Veracity
Lavorato, Mark
ISBN 13: 978-1-897381-21-2
Paperback; perfect bound; 5.5 x 8.5
Sample Excerpt, © Rain Publishing Inc.
Chapter 2
If I think back as far as I can, I don’t remember faces. There was always an Elder there, but as we could only spend a day with them before being handed over to another, and then another, one of them doesn’t really stick out in my mind. Instead, my earliest memory is one of sensations. The sound of waves is everywhere, its low frothing noise never letting up, tirelessly rolling on. I can also hear the sound of the breeze blowing through the palms, but it’s impossible to tell where their rustling begins and the churning of the waves ends, the sounds meld into each other and become the same. And just above this cohesive sighing, I can hear the distant moan of a wood flute; though, I don’t know where it’s coming from, as if it’s being played from around a corner, behind a boulder, or hidden in some dark place beneath the trees. The air is sodden with moisture, and the colour of the sky hazy. My feet are bare, and there is sand perpetually stuck between my toes.
After this memory comes a cloud of learning. It, too, is indistinct; but maybe none of us can recall when our education begins, it’s just suddenly there, everywhere, and in everything we do. We’re being shown how to do things, guided through the steps of processes, people moving our hands to trace the lines on a page, helping our clumsy fingers tie a knot, squaring our shoulders to a slate with some symbols scratched onto it and leaning over us, the reverberations being felt on our backs as their voices drawl out the sound of a letter with slow, deliberate intonation.
And this primary learning, of course, gave way to secondary learning; and I think I loved most all of it. The Elders and I complemented each other perfectly. I was interested, curious, and they wanted to explain everything. Indeed, it seemed there was nothing that they couldn’t do, no contraption they couldn’t build, no function in nature they couldn’t make clear, no animal they didn’t know the name or habits of. As a resource they were almost limitless. Almost.
I remember, and at a very early age, being frustrated that they seemed so puzzled by one of the simplest concepts in life: boyhood. Whereas, at the time, for me, it was as easy to understand as walking. I knew that an integral part of being a boy was the act of destroying things – it was that simple. We ripped apart plants, squished insects, threw rocks at the ground to smash them in half, or better, in three, or in ten, or in hundreds of pieces. We rolled boulders down hills and into the water to see how large a splash we could make, or sometimes into trees, watching with wide eyes as the impact shook the branches, undulating out to the leaves, and then running down to inspect the damage, fingering the torn bark, fascinated. I understood that this was normal. Yet, for some reason, it never ceased to baffle them, and then enrage them, until they felt impelled to scold us for our ‘random devastation’, as they often called it. (Consequently, we grew to be quite secretive about our entertainment; and, generally speaking, the more fun it was, the more secretive we had to be.)
But in spite of keeping as many of our activities hidden from them as we could, they sometimes still managed to catch us doing things we shouldn’t. Often this was in moments when our guard was down, when we were sure we had nothing to hide. For instance, three of us might be chatting in the forest – which was the largest number we were allowed to gather in without an Elder present – and one of them would pass by anyway, just to make sure we were behaving ourselves.
At first, it would look like he or she was just going to saunter past, but then they would stop dead, looking at the ground near our feet, horrified. We would also look down and see that one of us, without even having noticed, had yanked out the arcing branch of a fern, or some other plant that had been within reach, and had systematically plucked every one of its leaves off, from one end to the other. And so there lay the proof, a scattering of pitiful green teeth on the ground between us, wilting in the heat. Our postures would slump. Great. We would look up at the Elder, who would point a rigid arm at the leaves, and we would follow his or her finger back down to the ground again and look at the leaves more intently this time, trying to adopt gestures that also seemed appalled, but not really succeeding.
Then a stern voice would ask: ‘Why did you destroy this plant for no reason?’ And we would look around at each other, because, frankly, it was a tricky question to answer; apparently, we’d done it for no reason. So the only response left was to gape up at them with sorry, if stupid expressions on our faces, and wait for them to reprimand us.
Which they would.
After shaking their heads they would scoot us into one of the community buildings where we would have to sit at one of the long wooden tables and think about what we’d done.
Though, truth be told, we wouldn’t really think. Instead we would make faces at one another, smear earwax on our neighbors’ arms, kick each other’s shins until someone yelped, which was sometimes all that was needed to be dismissed.
The Elder who had ushered us into the building would stand suddenly, exasperated, pointing at the door and telling us to leave at once, maybe demanding that we go to another Elder, who was sure be more strict or consequent, and explain to them what we’d done.
Whenever this happened, I would purposefully be the last one to leave as we scurried through the doorway, because I’d discovered, quite by accident, that if one turned around and peeked back inside once the Elder was alone and unaware that he or she was being watched, occasionally, there was a mysterious thing that took place.
I knew that adults behaved differently in front of children; I knew that there was a kind of drama where they acted a part that wasn’t really who they were, but who they should be. Because, for some reason, children aren’t supposed to know that adults are as flawed as they are, instead, they ought to see them as an ideal being that they should strive to become……….
Lavorato, Mark
ISBN 13: 978-1-897381-21-2
Paperback; perfect bound; 5.5 x 8.5
Sample Excerpt, © Rain Publishing Inc.
Chapter 2
If I think back as far as I can, I don’t remember faces. There was always an Elder there, but as we could only spend a day with them before being handed over to another, and then another, one of them doesn’t really stick out in my mind. Instead, my earliest memory is one of sensations. The sound of waves is everywhere, its low frothing noise never letting up, tirelessly rolling on. I can also hear the sound of the breeze blowing through the palms, but it’s impossible to tell where their rustling begins and the churning of the waves ends, the sounds meld into each other and become the same. And just above this cohesive sighing, I can hear the distant moan of a wood flute; though, I don’t know where it’s coming from, as if it’s being played from around a corner, behind a boulder, or hidden in some dark place beneath the trees. The air is sodden with moisture, and the colour of the sky hazy. My feet are bare, and there is sand perpetually stuck between my toes.
After this memory comes a cloud of learning. It, too, is indistinct; but maybe none of us can recall when our education begins, it’s just suddenly there, everywhere, and in everything we do. We’re being shown how to do things, guided through the steps of processes, people moving our hands to trace the lines on a page, helping our clumsy fingers tie a knot, squaring our shoulders to a slate with some symbols scratched onto it and leaning over us, the reverberations being felt on our backs as their voices drawl out the sound of a letter with slow, deliberate intonation.
And this primary learning, of course, gave way to secondary learning; and I think I loved most all of it. The Elders and I complemented each other perfectly. I was interested, curious, and they wanted to explain everything. Indeed, it seemed there was nothing that they couldn’t do, no contraption they couldn’t build, no function in nature they couldn’t make clear, no animal they didn’t know the name or habits of. As a resource they were almost limitless. Almost.
I remember, and at a very early age, being frustrated that they seemed so puzzled by one of the simplest concepts in life: boyhood. Whereas, at the time, for me, it was as easy to understand as walking. I knew that an integral part of being a boy was the act of destroying things – it was that simple. We ripped apart plants, squished insects, threw rocks at the ground to smash them in half, or better, in three, or in ten, or in hundreds of pieces. We rolled boulders down hills and into the water to see how large a splash we could make, or sometimes into trees, watching with wide eyes as the impact shook the branches, undulating out to the leaves, and then running down to inspect the damage, fingering the torn bark, fascinated. I understood that this was normal. Yet, for some reason, it never ceased to baffle them, and then enrage them, until they felt impelled to scold us for our ‘random devastation’, as they often called it. (Consequently, we grew to be quite secretive about our entertainment; and, generally speaking, the more fun it was, the more secretive we had to be.)
But in spite of keeping as many of our activities hidden from them as we could, they sometimes still managed to catch us doing things we shouldn’t. Often this was in moments when our guard was down, when we were sure we had nothing to hide. For instance, three of us might be chatting in the forest – which was the largest number we were allowed to gather in without an Elder present – and one of them would pass by anyway, just to make sure we were behaving ourselves.
At first, it would look like he or she was just going to saunter past, but then they would stop dead, looking at the ground near our feet, horrified. We would also look down and see that one of us, without even having noticed, had yanked out the arcing branch of a fern, or some other plant that had been within reach, and had systematically plucked every one of its leaves off, from one end to the other. And so there lay the proof, a scattering of pitiful green teeth on the ground between us, wilting in the heat. Our postures would slump. Great. We would look up at the Elder, who would point a rigid arm at the leaves, and we would follow his or her finger back down to the ground again and look at the leaves more intently this time, trying to adopt gestures that also seemed appalled, but not really succeeding.
Then a stern voice would ask: ‘Why did you destroy this plant for no reason?’ And we would look around at each other, because, frankly, it was a tricky question to answer; apparently, we’d done it for no reason. So the only response left was to gape up at them with sorry, if stupid expressions on our faces, and wait for them to reprimand us.
Which they would.
After shaking their heads they would scoot us into one of the community buildings where we would have to sit at one of the long wooden tables and think about what we’d done.
Though, truth be told, we wouldn’t really think. Instead we would make faces at one another, smear earwax on our neighbors’ arms, kick each other’s shins until someone yelped, which was sometimes all that was needed to be dismissed.
The Elder who had ushered us into the building would stand suddenly, exasperated, pointing at the door and telling us to leave at once, maybe demanding that we go to another Elder, who was sure be more strict or consequent, and explain to them what we’d done.
Whenever this happened, I would purposefully be the last one to leave as we scurried through the doorway, because I’d discovered, quite by accident, that if one turned around and peeked back inside once the Elder was alone and unaware that he or she was being watched, occasionally, there was a mysterious thing that took place.
I knew that adults behaved differently in front of children; I knew that there was a kind of drama where they acted a part that wasn’t really who they were, but who they should be. Because, for some reason, children aren’t supposed to know that adults are as flawed as they are, instead, they ought to see them as an ideal being that they should strive to become……….
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