Winged: A Novella (Of Two Girls) (11 page)

The Academy prides itself as the epitome of
enlightened education. Most of the students are middle-class and
above. It takes in both sexes. Attracts the attention of
suffragists and their detractors (the conservatives).

The collectors and inventors

The collectors are the inventors and the
researchers – the elite and intelligentsia. They collect antiques
and things metal, transforming them into useful
artifacts/artifices. The upper echelon of the collectors includes
gentlemen like Thomas Edison and Nikolai Tesla. The lower echelon
includes people like Alethia’s father, Paul Forrester.

Science dominates this steampunk Victorian
world. It is the new mantra and religion for a world suddenly
gripped by the Industrial Revolution and the imperial conquests in
Asia. There are flying craft, electricity and new inventions,
replacing the old world. Economic motives and impulses have been
tightly interwoven into the fabric of this world. Trade has opened
new avenues and possibilities, allowing people from various
cultures to migrate to England and vice versa. The British East
India Company still holds power – a group of collectors dominates
the decision-making body of the Company and creates inventions from
a base in Southeast Asia (Singapore). Less virulently racist than
our-world’s Victorian England – it would seem that Science is a
direct descendant of the Italian Renaissance, championing the ideas
of Logic, Reason and Creativity, as well as tolerance.

For the collectors, they believe they embody
this new spirit and are ardent advocates of the new creed. For
them, this is the dawn of The New Age, where man’s spirit will soar
with his (or her) intellect and better the world with progress.

Of course, politics is at odds with the New
Age and the governments (of the
countries in power
) are
constantly looking out for ways to be better than their neighbors,
co-operation be damned and paying only lip-service to conventions.
The inventions end up being used as tools or weapons, much to the
horror of the collectors.

The Garden of Crystals

In my father’s house, there is a garden. And
in this garden are crystals of all shapes and sizes, hanging from
the ceiling.

They are actually glass baubles, expertly
blown into whimsical shapes of swans, robins, ducks and sunbirds by
my father’s good friend.

They are cool to the touch, a sensation of
coldbeautyflowerlight
when my fingers caress the surface. I
listen to them sing in the breeze, sweet
skyblue
voices. I
revel. I laugh.

I am blind.

~*~

My mother died after she gave life to me. It
was a chilly winter’s night, near the Solstice, as told by Mrs
Pott, my nanny. I was born in the middle of the Industrial
Revolution, to a “collector” (as my father would like to call
himself). I was almost called Nike but soon, my name became
Alethia.

Collectors gather antiques, large or small,
esoteric or mundane. I could tell my father have brought in new
items by their sounds. They either rumble, groan or chitter – in my
mind, they become color bursts, like flowers.

My father is one of the more lesser-known
collectors. He is - by their standards - only a tinkler, not an
inventor. He collects things, dismantles them and rebuilds them
into
artifices
, as he calls them good-humoredly. I have
heard the sharp
yellow
yelps of tiny tin-men bouncing across
his worktable, the comical
pink
splotches of the larger and
more cumbersome steel puppies and occasionally the clear
lightgreen
of a sun-flier.

I know that there are larger things in the
sky, other than our little sun-fliers whizzing like green stars in
the house. My father’s friends have built other marvels like
leo-fins, large flying ships shaped like lion fishes. Mrs Potts
says that they look magnificent in the London skies, the sun on
their iridescent wings and tail fin. I know they are beautiful
because I can hear them sing like whales with long rainbow songs
that swirl endlessly. There are also the gyro-scopes, powered by
leg energy. But they are only occasionally seen as flying them
takes a lot of energy on the part of the flier.

The leo-fins stay afloat like puffer fish,
explained my father once when I asked him over a fine dinner of
clam chowder and freshly baked rye bread. My father believes in
growing and making our own food. They have helium inside their
bellies.

At the moment, the leo-fins transport light
cargo and their pilots, under the employ of my father’s friends,
are paid well for their service. They are good for short distance
flights and are known to even ferry people once a while.

The ones who transport heavy cargo are the
trains. Huge, metallic smelling and murkily-colored like dark
clouds, they rumble across England. I hear them rattle down the
tracks and sometimes, they make the garden of crystals shake
frantically. I do not like them. They are a necessary evil.

~*~

Instead of hurtling down the tracks, we can
fly, my father says excitedly. I listen with amusement. My fingers
touch the glass baubles. I do not know what colors they come in –
only that they are cool beneath my fingertips and their voices are
calming
skyblue
.

Why, father? I ask quietly. I am only nine.
Mrs Pott complains in her
amber-brown
voice that I am too
serious for a girl of my age.

Why? Why, we can fly over seas, oceans,
lands. Imagine going to the Oriental in a large sun-flier! My
father is clearly excited. He loves inventing. I can hear his blue
prints move hurriedly on the table; they crackle like popping
seeds.

You will need a lot of sun, I say laughing.
My fingers glide over a smooth swan.

Our sun is an inexhaustible source of
energy, there is almost a pout in my father’s reply. Truly, he can
be quite a charming child sometimes.

We pause as one of the trains roar past,
rattling our ceiling lamps. Something in our house fizzles like an
angry slash of red.

Wiring, my father mutters and I listen to
his footsteps fading away as he trots away to deal with the wiring
problem.

I continue walking in my garden of crystals,
thinking – suddenly – of flying birds.

~*~

Imagine an artifice that can flap its wings,
my father tells me in the morning when I wake up. Mornings bring in
a mute whisper of colors as the sounds of morning ripple around
me.

Your sun-flier can do that, I say, a little
peevishly. Mrs Pott brings me my breakfast. I smell eggs.

No, no, no, my father’s voice is
exasperated. Imagine your consciousness in that artifice.

Mrs Pott mutters “crazy inventor” before
stepping away.

Imagine that you can soar with the artifice,
leaving your body on earth, my father continues.

Now, this sends a shiver down my spine. It
is unheard-of. It is almost … sorcery. Then again, for the men, the
inventors, Science and Reason are the new gods. My father would
become an outcast for his ideas.

Yet…

I bite into my egg, feeling the yoke run
down my throat. My utensils are a
silver
tink on the
porcelain.

My father goes back into his workshop to
think about his new
artifice
. I walk slowly to my garden of
crystals.

I feel a rush of adrenaline. My hands brush
against the glass crystals in a moment of fury. They crash in a
multitude of bright colors.

~*~

If I were a bird, I say to my father as we
retire for the evening. He has his sniffer of port in his hand. He
is tired. His breathing is slow. He has spent the day in conference
with his collector friends. If I were a bird, I would be a
sunbird.

A sunbird? His words are a gentle smile. My
father is slow to anger and quick with humor to smooth things
over.

So that I can see the sun, I find myself
standing next to the window. Outside, London steams and breathes. I
can hear voices, different voices interweaving with each other.
Horse-drawn carriages clatter on cobblestones. Very soon,
steam-cars would replace them and the horses would either put to
pastures or killed for gruel. A long swirl of rainbow colors passes
overhead as a leo-fin, doing night-duty, floats in the sky.

Alethia, my father’s voice is husky
brown
, as if he is trying to contain his emotions.

But I know my own limitations, father, I say
and goes over to him. I rest my head against his chest and I feel
his hand pat my head softly.

If I could soar like a bird in my mind, I am
content. I see the world in colors and if I could do that in my
mind, I am pleased. I am a sunbird, in my own garden.

Saying that, I walk away, back to my garden
of crystals.

There, I weep.

Lee Hsu’s Ship

The young boy watched the dragonflies dart
about like ephemeral fairies in the summer haze, their transparent
wings abuzz. At some angles, the transparent wings became
multi-colored as they caught the sunlight and turned everything to
a breathless moment of wonder. It was warm, this summer, and
glorious, turning everything in the garden into dusty gold and
shimmering heat. He was glad to be indoors, inside the cool study
room. Yet a part of him longed to be out in the sunlight, catching
the dragonflies in their flight.

He turned a bit reluctantly to his books.
After a while, he was once again engrossed, his imagination afire
with all the histories of engineering designs and marvels. Zhang
Heng’s earthquake detector. Gunpowder. Naval feats. Gears and
pulley systems. How his young thirsty mind absorbed everything in,
enriching his inner landscape. He grabbed a charcoal stick,
pilfered from the kitchen when the cooks were not looking, and
began to sketch furiously on a piece of parchment paper, taken from
his father’s calligraphy room. A design took shape, a collection of
lines and curves and scribbled notations. Because he was only nine,
some came out as crude arrows and more shapes. They helped him
visually though.

His long queue of hair flopped over as he
tried to make himself comfortable while hunched over his design and
he flipped it back irritably. He wanted to remove it, cut it off –
it was bothersome and extremely archaic. His father would whip him
if he did. His mother would end up crying in one of her dramatic
fits and he would feel bad about it.

A few more scratches of his charcoal stick,
a quick scribble of his personal name at the margin, and the design
was finally done. It was time to start collecting the things needed
to make the ship.

~*~

It was the eve before Yuan Xiao, the
15
^th
day of the Chinese New Year. The household was
gripped in a fever of culinary preparation, the servants running in
and out of the kitchen, the cooks procuring fresh ingredients for
the big banquet feast on the day itself. It was going to be a big
festive event, attended by many guests who were by now comfortably
ensconced in their guest rooms. There were going to be fireworks as
well.

Old Liu, old faithful retainer, left early
in the morning to purchase a roast pig, done by a famous chef who
specialized in all manner of roast meat. His talent was in the
production of finely glazed, roasted-to-perfection, whole pig with
tender flesh. His talent had brought fame and many of the
aristocratic families made their orders early.

Lee Hsu’s day started early too, with his
nanny fussing about him and making him wear a new set of clothes
purposely bought for the occasion. It was made of fine brocade and
silk, to show off his family’s wealth. She even brought in new
shoes too. He squirmed uncomfortably, sensitive to the crinkly
texture of the jifu and pants. When his nanny was finally satisfied
at his overall appearance, he made a quick relieved dash to his
study room where he found much solace in his ship.

All he needed now was more gunpowder. He
carefully lifted out the little box in which he had studiously and
meticulously collected all the gunpowder he needed. Most of the
sharp-smelling black stuff came from firecracker tubes secretly
brought in during the many New Year celebrations. He could get more
firecracker tubes but the strings of the fiery-red cylinders were
all kept in a protected area, destined to be used at the end of
Yuan Xiao. Getting them would prove to be a challenge. Old Liu
won’t allow it. The old man would end up chasing him around with a
stick, no matter how much he loved his master’s inquisitive son.
The Yuan Xiao celebrations were the highlight of the year, next to
the Mid-Autumn Festival.