The Big Shift. Part 3. Shopping Village

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This is part 3. If you want to know what's going on, you can read parts 1 and 2 here:

https://steemit.com/story/@stillgideon/the-big-shift-part-1-the-rise-of-o-the-great-leader

https://steemit.com/story/@stillgideon/the-big-shift-part-2-year-zero

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“Pleased to meet you. I'm Jerry”, said the lad, extending his hand to Greta. This seemed like a very natural gesture, so Greta shook his hand and said, “I'm Greta.” She noticed that his fingers were long and bony, like the rest of him, and not especially clean, but they were artful and gentle.

“Do you live in the city?” she asked.

Jerry looked over his shoulder, back at the city and made a funny face. “No thanks. Not me. I live over there in Shopping Village. It's just beyond those trees, you can't see it from here. There's a little valley, just over that ridge. We live there.”

“We? You mean you and your dog? Captain? Is that his name? Are there more of you?” She felt slightly foolish for asking so many questions. It had been a while since Greta had spoken to anyone. The last three days she had spent in quiet solitude, following the streams and mountain paths towards the city. Sleeping in the woods, eating wild fruits, nuts, leaves, flowers and mushrooms she found growing along the way, she'd had a lot of time to think.. mostly about the twin sister she'd never known she had, until last week, when her mother had surprised and shocked her with the world-changing news on her sixteenth birthday.

“Yes, me and Captain.. Captain Toast is his full name. He really likes toast, see..”

She'd been thinking about her father too, but that was nothing new. Up until that point, her mum had almost never spoken about him. All she would say was “It was just a brief thing. I never really knew him. Neither of us knew ourselves or each other. We were both very young..” and then she'd change the subject, as if all that needed to be said had been said. It just became a fact of life, and she'd stopped asking, though she'd never stopped dreaming.. imagining the kind of person he might be, where he was and what he might be doing.. wondering if he ever thought of her.. wondering if he was even still alive.. there was no guarantee that he was. There had been some hard times for the first few years after the Big Shift, some bad fighting, a lot of upheaval. All the stories reached Skyward Village at some point, by way of wayfarers passing that way, even though it was an out of the way sort of place, deep in the ancient forest. She'd had a place where she'd often used to sit, overlooking the carriageway that ran through the village, wondering, waiting, dreaming of the day that he might come wandering along, maybe looking for her..

“I mean, is your family there? In the village?” said Great, suddenly feeling emotional. She missed her family and her village. Seeing the city for the first time for real had shaken her to the core. Suddenly the world seemed big and strange and she felt very far from home.

Jerry didn't notice Greta's lip trembling as she spoke. Or maybe he did. Either way, he carried on in his sprightly tone.. “Family? Well, I suppose so, yes. It's a sort of family I suppose...” he trailed off into thought, as if he'd never really considered it before. “I live with Jack and Granny Mae.. that's his mum.. they brought me up, see? But Jack's not really my dad, so I call him Jack.. I call Mae 'Granny' though, but then again, everyone in the village does. I never met my real parents.. well I probably did, but I can't remember because I was just a baby when Jack found me, floating in a little boat, just big enough for a baby, which is what I was... We've still got it hanging up.. the little boat.. you should see it.. it's made out of a jerry can.. that's why they called me Jerry, see..?”

“Wow!” said Greta, her eyes opening wide. “That's amazing. I didn't know my dad either. He's there somewhere, down in the city. At least he was.. that's all I know. I'm sorry you didn't know your real parents.” and she really was. They'd only just met, but she felt as if she'd known him all her life.

“Thanks. That's ok. Me and Jack and Granny Mae and Captain Toast, we're like family. And there's a lot of other weird families in our village, so it just is what it is..”

“I know what you mean. My village is like that too. I think it's like that in a lot of places these days. Things got really messed up in the Big Shift, huh..”

“I guess so, but from what I've heard, they were pretty messed up before. If O hadn't come along when they did and straightened things out, I don't know where we'd be today.. any of us..”

Greta looked at him sideways, horrified, unable to tell if he was being serious. She'd heard of people who thought that O was good, but she'd never met any. She shuddered and then took a deep breath to calm the rising fear and dread that the name O brought up.

Jerry shrugged and said, “I can tell you don't think that. That's ok. If you're going to the city, you'll meet O soon enough, then you can decide what you think of them. I think O's ok. I think they do a good job, all things considered. Granny Mae hates O with a vengeance, but she's very superstitious. She doesn't believe in science or anything like that. Jack's kind of on the fence about O. Sees both sides. Each to their own, I say.”

“I suppose so”, Greta frowned, thinking how she'd like to meet Granny Mae. She sounded sensible. Then eager to change the subject, she asked, “But what were you doing in a little boat? That's kind of weird.. I mean, interesting.. Where was it? How did Jack find you?”

“Well, at the time, Jack was in the coastguard. They lived down by the coast, until the Big Shift, when everything went crazy. I think he joined because he thought it would be adventurous, sailing the seas and all that.. but what they were mostly doing was patrolling the coast to keep out illegal immigrants.”

“To keep out what?'

Jerry gave Greta a quizzical look. “Didn't you learn any history?”

“Well.. I don't know.. maybe. Some of it, I suppose. Not everything. What are illegal immigrants?”

“In the time before the Big Shift, you weren't allowed to go somewhere unless you had the right papers.”

“Papers? What papers?”

“Papers. Papers. Papers.. It's a funny word isn't it? You had to have papers that said who you were, what country you belonged to.. In those days, the whole world was divided up into countries. Have you heard of countries?”

“Yes, of course I've heard of countries”, said Greta indignantly, turning red in the face. “I'm not stupid you know. I do know some things.”

“OK. Sorry. I'm sure you're not stupid at all. There's loads of things that I don't know either. Much more that what I do know. People are always making fun of me for not knowing stuff, but I don't care. No one knows everything, do they?”

Captain Toast, who was digging up an anthill, lifted his muddy face out of the hole and looked back at Jerry, giving him a knowing look. “OK. Apart from you Captain, you're right”, said Jerry to the dog who nodded briefly and then went back to what he was doing.

Greta smiled. She liked Jerry. He had a way of putting her at ease. “Sorry, I didn't mean to snap”, she said. “People make fun of me too. They say I've got my head in the clouds.”

“Nothing wrong with having your head in the clouds”, said Jerry, then after a while added, “Better than having it buried in the sand, eh?!” and he looked very pleased with himself for thinking of it.

“Exactly!” Greta nodded seriously. “Yes, it is. You're right. So what were you saying? Something about immigrants..”

“Oh yes.. so at the time that Jack was in the coastguard.. well, that was a time that a lot of people were running away from their countries. Some from wars, some from hunger, some from fire, floods.. you name it. There were literally millions of people running away from home, trying to get from one place to another.. and no-one wanted them in their countries..”

Greta thought about how she'd run away from home, three days earlier. Well, not exactly run away because she'd told her mum that she was going, albeit tearfully and angrily, and her mum had even helped her pack her bag, made her food, given her some coins to trade and other useful things to take with her on her big adventure. A warm blanket, some new shoes she'd made. She'd given her a compass and drawn her a map of how to get to the city.. as if she'd known that this would be the outcome of that conversation. As if she'd been prepared. Greta wondered if the people of the city would be kind, or if they'd chase her away because she was an outsider.

After a while, she said “Why did no-one want them? The immigrants? I mean, where were they supposed to go?”

“I know. I don't know. It's weird. Things were different then. I don't really understand it either. Maybe they just didn't realise that there was enough room for everyone. Jack says people were worried they'd come and take their jobs or their houses, or their food, or something. Or they just didn't like people who looked different or spoke different. Jack can probably explain it better. He's good at telling stories. I always get in a muddle. Where was I..?”

“Floating in the sea?”

“Oh yes. So, at the time that Jack was in the coastguard, their job was to try and get these boatloads of immigrants and refugees to turn back before they got to the shore. See, if they got to the shore, they could claim asylum, but if they didn't, they couldn't. It was sort of like a game.. well, maybe for some of the coastguards, but not for the poor refugees in boats who'd left their countries with nothing and were tired, hungry, scared and sick.. and probably seasick too.”

“How awful.”

“Yes it was. Well anyway, Jack can tell it better than me, but basically.. one night they went out to chase away a boatload of immigrants.. they got a bit carried away and bashed their boat into the side of the boat they were chasing.. not very hard, but their boat had a pointed steel hull and the other one was a rotten old wooden fishing boat, totally overloaded with people.. they must've knocked a hole in it. Maybe Jack's commander knew.. Jack said he knew.. but anyway, the refugee boat turned around and headed back out to sea.”

“Oh my Goddess! How could they even...?”

“I know. But that sort of thing used to happen all the time in those days. All the time. There's a lot about the story that no-one really knows. At least, a lot I don't know. Like who gave the order for them to ignore the calls for help from the radio of the boat, once they realised they were sinking. They were miles out to sea in a thick fog. By the time any help reached them it was already morning and there was no-one left. They all drowned.”

“That's horrible. I hope Jack's commander got in a lot of trouble.”

Jerry snorted darkly. “Of course not. Like I said, that sort of thing happened all the time in those days. It barely even made the news and even if it did, there were people who said it was the refugees' fault. But anyway, for Jack it was too much. He heard them on the radio.. all the people screaming.. he couldn't convince his commander to turn around and go back and help, so Jack jumped overboard when no-one was looking and started swimming back towards the sinking boat.”

“Wow!”

“Yes I know, right? Mad. Of course he couldn't save anyone. He couldn't even save himself. That was when he started to drown.”

“Oh no!”

“Yes.. and that was when he found me, bobbing along in my Jerry can boat. Not just a jerry can.. it was all padded out to make it soft inside and had plastic bottles all taped around the outside, so it was very buoyant and stable in the water.”

“Sound cosy.”

“Yes.. well, compared to sinking in cold, deep water, it definitely would be. Anyway, Jack didn't know it had me in it. He just saw something floating and grabbed onto it, as you would. I was probably asleep. I can sleep through anything. Granny Mae says it's my special skill.. says she wishes I could teach it to her. She has terrible trouble sleeping. I don't think she hardly ever sleeps any more. Anyway, by this point, Jack's completely exhausted, but he sees the lights of the town glowing through the fog, so he swims toward the shore. When he gets there, that's when he finds me, fast asleep in the Jerry can boat that saved his life. So, in a way, we both saved each other. Funny eh?”

“That's amazing. So what did he do? Couldn't he hand you in or something?”

“Well, he could have done, but there were thousands.. tens of thousands of refugees in camps back then. See, the ones who got to the shore or who got to the borders weren't just let in. They got put into camps. Really bad places. Basically prisons for people who'd done nothing wrong except looking for a better life, just trying to survive. Worse than prisons in lots of ways, because no-one knew when or if they'd ever get out. Those places were bad enough for grown ups, but they were even worse for children. Especially children with no parents or family.. and I was just a baby.. maybe one year old. Luckily, Granny Mae lived not far from the shore. It was the middle of the night, there was no one around, so he carried me there in my little boat. The rest, as they say, is history.. Oh, listen to me.. I've been talking for ages.. didn't even notice it's going to be getting dark soon. Have you got a place to stay? Were you on your way somewhere?You're welcome to come to our place. There's plenty of room. You can meet Jack and Granny Mae. I can show you the boat.”

Greta thought for a moment and then said “Yes, thank you. I'd like that.”

Captain Toast, who had been listening to the conversation, came bounding up and danced around Greta excitedly. He understood everything and he really liked this new friend.

They walked in silence along the ridge of the hill. To the right of them, the sun was dipping down over the distant mountains on the far side of the city. Sounds of the city came drifting up through the still, warm, evening air. Children playing, bicycle bells ringing, music from loudspeakers, a watermelon seller advertising his wares with cries of 'watermelon, sweet and red', someone practising violin near an open window of a thirty story building at the edge of the city.

From their point of view on the hill, they were looking down on the rooftops of the rows of tower blocks. On the roof of one of them, a group of people were practising yoga in a green clearing of the roof garden. All of the buildings had lush roof gardens, some even had tall trees growing out of the tops of them. They all had dense greenery draping down their sides. Flocks of birds could be seen and heard, swooping and circling over the city, their end of day ritual. There were bats too, just starting their day. Among all of these sounds, was the faint, yet persistent buzz of the drones.

Ahead of them, the path led into a woodland, cool, dark and ancient. As they walked through it, Greta stroked the trunk of every tree she passed and whispered a greeting. Sometimes she stopped to give the trees a kiss. After a while, Jerry said, “Do you always talk to trees?”

“Yes?” said Greta, puzzled. “Don't you?”

“Not really.”

“Oh. Ok. I thought everyone does. Where I come from, most people do. Especially when they meet an ancient tree. This one's four hundred years old.”

“Is it? Wow! How do you know?”

“I don't know. I just know. Like, you know.. when you see someone, you can figure how old they are, more or less, by the way they look.. this tree.. maybe he's 350.. maybe 450.. hang on, I'll ask him..” She stopped and put her arms around the wide trunk and her ear to the bark and closed her eyes.

Jerry stood, looking amused. “What does he say?”

“He says he's 406 years old. He came from an acorn from that tree over there.. see that big old oak? He's six hundred years old.”

Captain nodded his agreement, in his way, then trotted over to the big old oak, gave it a sniff, urinated on it, gave it another sniff and then came back looking satisfied.

Jerry looked from Greta to Captain, from Captain to the tree, then back to Greta. “O.. K..” he said slowly, uncertainly, rubbing his softly whiskered chin, and then looking very impressed. “Cool! That is very cool. You'll have to show me how you do that.”

Greta laughed. “You're funny.”

“Haha! That makes two of us. Three if you include Captain Toast. Come one, we should get a move on before it gets dark.”

On the other side of the woodland, they came to a steep embankment which sloped down to a wide, flat expanse of what had once been a twelve lane highway. Now trees and bushes grew out from the cracked asphalt. Shacks, domes and other makeshift homes surrounded by vegetable gardens were dotted along what had been the outer lanes. The remaining road in the centre wound along between the trees and low buildings, with people going to and fro in all manner of vehicles. Some on bicycles and tricycles, some pulling or pushing carts and trailers. Some walking alongside donkeys, some zooming along in electric buggies and scooters, weaving around slow moving pedestrians carrying baskets on their heads.

On the other side of the old highway was a very large building. Its sheer, concrete walls were overgrown with climbing plants. The wide, flat expanse around the building, which had once been a parking place for ten thousand cars was now similarly dotted with trees, homes and gardens. A huge sign on a tall metal pole stuck out from the top of the big building. The sign, which had once been brightly lit with fluorescent lights and had once rotated on motorised rollers, was now dusty, faded and still. In huge letters were written the words 'SHOPPING VILLAGE' and underneath, in smaller letters, but still visible from this distance, was written 'All your shopping needs under one roof!' What had once been a big, indoor, out of town shopping centre was now home to five thousand people.

The full moon was rising, huge and golden in the clear, dark blue sky behind Shopping Village. The sight of this scene caused Greta to draw a deep breath in wonder and awe. She didn't know where this adventure was going to lead, but for the first time in her journey since leaving home, she felt that she was in the right place at the right time and that somehow, though she didn't know how, everything was going to be all right.

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