Bramah and the Beggar Boy
Page 2
Inspired by the tradition of epic sagas, and influenced by poems such as Homer’s Odyssey, ancient Vedic texts such as the Mahabharata, as well as The Arabian Nights, the world of THOT J BAP eagerly awaits you.
Characters
Bramah: an English/Indian (South Asian) locksmith who is a demi-god and hero of the saga. Her motto: Let all evil die and the good endure. Bramah works on contract for the Consortium. Rescued by her grandmother after an earthquake, she is unaware of her origins.
The Beggar Boy: Bramah’s apprentice. Rescued on one of Bramah’s travels. He rarely speaks.
Bramah’s grandmother: a storyteller and mendicant known by the Four Women of the Wishing Well. She is a matriarch of the Resistance and adopts orphans.
Dr. A.E. Anderson: born in the year 2020, she is a doctor helping poor village children.
Investigator: perennial bad guy. There is one in every age.
Guards of the Fifth Gate: they work for the Investigator. Specialists in surveillance.
Consortium: employer of the bad guys.
Rentalsman: Consortium’s property agent.
Women of the Wishing Well (Aunty Agatha, Aunty Tabitha, Aunty Maria and Aunty Magda): In this book, we meet Aunty Maria, a Seed Saver who works with a group of outlawed scientists. We also meet Aunty Agatha and Aunty Tabitha. They are mendicant midwives who live over a hundred years.
Abigail: a beggar girl and adopted daughter of Dr. A.E. Anderson.
Bartholomew: scholar, Resistance fighter and lover of Abigail.
Raphael: son of Abigail and Bartholomew.
Beggar Boys: street urchins, displaced orphans who roam Outside Perimeter, often indentured as labourers. Their rhymes and chants, songs and slogans often act as an underground communications system, to which Bramah always pays attention.
Sword Girls: well-bred rebellious women banished by Consortium for misdemeanours, then recruited by Bramah. The Sword Girls are famous for their smarts and weapon skills. They sometimes serve as mercenaries.
The Village Spy and her daughter, Betty.
Locations
Consortium: an integrated global economic and administrative empire controlling all aspects of industry, agriculture and food production.
Perimeter: cities and settlements fortified and controlled by Consortium.
Towers and Gates: this is where guards and agents of Consortium, including the Investigator, control who can enter and exit Perimeter.
Gates to the Portals of the Four Seasons: these are found in different locations Outside Perimeter. Although they are controlled by Consortium, if you happen to know the right spells, as Bramah does, the portals can act as departure points for time travel.
Pacifica: a region extending from the western edge of the land mass once known as America.
Cities: these include the Great Cities of Transaction: Toronto, Paris, Baghdad and Ahmedabad.
Part One
Arrival at the Gate of the Winter Portal
That Gate, the Oracle, Her Icy Breath
Beware increments that gather apace
equinox and solstice shifting in place
O Precession and ecliptic, our Earth
on her axis, tilted and turned, pushed off
course by our actions, her perfect ratio
precision, twenty-three point five and turn
yew berries misshapen, birds drop and fall
fast is our future, the present, all gone
O Precession and ecliptic, our earth
on her axis, tilted and turned, spinning
faster than we could ever imagine
yew berries mutate, their toxin increased
spores, viruses, spreading droplets released
Beware increments that gather apace——
Fragments of Old Reports Unverified
Consortium Assessment: Pacifica Region
in the year of the reign 20XX.
Legal tender done, ice caps melting fast
faster than expected, each paper said
accelerated events, surging tides
extreme conditions overwhelmed systems
low precipitation, extended drought—
wildfires, insect infestations and
water rights abandoned, shortages vast.
faster than expected, each scientist said.
No one left to monitor the changes
effects not well understood, large-scale shifts—
scissors in hand, those beggar children snipped
a thousand pages in exchange for food:
as ordered by the Investigator
documents reassembled, then hidden.
Consortium’s Song
We can see, in the pulsing places
traces of our mordant graces
Where our tanks grind and crush
scornfully, placate the dust
We can trade and gain and merge,
Bitcoin plus, in case oil’s a bust
We give them choice, we find them homes
the finest art, the best designs—
Never mind who doesn’t make it
wire us and you can fake it.
We Trace with Scorn
Resistance Song
At the year’s midnight, we sighed, heads bent to—
Perimeter where oracles foretold
colony collapse, our aunties saving
mason bees, small finds in handmade glass jars.
Wildfires in November, ash mixed with ice
our skin dry and cracked, scalps covered in lice,
grey skies unending, snow drought extending
salal leaves withering, their spines snapped in two.
At Tower Juniper, Rentalsman stood
ready to accept payment for shelter.
We bartered our daughters, we sold our boys
WiFi on ration, our androids, no toys:
Toxic Alert on high, we ached for green
who would have thought of us, standing, unseen.
mind those drones
they’ll break your bones
hide and sweep,
duck and swerve
watch us, learn
these raindrops burn.
From the Wishing Well to Perimeter’s Edge
Said the four aunties:
each portal a season, pulling the years
waxing and waning, our joys and our fears.
Said the four winds:
North, East, West, South
corner runners, always best.
cross your fingers, tell no lies!
Said the River to Perimeter:
Swift currents, sly and deep
you fool with me; I’ll make you sleep
shorter days, longer nights.
Said the City to Consortium:
Secure for us the means, and we’ll stay true.
After daybreak, called those Beggar Boys, Run!
And their Sword Girls sang, Every star a sun.
And together their voices, faint echoes:
Our beehives all empty, our flags, half-mast.
Turn your key, Bramah, and find us at last.
The Summons: Bramah on a Job
Every siren in Perimeter sounded an alarm!
On that day, arrival, although no one
knew who they were, small woman with a boy—
She from around here? asked the settlers, one by one.
Their voices even toned, their eyes, stone cold, gaze
fixed on Bramah’s well-oiled leather satchel.
Usurpers, what response might they expect?
Settlers at Perimeter’s edge: they wait.
Bramah’s slant smile, radiance as a foil,
under her brown hands, hidden from sight
her Pippin File, her keys and her drill, codes
spells an
d chants to unlock any treasure.
Street beggars, boys with brooms, girls with swords:
from their bruised mouths, parched lips, masks torn away
Until the rains arrive, and we survive—
wash your hands, use your sleeve
trust us now, you’ll never have to grieve
At the Fifth Gate, transport drivers lounged:
troop guards to inspect, their hands to scrounge.
Bramah on contract, her face smooth as silk
that Beggar Boy trailing behind,
that last drop of milk—
Village Women Gossip
at Tower Juniper:
Our bread set to rise but falling flat,
oven door banging, unhinged and broken,
all that heat, lost—
at Cedar Cottage:
Our milk soured,
the butter wouldn’t set
and then a black cat ran under the ladder,
wood cracked—
at Hemlock Place:
That dog next door wouldn’t stop barking
Look! Our keys broken inside their locks, stuck:
well, Consortium said they’d send someone——
at the Commons, gathered in a circle.
——in unison we told Rentalsman:
Her fingers brown and strong
smooth leather satchel
her black braid shining
Pippin File, drill, tweezers, lock and ghost key
pulled one by one, gleaming in the sun,
she worked fast, all the while her lips moving:
Let all evil die and the good endure
Video Surveillance Monitor, Malfunctioning
As recorded: “Couldn’t say how old, but the boy, a ragamuffin for sure,
gap-toothed. That hungry smile.”
Informer #1: “Of course them keys were stuck, and broke, those locks.”
Informer #2: “No one bothered to tell us about any safe.”
Informer #3: “Well, if we knew that, then, we’d all be rich, eh—”
Guards of the Fifth Gate: “Someone must have seen something.”
Overheard
Small wiry brown-skinned yet British; sly, too
quick, skilled with lock and key, long black hair
braids touching her leather packsack: tools plus
lasers, all the latest gadgets for openings
no lock that ever met her hands, too tough or sticky.
A thousand scrapes, she’d dodged them all.
One soldier from the Before-Time even called her
K-Low. No one ever knew why. Just laughed.
She collected nicknames, light year to portal:
them hard ones, April, or June: the worst.
In the nick of time, a turner of bad odds
her body on the line of any fire, her cheek scarred
smooth skin though, and the softest lips.
Tattoo on her arm: Ishmael Joe and laughed—
As Recorded by Several Un/named Witnesses
Front doors locked, we turned: stood, facing the road.
A breath for each forward step, scuffed shoes worn.
In front of us, a woman: long black braid
over her shoulder a leather satchel,
locksmith by trade, her Pippin File, her keys
her pliers, her pick and drill, titanium.
Many called to her and ran to her side.
She held the hand of a small, ragged boy,
his gap-toothed grin——
The Adventures of Bramah and the Beggar Boy
Their First Adventure
The Scraps They Kept: missing pages, cut, torn, stained
The Letters They Took: that red seal, broken, ribbon untied
The Map They Stole: a thousand creases, worn and rough
The People They Met:—Inside and Outside Perimeter—
The Things They Carried: that bronze compass, battered; that gold coin, tossed
The Things They Saw: first of two moons, the night Aunty Pandy swept in
The Journeys They Made: by foot, by ship, through beams and holograms
The People They Met: those street-sweeping children, all their songs—
The Things They Carried: masks and hoods—small bars of soap—
The Things They Heard: those Beggar Boys chanting,
Un coup de dés, jamais jamais
Their Second Adventure
Once inside a Portal, they would divine
streetside or mountains, rivers, oceans, maps
a fist full of soil, their nose to the wind
iterations of this blue-green planet
decades, centuries, era to epoch
in the Before-Time and after: their days
in a café on Rue Mallarmé, that
black book, unlined, cream pages, a few marks
left open with a felt pen inside, no
sign of them, on the wall a painting
rescued from that fire, singed edges framed, hung
over that threshold, carved greetings in wood
golden locket opened from round that neck
that time they met, diving into the wreck.
Their Third Adventure
Hold my hand and don’t let go, said Bramah
The little Beggar Boy kept his head down.
In the year of the reign, these portals deep:
In the year of the reign 2020
In the year of the reign 2001
In the year of the reign 1985
In the year of the reign 1973
In the year of the reign 1968
In the year of the reign 1962
In the year of the reign 1933
In the year of the reign 1945
In the year of the reign 1914
In the year of the reign 1919
In the year of the reign 1848
In the year of the reign 1897
In the year of the reign 1704
In the year of the reign 1715
In the year of the reign 1613
In the year of the reign 1492
In the year of the reign 1381
In the year of the reign 1215
In the year of the reign 762—
And in the time of the Age—
And before—and then further, further, that far future, flung—
The distance between———
And then to return to Pacifica.
Silent, that Beggar Boy took it all in.
The Beggar Boy Meets Bramah’s Grandmother
When Bramah brought the boy to Grandmother
they both laughed: Not another one to feed!
Oh well, said Grandmother, shaking her head.
Come with me boy, you can help carry seeds.
—that Beggar Boy said not a word and looked
at Grandmother, her warm hands, her unlined skin.
She taught him everyday threshold magic:
the way all doors and gates stored their secrets
the way calendars contained codes
the way dawn and dusk, circles and lines
might lead to a thousand steps.
One night they walked past that carved portal gate
Grandmother took the boy’s hand and shook kernels,
red dawn, sequoia swirls, hard spindle-shaped,
seeds as thin as oatmeal flakes fluttered down.
The Things They See
Two lovers locked in one another’s arms.
Gates, doors, locks. Midnight. April. October.
Portals to a very still afternoon.
Electricity and the Inner-Net.
Birds. Stars. Trees. The names of things, rough, smooth, whole.
Ruptures and interruptions.
Tilts and slants.
That game of chess, unending, and the D
ead.
The Rani of Jhansi, her lotus flowers.
The city of Ahmedabad, twelve gates opening—
Roses.
Honeybees, their panniers, gold laden.
Green, blue, black, pink. Ombré shades in between.
Rajas and Sutras, hours before dawn.
Cardamom, ginger, turmeric, crushed.
The years: Before to After, sweet. Salty.
Echoes of the S-curve in everything.
English, French, Arabic, Irish.
Gujarati, Latin, Greek: pictograms.