'YOU ARE TRULY named child, for you are a creature of no consequence and never where you should be,' Father Dauntless said sternly.
'We blend because we must,' the girl replied. 'I am Truancy Mundane for a reason.'
'Yet you are not a child. Why must you trifle in some toy shop rather than help us seek that which we are looking for? You know, that thing which might give us purpose, direction and meaning to our lives.'
'Oh, that thing,' Truancy said lightly.
'It will not be found on a shelf in some store so you need not try to take from there.'
'I stole naught,' the girl declared proudly. 'Merely rearranged some things more pleasingly and left a sign that it was done. It's a strange place this toy shop. So full of joyful things for children, yet no child ever seems to be there. Something is missing and I tried to help for it seems a place without a soul.'
'I know the place,' Father Dauntless said, picturing wooden toys displayed in simple fashion, well crafted and perhaps fascinating in their way, but somehow lacking that magic a child needed to become attached to them. 'It is run by a childless couple.'
'Yes,' Truancy said, frowning. 'I felt something of that. They keep missing something, that restless man and his quiet little wife. She knits all the time as if trying to ravel all the wool across the Face of the World into endless soft shapes.' Truancy sighed. 'They yearn, just like us.'
'Not like us child.'
'Okay, not like us. Hum.'
'Do not give up on your search. You are young. Your spirit is strong, though your ability to concentrate more resembles a cat in a room full of sponge balls.'
'I will try my best,' Truancy smirked, 'or my name's not Truancy Mundane. There is so much to see and do.'
'Scratch the do bit,' Father Dauntless reminded his energetic pupil. 'There is much to observe and learn from. These frenetic people have so much to teach us unwittingly by the way they face life's problems.'
'Well, so far all I've noticed is some face life's problems by getting what these people call smashed while others just stare at the Big Blue Sea as if puzzled by what it might be for.'
'The, er, smashed ones clearly cannot face whatever it is they yearn for. It must be something incredibly intense for them to destroy themselves so readily in their despair at ever finding it. Yet in all my years of observing these particular creatures all I can make out is they seek companionship with the nearest person foolhardy enough to pass near them. Be careful of them for their mind-troubled state seems somehow to enhance their perceptions. One even cried on my shoulder once and it took a while to disengage from such an unsavoury embrace.'
'I'll remember not to get too close then Father,' Truancy said, picturing the dignified elder being slobbered over by a drunken type in search of a new best friend. 'They smell funny.'
Of course the young girl was new to a lot of the strange sights of Cherryball Flats.
Usually the tribe passed on the outskirts of larger settlements and lingered only a short time. This time though as they made their traditional circuit of the districts of Frangea there were rumours of things most strange in the land. Aside from the sense of foreboding some people seemed to embrace in peculiar fashion, an element of mystery had set usually inconsequential people talking.
Like those inebriated souls who somehow glimpsed veteran Blenders by the wondrous instrumentality of brain pickling, there were other troubled souls among the population of Cherryball Flats for whom insanity was an open door to higher things. Somehow they were aware of matters beyond the usual range of perceptions, the kind of things the Blue Hair Clan were aware of only on the edge of their senses and it made for exciting times.
There could be no more insane folk than the Enders of course. Perhaps they knew something of a mystery that energised beachcombers by the dozen and the occasional Minder patient lost in a moment of intense revelation?
Truancy wandered among these curious folk, seeking answers, but only finding questions.
How could one yearn for the end of the world, even in the abstract? What balance was there to be found between impoverishment on the one hand and enrichment on the other with a shadow looming over all, a doom with the potential to sweep everything away?
These people did yearn for something certainly. It was not oblivion but it was a kind of ending. The end of toil, of hard work, of worry and the striving after wealth so that rest might follow. They had learned from an early age that their path to success was hampered by misfortune and somehow this seeped into their troubled souls whenever they sought a way out of poverty. They could not picture optimism nor shape joy, thus to feed upon the fears of others seemed right and proper.
Wearisome misery then was the motive force behind such conjurings and the fate of their victims was a secondary consideration.
Having observed these doomsmiths for a while and realising their feeding off of prophetic eternity was in fact a short term business, Truancy felt she had learned enough of their narrow ways. It only left her with one abiding question.
Why did that shrieking woman feel the need to scream when softly spoken words would suffice?
