MEANING

MEANING

*

“Everything in here is so dusty!”

George rolled his eyes at his younger sister’s comment as he looked around the trove of boxes. When his mother had said they were travelling to the Surface-Domain, he had assumed they were heading to a Heritage Reserve to wander through the Amusement Monuments. It had been years since they had returned to their late Grandfather's home, so it hadn’t even occurred to George that it was their destination. A few hours of moaning and groaning had led their mother to give the two a job: Sort through the old junk in the attic.

So there they were, the two young grandchildren of the late Henry Wash, each sifting through the countless boxes of his life. Their mother had been clear: Anything that looked like junk was to go into a black bag for donation to the Olde-Sydney Historical Society. Anything that the two found interesting or looked important was to go into a fresh box. Pending a review from their mother, the two would be able to keep anything that they found.

“What are these?”

George rolled his eyes as he turned to face his sister, Annabelle (or ‘Little Annie’ as she was commonly called), who was holding an extensive collection of funny, black disks. At first, George thought they were early versions of the drones that he played with back home, but they were too big in comparison, and the packaging they came in had different pictures. One was of people walking across a road (“How Dangerous!” Little Annie had cried out). Another seemed to be of a giant, prehistoric robot, very different from the HELP-Droids that maintained the Sky-Domains.

“They’re records.”

The familiar voice caused the two to turn around as an older woman poked her head up from the entrance hole. If anyone else had been in the room, they would have sworn they were looking at an older Little Annie. Same light brown hair and hazel eyes, but years of experience in her eyes and threaded through her hair in the form of silver wisps. Most people knew her as Annabelle Storm, but to George and Little Annie, it was simply, ‘Mum’.

“Records? How do you record anything on these? Are they voice-activated? These look too big for DirectConnection, or do you plug in those...whatcha call them? Head-Fones?” Little Annie fired off questions faster than Mum had a chance to think of an answer.

“No darling, Records. They were an early form of playing music, before CD’s or Digital Files or even DC's that we use today.” Mum smiled as she looked around the room before turning her head to George, “You two have barely even started! What have you been doing up here?”

“Looking around! We have to see what we’re cleaning first!” George retorted as Mum shook her head.

“When I come back up here, I want at least half of these boxes unpacked and resorted; otherwise, we’re not taking the long way back home.” Mum’s pretend growl earned genuine cries from her children.

“But I want to go over the Sea Reserves! Stacey says that the twilight sky brings some of the rarer animals out!” Annie screeched as George scrunched his face. The only good thing about coming to the Surface (Apart from seeing the Amusement Monuments) was taking the Scenic Shuttles back home, which took them over the Reserves that housed all the Surface animals.

George had been obsessed with the Surface animals ever since he’d first encountered the birds outside the protective barrier back home. Ever since most of humanity had moved to the clouds (as his Mum would put it), a majority of the Surface had been transformed into protected Reserves. These sanctuaries were scattered across the planet to allow animals to not only survive but thrive. With HELP-Droids ensuring the creatures were fed and protected, most of the Surface had become a utopia, much like the sky had become one for humans.

However, monuments to humanity were still revered by those above. So much so that Heritage Reserves were created to preserve locations across the world. Everything from the large skyscrapers in America to the Royal Palace in Britain were now nothing more than tourist attractions for those to discover what life was like when humanity lived on the Surface. That’s why the family was there today. The house that Henry Wash had spent half his life in was on a street approved to become a Heritage Reserve. They had been given a limited amount of time to remove anything of importance from the house before it would go through the preservation process.

The sound of boxes being shuffled seemed to fade away as George stared out of the window. He hadn’t quite come to terms with his Grandfather house being archived for future generations. Little Annie was too young to remember much of their Grandpa Henry. In a few short years, any lingering memories would be moved aside for friends, studies, and her life in-the-moment.

For George, he still had fond moments of travelling to the same house they were emptying. George’s Grandfather would always take them to the Land Reserves. He would entertain his grandchildren in his stories of travels, finding new and exotic places that others would only dream of. He would discuss the strange and exciting people he had met, but George’s favourite stories would be the animals his Grandfather had encountered. Scary eight-legged arachnids or slippery reptiles with an insatiable hunger. Riding some animals and steering clear of others. He would dream that he was right there beside his Grandfather when he discovered the animals and had a desire to meet them all.

For the strangers that would walk through the Reserve, the house would represent nothing more than life before the Sky-Domains. For George, it would be the stories his Grandpa Henry told.

“What is this?”

George snapped out of his own thoughts as he spun around to face Little Annie, who struggled to hold one of the boxes. George noticed this box had more dust than any of the others. Walking towards his sister, he took the box out of her hands. Not realising how heavy it was, the box fell from his hands and crashed onto the floor, its contents spilling around them.

George looked over several different objects as he tried to make sense of them. Some were smaller, others the size of Little Annie’s head. Some shined in the light, while others seemed to be made of rare materials like wood or strange types of stone. Whatever they were, they all looked handcrafted and rare.

George’s eyes glanced from the ornaments to a stack held together by an elastic band. Picking it up, George found it funny to touch. It felt a bit like plastic but far too flexible. Each seemed to have the same two pictures on either side, one of a man with a moustache and another of a woman with short, curly hair.

“What is it, George?” Little Annie asked.

“I... I don’t know?” George looked over the thin stack, flicking through it as he wondered what its purpose could be. It wasn’t attractive like the other artefacts that had fallen out of the box, so why had their Grandpa kept it?

“George! Look!”

The young boy looked up to see his sister reaching into the box. Watching as she withdrew her hand, his eyes focused on a small black book. Walking over, he took the book and turned it over, immediately recognising it as George wondered why it was amongst a box of strange objects and the weird stack.

The book looked like it was barely being held together. Loose papers were scattered between each other as George ran his thumb over the H.W. etched into the leather bounding. Being extremely careful, George began to open up the pages as he found himself staring at sentences, diagrams, and still-photos all somehow preserved within the paper.

George began skimming through the writing as he concluded that they were all stories from his Grandfather’s travels. The more he read, the more memories seemed to stir awake. Tales of traversing mysterious caves within Australia to discover unseen artworks by aboriginal cultures, guiding expeditions through the rainforests in Brazil where they had been attacked by indigenous tribes, and even being hired to retrieve objects from museums and return them back to their rightful owners.

As Little Annie’s questions became a distant murmur, George was lost in the stories. George found himself staring at the still-photos of people he had never met before. He barely recognised his young Grandfather shaking hands with them, moving through a deep forest-area or sitting amongst colleagues around a fire. Each photo was both an old and new memory as the grin from his Grandfather in the picture caused George to sprout one of his own.

“How are you two going up there?”

George and Little Annie looked up as Mum poked her head from the trapdoor. The look of scorn from their mother made George’s stomach drop as she looked around at their work before pulling herself up, “You two were supposed to be sorting these boxes out, not making a mess!”

Mum had barely taken a few steps towards her children before she stopped. Her eyes gazed upon the artefacts that lay scattered across the floor. Reaching down to pick up a few of the ornaments, a single tear welled in her eye as recognition gleamed over her face, “I thought he had sold these...”

“What about this, Mum?” Little Annie reached down and picked up the mysterious stack. Mum’s eyes widened even further as she took hold of the stack, counting each piece as George and Little Annie looked at each other with confusion on their face. Why was she counting numerous copies of the same object?

“These are... Notes...” Mum muttered, more to herself than her two inquisitive children.

“What are 'Notes'?” George asked as Mum looked up and smiled.

“It’s old-fashioned currency. Before the introduction of Global Credits, each country had its own form of money. In Australia, we had dollars. This...this looks like twenty-thousand dollars. With the conversion plus the historical value, this is... a small fortune.” Mum started laughing at the revelation before her.

George and Little Annie looked at each other again, barely understanding what their Mum was saying about ‘Conversion’ and ‘Historical Value’. These ‘Notes’ looked boring in comparison to the ornaments. They certainly weren’t as impressive as the book that George was clutching.

Suddenly realising what he was in his hands, George held it out, “We also found this!”

Looking at what was in her eldest child’s arms, Mum’s eyes softened as she placed the notes down and looked over the book. Opening it up, she placed her hand over her mouth as a small chuckle escaped. Her eyes darted over the stories with a similar look to the one George had.

“Tell us a story, Mum.” Little Annie quickly sat down, all thoughts of cleaning the attic now gone.

Mum stared at the abandoned Notes to her two eager children before she laughed and sat down. George quickly dropped to his legs as he listened to their mother begin to read from her father's journal. George looked over the Notes that had been left to the side before he turned and smiled at the book. Any interest of the old-money nonexistent to George or Little Annie, as each had found meaning not in the monetary valuables but in the memories, those that would exist long after the old-money was exchanged for credits to support the family. For it was these stories that would follow the family, reminding them of the journey, the excitement, and the memories embedded within their history and bound within their Grandfather’s book.