The Dreams of a Gear (A Farmpunk Contest Entry)

No one could quite say when it had died, but one by one, we realised. Looking out over the bloated corpse of the stained city, I knew it then.

---

The faces of parliament the public sees, with their speeches and plans, may come and go, but those behind the scenes, remain. The faceless cogs that turn, powerless to stop the machine they drive, they never change.

I was one such cog.

I dreamt of it, as a teenager coming out of comprehensive school, working in the capital of Ishkaba, the cornucopia of the hemisphere.

The great city, towering metal teeth jutting out of the farming plains, had been a beacon of the last revolution. I was eight when I first saw it, the blue shining tower blocks reaching towards the clouds. Over the years it had grown, always up, never out, never into the fields.

I had been entranced by it then, the forest of buildings, crammed tighter than the densest brush. The shimmering white Dome in the centre, housing the elected parliament of Lady Alka.

Coming from a small farm in the barren expanse, I was enamoured by the vitality, the vibrant pace of the ever moving city. Out on the rough edges of the plains, I had struggled and toiled in the bare earth, breaking my hands on the dried ground. Ishkaba had been a shining light of science and industry, producing the Echiberry, the Tanglegrain, the Cowwart. The crops that took root, thriving in the sun beaten edges of the equator.

We flourished, crops swole, loaded shuttles zipped above the plains, and Ishkaba blossomed.

---

My appointment in the Dome of Ishkaba had been the proudest day of my life. I moved there as a grain clerk in the silo division, checking the IoT readouts, monitoring the crops.

They had taught us in school that humanity had always had enough food. It had just sat, rotting in the wrong places while people starved. In the heart of power, I pushed that abundance through the veins of infrastructure, delivering it from field to factory, from factory to silo, and from there, to each house - as their kitchens cried out for more.

0% wastage, that was my goal, and without fail, I met it.

I threw myself into my work, six days a week, glad of every moment I could give back, and on the seventh day, the day of Our Lord, I rested.

I was raised Shardic. The belief in the equality of all living things, and the responsibility one man had to another, had become part of my being. I never thought i’d need to keep my faith in secret as my grandparents had once been forced to do.

I had lived the life I’d always dreamed of, a key part of the machinery that turned the wheels of cornucopia. Until nine months ago.

---

The day it began.

In the heart of the city, the filtered sunlight touched my pillow, brushing my cheek as it rosed me. The smell of roasting Cowwart drifted through the communal house, and following the invitation, I made my way downstairs.

Two of the other clerks were already gathered in the kitchen, huddled round the data point.

“What? What is it?” I had asked, the emotion palpable in the air between them.

Stone, tear-washed faces turned to me. No one spoke, neither of the young girls able to form the words to break the news. Her chest heaving erratically, Halta passed me the data point, and touching the contact, I saw what had struck them.

Lady Alka. Her body dressed in traditional Shardic flowers and vines, being carried on her plinth through the streets. Dead.

I don’t remember breaking contact with the data point, nor do I remember falling into Halta arm’s, sobbing until I heard the tolling of the procession bell. In my need to answer the call, I’d fallen, tumbling down the stairs, knocking Freida with me as I slipped.

With salt-burnt lines painting my cheeks, I stood with those two, huddling in the doorway, watching the final procession of the woman who had been our sovereign for my entire life.

In the Shardic way, she was carried down every street, and when the procession came along my row, I felt fresh tears escape my sore, reddened eyes. She had followed the Shardic traditions herself, but she didn’t impose her beliefs on her people.

Yet our neighbours, the Geller family, and the zip-engineer’s, the lad’s at the end of the street, stood out on their front steps. Their caps proffered, their faces wet with tears of their own. They were staunch Daltists, to see them stood in the doorway, their hands to their heart in the Shardic bow, unleashed a new wave of grief in me. By the time she passed our door, hot, silent tears had soaked my hair.

Ishkaba ground to a halt for three days after that. The assorted temples and churches, packed to the rafters, every flower in the city, plucked and braided. Prayers were whispered across the plains, offerings in the mother tongues, to the mother gods, for a woman who’d permitted them to do that.

On the third day, Lady Alka was laid out before the Dome. The city couldn’t handle the sheer number of pilgrims who came to pray with her as she began her three week transcension.

Yet, somewhere in the chaos, in the grief, somewhere behind the curtains of elected power, gears were already turning.

She hadn’t been dead a week before they pushed a new face into the gulf.

Lord Yelti.

He didn’t waste a moment on propriety, nor did he let the air settle out of respect. One week into the three weeks of Shardic prayers needed for her soul to pass safety to the next realm, Lord Yelti made the Shardic faith illegal.

---

That day, something broke in our city.

The Daltists, their old prejudices reignited, celebrated in the streets, building pyres of Shardic art and books, stripping the temples of their tapestry, their woven flowers and vines, using them to feed the flames.

The thick black smoke that hung in the city seemed to permentated the very pores of the metal buildings. They burnt every trace of Shardism they could find.

“We shall stand united, one Country, under one God.”

Lord Yelti’s proclamation bounced from lips, whispered into graffiti up the walls, etched itself into the glass window panes, accusing the believers.

For forty-seven long years, Lady Alka had ruled, permitting the free practise of religion.

Everyone already knew who the Shardists were.

The loss of her presence became an open wound for the faithful. Salted by the city that should be ringing with prayer, fragrant with incense and flowers, but was instead crackling with fires, heaving with the tarry smoke.

---

Lord Yelti hadn’t been there two weeks, his family hadn’t even completed their transition to the royal residence, when he issued the pledge of allegiance.

An oath, required of everyone who wished to call themselves citizen, swearing themselves to him, and to the Daltist faith.

I knew the man who knocked on my door. I’d seen him in the Dome, chatted over coffee a few times.

“Talir! How nice to see…”

It was then I’d seen the folder, the moment I saw the ornate ‘O’ through the transparent case, I knew why he was there.

I tried to play for time, waylay him with a hot drink, a baked Cowwart, but he declared himself stuffed, that everyone he’d called on today had produced quite a spread.

He didn’t say a word as he put the paper on the table. We both knew he’d seen the prayer beads I still wore on my wrist.

He tapped the page, marking a blank space and his gaze fixing me to the spot.

“On the dotted line, if you would.”

Bile rose in my throat. I was only as good as my word. Could I swear an oath I didn’t believe in my heart?

I .... truly and sincerely acknowledge Lord Yelti as the rightful sovereign of Ishkaba. I pledge my allegiance to one nation, under one God, renouncing all others. I swear, from the bottom of my heart, that I abhor and detest heretical Shardic beliefs and practises. I attest to my honour-bound duty to report this damnable doctrine, and those who traitor to our God and sovereign in its practise. I pledge my heart and soul, in servitude and adoration of our rightful ruler, Lord Yelti, and accordance with Daltist decree, I will pay tithe to the state, acknowledging Lord Yelti as sovereign by divine right.

For thirty-six years, I’ve been to a Shardic temple every Sunday. I’ve said Shardic prayers in the words of my ancestors every night, and on the first day of the new month, I’ve met in the Shardic Circle, and made my offerings. I didn’t understand how someone could say it was illegal to believe something I’d held true my whole life.

“You’re asking me to sign this, right now..?”

“Lord Yelti is asking to acknowledge what we all know, ‘tis all, everyone else signed it. Even the auld batty priest from your Shardic temple!”

There was a dripping disdain to the way he said ‘Shardic’, like somehow, overnight, it had become a dirty word.

I could feel the hot pinprick of panic dancing over my skin. My hands blushed damp with perspiration as, compulsively, I took the pen he offered.

“I… I…”

I didn’t know what to say, what I could say, what would happen if I didn’t write my name...

“Are you refusing to sign…?”

There was an edge to Talir’s tone, a blade between the words.

“Do I have a choice…?” I faltered.

A smarmy smile danced the lips of the previously pleasant man.

“You do. The pen, or the pyre.”

I signed that paper, the black ink blotting through me as my shaking hand barely formed the letters.

Something died inside me then, a rotting, putrid death, that slowly but surely, spread.

---

They could make me sign a scrap of paper, make me pay lip service; that they could force, but they could never make me believe it.

I tried to keep up appearances, for an easy life. I attended the Daltist services, shared the Daltist blessing before my nightly meal with Halta and Freida. I even tried to pray to their god but every bit of me fought in objection. Every word of their doctrine I uttered jarred through me.

I wasn’t alone in my feelings, but every person caught practising their true beliefs met the same end. There was nothing I could do, I had to force my way through, hoping my God would forgive me.

---

The smell of charred flesh, of spitting fat and singeing hair, became that of the city. The sweet scent of produce, of growth and life, had been consumed by the darkness that stained the buildings with it’s greasy soot.

I passed three pyres, their victims’ lives already claimed, their bodies still burning, on my way to work. I dared not wonder who’d been braver than I. I bit my tongue, swallowing the acid at the back of my throat, trying not to breath in the fumes as, instead, I looked the other way.

The elevator shuttle that connected the towering city, ceased making stops on the lowest levels. It had been forced into limited service by the sheer volume of sparks and smog.

I’d had to climb four flights of stairs to reach the elevator I now stood in, the glass panes framing the horror below.

Rising up the side of the blocks, I stared down, it was impossible to ignore. The peppering of fires across the city, light glancing off the blue metal structures, the thick, churning smoke billowing past.

“I never thought i’d see the day.”

I caught my elbow on the hand rail as I jumped in surprise, recoiling at the pain. I’d barely registered the woman in the elevator with me.

Since the proclamation, since the oath, i’d stopped trusting people. Neighbours had been turned in by their own kin, friends reported each other - hurrying to the offices of the monsters hiding behind the masks of public service.

A silence hung in the elevator, I daren’t venture a response. My fingers instinctively reached up towards my wrist, trying to touch the long end of my absent prayer beads.

Hot fear filled my face as I saw her take notice of the motion before she continued,

“Lady Alka had attended my naming service… she was a good woman… it wasn’t right… not letting us say her prayers...”

I looked at her, disbelief wrinkling my forehead, horror holding my tongue, as I nodded, barely brave enough to agree.

“She had a saying for times like this…”

The words left my lips before I could stop myself.

“...All it takes for evil to triumph, is for good people to do nothing.”

She extended her hand, and half expecting her to grab me, I stepped back, pressing back onto the glass.

“Cate Totsby, I’ve been looking for a like-minded person with access to the Dome. I have a package i’d like you to deliver.”

This one only really came to me at the last minute, so I haven't had as much time as i'd like to work on it. There were a lot of possible prompts to chose from, I decided that a cornucopia could go quite well with guy fawkes, given the prior abundance of freedom and subsequent restriction of beliefs that led to the gun powder plot. Its no secret i'm a fan of guy fawkes, so here we have a story of (what I hope is) a character in a farmpunk themed similar interpretation. I did realise afterwards, this was prime for a comedy, over which is the superior crop, but ah well, this was still a fun one to write. I managed to burn my fingers tips on the oven last night so typing hasn't been the easier, but very glad I got this one there in the end, for which I owe a huge thank you to @svashta who helped me with some last minute editing.

This is my entry to @blockurator's #farmpunk contest, check out all the information under the original post and make sure to give him a follow as he is pioneering all kinds of fun fiction here on steemit, running this contest and well as other initiatives.

Photo Credit by Pixabay User The_Red_Queen who is based in Scotland, and has a couple of photos taken there.

_{Like contests? Check out my latest round of Tell A Story To Me or head over to @bananafish for the latest round of #finishthestory to write the second half to an opened ended prompt I was honoured to be able to provide <3}