Forward to the beginning

Teg sneezed, and the world was never the same again. The mysterious ancient hieroglyph he’d been doodling flew from his desk and floated to the floor. That’s when he saw it, finally, upside down.

He lifted it like it was a vessel of gold-dust and set it back on his desk, mesmerized by what he’d never seen before. He lifted his eyes and searched the walls and ceiling. Years of exhausting, fruitless study collapsed into a moment as all the symbols clicked into place.

He leaped back from his desk and his chair skidded behind him. He staggered backward, struck by the enormity of his discovery. On his desk was the letter “A,” turned around so the apex pointed toward him. He drew the apex into a curve, as well as the bridge. He curved the two legs of the A, too, now pointing up, and made them into horns. He added eyes and an animal’s nose above the apex that formed the chin. It was the face of an auroch. “‘A’ for auroch,” he murmured.

He dug through the scraps and pulled out a “B” that he had earlier doodled. He turned it sideways, flat side down. It looked like ovens — ovens of the kind bread would be baked in. “‘B’ for Bakery,” he murmured.

He flew down from the attic and searched for Dab. She was in the laundry. The baby on the table startled and burbled.

“They stand for sounds!” He repeated himself as though he needed to hear it again: “They stand for sounds — the symbols! The symbols!” He hushed himself and brought his finger to his lips.

Dab didn’t stop draping the damp clothes over the wires. She widened her eyes when she turned her back. “I thought we moved on from this,” she tilted her head sympathetically over her shoulder.

“We have, we have!” Teg nodded rapidly. “I was just thinking. I was just mulling.”

“You were drawing again.”

“No!” He stepped toward her and gripped her elbows. “I was cleaning up, I was throwing it away, just like you said. I swear.”

“Okay,” Dab stopped and leaned back against the table. She crossed her arms over her chest and sagged. “So what are we talking about, Teg?”

He covered his mouth with his hand and flared his eyes wide. “I solved it, Dab. I deciphered it! I can tell you what they mean!”

“Teg,” she closed her eyes and curled her lips between her teeth trying to restrain herself. “We’ve been around this old block too many times. Too many times, Teg. It was nothing — it was children’s playthings, it was created by weathering, it was just random effects from rain and worms. We’ve been over this.”

Teg nodded and stepped back. He crossed his arms over his chest too. “Why would they come so fast and seize it? These playthings all rotted from centuries lying under a tree? Worms and rain — why did they send a team from the Capital? ‘To study it,’ they said, and they said they would return it. But they didn’t!”

“They didn’t say when, Teg. They obviously forgot about it. Like you should too. It isn’t anything. They forgot all about it because you know what? It’s nothing, Teg.” She turned her back to him and continued folding dry clothes and spreading out the damp.

“I know what I saw,” he said to her back. “I remember what I saw before they took it.”

“And what did you see?” Dab replied with as much disinterest as she could convey.

“Meaningful symbols that were meant to indicate sounds that go together, Dab, sounds that go together to make words — words that are frozen, words that can be passed around, words that can be sent through time, Dab!” He stared through the back of her head and forward into the middle distance beyond. “Frozen knowledge, Dab. I saw frozen knowledge.”

“You saw ancient children’s toys half rotted from laying under a tree for centuries.”

“They spoke through paper, Dab. They froze their thoughts. I saw it.”

“Okay,” Dab suddenly spun around and fixed him with a scolding stare. “Fine,” she nodded once sharply. “You want to be one of those, do you? The mutants were smarter than us. The mutants had books. The Tribunal got all their knowledge from these so-called mutant books that they locked up in some big huge secret library only they know about. Is that what you want to tell me?” She stared straight through his eyes. “Because that sounds an awful lot like three-to-twenty in a camp up north. Is that what the new father of my baby is telling me right now? That he thinks it would be a really fascinating idea, to get taken away for spreading doubt and suspicion about the legitimacy of the Tribunal and the wisdom of its edicts? Sowing sedition is cool now. Is that what he is saying to me?” She was panting when she stopped.

Teg glanced nervously behind himself out the windows and repeatedly touched his finger to his lips the whole time she yelled. He pulled the curtains closed against the beaming sun rays. He closed his eyes to compose himself and he tried to steady his breath. “I know, Dab, I know what it sounds like. Believe me, I know.”

“Then why are you doing this to us, Teg?” She stepped forward and held his face in her hands.

“I held it, Dab. It was in my hands.”

“We have to move past this, Teg.”

“I looked at it, Dab. I saw it.”

“You were 12, Teg. It was a long time ago. We went over this with the doctors. It’s been a long time, Teg. It’s been too long.”

“It was paper with writing, Dab.”

“It was toys. It was nothing. It was rotten. They told you that. They don’t even have any record of it. They don’t remember taking it from you, Teg. They don’t even remember you.”

“I saw letters and words, Dab. I saw writing. I saw knowledge.”

“They were mutants, Teg. Their books are a children’s myth. You need to grow up now.”

“Don’t you see?” He grabbed her elbow but she pulled away and looked sideways. “There was a whole civilization, Dab. They had books. They had libraries. They wrote down what they thought. But after, there were just the survivors left. Just the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren of the survivors – just the mutants. But there were many more, before. I know it, Dab. I saw it. I found it!”

“You found a silly little meaningless thing, Teg, a mutant thing under a tree. A primitive thing.” She caressed his cheek. “You have to let it go,” she whispered. She directed her gaze toward their baby. “We need you to do that.”

“Answer me this, then,” he would not hear her. “We tell the Capital the water makes us sick and die. They take years to reply. We tell the Capital there’s something in our food — the farms are dying, the potatoes are blue. They don’t come around for months. My mother tells some low-level lackey at the market just off-hand that her son found some garbage with weird worm-marks on it, and they’re here that day, Dab. They get here in two hours. It wasn’t toys, Dab.” He shook his head and his eyes popped out. He whispered loudly and slowly: “It was paper, Dab. Two hundreds of pieces of paper – with writing on it. I think it was their money, Dab. Two hundred pieces of their money – each piece with this on it,” he said, drawing on the table a stick and two circles.

“Why do you say these crazy things, Teg?”

“I can prove it, Dab. Those were symbols on that paper — and the symbols made sounds. Sounds inside their heads.”

“You sound crazy, Teg.” She shook her head pleadingly at him. She wiped her sleeve over her face.

“And those sounds inside their heads were just like us talking now.”

“Teg stop now. Please! You’re scaring me.”

“They used the symbols to talk to other people that were not right in front of them — by talking inside their heads, and it didn’t matter how far away.”

“Teg, please!”

“And through time, too, Dab. They could talk to someone on the other side of the world, someone two hundred years later, even. Us, even! They could hear words inside their heads just as clearly as you and I are talking now!”

“Teg!” she whispered plaintively.

“Everyone could, Dab. Whoever that paper belonged to, they weren’t anyone special. That’s why it was just lying under a tree, buried just a few inches. They were nobody, Dab, they were people like you and me. Ordinary people, Dab — they could read and write with these symbols. They could have knowledge, Dab — they could read it and they could share it and they could even add what they learned to it! People like us, Dab!”

“They’re going to take you away for that!”

“I can show you, Dab. I can show you how it works — how the mutants did it! What’s your name, Dab? What’s your name?”

“Why are you asking me this, Teg?”

“Say your name. What’s the first sound of your name? Say the first sound.” He shouted, “Say the first sound!”

“D-?” she tried and her body convulsed.

“‘D-’ like in domain, or domicile. Look. Watch.” He spread a shirt on the table in the shape of a “D” lying on its flat side. “A house, right? It’s the shape of a house, a domain, a domicile. He turned it sideways. “It’s just sideways, that’s all! That’s what I figured out!”

Dab looked briefly at it out the sides of her eyes.

“What’s the second sound?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she replied in a quieted voice.

“‘’A-‘, right? ‘A-‘, is that the second sound?”

“Okay, Teg.” She moved closer to her baby.

He formed an upside down “A” next to the “D.” “Look, this is the shape of an auroch, it’s what we sometimes call cattle, right? An auroch. Look. A for auroch.” He slowly turned it around. “It’s just upside down, that’s all. ‘D-‘, ‘a’-,” he nodded at her. “What’s the third sound of your name?”

She shook her head but she also tried. “B-?”

“B-‘! Right! ‘B-‘!” He used pants to form a “B” on its flat side. “Look, it looks like bread ovens, right? Bread ovens — a bakery. B-, b- b-!” He turned the shape and fit it beside the “D” and the “A.” “D-, a-, b-,” he said proudly, saying the sounds of the letters one after the other. He said her name to her. “Dab. It says ‘Dab.’”

She looked and squinted.

“I wrote your name, Dab. Domain, auroch, bakery. This is your name, frozen in writing.”

She looked at the clothes.

“Try it,” he whispered.

She opened her mouth like someone about to cough but she said “Domain,” then “‘d-‘,“ then “auroch, ‘a-‘“ and finally, “bakery, ‘b-‘“ and she pointed at each letter. She moved her finger between them and said, “Dab,” slowly and deliberately. She covered her face with her hands. “Oh my lord, Teg!” she gasped. “Oh my lord!”

“I have a secret,” he said to her.

She was breathless.

“It wasn’t just the two hundred pieces of the same paper I found that day – that was nothing.”

She shook her head in confusion.

He pulled out from under his sweater a small wooden box. “I never showed anybody what I really found that day.”

She looked from his face to the box in his hands. He lifted the lid.

She turned away in horror, but peaked inside.

“I can teach her,” he said to Dab. She looked at him and he tilted his head, gesturing to their baby. “I can teach her how to read and write. We can relearn everything with this!” She gasped. He carefully pulled out an ancient, animal-hide-covered small black notebook.