Acre Island

A piece written for my extended project in style of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy - i.e lots of Gothic imagery and extensive description.

Acre Island

 

Acre Island sat – or rather lay – between two walls of grey-white cliff, towering above icy waters, piercing the clouds, creating a jagged prison for the tiny circle of land. These cliffs kept the island in a perpetual state of shadow, until the drab sun hauled itself up the East Wall and a few rays trickled feebly through the clouds. Perhaps an hour of hazy half-light would hang over Acre’s inhabitants before the sun reached the West Wall, and shadow stretched across the island once more. To the north the two cliffs extended, although whether they created a channel or eventually came together no one knew, for a blanket of fog was seemingly stuffed in the crevasse, and whoever put it there had not bothered to get it back out again. This blanket lay over the island too, grasping at houses, settling in ditches and strangling trees until it tumbled off the islands southern bank in endless reams of dank fog stretching out to the entrance of the dark fissure that held Acre hostage. The edge of this prison was visible to the inhabitants, but no one had ever considered escape, for the description of Acre lying instead of sitting is an accurate one; sitting requires an upright back, a slight tension in the muscles, and most importantly, consciousness, and Acre was anything but conscious.

 

Very little happened on the island, and what did was rarely noticed by the locals, as Acre was dying. It was not hounded by some geological threat, nor cursed with a crippling disease – the people were healthy, food was plentiful and war unheard of. The ailment that seeped through leaf and bow, coursed through river and vein, spread across field and path, was apathy; no one bothered to do anything. It was as if gravity’s strength had doubled, and the feeble muscles of living things were rendered useless. There were twenty-three children living on the island, but even they did not possess the youthful love for life often seen in normal children, and instead wandered about drowsily, floating from tree to field without noticing either. They were all above seven years old, for the last mother with the energy (and nerve) to go against the general opinion on children and bother trying to create one became so exhausted looking after it she never tried again. The fruit of her labour, along with the other twenty-two older children, spent their conscious time inside the school grounds, listening to the teacher, Jahred, recite passage after passage from Acre’s last remaining record of information, A Collection of Facts and Figures on Acre Island. Unfortunately, the cover was lost many years before, and no one knew of this title; instead the geological discoveries the book contained were viewed as scriptures from an ethereal being, who apparently wished the inhabitants of his world to know how things worked. The tome was the nearest Acre had to law, and, following the tradition of naming everything as simply as possible, Law was what everyone called it. The idea was that Jahred’s teaching of these holy passages would instill the traditions of Acre into the children and encourage them to continue these ancient rituals. This afternoon, however, a thick silence lay over the classroom, as Jahred had left the room.

    

The old man was halfway up the school tower, rattling the staircase with each step, kicking up clouds of dust and breaking ancient cobwebs. Jahred was an unusual man; he was tall, and almost always wore a long gown giving him the appearance of a monk, not that anyone recognized this similarity. His face was old and withered, but he had a spring in his step that made him one of the most active members of the island, even at his age. Tragically, he was a victim of his social peers, and dare not utilize this liveliness, for that would be to against the entire culture of Acre. He arrived at the headmaster’s door, and, raising a shaking hand, stopped. Pressing his ear against the wood, his arm still poised to knock like a heron, he held his breath and listened. Some two minutes passed, the teacher frozen in this contorted position, when a loud clunk from within startled him and he jumped back releasing a sharp, “yelp!”, his arm jerking forward and tapping the door. Quickly covering this up with another three taps, Jahred erected himself coughing nervously. The person inside was obviously startled as well, as the teachers curious display was followed by a loud clunk and muffled curses. A gruff voice found its way outside the room.

     “Eh… come in” the request was preceded by a strange noise somewhere between a cough and an indication of hesitance.

     “Come in? yes indeed” Jahred’s delicate tone contrasted with the spluttering speech from within, and as the door opened this contrast was seen to extend to appearance. The headmaster, Viktor, was a short man, and had somehow managed to keep his arms and legs skinny, while all the fat collected around his belly. He was broad shouldered and compared to the feeble form of Jahred, masculine. Standing awkwardly behind his desk, it was clear he had not been expecting visitors.

     “What is it” there was no expression in the man’s voice.

     “Well, sorry sir, I knew not what to do, but, one of the children asked me a question.”

     “What sort of question.”

     “He asked, what if The Law isn’t right sir” Viktor’s eyes, which had been lazily wandering the room, fixed themselves on the teacher’s face. He spoke,

     “You’re a teacher, Jahred, he will have to learn, I suppose.”

     “Yes sir.” For a minute the two stood, neither sure of what to do, facing each other with their eyes concentrated anywhere but on the other’s face. Despite being the only two teachers in the school, they rarely spoke; this visit had been the first in years.

     “You’d best get to it then… eh … Jahred.” Viktor mumbled blandly.

     “Yes” this was followed by a large pause as if Jahred had more to say, when suddenly he turned and strode out of the room.

    

As Jahred descended the wooden steps back to the classroom, he considered this thought. Indeed, the child would have to learn, but no one had questioned the Law since he had been a tutor; he was not sure this child would accept the book’s teachings as readily as the rest. He was stunned at the boy’s distrust - the book told of feats of nature that surely could not be perceived without the help of the designer himself – erosion, tide, gravity – unfathomably complex ideas, which, if born of a human mind, would surely not fit together so perfectly. He put the thoughts out of his mind; the Law was all he knew, and he need not find proof of its wisdom.

    

The classroom was still silent, and all eyes were on Sailen, the youngest child; he glanced around him innocently, he did not understand what he had done wrong. The eyes stared back at him with an almost worried look, as if by questioning the Law he had condemned the entire class to punishment of some form. Sailen spoke;

     “Whoever wrote it could be wrong? Surely?” the exact question related to the gates of the chasm, stating that sailing a ship there would be dangerous. The book claimed this was due to the rocks that lay hidden under the waters surface, however the general belief was that the rocks would rise up and smash any vessel trying to leave the fissure. This was exactly the sort if thing his mother had said was superstitious nonsense.

     “You should learn to keep your thoughts to yourself” one boy sneered. Sailen thought it odd that this boy defended The Law so reverently, when all it seemed to do was restrict the children’s lives. His previous feelings of confusion were replaced with anger – why should he let that stupid book rule his life like it did everyone else’s? It could be said that Sailen was brave, for as he formulated a plan inside his mind, he knew that not only would he have to go against the will of the entire island, he would have to risk his life as well. With a sudden movement he stood up, and, while the entire class’ eyes followed him in a state of amazement, he strode to the door.

    

When Jahred had found his way to the classroom, the door was ajar. He stopped, turning his head slightly and pursing his lips, a look of intense concentration on his face. With a burst of speed he snatched the handle and flung the door open. The look of concentration returned as he surveyed the empty room, paper left on the desks, books half open, and him, completely aghast and without any idea what to do.

 

 The school of Acre was like a church, at least in shape – the classroom was long and wide, its wooden sides covered in moss and lichen, resembling the hull of a boat due to the slight curve at one end. The roof was tiled chaotically, as if the tiles had been thrown on by some careless child, and the tower, jammed into the roof of the building by a similar youngster, seemed more of an afterthought than a planned addition to the structure. This jagged mess sat upon a large hill that overlooked the rest of the town to the north and the coast to the south. Leading down to the dismal stretch of beach was a steep slope, littered with hardy trees and shrubs hugging the grassy wall like barnacles. It was down this slope that Sailen, thick with thoughts of hatred and revenge, picked his way as the entire class stared, looks of horror and disbelief across their faces. The beach was littered with wooden debris, remnants of the boat that bore the writer of Acre’s famous book on his geological voyages. The town people had imagined these scraps as one construction, albeit smaller than it actually was, facing the sharp waters surrounding Acre, and considered them religiously important; they would have been hauled up the hill and preserved in a museum on any other island. The effect caused when Sailen began hauling a large section of the wreckage towards the sea was no less potent, however, doubling the shocked look of the class into a complete and utter image of terror. This look found its way to the face of Jahred too, as he stumbled out of the school building to find his class assembled at the crest of the hill, and the tiny figure on the beach. No person could find a word, or sentence, to help the situation, and instead simply stared as, the wood now afloat a few feet from the sand, the boy grabbed the nearest plank and leapt onto the makeshift raft.

   

 No thoughts of safety had entered Sailen’s head until now, and though his resolve was strong, the waters chill bit into it savagely. As he paddled the raft on he felt surrounded, trapped by the waves. They were like great creatures to him, snarling and snapping around his legs, spitting up into his face. They roared at him, a boy of seven, these vicious beasts, and fear erupted in his heart. Glancing back to the shore he caught a glimpse of the shocked faces of the crowd before a huge wave crashed into him, sending boy and raft whirling through the icy ocean. Clinging to his boat, his only hope, he was thrown about under water, tossed up into the air before plunging down again. His eyes shut, he dare not breathe, he was incapable of thought or action, his only choice to fight on through wave after freezing wave until the onslaught was over. Feeling the raft rush towards the surface once more he opened his eyes to the stinging water and swam with all his strength, spiraling upwards as his lungs ached. He breached the surface and sucked in the salty air, the raft settling among the water as he lay face down and exhausted. He hauled his body upwards and looked ahead, but instead of ferocious waves curling over him he saw the rocks that marked his destination, that posed no danger to his tiny ship, and signaled the end of an era in Acre’s history. As he floated between them, water dripping of his clothes, he did not feel the chill in his bones or the pain in his eyes and lungs, and no rocks rose up and smashed his tiny craft, for he was right, and the book that had controlled the islands inhabitants for so many years had been proven wrong.