himself for not creating the changes he promised you. Yea..."

Zala looks at Granny, who lowers her hands from her face. Zala wipes Granny's tears with a finger.

"Maybe he's just scared to come back home because he knows he let you down."