The Green-Walled Tower

February 1, 2013

Voices from the Past

This is part of my post-apocalyptic Aftermath series. The previous story was Droog the Angel. Here is the Aftermath Glossary.

The hot water that coursed over Edward’s head and down his back seemed to strip away more than the dirt and sweat of years. It soaked deep, washing away some of the pain and awakening a part of him that had existed, Before. He stood in the shower and reveled in becoming clean until Blake knocked on the door and told him the water tank was getting low.

Blake’s house was on the ground floor and looked out onto one of Cambridge’s ancient college quadrangles. The apartment was small, but warm and dry, and to Edward it looked like a palace. He came out of the shower and put on clean clothes that Blake had given him. The place peaceful and empty, but still he held his knife close to his side as he went into the living room. Blake was sitting by the electric heater, fiddling with a tiny gearbox.

“Thanks for the clothes and shower,” Edward said, standing uncertainly by the door. He glanced quickly behind him—no one was there.

“Not a problem,” Blake said, barely glancing up. “I’m happy to extend a few things to a friend of 8134—Droog, I should say. Just sit down and relax. You don’t need the knife.”

Edward sat down and crossed his arms, keeping the knife hidden in his hand. “So, how did you find him?”

“He found me,” Blake said. “He’s a smart little bot. He told me all about you—otherwise I’m not sure I’d have let you in here.”

“He doesn’t talk; he just blinks his red and green lights.”

“I put those lights there to make it easier to communicate,” Blake said, “but he does talk, if you ask him to and know the language. It’s Russian.” He held up an e-device. “I’ve got an instruct that will translate. I’ll give you a copy, if you want. He told me how you rescued that boy. Sean, right?”

Edward stood up, dropping his arms and unconsciously exposing the knife blade. “You have Sean? Where is he?”

Blake smiled. “Sit down, and put the knife away. He’s with Droog at the hospital—yes, we have such things here. He was almost dead when I found him and he would have been dead and eaten if not for Droog. You’re lucky to have that little bot.”

“I stole him, you know, from a guy named Joseph.”

“Droog says you invited him to come along on your quest. To find music, he said. You’re a complicated guy, Edward.”

“I thought bots couldn’t lie,” Edward said. He put away his knife slowly and sat down.

“They don’t have any morals,” Blake said, “but they also don’t have any guile or reason to lie. They tell things as they see them, but every so often, they just choose to interpret things a different way. Droog claims you requested him to come.”

Edward gave a small laugh. The shower had put him in a better mood than he could remember for a long time and hearing that Sean was safe made it even better. “You know, I don’t remember the last time I requested anyone to do anything,” he said.

Blake gave him a long look over the gearbox. “I’m not surprised, looking at you. Listen, you can stay the day here, but tomorrow night you’ll have to go. If you want, I can see about getting you a job somewhere around town: security or loading or something like that. Still, I don’t know if you’re the kind of guy who works well with others.”

Edward gave him a thin smile. “I want to see Sean.”

They left Blake’s house and walked through narrow streets of the city. They were lit with electric lights, quiet, and what amazed Edward most of all, clean. People passed them, talking quietly. There were no raucous market sellers, not street rats, not even any weapons that he could see.

“Isn’t there any crime here?” he asked Blake.

“Of course,” Blake replied. “There’s crime everywhere, but nothing like out there. The penalties are harsh too: often execution or worse.”

“Worse?”

“Exile,” Blake said. “Fear of the outside is a better enforcer of the law than any number of policemen.” He led the way up a set of stone steps and into a long hall.

“This is just the local clinic. The bigger hospital is across the city, but I thought this would be sufficient.”

They came to a long room with beds lining the walls. Droog was standing by the third one on the right and lying on the bed was the little boy, Sean. He had an IV in his arm and looked to be asleep. Blake called over a doctor, who said that Sean was improving and would probably fully recover in a week or two.

“Have you thought about what you want to do next?” Blake asked. “As I said, you can stay with me today, but that’s all. All other lodgings in the city are for workers. Ain’t no tourists here.”

“You’re right when you said I probably wouldn’t work well with others,” Edward said. “I’d best be moving on out of here, but do you think he could stay here?”

Blake was shaking his head before Edward even finished. “Only the children of workers can stay. If you stay, you adopt him; otherwise, you’ll have to take him when you go.”

Edward looked down at the sleeping boy on the bed and wished he could just leave him. He felt as if he barely knew his own mind anymore. Why did he feel he owed this boy anything? He had never killed a kid, it was true, but he had robbed a good many and pushed them around. This wasn’t penance for them; he honestly didn’t care about any of them. But still . . . He shook his head, as if trying to put it in order.

“I don’t think I’d fit in this city, but I’d like to do something to earn a place for the boy, at least.”

Blake smiled. “I think I know the person you want to talk to. She’s the Secretary of the Exterior. I’ve worked with her a few times, when I go out exploring for robots. “

They left Droog and Sean and walked for half an hour, to the heart of the city. They entered an area with more guards where Edward had to give up his knife. Finally, they were escorted down a hall and their guide opened a large, ornate door.

Edward found himself in a large oak-paneled office with leather furniture and shelves of books. A ‘Munculus bot and a larger Myoolbot, both painted yellow, stood to one side. Behind a large desk sat a middle-aged woman with close-cropped hair and wearing a leather jacket.

“Madame Secretary, I brought someone who is interested in expeditionary work. His name is—”

“Wait,” the woman said, cutting him off. “I think I know him.” She gave Edward a long look and then broke into a grin. “Hey there, crackerjack.”

She looked older, but Edward recognized her. From deep withing the annals of his memory a name slowly rose. “Hestia?” he said.

7 Comments | tags: aftermath, Cambridge, Droog, Edward Morrison, fiction, post apocalyptic, robot, science fiction, Sean | posted in Aftermath

January 31, 2013

Amalgam – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Another installment of the close-enough-to-Friday Fictioneers.

I wake up at the workbench again, the dust of my unconscious labors packed under my fingernails and my hands aching from clenching the mallet and chisel all night. I recoil as I see what is emerging from the block of plaster: Morpheus and Hephaestus—Dream and Craft—overlapping and melded into a macabre amalgam; a thing which cannot be, yet is. It is a thing I feel myself slowly becoming.

People marvel at my sculptures at art exhibits. They beg me to share my secret inspiration, but I just smile.

Because I honestly don’t know.

And it scares me.

59 Comments | tags: art, creepy, dreams, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, mythology, sculpture, sleep | posted in Dusk

January 29, 2013

When Space and Time become Meaningless (and other cosmological musing)

By David Stewart

I love to think about space and time. I find them fascinating. However, I’m not a cosmologist, so I don’t come at the subject with equations and theories. I just think and ponder. It’s more fun that way (for me, at least). If you don’t think they’re interesting, I’m sorry. Let me assure you though that more fiction will be up tomorrow.

Courtesy of newscenter.lbl.gov

We rarely think about space since it is such a fundamental part of our reality (in this post I mean “space” to be the area in which we move, not outer space). However, if you think about it, the idea of space is meaningless without matter. After all, when we measure distance, it is only defined as the amount of space between two pieces of matter. In math, a defined length is between two points. A ray, with one defined point, cannot have a defined length, since one end goes on forever, but we can still start measuring it, because we can start at the defined point. But what if you had a line with no defined points at all? The idea of distance would be meaningless. It could be the length of an atom or a galaxy. There would be no way to know.

Think of it another way: Imagine that nothing exists in the universe except a single photon, a particle of light. We know the speed that light travels in a vacuum, so we know that the light has to be traveling at 299 792 458 m/s. However, with no matter to define its progress, the movement of the photon is meaningless. It could speed up or slow down but to an observer outside the universe (if such a thing were possible) it would look as if it were not moving at all, regardless of its speed.

Time is very interesting to me too. An interesting thing is that while we use time to measure the speed of matter and energy, we can never measure the speed of time itself. That is because speed can only be measured relative to something else and we have no alternative to time.

Imagine that you are on a spaceship with no windows. There is no way of knowing how fast you are going (without instruments) or even of knowing if you are moving at all. Even if there were windows, but no planets or stars nearby, it would be impossible to tell. Speed can only be measured relative to something else.

From the point of view of an outside observer of the universe, the speed of time could fluctuate or even stop and we would never know. If this seems hard to understand, think of it like reading a book. For a fast reader, the story progresses quicker, but for a slow reader, it goes slowly. However, for the characters in the story, time goes exactly the same pace. You can even put the book down and pick it up a year later and the characters will never know the difference. The story only stops relative to the reader, something that the characters have no access to.

Another interesting implication of time is that it is only made meaningful by energy, which is manifested by movement through space. Imagine the entire universe with just matter but no energy. It would be frozen, dead, unmoving. Time would exist, but it would make no difference, since without energy, nothing would change and so regardless of how much time passed, everything would look the same. Without energy, a world with time passing and one without time passing would look exactly the same to an outside observer, just like the live video feed of a rock will look exactly like a picture of a rock, since neither one will move.

Courtesy of iacmusic.com

Do you understand what I’m getting at? Totally confused? Got a headache? Think I’m totally off base? Let me know in the comments. I like discussing these kinds of things.

25 Comments | tags: cosmology, musings, science, space, time | posted in Uncategorized

January 28, 2013

Fantastic Travelogue #3 – The Light in the Woods

By David Stewart

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

The worst part about being locked up all day is not being able to go to the bathroom. This wasn’t a dank prison cell I was confined in: it was a nice parlor with polished wood floors and walls covered with a pale pink, fibrous paper. It held nowhere where a civilized person could even hope to respectfully relieve themselves. At that moment, I had just eaten as much as I wanted to of the meal and was feeling very comfortable, but I did not count on that feeling lasting.

I knocked on the door some more and tried calling, but no one answered. Finally, I sat down and looked at the signboard above the door. I had noticed it when I was eating but now I stared at it and tried to make some sense of it. It looked like Chinese, but the characters were a lot more curvy than what I was used to. From what I could tell, it meant “the fortress of the rising light” which would have been typical of the grand and lofty names of most Korean palace buildings.

Things were getting urgent in the bathroom department and finally I started pounding on the door, calling out in every language I knew just to let me out for a moment. The door opened without warning and the head woman stood in front of me, holding two fingers to her mouth. When I started to speak, she put the fingers on my lips, which shut me up quick. She evidently perceived my distress in my expression and in my stance since she made a little noise of comprehension and slammed the door in my face. The young woman I had met in the forest opened the door and put a earthenware pot on the floor along with a small basket of freshly-picked leaves. She gave me a smile and then shut the door again.

Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do, and I did what I had to do. The rest of the afternoon, I moped around, wishing I had a book at least. A couple times, one of the women would open the door a crack to push in a tray with water or some fruit on it. They were at least running a hospitable prison.

I must have dozed off because I woke up to find the room much darker. Peering through cracks in the shutters, I could tell that the sun had set outside. I could hear shouts and cries and some of them sounded male to me. The men are back, I thought, unsure if I was relieved or not.

I stuck my hand out the small window and managed to push the wooden shutter out a little. It was fastened at the bottom, but I could move it enough to see through a crack between them. There seemed to be bonfires built around the village and by the dancing red light, I could see the outline of the nearby houses and the dark wood looming up beyond them.

At that moment, a burst of white light erupted from within the forest. It coalesced into a pillar of white light that shone straight up. It’s a spotlight, I thought. It was coming from the area of the large stone ring and I realized that they must have been preparing for a concert or something there. Why they would need to lock me up to keep me out of the way, I wasn’t sure, but they had been nice enough to me besides that.

A ball of light flew away from the pillar of light and moved horizontally through the forest. Okay, that’s weird, I thought. More and more erupted and flew here and there. Some of them came over the houses and rested on the tips of the roofs. Ball lightning was the only thing I could think of. I’d never seen it, but I had heard that it acted crazy. An orb of light came towards me scuttling along the ground, but it missed the building and kept going.

A sound like a scream came from the forest. It could not have been human though, because it was constant in pitch and grew slowly in volume, until it sounded more like the roar of a jet engine. Shadows were being thrown around in the forest, as if things were dancing in front of the light pillar.

I sat down on the floor and pulled my knees up to my chest. Suddenly, I was just tired of being there. All I wanted was to go home.

5 Comments | tags: Fantastic Travelogue, fantasy, fiction, fortress, Korea, light, prison, travelogue | posted in Travelogue

January 27, 2013

Captain Butterfly – Visual Fiction #16

By David Stewart

You think you’re in control, don’t you? “Look!” you say. “A butterfly! Let me see if I can take a picture.” You get the camera out slowly, marveling that I’m not moving at all. And then, snap! you get a picture.

What you don’t know is that while I’ve been posing for you, my little ant friends have been untying your shoes. You start to walk away, notice your shoes, and bend down to re-tie them. This gives my sparrow comrades a stationary target to dive-bomb with poop.

Now you’re really getting annoyed, but you take off your pack and jacket to clean them off. While you’re distracted, the chipmunks and spiders get to work unzipping your pack and searching for all the best little goodies you’ve got stored away.

An hour later, you stop for lunch and think, “Huh, I thought I packed a sandwich.”

You did. Thanks for the chow, loser.

taken on Sapshido Island, Korea

13 Comments | tags: animals, butterfly, Korea, nature, photograph, theft, visual fiction | posted in Visual Fiction

January 26, 2013

Droog the Angel

By David Stewart

The latest chapter in the Aftermath series. The previous story was Droog Comes Home. There is also an Aftermath Glossary.

Edward Morrison felt powerless and that made him angry. He had been wandering the satellite slums of Cambridge for two days, searching for his robot Droog and the boy he called Sean. Why do I even care? Why don’t I just go? his mind demanded, but then the question always arose: Go where? He had no food, no supplies, no plan. What had he been thinking when he had left Free Frall? It had seemed so simple then.

He was also fiercely hungry. In Freefrall, he would merely go and take food if he needed it, but here people were shrewder, and far more dangerous. He had managed to steal a scrawny pheasant from an old woman in the market—just grabbed it off her table and ran. She was quick though, and a second after his hand closed on the bird, her knife was flashing towards his ribs. It missed him and he could hear her cursing him for a long ways away, even over the normal murmur of the crowds. He had eaten it furtively in the dark, gnawing quickly like an animal afraid of having its prize stolen.

That had been a day ago. Now he was starving again and becoming desperate. He would have ambushed someone and killed them for their food except that no one ventured outside the markets alone and everyone was heavily armed.

Dawn was close when he finally stumbled back to the nest he had found under some stubby bushes. It wasn’t much, but it kept the sun’s blistering rays off him . The air was sweltering and he slept fitfully, his dreams melding with hallucinations from the heat and thirst and his gnawing hunger.

He dreamed that he was in a dark room surrounded by all the people he had killed over the years. They came at him, one by one, and he had to fight them again and again. I’m so tired, I just want to sleep, he thought, but they wouldn’t stop. Then the scene shifted and he was wandering over the dark countryside with Droog, looking for Sean. He was too tired to pay attention and after a while, Droog led him to a place under the bushes, where he could rest. Droog did not leave, but kept leaning over him, making little noises and prodding him…

Edward pulled himself upright with a sharp intake of breath. Droog was standing in front of him, pushing his small, metal body partway the hollow in the bushes.

“Droog, you little gear-rat! How did you find me?” Edward shouted in surprise. He stopped as a coughing fit grabbed him. Droog reached into a bag he was carrying and pulled out a bottle of water and a metal container, which turned out to hold food. The water was warm, but cleaner than any Edward could remember and the food… he had not tasted food so good since Before, when food was plentiful and taken for granted.

Droog waited as Edward wolfed down the food and water. The position of the sun showed that it was late afternoon: about four hours until darkness. Droog took something else out of the bag and handed it to Edward. It was a suit of shiny, white material that included pants, jacket, gloves, hat and goggles.

“You want me to put this on?” Edward asked, although the answer was obvious. “Where are we going, Droog? Where did you get this stuff?” Droog did not reply, but simply indicated the clothes.

Edward put them, trying not to rip them on the bushes around him. They were bulky, but not hot and they seemed to cool him down, if anything. When he was completely covered, Droog went outside and he followed.

Edward had not been outside during the day in seventeen years. He had heard stories of people who had gotten caught outside when the sun rose: sunburns within a minute, third degree burns in an hour. The goggles cut the glare and for a moment, it was like he had was back then—Before—when he would walk outside in the sun’s warm light for hours.

They walked back through the Silver Street market and came to the bridge across the canal that led to the fortified city of Cambridge. Guards were there behind locks gates, wearing similar white suits and goggles. Droog handed them two square cards and they unlocked the gates. Just like that, Edward was in the protected city.

Droog must mean angel, he thought. Suddenly, the combined effect of the food, the sunlight and his sudden reversal of fortunes made tears start streaming down his cheeks. He hated them and the weakness they implied, but there was no way to make them stop.

5 Comments | tags: aftermath, angel, Cambridge, Droog, Edward Morrison, fiction, post apocalyptic, rescue, robot, science fiction | posted in Aftermath

January 24, 2013

Frankie Waits – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Long live the Friday Fictioneers~

The Caribbean sun warmed the salt-scrubbed planks of the boardwalk as Frankie trotted to the beach, tail wagging. Just before the sand, he stopped and scanned the beach, looking for his master. Seeing no one, he lay down in the shade of the tall palm and waited.

* * *

“There’s Frankie, out under his palm again. 7:30, just like clockwork.”

“He’s faithful, is he?”

“Seven years running; ever since Jim left to circumnavigate the world. His boat disappeared in a storm and everyone gave him up for dead.”

“I guess no one told Frankie.”

“He wouldn’t listen if they did. He believes.”

61 Comments | tags: beach, Caribbean, dog, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, shipwreck, waiting | posted in Light

January 23, 2013

Spare Change

By David Stewart

It’s weird how sometimes big things start with something so small that you wouldn’t notice it if you were in a hurry.

My name is Adam Flynn and I am on a quest for something I have never seen, but I know now must be out there. Logically, it’s a hopeless quest, like looking for your lost ring in the whole Pacific ocean. Still, gotta try, right?

It all started when I bought a jar of change at auction. I bought it for the jar, not the coins, since it was a unique shape and my sister collects jars. I figured I could resell the coins if any of them turned out to be valuable.

I brought the jar home and managed to get the lid off—it was glued on for some reason—and dumped the coins out onto the bed and started to put them into piles. I glanced at the dates of some of them, if I thought they looked especially old.

I picked one up, saw it started with 20- and dropped it on the bed until my mind caught up with what I’d seen. I picked it up again and felt a chill go down my back. The date on the coin was 2016. The date today is January 23, 2013. The coin wasn’t even new; it was scratched and worn, like it had been in circulation for a long time. I can’t explain this, but I want to find out more.

Let me know if you see anything like that.

21 Comments | tags: Adam Flynn, change, conspiracy, creepy, fiction, money | posted in Dusk

January 22, 2013

Funny Stories in a Bomb Shelter: A Daily Post Writing Challenge

By David Stewart

This post was prompted by the Daily Post writing challenge, the Devil is in the Details. The point is to write something and add a lot of details to give a good picture of whatever you are talking about. It’s supposed to be three paragraphs long, but oh well. It’s my post, right?

The last story I wrote that made my dad laugh out loud, I wrote in the old bomb shelter behind our house. It should be a solemn place, but that’s where I write my funny stories. It’s quiet down there, and I find that inspiring. It’s such a unique place that I think it would inspire anyone.

Just like Blast from the Past…except, not at all

The bomb shelter was built in 1957 by the original owner of the house, Mr. Nelson Harwick. It used to have a steel hatch and a wheel lock on it, but my dad was afraid someone would suffocate in there, so he took it off and built a cover out of 2×6’s. He painted it green to match the lawn and stuck a Master steel padlock on it to keep the raccoons out. The rusted steel hinge barrels are still there from the original hatch though, still sticking out of the concrete.

I don’t know what the original ladder was like, but the current one is made of welded rebar that my cousin Fred put in for a 4-H project when I was little. It used to have sandpaper on the rungs to give it grip, but that’s worn away now. You have to be really careful, especially on dewy mornings, which is when I like to go down there.

The shelter walls are lined with lime-green industrial shelving, which makes the useable space only about eight feet across and twenty feet long. The area around the ladder is full of wooden crates with light brown burlap sacks from when Mom used to store extra vegetables there. There’s a faint septic smell of rotten potatoes right near the entrance, but it disappears as you move further in.

The main smell is a damp, earthy smell but that is overlaid with a touch of smoky vanilla from Uncle Lenny’s Black Cavendish pipe tobacco. He and Aunt Gwen only live three quarters of a mile away on Route 12 and he likes to come over and smoke down in the shelter when he and Aunt Gwen are fighting. The smell reminds me of him and his deep, infectious laugh. For some reason, we never end up in the shelter at the same time, but that’s probably for the best. We both like our privacy.

It looks similar to this one

There used to be electricity in the bomb shelter, but it was cut before we moved in, so I do things the old-fashioned way. I bought a pre-World War One kerosene lantern at a fly market for twelve bucks and since you can buy kerosene down at the Irving station, I keep it down there for light. To light it, I adjust the wick with a little wheel on the side and then lift the glass lamp chimney to reach in with a kitchen match. The lamp gives off a really clear, steady yellow light that lights up the whole room.

It’s funny—when I write I’m surrounded by food, although I would never eat any of it. It was fully stocked by Mr. Harwick in case of nuclear war and my parents have never thrown it out. My mom keeps it because she likes looking at all the foods she remembers from when she was a kid. My dad contends that it’s still good and says we should keep it around just in case. The steel cans are rusty on top and the ones in the back have so many cobwebs they’re like little spider cities. I wouldn’t eat any of it—not even the little cans of StarKist tuna, which I absolutely adore.

I write all my funny stories in a brown leather-bound blank book I got from my parents for my birthday. Whenever I finish a story, I give it to my dad to read. He always smiles, but if he chuckles that’s a good sign. If he laughs out loud, then it’s officially a good story. If he laughs until he cries then the story would probably win a Pulitzer, but that’s never happened yet.

Actually, as I’ve been writing this, I’ve gotten a good idea for a funny story. I’m going to go down to the shelter right now to write it down.

7 Comments | tags: bomb shelter, description, DPchallenge, fiction, outside the tower, writing | posted in Light

January 21, 2013

Fantastic Travelogue #2 – The Amazon Fortress

By David Stewart

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

Life is good, I thought as I strolled through the forest, listening to the birds conversing in the trees, and breathing the warm, living scent of nature. The path had dropped down into tall trees and I could no longer see the golden dome that I had spied from higher up.

I came around a bend in the trail and found myself standing in front of wide disk of stone, about fifteen feet in diameter and carved around its edge with some amazingly intricate work. A young woman was standing on the stone. She was holding a broom, as if she had been in the act of sweeping it off, although now she was frozen in place and staring at me. She wore a light gray skirt and a slightly darker gray jacket, and her long, black hair was braided down her back. She was also insanely beautiful.

Life is getting better, I thought—not in a lascivious way, you understand, but just in a general way of admiring the beauty all around me.

“Annyeonghaseyo,” I said, greeting her in Korean and bowing slightly. She bowed her head, but didn’t say anything. “Is there a restaurant around here? I’m a bit hungry,” I said, but again she did not respond and just keep staring at me. It was a bit ridiculous that no one could understand me, I thought. After all, even if these people had a very strong mountain dialect, they must still be able to understand standard Korean. They watch TV, don’t they?

I mimed eating, taking food up my mouth with an invisible fork (which I quickly changed to invisible chopsticks). The girl said something and I nodded, because honestly, nodding even when you don’t understand becomes a bit of a reflex after a while. She seemed to come to a decision suddenly and climbed down from the stone and motioned for me to follow her.

Not even two minutes later, we came to a sort of village. The houses here were similar to the old woman’s house I had visited earlier that morning but beyond them, I saw a stone wall rising up above the roofs. It had to be at least fifteen feet tall and was tipped with what looked like golden spikes. It continued out of sight, both left and right across the valley and I could see that we were on the inside of the wall. Somehow, I had come down in the middle of a mountain fortress.

I saw a few woman here and there as we walked among the houses, but there were no men visible anywhere. As soon as the women saw me, they jumped up and looked quite agitated. The first few just yelled at me (or at the young woman guiding me) but a few rushed at me, brandishing tools of various sorts as if they wanted to attack me. The young woman starting talking really quickly and it was pretty obvious there was a huge argument going on. I bowed and smiled awkwardly at a few of them, until this seemed to make things worse and I just looked down and scuffed my boots in the dirt.

After about five minutes, an older woman came up and everyone stopped arguing. She didn’t have a name tag that said “The Boss” but it was pretty obvious. Also, her clothes were more colorful than anyone else’s. They had a much more respectful discussion in which everyone ignored me. I was just thinking about climbing back up the mountain pass to try to find my way back when they stopped and the head woman bowed to me. I bowed back and said, “It’s nice to meet you. I hope I’m not disturbing you.” This prompted another minute of discussion. I don’t know why I kept speaking Korean to them when they obviously couldn’t understand it, but it seemed rude not to say anything and I hadn’t quite gotten to the place where I just gave up and spoke English.

The head woman said something and all the other women suddenly dispersed and went back to their houses until it was only me, the head woman and the young woman left. They led me to a large house whose walls were made of stone for four feet, and then wood above that. The young woman led me to a bare room with small windows along the top of the wall. There was a low table and a cushion on the floor. I took off my boots and she motioned for me to sit down. Then she left.

Well, this is certainly an experience, I thought as I sat there alone. It intrigued me that I hadn’t seen any technology here at all. I wondered if it was a Folk Village or a UNESCO Heritage Site, where they did everything in the traditional way.

I also wondered where all the men were. Perhaps this was some hidden tribe of Amazons living in Korea and I was the first man they had seen in years. This didn’t excite me as much as you might think. For one thing, I was married, so I wasn’t looking for any significant increase of women in my life. Also, I had read about the original Amazons. They were scary.

The young woman came back presently with a tray loaded with food, all in individual dishes, which was refreshingly Korean. As she was arranging them on the table, I tried to learn her name. “David,” I said, pointing to myself. Then I pointed to her. “You?” I did this several times, but apparently movies have lied to us about this being a universal gesture since she just stared at me uncomprehendingly.

I was about to ask (i.e. gesture) if she was going to eat too when she stood up and left, closing the door behind her. I heard a sound like a bar being put down across the door. I went and tried the door and sure enough, it was locked firmly. A moment later, someone put down shutters over the small windows, throwing the room into deep gloom.

Great, they had put me in prison. Still, I wasn’t too worried yet. At least they had given me food, and if I ever got out, it would make a great story. That is my view on all bad experiences. So I sat down and started to eat.