Saturday 5 September 2009

Chapter 4: The Sluices

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Voices. Screaming, wailing, imploring. Sobbing, stabbing, striving. Melding into one huge caterwaul of utter, utter, abject distress.

At the sluices.

A journey of note, of age, of desperation. No journeys of joy here. To travel hopefully. To arrive.

At the sluices.

An endless, massed jungle of voices, climbing high. Climbing upon other voices. Clawing ever higher. A mountaineering mass of misery. Mountainous misery crying in a medley of misfortune. A tormented tower of torment.

At the sluices.

Behind the sluices, the Guilds. Listening only to the carefully chosen voices. Carefully constructing their firework displays, converting voices to paper. Never hearing the sound of suffering sorrow on the outside.

Beyond the sluices

Great iron and wooden walls. Reinforced over aeons by the faceless, unimaginative, burrowing bureaucrats of the state. Keep the voices to a trickle. Keep the Guilds controlled. Feed them, divide them, humour them. Small succour lacking sufficiency.

And the voices. In the dark, crying for comfort. None here but the nails of the sluices. Present your papers. Sorry, wrong words. Away in anguish. Return in rage. New words? Sorry no pass for the sluiceport. Return again. Energy rewarded? No Guild for the energetic. Away again. The gossamer cover of the Planet strong as steel.

At the sluices

A Guild member, a novice, blinking in the early morning light. Duty calls. Crank the hidden handle. Enter the code, arcane ritual, signs in the early morning light. A nod to the master waiting behind. Slowly a crack opens.

In the sluices

The voices, hurling great gobs of phlegm, know. This is it. The Selection. Volume rising. Who will gain entry this selection? The loudest, the quietest, the prostrate, the erect. Rules unknown, arbitrary anguish allowed, silent suffering sent down. This time the mute, next time the garrulous. Voices guessing. Select only the voices to charge the Guild’s empty papers today. Gaps, voices as filler, sealant, shore up the halls.

Beyond the sluices

A hand reaches through the tiny crack in the sluice gates. Desperate, it clutches a crumpled piece of paper. A letter from a referee. The letter asks the Guilds to hear this voice, to allocate a Guild member to listen, probe, provide succour and hope to this hopeless sole. There is no recognisable feature but a hand and the scrap of paper. The hand is shaking, desperate to find a way for the voice to be heard. To come here, to this point, the voice has travelled a long way. Many pleas to its referee have produced this most valuable piece of paper, a possibility of entry to the Planet. But only if the referee has been clever. Only if the voice has been articulate. Only if the referee knows the rituals, the codes, the words. Only if between them, the voice and the referee can manufacture a story which will fit the preoccupation of the Guilds, any Guild.

But all Guilds are different, who is opening the sluice this morning? Will the story fit the selection?

The novice takes the paper. The hand shakes more violently. The paper moves from novice to master. The paper. The Master. The voices quieten. Success or failure? For the hand success means a hearing, for the voices success means failure. The hand waits, shaking ever more violently. The master moves to one side, whispers behind his hand to an invisible ally. The sign is made. The decision. The Selection.

At the sluices. Entry gates to the Planet.

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