Friday, August 26, 2011

Chapter 3: More unveiling.

Chapter 3: More unveiling.


It was more difficult as he had thought, making a drawing of his room.
Did Petra want a drawing of the floor, or one, in which you did see the bed, the stool before his little table, and his chest of drawers?
May be he should do both.


Until now he had not found out, why Petra did want this, nor how he could call her.
And in his mind it did sound a bit stupid to call loudly the name of somebody, no one in his family could see, or even knew that she existed.


So when daddy came in, to call him for supper, he laughed and said: “Are you drawing this, while Nemo showed you the big Atlantic city map?”


Billy did not know something other than to nod yes, while he normally told all to mom and daddy. But now he did not know what else to do as say: “yes”.


“Come on, supper time, and may be we will tell you, how we did land in this bubble with the Atlantians. When we have told that, it all will make more sense to you, and you are old enough now to know.
Besides, your both sisters are sleeping, they were hungry a bit earlier on, so that comes fine!”


Cheerful Billy walked behind his dad.
At the table was one of his favorites, something he could eat every day: fried potato’s.
The sauce he did not recognize, but tasted like the apples, he sometimes got, when daddy had been to the gardening bubble. Than mom started to tell.


“If you did listen well today, you do know now, most people do live under the ski, and not under the sea, like we do now.
Had Nemo time to explain, what the sky was?”


Billy got a red face and confessed: “May be mom.
But before that he said something so funny, my thoughts were on that, and he went on very fast for the Atlantian Kids were there too as a guest.
And they seemed to know what he was talking about.”


Daddy smiled: “Knowing Nemo, he was so with his thoughts at his treasured book, he even did not notice!
Am I right? What were you thinking about?”


“He told, the old Atlantians had ships, like the one you did make me, but as tall as a house.
And I was thinking: that is to heavy and will sink. And when I did listen again, lesson was finished.
So I do not know what the sky is, dad.”


“That is a part of what we are going to talk about.
Your mom and me were first also living in dry land near the sea. Our greatest pleasure was to dive and to find out, about fishes, corals and more.
But always we came up, dried and went to our homes, to our mom and dad’s place.
We even did study at the university for a while.”


“What is that?” Billy asked.


“A school for more learned people, the ones who do become scientists like Nemo and you other teachers”
“Oh” Billy said. “And why do we not live there anymore?”


Mom got on with telling: “One day the water was so nice, and we had so much to explore, we did not look on the dept-meters we had on our wrist.
And when we did, we knew almost for certain, we would either drown or were going very ill.”


“How strange, why that?” wondered Billy, for a moment forgetting to eat of his apple sauce.


“When you live on dry land, there is only sky above you.
And sky is air, like we do breath in here. That you do not feel really.
But water has weight, as you can feel, when you take an empty cup, and it is lighter than when you poor in water.
A big lot of water is very heavy, and does strange things with your body.
You will learn about that before you are allowed to go out of this bubble.


So we nearly drowned and than Purple came, our mermaid friend.
She had a bowl with air for both of us, and did bring us here to safe us. So now we do live with the Atlantians.”


“But, but, why did she not bring you up?”stammered Billy. “That would be as easy as down, would it not?”


“No dear, that is very complicated. And when you have learned about how your body does work, you also understand better.
We could not, for there was only enough air in that bowls to come to this place.”


Billy frowned, put his elbows on the table and his hands around his head, closed his eyes as if he this way could imagine what mom and dad just told.


And oh wonder, they even did not say things like: “not with your elbows on the table Billy!”
No, they just let him think.


“Why did you have dept-meters, and if they were important, why did you not look?
And what if Purple had not been there?”


“Ho, stop, young man, one question at the time,” daddy said.
“You were busy thinking about ships, big as a house, that would sink, so you did not hear all, Nemo did say.
We were busy exploring, and did not look at our dept-meter, so simple it is, when you do not notice all, that is around you.”


Billy took his elbows of the table, opened his eyes fully and said: “so you also did dream a bit. Had you ever dreamed of living under the sea?”


Mom told: “There were plans of the university to make some living space under water, but a lot of water above you does strange things to your blood.
And there was not found a material as strong as the Atlantians have, and made their bubbles from.”


“Than why did they not ask them for it? They could have helped them.
They are such nice people and know so much…”


Billy’s words seemed to hang in the air, before daddy softly told: “The people on dry land do not believe, there are any Atlantians left.
They only have old stories in books, as old as Nemo’s treasure.
And while they are so old, and nobody have found something of this civilization, they say it is a myth, a tale that somebody found out, like mommy made some tales to tell when you were small, and to Lilo before sleeping time.”


“But why is that? Why are Atlantians a secret?”


Now daddy did make a wrinkle above his nose, as if he had to remember very hard: “There are” and he stopped a moment, “many kinds of people on land.
They do have different colors of skin, that is not important.
But what is important, is most people are nice, but a lot of them are not.
They want all, what others do have, while they did work hard for it. Only, this people do not want to work that hard, so they just take it.”


“That’s not honest!” Billy cried out, shocked with such behavior. “No Atlantian would do so!”


“You are right,” said mom, “and there have a lot of people around, since the beautiful city, Nemo told about today, was destroyed by an earthquake, followed by a very big flood, that took the whole land.
Nemo later will tell you about that too.


And what the Atlantian kids did hear, also in other classes, was that the king in those day had made ships, as big as an house. Yes, really, they did.
And he send a lot of those in all directions over the world, long before the earthquake came.”


“Why would he do that?
This city was so beautiful on the map.
I do not understand, why they wanted to go away to places they did not know.”


Daddy went on with the story: “the scientists had told, this earthquake was coming. So in each ship were men, and women, even children, but also scientists of each kind they had.
So all they knew, they took also with them.
That is, why it is important to learn to read and write.
For they did know a lot more as anybody could remember and teach all others in one lifetime.”


“But what has this story to do with you two nearly drowning and ending up here?” Billy wondered.


“In this bubble only does live a small amount of people.
So it is good, when sometimes new people come in too.
Therefore on some places, like the cliff, where we often did dive deep, the mermaids laid ready those bowls with air, and save the young, healthy people, who otherwise would have drowned.


But we never can go back up, only very secretly in one of the new submarines, when we are very careful, for the people on dry land are also learned these days, but the Atlantians do know lots more, they wished they knew.”


“And we do not want to give them that, while not all are honest”, Billy said, counting himself an Atlantian too.
“But why do we still live so secretly?
And only have a secret peep every now and than, or have to listen to what our mermaid friends tell?”


“That is, what Nemo is going to tell in class tomorrow.
Now you do know why we look a bit different from the Atlantians.
And mommy and daddy are very happy here, even when we sometimes would like to see, how the world does look now.
But that is the price, we have to pay for being saved.”


Mom said: “You have a lot to think about. So much, I think it wise not to tell another story.
On an other time, I will tell you what I do remember about living on dry land, if you want that.But now it is bed time young man!”


His daddy heaved him with one push on his shoulders to bring him to his room.


But when he was gone, Petra slipped besides him and said: “you do not mind I was listening in, do you?
For this fits a lot with what I myself have to tell you. But now we have enough to think about.
While also for me there was a lot I did not know about. Sleep well.”


And so they did, and both dreamed about dry land, Petra how it really was, and Billy, how he imagined how it could be.


© Nan van Daalen, all rights reserved.

1 comment:

  1. I really enjoy coming here to read your material . It puts a happy spark in my day.

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