The Revolutions of Time by Jonathan Dunn (leveled readers TXT) 📖

joy from his team and about half of the crowd, apparently their fans. The two teams then returned to their respective sides, and again the referee yelled loudly, signaling them to rush at each other once more, and more of the same ensued, this time it being the other team’s orange shirted player to get pounced on. Once again there was a high pile on top of him, and once again, as they crawled off and he was exposed, the referee began to count. Except that this time the orange shirted one never got up. The other team cheered again and so did the other half of the crowd. The referee went to a pole on the sidelines and put up the number ‘1’ on it while a few bystanders picked the Zard up and carried him off the field. They continued to play in this fashion for awhile, going until one team or the other had no longer any players to be jumped upon, but I was too disgusted at their violent nature to watch, and instead walked over to the end table and picked up the telescope, taking back as I did my thoughts about the innocence and gentleness of the common folk.

With the telescope in hand I went over to the eastern side of the room and began to closely inspect the savanna in an attempt to get a bird’s eye view of the point of my entrance in Daem. It looked rather the same from above as it did from below, though the smells and sounds were missing, and I found that it was rather bland once the initial excitement, surprise, and respect of its novelty had worn off. Indeed, it was quite too dull for me, even in my state of boredom as a prisoner, though I suppose that that isn’t a proper description of my feelings, for I wasn’t free from excitement or intriguing events, but rather, I was in the middle of a campaign of new and anticipated things, but simply unable to participate. Stuck in a room 800 feet from the ground with walls of glass that allowed observation of the whole island of Daem, which I assumed to be the only civilization in the world, while great events unfolded around me, of which I was supposed to be the primary actor, was very disconcerting, though I find in retrospect that fate worked so mysteriously in my situation that it is quite puzzling to think about, meaning, of course, my relationship with the doom of humanity as preventer and provoker, as savior and condemner.

My writing of this manuscript may be considered quite a big cheat, as it details my direct involvement with Onan, the Lord of the Past, and the general circumstances of the end of life on earth, for the current age at least, but still I am allowed to write it. Onan told me just a few moments ago that I could write it and tell all that I want, to which I was taken aback. When I asked why he would allow me to break the law of the council of the gods, he replied that there was no rule against a human agent from detailing his involvement in the actions of the divines. It was allowed, he told me, because it would never make a mite of a difference, for even if it were able to survive the bitter ice ages and all the evolutionary periods in this TAB (Temporal Anomaly Box, which I will explain later, since I get ahead of myself and have not told of them yet), and even if it is found by humans, and even if they are capable of understanding the text contained within it, even then they will take no gain from it. I was again taken aback when he said this, for though I know humans to be stubborn and foolish, in general, I would think that they would at least mind the warning when the conditions of its completion came to pass. But he dissuaded me, telling me that my coevals of the next age would no doubt take it as a novel.

At this I took your defense quite personally upon myself, and demanded in as not so humble a tone as would be thought proper, though as I am about to die within the next day or two, I have to admit that I don’t give much of a damn for politics or manners. And yet, with all my ardor I was quickly subdued by a curt rebuke by my interlocutors (for Zimri was there as well), which was, quite simply, that you hadn’t taken Homer for any more than a creative poet, even after a few thousand years of study, so why should my meager manuscript make such a large impact. At that, I acquiesced to them and admitted that on that end my attempt to save humanity one way or another was contemptible, but I still write, as you see, for the story’s sake, and possibly for my own material immortality. But never mind that, for it is high time that I went back to my story.

I was looking through the spyglass at the various areas of Daem where my adventures had so far taken me. After I had examined them all for a few moments, I felt a strange urge to use the telescope to look closely at the mainland that I had seen before, to see what the effects of the Great War had been there. As I turned the telescope’s sights toward it, I was at once surprised and flabbergasted at what caught my eye. There were living beings on the mainland, not too far from the coast. And not only that, but they were standing upright, though stooped, as if by weariness and the wiles of life, and they seemed, in general, to resemble humans, not directly, but as much as the Zards and Canitaurs did, and with the effects of the radioactive instability greater on the mainlands, it would seem natural that they would be further removed from normality than those on Daem. The land itself was barren and flat, with sparse vegetation in the forms of small, deformed shrubs and a short, weak looking grass. As I looked closer I saw that there were about six of the strange, stooped humanoids, and they were gathering the fruits of some of the shrubs for consumption. In a few moments they finished their task and began to walk further inland, and I followed their progress with interest until they finally disappeared behind some of the small plateaus that were scattered here and there among the wastelands.

Putting the telescope down, I walked over to the couch and laid down on it, with indignation filling my every move, for I was almost enraged that the Zards and Canitaurs both should fail to tell me, whom they claimed to respect as kinsman redeemer and whose decisions would seal their fate for good or ill, that there were other survivors from the Great Wars. I was also shocked by their selfishness, for while they fought pettily amongst themselves over how they would change their lands for the better, a seemingly important question about past and future, they completely ignored the sufferings of other humanoids, to whom their way of living no doubt seemed like a paradise. But there they were, stuck across the sea on their desolate lands, unable to cross to Daem and enjoy its plentiful resources and luxuries, yet not at all unaware of them, for as they labored in their hopeless ways, they could see Daem shining like a heavenly vision before them, one which they were not able to touch or grasp, but instead one that must infuriate them to no end in their heart, at the knowledge of fate’s unfairness and their utter hopelessness and complete poverty, not because of their laziness or their ignorance or anything involving their actions whatsoever, but simply because they had been born on the wrong side of the sea.

At that moment I was embittered against both the Zards and the Canitaurs for their selfishness and their pretensions of morality. There is no morality where one sees another starving and suffering and does not help, when one sees a whole race of people living on a land where nothing but sorrows dwell, but will not let them share the wealth that was given one by no doing of oneself. There is no morality in selfishness, and when I saw those wretched people, I no longer felt like redeeming those on Daem from the impending doom of humanity. Whatever plans they had for me they never told, I sensed, for there was something deeply wrong about the way they looked at me and talked about me, something deeply wrong about the way they patronized me and treated me like a silly child, while I was the one who was to decide their fate. The Canitaurs and the Zards both looked at me with a subtle sense of deceit and ill will, all that is, except Bernibus, which is why our friendship flourished so swiftly. As I laid there with thoughts of Onan and the decision that I was to make, and of all the responsibility that was put upon me involuntarily, as I thought of the conflict of past and future at the neglect of the present, as I thought about the self-obsession and overindulgence that come with wealth, and the desire for still more that accompanies it, I fell to sleep and into a place where no troubles lay, for my long day and night had left in me no energy for dreams.