the blinkers and the glass ocean (chapter one)

[xantipopeninjax]

-------Once upon a time, back when the mountains were still young, the oceans were smooth and glassy, as if someone could walk right across them. In fact, many did; unlike today, when the waters' rolling restless yawns set to sleep almost anything that men labor to set across it, those days people were welcome over the waters. The ocean was content and sleeping, like a turquiose scarf laid over a glass ball. Instead of mail, people all around the world had taken to the most peculiar practice. If one wanted to contact another, they would not use paper mail or phones; copper was in great demand, however. A whole class of scribe metalworkers existed in each country whose responsibility it was to inscribe copper balls with messages, stories, myths... anything worth writing was etched onto a copper ball. These balls were carved and then taken down, covered in flowing letters and symbols, to the ocean and rolled to their destination. This took little force, as the glassy surface was smooth and effortless to move across. Instead of waiting for mail to arrive, people would stand out on the beach each day and wait for noon, when the copper balls would roll over the horizon like dozens of rising suns. People would step down to the water and collect them, looking for their names, and bring the shining messages home. This system worked wonderfully, except when a great document was written. Greater statements required larger and larger balls. When the leader of ancient Occidentia sent out his "Constitution to the States and Treakle Producing Nations," the unstoppably large ball took a hundred men to carry to the beach, and by the time it reached the daily noon arrivals, it had gained so much momentum people thought the sun had fallen into the sea! It then proceeded to roll into the town, destroying 14 treakle factories, 3 foccarias and a dog before it stopped against an obelisk. The townsfolk still celebrate "the day the obelisk saved us all." There is an hour of mournful silence for Rover.
             A great many laypeople would cross this placid blue: traders and caravans, artists, travelers and seekers. I set out on my own, unassuming and humble, for my first exploration. Why? I'm not sure. The life I lived was simple and full, joyous, but the kind of life that calls one to pilgrimage. I was born in a coast town, the sun rising quietly through east windows every morning. We would rise with it, shing orange through our eyelids. It was a town of orchards. The people picked apricots (which were much larger in the day; round and juicy like grapefruits.) They were the finest apricots, orange yellow as the sun that dried them, sweet but slightly tart, as if to show everything's perfection in being not quite perfect... oh, so many afternoons, slowly eating apricots in the sun... but that was long ago, and memories like that are only truly enjoyed by the ones who lived them.
               There was a great holiday when I was a boy.  The baelenocalia took place just when the sun had started to give way to the curtain of night....