Jabber
watched the sun bidding the world goodnight from his penthouse apartment. First
the change in the intensity of the light, then the change in colour as the
brilliant ball of energy put on its evening veil and became a red-gold orb you
could feast your eyes on. It rested on the horizon for a moment and it was as
though its many invisible hands reached out to paint the sky above it in the
most amazing hues. Then, with a fluid movement, it was gone. There was another
burst of colour before the night drew its black velvet curtain over this part
of the globe. In a few minutes, the stars would dress up the dark – how they
loved to do their bling thing night after night.
For the nth
time he wondered why he was different, why he was probably the only one who
could stand and stare and wonder, why he had these flashes of strange images
when he was alone and thoughtful. Were they dredged out from somewhere deep
within his subconscious or were they images flashed into his consciousness from
somewhere outside? Did anyone else experience them or was it only him? He
daren’t ask anyone because it might just be his death knell.
The Wockys
were one of the chosen families, part of the inner circle in this brave new
world. In the 1000-year history of his world, everything worked, everything was
predictable, everyone smiled because life was good. In the distant past, lost
in the mists of time, there was an age when there was chaos and confusion. Then
came a new world order and here they were today, the perfect number of people
who walked the planet Brillig with no deaths and no births. All that was in the
past once the slithy toves gyred and gimbled in test tubes and threw up the
perfect prototype for the race that was. When they were little borogoves, they
were still mimsy – Jabber was, too, as far as he could remember but as they
grew, they put away childish things, outgrowing those mome rath days and
becoming the epitome of perfection.
There were
vague recollections however. He remembered how he had to go to the SynthLab
often when he was young. None of the other children his age ever had to.
Snippets of conversation came back to him.
“…traces of
the old human genome…”,
“…only a
matter of time before we totally delete it all…”
“ …he’s
clean, My. Wocky!”
The perfect
moon cast its perfect rays all around the building, dipping its silvery, sliver-like
toes into the room as the curtains swayed and parted in the controlled
generated breeze. Damn! There it was again. Those pictures in his mind – he’d
learned how to hide his secret from the world, even his family. He liked what
he felt, saw and experienced.
“A vorpal
sword? What on Brillig is that?” he yelled as a clear image unfolded in his
mind’s eye. There he was, in a garb that looked so unfamiliar, resting against
a strange tree. “Why, that’s me being uffish!”
Then, as he
shut his eyes, the centuries rolled back and he knew he had been here before. The
Tumtum tree, the Jubjub bird and he, with his sword, fighting off his alter-ego.
The one with the jaws that bit and claws that caught. One, two! One, two! The
fire in those flaming eyes was doused forever, there in the tulgey wood. He
could hear the chortling on that frabjous day as he came back, triumphant,
galumphing back to glory.
Jabber
Wocky knew it was time to go to bed and time to shut out these images from his
mind. Images from before the beginning of the world as he knew it. From before
the time when the ideal man was born in a test tube and the ideal population
was decided by a plastic race that never fell ill, never aged, never died. A
though came unbidden to his mind. “Never lived?”
