Rhymes with Orange

Myrtle Green was scavenging on the beach when she saw the bones. The biggest bone was the tail: easily twice the length of Myrtle. The creature’s spinal column was stretched out crookedly along the sand and its jaws gaped open. Myrtle had heard of whales, but she had never seen one before. Nobody in her settlement had, not since the End Days, when the last of the whales were hauled in, their blubber used to light their lamps, their meat to stave off hunger until the crops could be resown. She ran her hand along the vertebrae and tried to imagine how such a large animal ever managed to float.

Last night’s storm had swept a myriad of debris along the beach. Myrtle’s job was to scavenge for anything useful. She left the bones, seeing no use for them, and began her hunt. She tipped over a plastic crate, sending the crabs hiding under it scuttling for cover. She picked her way through the hundreds of glass bottles, worn down by the waves so they were no longer clear. A length of rope half buried in the sand proved sturdy enough, and she twisted the orange and yellow coil around her shoulder. A tin can, lid intact, caught her attention, but when she shook it, it made the unmistakable squelching sound of spoiled food. She tossed it in the green waves, scaring the seagulls.

Myrtle sat on the damp sand and removed her mask. The stench of the mountains of decomposing seaweed hit her, and she pulled the mask back up. Two hours of work and all she had found was the rope. Scarlet, her supervisor, would not be happy. This was the first decent storm the settlement had seen in months and they needed supplies. The clouds still lingered, pushing the heat down on Myrtle as she sat. She had the urge to dive into the toxic ocean. Anything to relieve her from the humidity and the weight of her bio-suit. With heavy limbs, Myrtle hauled herself up and headed back along the beach, stopping by the whale for a final look. Once Myrtle returned to base and declared this section of beach barren, she would be assigned somewhere else.

The whale was tilted on its side, with its spine facing the dunes. Myrtle walked around to the seaward side, careful not to let the waves touch her. Even with the bio-suit, the water could still do some damage. Nestled inside the ribs of the whale was a metal box. Myrtle dug the sand out from around the box and hauled it into her lap. It wasn’t heavy, but it was sturdy, like a toolbox. The outside was half covered in barnacles and a layer of slime. The handle was long gone, so Myrtle carried it with both hands higher up the beach, away from the water. The lock was rusted over, but a few taps with the butt of her knife got it open. Inside the box was completely waterproof. A gentle puff of air escaped as Myrtle prised open the lid. Inside was a book. A black notebook with rounded corners and a hard cover. A tattered black ribbon poked out of one end. Myrtle’s hands shook as she reached in to touch it. Few books had survived the End Days and those that had were kept under lock and key in the City. Myrtle was one of the few people in her settlement who knew how to read, the knowledge passed down to her from a long line of readers. There were not very many words to read in the settlement though, just those left on some of the older buildings. FOR LEASE. CINEMA CLOSED. SUPER SAVERS. There was no new writing because there was nothing to write with. Sometimes Myrtle traced letters in the sand, but she always erased them. It was considered suspicious to mark the earth with strange symbols.

Myrtle gently removed the notebook from the box and turned it over in her hands. She examined the spine. MOLESKINE. This word was unfamiliar to her, and she pondered its meaning. Then she slowly cracked the spine and turned to the first page.

In case of loss, please return to: A. Sorange, 7 Hudson Street, New York NY 10023. As a reward: $ whatever is in my pockets.

New York was one of the old cities, at least a three-week journey by boat from where Myrtle sat. She turned the page.

11 November 2022.

Do you ever just stop and wonder why we are here? What’s this all for? All the working and the struggling and the fighting. Life wasn’t meant to be like this. Life was meant to be beautiful. I swear that’s how it looked in the brochures…

Myrtle immersed herself in the pages until they became unreadable. She looked up and realised the sun had set. Darkness descended on the beach; the only visible object was the whale skeleton glowing white in the faint moonlight. She put the book in her pocket and ran back over the dunes. Scarlet would be mad. Myrtle would likely lose the day’s credits for this. But that didn’t matter to Myrtle anymore. She knew what she was meant to do.

When she returned to her home, her grandmother was settled in by the fire.

‘Hello, Gram,’ said Myrtle, slinking in through the door, dumping the rope and removing her bio-suit.

‘That Scarlet came round looking for you. Near on turned the house upside down,’ said Gram, not taking her gaze off the dying embers of the fire.

‘Never mind her,’ said Myrtle. ‘Look.’ She held out the notebook for her Gram.

Gram put her glasses on and peered through the dim light at Myrtle, her eyes widening as she took sight of the book. ‘Where on New Earth did you get that?’

‘On the beach. Inside a whale. A whale skeleton.’

Myrtle took a seat on the rug beside her grandmother’s chair.

‘Can I see it?’ asked Gram.

Myrtle handed her the book and waited while her grandmother scanned the contents of the notebook.

‘It’s over a hundred years old,’ said Gram. ‘Have you reported this?’

‘No. They’d only send it away. Or destroy it, depending on what’s in it. I don’t intend to let either of those things happen.’

‘Then what do you plan on doing?’ asked Gram, fixing her gaze on Myrtle.

Myrtle stood up and paced the small room.

‘I intend to reproduce it. Make a thousand copies and distribute them to all the people in town. And then make a thousand more and send them to the next town over. And the next. To have a copy in every home.’

‘They’ll never let you.’

‘I don't need their permission.’

‘They’ll throw you in prison.’

‘Let them. For too long we have suffered in this world devoid of literature. Don’t you remember what you taught me as a child? Of the great writers of Old Earth. Of the libraries and bookstores. More books written than a single person could read in a lifetime. All the world’s knowledge. All the world’s imagination. All contained within the pages of novels. Remember we spoke of how wonderful it would be to have the chance to read just one. Well, here is our chance.’

‘I agree with you, dear, but why make a thousand copies? Why make yourself a target like that?’

‘To share these words with the world. You taught me that. You said, ‘Literature was designed to be read, and if there is no reader, there is no writer’.’

‘And then what happens? Most of these people don’t know how to read.’

‘We teach them. We take copies to the school. We figure out ways to make ink again. We print blank pages. Look, here,’ said Myrtle, showing her grandmother the end of the notebook. ‘These pages are blank. We can study them, remake them. Start to write our own stories down.’

‘And if they shut you down?’

Myrtle sighed and knelt in front of her grandmother. She took her hands in her own. ‘Please, Gram. What is the point of living if we can’t make it beautiful? Literature makes this world more beautiful.’

Gram squinted her eyes at her granddaughter. ‘You’re just paraphrasing the book now.’

‘You see! It’s already working.’

Gram stroked the side of Myrtle’s face. How much she had grown. And how she looked like her father. He would have been proud. Myrtle’s father, the wordsmith, was always making up rhymes. He spent endless days trying to invent a word that would rhyme with ‘orange’. He had died when Myrtle was only young.

‘Alright,’ said Gram, pushing the memory of her son away, ‘what do you need?’

‘Twenty-thousand credits, to start at least, but I'll never save enough,’ said Myrtle.

‘I think I can help you with that,’ said Gram, thinking of the savings she'd set aside for Myrtle's inheritance. ‘Well, we’re not going to get any work done with this here fire. Put on a few more logs, light the lamps and let’s get to work. We’ve got a book to print.’