Strange Tails

The Silence was not close by.

They marched the entire day, Potbelly resting on occasions, and Squirrel willing, finally, to take a perch on Gavin’s shoulders. He enjoyed the extra legroom but not the ride, a little too firm for his liking, and a little less, well, less Potbelly. He was reasonably happy, though, and gazed about, enjoying the view.

The three travelers finally arrived at a small jetty on a river from where Gavin unmoored a flat wooden boat and pushed them out into the current. The boat was no more than a collection of planks, a floating fence rather than a water craft, and it reminded Potbelly of the story Huckleberry Finn. She didn’t know how she knew about Mr. Finn, in fact she didn’t know how she knew about most things, they just sort of appeared in her brain, but she knew Squirrel wasn’t familiar with the story else by now he would have made several unsuccessful attempts at the accent, especially the racist bits.

They drifted downstream with Squirrel whistling Handel and making interminable water lovely view puns, and with Gavin, on occasions, jumping into the smooth rolling river and steering them away from obstacles using the mighty rear paddle wheel that were his four pumping legs. The obstacles came thick in places, and not just driftwood—drift cars, drift luggage, drift siding, and at one point, a drift head. They watched it float unhappily by, with Squirrel naming it Bob Along, and by then even Potbelly had lost the will to say otherwise.

Night fell, and so did the travelers, asleep on the river bank, until at the first crack of dawn they awoke and Gavin punted off again. Still more obstacles came and went, the detritus of a defeated humanity, that left behind not only a testament to its former ubiquity but also an odd, not disagreeable peace.

They drifted this way for another day until, as daylight crept off again, and the last few glowing embers of the sun smoldered through chinks between the overhanging branches, they came upon the Silence.

It was big. Bigger than Squirrel and Potbelly had expected of the confined and unreverberating place its name suggested. It was gray, too, consistently so, and with no discernible windows or other prominent features—save for the roof which, by stark contrast, held up to the sky row upon row of bright shining solar panels, as if they were mirrors in which the Gods might admire themselves. Above them all stood an antenna, mingling into the tall pine trees surrounding the Silence, an obvious rogue in the scenic gallery.

The travelers approached the building from a shallow incline. While the grim gray building watched Squirrel, or so he thought, it gave him the distinct feeling it would have been happiest if they all just got the hell away and left it alone. He was inclined to do so.

“Remind me,” said Squirrel. “Why are we here?”

“To bring your information to Coralane. We agreed,” answered Gavin.

“No, I know why we’re here, what I’m asking is why we’re here. What do we care? Whatever this is, it’s you guys’ problem.”

“Ignore him,” said Potbelly. “He’d be afraid of his own shadow if he was ever brave enough to remove his hands from his eyes to see it.”

“There’s a difference between fear and caution, Potbelly.”

“Nope. With you it’s all just one big wobbling mass of chicken shit.”

“Some of our bravest fighters are chickens,” objected Gavin.

“I bet none of them are squirrels.”

“What, precisely, are you suggesting, Potbelly?” asked Squirrel, indignant.

“Suggesting the only nuts you got are the ones you bury. Perfect metaphor if you ask me.”

“Oh really? Let’s see you scamper along a live electrical cable, dog biscuit.”

“It’s insulated, doesn’t count.”

“As am I—from your childish insults.”

“Anyway, the cables don’t have any power any more. Maybe that’s why you relate to them.”

“Inanimate objects are often preferable to you, Potbelly, I agree.”

“Are we done?” asked Gavin. “I feel like the grease between two grinding gears. Can you two not compromise?”

“There’s no such thing as a happy medium. Maybe because they talk to dead people all day. Which is kinda my point. Alive is more fun.”

“So I have to just listen to this nonsense?”

“Do bears shit in the woods?”

“No, they have their own latrines in Annex C.”

“Never mind.”

On nearing the building Gavin stopped, barked twice, continued, stopped, barked again, and then carried on to its far end. His travel companions followed, turning the corner until they came across a steel riveted door which, like the rest of the Silence, gave them the clear impression it would have preferred matters if they all just went home.

A long hatch slid to reveal a small, feline face.

“Code?” said the face.

“There are no armpits in the golden toaster,” replied Gavin.

“Bicycles are not the only transport in Sweden,” responded the face.

“A smart frog knows where to hang his socks,” came the reply.

A loud clank echoed against the metal diaphragm of the door and like the hatch it too slid across. The door revealed a huge orange mottled thing draped in several metallic body attachments, heaving at the portal.

“What’s that?” whispered Squirrel into Potbelly’s ear, having climbed upon her back again for reassurance.

“Don’t know. Looks like a punk orangutan. One that’s been painting the ceiling with carrot cake and wingnuts.”

“Suggest you give it a wide berth.”

“Noted.”

Gavin strode forward into the dimly lit corridor, past the impressively huge and impressively orange guardian. Inside the building hummed with the sound of electricity and an almost tangible sense of unwelcomeness. Gavin looked back to confirm his two travel companions had followed, and indeed, they had not.

For all Squirrel’s bravado about skipping the light fantastic along electrical cables, he had never actually seen them produce electrical light, and neither had Potbelly. They marveled at the little yellow worm vibrating ever so slightly within its glass bubble, caged behind wrought iron as if it was too dangerous to risk outside. The humans, on leaving, had taken the light with them, but here it was again, and Squirrel and Potbelly blinked at it until that little yellow worm was all their eyes could see.

“Come in, quickly,” hissed the cat, startling them into action. They bumped into everything and everyone, their pupils fixed into pin holes. The cat leapt up to the mound of titian-tinted fur as Potbelly lurched forward, hissing at something in her primal encoding, recognizing an attack pattern from an ancient foe.

Gavin impatiently nodded for the door to be closed, and the cat in turn muttered something unintelligible to the punk orangutan carrot cake wingnut dauber. It heaved the stopper back into its bottle.

“Coralane will not be expecting us,” said Gavin, finally. “I want you to wait in the hospitality suite until I can arrange an audience.”

“Why do we need an audience?” asked Squirrel, still blinking.

“Maybe because she tells jokes?” offered Potbelly, doing likewise. “It’s not like they couldn’t do with some around here.”

“That orange thing looked pretty funny.”

“I mean,” interrupted Gavin, “you must wait until you are summoned. Coralane is very busy and we must not distract her unnecessarily.”

“Well, now we know our place,” sniffed Potbelly.

“Do we? I thought he was going to show us.”

Gavin sighed. “Follow me.”

They tagged behind him, just as they had tagged behind him the last two days, and with no more sense of direction now than they had when they first started. That aside, the two newcomers surveyed with awe a near featureless labyrinth of corridors flowing out from either side of their path, fanning away like a river delta while they punted forward.

Doors marked with danger signs, human skulls and crossbones, seemed tragically prophetic. Beside each portal hung a broken box, a palm recognition reader no doubt, its cracked human hand split to reveal the internal workings; presumably, thought Potbelly, to override the mechanism. The stumpy finger ends of wires reached out to resemble a paw.

Pins and torn corners were embedded into the plaster walls, as if someone had been hitting tiny playing cards with very small darts at the fair. The pins and corners were the remnants of posters, Squirrel realized, the rest of which were now nowhere to be seen. No more human faces to look down and help educate the reader on what to do in an emergency, or tell us which day will be this month’s potluck. Like the world outside, where the humans had once lived, their torn detritus was all that remained.

Dim bulb after dim bulb passed overhead until Gavin stopped at a door no more remarkable than any other. Squirrel noted the missing door knob as Gavin nudged it open.

Behind the door lay a rather pleasant surprise. Soft furnishings, all gaily colored, loafed liberally about the room, and a bright overhead lamp shone life into the materials, waking up the room to display excited colors in an energetic pattern. A bowl of fruit spilled over onto a table, awaiting some passing artist it seemed, and small dishes of candy dotted themselves about in a way even Squirrel could not take in in one view. Potbelly trotted over to a ham bone but was disappointed to find it only squeaked. Despite herself, she squeaked it again.

“I will return as soon as I can,” announced Gavin, shutting the door with a deft crook of his tail. He flicked his ear and snapped his jaw at something that seemed to pass him as he left, but finally he ignored it, and the door closed.

“Mmf mmum,” came Squirrel’s reply, while he stuffed in a mint chocolate, trying to minimize the time it took to chew, swallow, and repeat.

Potbelly gummed at some Turkish Delight but she lacked Squirrel’s ability to digest refined sugar. She watched her friend’s claws shove food into his mouth like they were a train station steward during Tokyo rush hour. She looked away, not a little disturbed, and contemplated their situation.

“I think I’ve already seen at least three times as many talking creatures as I’ve ever seen in my life,” she said.

“Nurf,” agreed Squirrel, his mouth full.

“How many of us do you think there are? I mean, in total, in the world.”

“Hmmf a fo,” replied Squirrel, shrugging, before adding in a much higher register, and in way that rang in Potbelly’s ears: “A few too many, if you ask me.”

“What did you say?” she replied, screwing her head to one side.

“Hmmf a fo,” he repeated.

“No, after that.”

Squirrel took a large gulp and wiped his mouth but only succeeded in transferring green and black goo to his wrist. “For Chrissakes Potbelly I’m trying to gorge here. This is the Silence, remember? Otherwise known as the PleaseShutUpence.”

“But you just said something about—“ a large moth buzzed against the pendant light fitting, drawing Potbelly’s attention. “Can insects speak?” she continued, before going on to answer her own question. “Of course they can, Tina could.”

The high voice spoke again. “If you must know we can converse very well, but now is not the time, there is great danger here, and the humans—“. The oddly echoing voice cut itself short. “Oh, now look what you’ve made me do.”

The moth had become trapped in the light fitting’s upturned bowl, buzzing quickly and erratically from the hot bulb to the outer shield, flitting to and fro like the electrical fingers of a Van de Graaf generator. Potbelly became tense, afraid for it. It could talk. It was sentient.

“Quick! Squirrel!” she cried. “We have to help.”

“Huh?”

“The moth, up there.”

Squirrel swiveled his head up, at first unclear as to what had excited Potbelly, but as realization dawned the tiny insect fizzed and popped against the hot bright bulb. He leapt from surface to higher surface until he reached a cabinet maybe four feet away. Nothing else, though, afforded access. He looked back down to Potbelly.

“Oh,” she said.

Squirrel squinted over to the bulb to examine the fried creature.

“Does this mean it’s a light sleeper?” he asked.

“Oh, really, Squirrel, even for you.”

He hopped back down to the table, sprawling as he did so, unable to perceive depth due to the ball-shaped, moth-shadowed glare burnt temporarily into his retina. After yet more blinking he regained his vision.

“Why does this table have holes in the end?” he asked. The table stood at least three feet high and had recessed pockets in each corner.

“It’s a pool table,” she replied, though still distracted by events in the light fitting.

“Can’t be,” replied Squirrel, his furry mouth black-ringed with mint chocolate. “There’s no water.”

“Pool is a game. Played by humans. And dogs in paintings. Took me several attempts at handling a cue before I realized the paintings were just for their amusement.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“During one of your sugar comas.”

“Oh.”

Finally Potbelly turned her attention to Squirrel’s new find. “So … I wonder why it’s been left here?”

“Maybe they like diving in?”

“I told you, no water involved. Haven’t you ever seen a pool cue?”

“I’ve seen a peanut stand and a rubber band. You’re right though, maybe it’s not for the likes of us to play. They probably just left it here to put drawings on.”

“Drawings?”

“Yeah, like this one.”

“I can’t see.”

“It’s a diagram of something. Something clever. Looks complicated.”

“A spaceship?”

“Definitely not a toaster. But more like a map.”

“Is that what the moth was trying to see?”

Before Squirrel could reply, a voice broke in through the doorway. “Aha! I see you’ve found one of our prized possessions.”

The voice was both sharp and loud, as if it had been squeezed in a vice, pinged across the room, and then reinflated in the listener’s spinal cord. It was best described as a squawk, and it was as soothing as a massage with a cheese grater. The squawk belonged to a bird so brightly plumed it could stand in for a television test card. Two large beads hung around its neck, like trinkets, striped green-and-red, the exact same color of its own eyes.

“Interesting choice of room,” added the bird, this time to Gavin, who had trotted in behind. He muttered something about food availability, with Coralane staring down at him all the while. Squirrel, transfixed by the bird’s radiance, at first barely registered the fact it stood atop the same strange, impressively orange, and even more impressively large monkey-like thing they had met on their arrival.

“Forgive me,” squawked the voice, turning back to Potbelly and Squirrel. “My name is Coralane.”

“Ah, so it’s you. We thought you were a country road.”

“A what?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m Squirrel. The odd looking brown thing on the floor is Potbelly.”

“Thanks,” replied Potbelly. “Pleased to meet you, Coralane. Don’t happen to have any ear plugs do you? It’s been a long day.”

“Yes, of course, my sincere apologies. I tried elocution lessons but the only noticeable change was that I sounded slightly more European. Snodberry, would you?”

The tangerine hued, metallically encrusted mountain beneath her fished out two small items from a pouch under its arm, and with remarkable dexterity pressed each one into Potbelly’s lug holes. She was so relieved to cut down the squawk that it took her a moment to register he had done all this while standing several feet away.

“Better?” enquired Coralane.

She nodded.

“Good, because I understand you in particular need to hear me. You possess something of considerable value to our mission here.”

She nodded again.

“So what is your mission?” interrupted Squirrel. “Come to think of it, what is this place?”

Coralane smiled patiently. “This is the Silence.”

“Yeah, I keep hearing the word Silence—and I’m a big fan of irony—but it’s still not helping.”

“It might be easier to show you rather than explain. But first, my dear,” Coralane turned her attention back to Potbelly, “do you, uh, how should I say, need the bathroom at all?”

“Not right now thanks.”

“Do you think you will be needing it soon?”

“Possibly. I ate some grass and what looked like a puddle of brown on the slope up here. That usually does the trick.”

Coralane smiled again. “Charmed,” she said. Potbelly wondered how this brightly-colored bird managed to give the impression of smiling condescension while demonstrating no discernible change in the shape of her beak.

“So that’s what you were doing,” Squirrel sniffed, addressing Potbelly. “Did you save any of that brown for me?”

“I’m not talking to you after your introduction.”

“Again, if only I’d known these secrets! Can someone write this down so I don’t forget?”

“You wanted to know more about the Silence,” interrupted Coralane, regaining control of the conversation. “Well, as I said, I can show you. After all, you belong here as much as we do.”

“Cool,” said Squirrel. “So we don’t owe you anything for the chocolate?”

“What about the moth?” asked Potbelly.

“We’ll send someone down to clean her up. Follow me.”

With a subtle nod to Snodberry the pair left the room. The new arrivals watched fascinated as the three hundred pounds of orange carpeted muscle departed with barely a sound. Per instruction, Gavin followed. Potbelly and Squirrel, still wordlessly exchanging glances, did the same. Only then did Potbelly wonder how Coralane could have known about the frazzled moth.

****

Potbelly’s concern for the moth faded under the dim light of one long corridor after another. Trailing behind Snodberry’s lengthy shadow they came across several doors, each wedged open. Inside they spied a menagerie of creatures in varying states of work, preening, sleeping, eating, and in one particular room, to Squirrel’s delight and Potbelly’s discomfort, something altogether more friendly.

Untrammeled fur leant the tiled floor a certain softness. They came across a creature of uncertain lineage but nimble fingers working a small broom trying to govern the hairy tide, but succeeding only in diverting it around him, like a lone rock in a river. With a single gusty sneeze it managed to undo all its good work. The creature bowed as Coralane passed.

A few of the rooms were empty, or at least seemed so. Potbelly then guessed, and Coralane confirmed, that they contained the smallest of creatures, creatures like Tina who were easily missed. Their gentle chatter could be heard if one listened closely, and so, despite the stolid effort of the gray and dispiriting building, the interior of the Silence was abuzz with aliveness, as if one had finally peered long enough through evening clouds to see the twinkle of stars beyond.

Coralane and her apricot-tinted landslide finally reached a dead-end doorway, pushed it open, and disappeared through. Potbelly followed, as did Squirrel, and for once even he was tongue-tied.

More computer screens than Squirrel had ever seen in all the electrical aisles in all the Walmarts they had ever stolen from hung across the walls of this huge, octagonal room. Cords connecting the screens dangled like economy bunting. The ceiling was dome-shaped, arc-lit, and with clerestory windows shining a supporting cast of argent moonbeams. Aluminum tables sat neatly in a rectangle at the very center of the room, and on top of each lay various contraptions of a scientific and medical nature. By way of greeting, one of them went ping.

“Is this the Silence?” asked Squirrel, rubbing the crick from his neck.

“Yes, and no,” replied Coralane. “Everything you’ve seen so far is the Silence. However, this is the very center of it. The place where the noise took shape and evolved into the Silence.”

Potbelly turned to Squirrel. “Is it just me, or are you also in an advanced state of what-the-fuh?” Squirrel nodded.

“Let me put it this way,” continued Coralane, undaunted. “And by doing so somewhat tautologically prove my point. Both of you can speak, correct?”

“Yes, but we weren’t taught logically. It just sort of happened.”

“Taut … never mind. But you converse, do you not, and freely?”

“A little too freely,” muttered Squirrel.

“Well, your ability to speak, your ability to cognitively understand language, this is where it all began. For you, for me, for all of us. It’s where we were … the term is, uplifted. Humans did that to us. Did you never ask yourself why you can speak but others of your kind cannot?”

“Not really,” replied Potbelly. “I was too busy asking myself why I had to put up with the one person I came across who could.”

“You said person. Do you not see yourself as a creature, as an animal?”

“I see Squirrel as one, if that helps.”

“This whole facility was top secret,” continued Coralane. “We know this, some of us, from the time the humans were here. We remember them, we don’t quite know how, but we do. Things they said. Things they did. Since then, and reading their notes, their project files, it’s become somewhat, and I mean somewhat, clearer. From their own secrecy the humans came to call this place the Silence. The place they were not supposed to talk about, not even to their families.”

Coralane strutted along the sloping shelf of her carrier’s shoulder, her vibrant head plumage held aloft, clearly enjoying the attention. While she performed, Squirrel’s eyes wandered, and he spied amongst the bristling technology signs of damage, small scraps of debris, a plastic shard here and a shiny screw there. Things that had been broken once but not completely tidied away.

“Yet,” Coralane continued. “From the Silence came the noise. The tumult of a hundred voices, for we are that many and more, speaking, inquiring, learning.” She affected another of those unanimated smiles. “And at this point the screw turns again. Some part of each of us still wishes for the knowledge of what we were before. What was our former nature? How do we separate what we are from what we were? In other words, who were we when we were the silent? And most importantly of all, how does the one become the other?”

Coralane ended her ramble across Mount Snodberry by fluttering up to the summit of his head.

“So you see, it seems appropriate to continue thinking of this place as the Silence. Perhaps still just as secret, perhaps still just as mysterious.”

“That all sounds amazing,” said Potbelly, transfixed by Coralane’s confident eloquence, despite that squawking delivery. “Never really thought about learning to talk. I just sort of could.” Squirrel, less impressed, but noticing Gavin’s rapt awe, decided this must be some sort of a dog thing.

“Interesting,” said Coralane, without seeming interested at all. “Not all of us wish to understand this bridge between the old and the new, of course. “ She looked down at Squirrel.

“So you’re like a hippy colony?” he said, throwing a dam against the room’s rising tide of Coralane adoration.

“No.”

“Like a country retreat then?”

“No.”

“Socialist collective?”

“No.”

“Farm … ”

“The Silence,” continued Coralane, a note of impatience rising in her voice, “is a place of science. A place of learning and analysis, where we try to understand what it is that the humans gave us, and what’s more, why. We are continuing their mission.”

“Their mission?”

“To save civilization, of course. It’s what I tell all the creatures here.”

Potbelly nodded, believing she sort of understood. “So what happened to all the humans? All the scientists?”

“They went the same way as the others. One day here, the next day gone. We were fortunate they let some of us escape, then we released the others, but, sometimes … it feels like they could almost still be with us.”

“This science stuff, does it pay well?” inquired Squirrel. “Maybe a food allowance? How are you fixed for Twinkies?”

“We are here voluntarily.”

“Are you all scientists then?” asked Potbelly.

“Some of us. There are some who seem to have an enhanced ability to interpret the information we find, at least more than the others. Some of us are more able to manipulate the tools, the computers, and the … let’s say … unusual devices.”

“Unusual devices,” echoed Potbelly and Squirrel.

“Fascinating. Now, dear Potbelly, how is that tummy coming along?”

“It’s an undiscovered country all to itself,” she announced proudly. “I tend not to inquire as to its business, rather just let it do its business.”

“Allow us to offer you a laxative.”

“I think my problem’s tension. Do you have a relaxative?”

“We have all kinds.” Despite that squawk, Coralane possessed, in a strange way, a smooth eloquence, one that could pull back a velvet curtain, reveal a rabid tiger, and one really wouldn’t mind at all. “Snodberry, would you?”

The sunset-hued behemoth gently placed down his charge and glaciated to the far end of the room. Squirrel watched him with interest.

“What’s all that jewelry for?” he asked, loud enough for Coralane to hear, but hopefully not Snodberry.

“Unfortunately for Snodberry those are not adornments. The best we can surmise is that he was midway through an uplift before things went awry. He is intelligent, no doubt, but lacks speech.”

Their subject returned, holding out a tiny pill in a huge paw, the medication almost lost to Potbelly’s sight, a mote of dust in a beige and leathery galaxy. Aiming roughly for the center she licked it down in one swipe. Snodberry cuffed the remaining slobber onto his lavishly pelted midriff.

“Thank you, Snodberry,” nodded Coralane, and she fluttered gracefully to his shoulder once more. Squirrel thought of Snodberry as a he. He was definitely big enough to be a he.

“Now I come to think of it,” said Squirrel, watching the parrot alight on Snodberry’s left shoulder with a squawk. “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Was it Treasure Island?“

“You are a creature of fascinating observations. They will be addressed in time, but for now I have a number of important things to attend to. Gavin will show you to your room. I think the far end of the east wing is appropriate, Gavin.”

Gavin, who until then had lain on all fours quietly awaiting instruction, rose swiftly and hrumphed. After gesturing to Potbelly and Squirrel with his bucket head, he strode to the door, his hard and heavy claws carving a resonant sound in the tiled floor. Snodberry, again peculiarly silent, had already transported his payload out the room, through a side door requiring a pass code tapped in by Coralane’s prominent beak.

Squirrel and Potbelly sat peering around the vast, complicated chamber.

“Hahem,” coughed Gavin, still waiting.

They followed.