by Amanda Jay
"Everything is such a mess," he explained apologetically. "I asked Ethel to type up all the information you needed and leave on my desk but--" sighing, the Professor scrambled down from his pile of books. He wasn't even as tall as Ezra's shoulder, Ezra realised, now that the professor was on his feet.
"Ethel!" Professor Muriel bellowed, trying to navigate his way around stacks of books much taller than himself. "Ethel, I asked you to prepare Mr. Orson's papers yesterday. Ethel!" But Ethel was nowhere within earshot, it seemed.
"Just a minute, Ezra. Can't get anything right, this new secretary of mine. I suppose that's what I get for hiring a journalism major..." The Professor, who was still jovial despite his complaining, ducked out the door, but his words hung in the air.
"Can't get anything right," but it wasn't Professor Muriel's voice this time but his father's.
"Can't get anything right," the voice snarled in his head and Ezra almost heard the leather belt snap.
He stood up and shook himself. Not now, he told himself. Not anymore. New beginnings.
Almost to distract himself, he wandered behind the professor's desk and started to examine the machine which was tap-tapping earlier. It looked like a large box, with little buttons that denoted different letters. Ezra counted off all the letters in the alphabet, even though they weren't ordered, as well as all the single digits, and other marks of punctuation.
He ran his fingers lightly over the metal case, wondering what made the tapping sound.
"Quite a beaut, isn't she?" the Professor's voice caught Ezra off-guard and he jerked his arm back.
"Oh, that's quite all right, m'boy. I don't mind you looking at my typographer. Just so long as you haven't typed anything over my work."
"Typographer, sir?" Ezra asked, a little embarrassed but too curious not to find out what it was.
"Yes, lad, a typographer. I suppose you don't get too many of these outside the city. I use it to write. A lot neater than my messy old scribble."
"To write, sir?" Ezra hoped he didn't sound as dim-witted as he felt.
"Yes, to write. I was just finishing off some findings when you came in, as a matter-of-fact. Let me give you a few words of advice, dear fellow. Mathematics can be a tiresome journey. Rewarding, no doubt, and extremely satisfying, at times. But all the focus on rationality and precision can be extremely tiresome for the simple reason that it goes against our human nature. We humans, we aren't half as rational as we like to believe. We are creatures of passion, are we not? So I use words to describe what numbers cannot and it has helped me beyond measure. But perhaps that is my old age talking."
"The papers you requested," a bored voice cut through the office as the receptionist from downstairs stomped ungraciously towards the desk, knocking over many books in the process.
"Ah, yes. Here you go then, Ezra," Professor Muriel gestured to Ethel, who handed the packet over to Ezra, the ever-present frown lines marked deeply into her young face.
"Anything else, sir?" she asked, stretching out the sir in a way that made it sound anything but polite.
But Professor Muriel was completely indifferent to her attitude. His own good mood was so impenetrable that she simply bounced off him. Ezra wished he had the power to do the same. It would have come handy during the last eleven years.
"Why yes, it's ever so kind of you to remind me," the Professor smiled as the idea entered his head. "You are off at five, aren't you? Would you mind showing Mr. Orson here over to the dormitory on Kettleburn road?"
He didn't wait for her answer and instead reached over his desk to shake Ezra's hand again.
"Thank you, Professor," Ezra mumbled, although he wasn't particularly keen about spending any more time with Ethel than he absolutely had to.
"Any time, my boy. Keep in touch now. And remember, rational thoughts over passion." Professor Muriel's smile was as wide as ever as Ezra left.
***
Most students at the university had roommates, Ezra was informed by Ethel. But not him. Ezra initially thought of it as a stroke of luck. A perk, perhaps, of being a scholarship recipient after twenty-something years. Then, he actually saw his room and realised that it was hardly a matter of luck and more of a matter of logistics.
That is, if anyone could even call it a room. It was far more a cupboard at a corner of an attic space that contained a scraggy roll-up mattress, lopsided desk, and delicate looking shelf haphazardly nailed to the wall. The scholarship board, it seemed, were as careful with their money as they were with selecting scholarship recipients. Ethel stood there, her usual expression replaced by a slight smirk as Ezra surveyed his new home.
"Nice broom closet," she snarked.
The broom closet at the farm popped in to Ezra's mind. He could almost smell, for a moment, the bleach, the dust, his fear.
New beginnings, he reminded himself sternly and forced a smile.
"I don't think it's too bad myself. Quite cozy, in fact," Ezra channelled his best Professor Muriel and it worked. Ethel's face settled back to normal as she half scowled and turned around to leave. Ezra wondered if the woman only ever had those two emotions.
In any case, he wasn't ungrateful for the room. He hadn't forgotten why he was there and how lucky he was to be selected and all the hard work he had put in to make sure he was.
In two steps, he had crossed over to the back of the room and pried open the small, dirty window.
There we go, he told himself. Broom closets don't have windows. An icy gust of wind whipped inside along with a cloud of dark dust. Ezra left the window open as he tried to unpack his case but finally, teeth chattering, was forced to pull it shut again.
But still, he was away from his father and happy. Probably for the first time in a very long time. New beginnings, he almost sang to himself.
OF BOOKS
You don't read books to learn. Not always. Sometimes you read books to feel. To understand ways of thinking that might be alien to you. You read to feel alive. To grow. To self preserve. You read a book like you fall in love-- The first page is more reserved, shy, you are still getting to know each other. You read it quietly to yourself, barely a whisper even in your head. It's your little secret. You let the words caress your mind and feel them softly against your tongue. And then you dive in, head first, into a world that's yours alone.
TOM
The ticking of the small clock echoed, resonant of its big brother outside. The room was mostly devoid of furniture except for the impressive desk at its centre that held the clock. All attention in the space was focused on the elaborate tiled mosaic which sprawled over the walls and the ceiling.
It was fitting, Tom supposed, that the history of Mliss covered the walls as well as the filing cabinets at the Department of Records. He had never been to this section of the library before, even though, strangely enough, he had been to the library a few times.
The first time was entirely by accident. He was following a well dressed man, as he sometimes did, when the gentleman made his way up the stone stairs and into this cavernous, dark building. Tom had lost the man along the rows of books but it didn't matter because he found a small part of himself that day.
There was something comforting about the shelves of books, the soft silence, but mostly the smell. The wonderful, glorious smell, more delicious to Tom than anything he could possibly have stolen from the bakery.
He hadn't cared much that he couldn’t read the books, at first anyway. He just ran his fingers along aisles of dusty, hardly-touched volumes, finally pulling lose a black, leather-bound number and gently flipped through its pages. He couldn't understand anything, of course, but he definitely felt something. He wanted more.
Perhaps he would ask Eugene at the Wheel to teach him to read, he mused to himself. There was another world in here and Tom wouldn't mind being a part of it.
"You? Read? You sure?" Eugene had asked in surprise, though not unkindly, when Tom asked him the next day.
"Well, perhaps..." Tom shoved his hands i
nto his pockets and hesitated. It wasn't a skill that was sought-after much in the Underbelly.
But Eugene agreed and Tom was excited to start until Reese, the notorious bully whose father was Tom's manager at the Wheel got wind of what was going on.
"Why would a pest like you need to read?" he had asked, dangling Tom by his collar. Tom could have given him a swift kick to the stomach right there but that would have meant that he would need to find a new job and jobs were exceptionally hard to come by in Mliss.
"Get back to work, or my father will be hearing about how you were sneaking off during your shift," Reese continued, throwing the new notebook Tom had stolen into the moving cogs. Tom watched with a sinking heart as it was crushed between the wheels.
"Ready?" Eugene had asked, meeting him later on that afternoon.
"Nah. Maybe some other time," Tom shrugged. His job was worth more than the books.
But there were no books in the Department of Records, only rows of filing cabinets. Tom inched closer to the wall to get a better look. The tiles, in their intricacy, narrated stories from Mliss’ creation-- from when the Twin Faced God himself placed Bearoux the Blessed upon the revolving throne. The throne was depicted sideways to show both the gold and the silver side. Two sides to a throne, constructed by a God with two faces, thought Tom, wryly. Mliss really loved whatever came in pairs.
His eyes wandered down the lines of the kings. Even though Tom had never read a book, much less gone to school, the history of Mliss was something that no one could really escape. From the whispered stories told by the nicer managers at the Wheel, to the scarier stories told by firelight to the orphans who happened to gather at the Stew Pot, the tales were told and retold. Most of them unwritten but living for generations through a society that loved the glory of its past and hated the reality of its present.
There was Bearoux the Bountiful, Tom recognised, laughing happily, a goblet of wine bouncing off his large belly. Bearoux the Baffling, cloaked in his usual grey robes and holding a mask in his hand. No one knew what in the Twin Faced God's name had gone on in his head, Tom had heard people say over and over again. Bearoux the Beautiful, with his long golden curls tumbling down his shoulders. "They say he stopped wars by simply smiling at his would-be enemies," Skii had told Tom once, before punching him on the shoulder after hearing his loud snort.
The mosaic artist had really outdone himself on the next section. Intricate depictions of the birth of the City as they knew it dotted the next section of the wall. Bearoux the Builder stood in the middle, his arms spread, beaming happily at the Chyranian builders he had brought over from the Savage Isles.
Next came Bearoux the Brilliant, who added to his father's legacy by building the University, laboratories and the library that Tom was currently standing in. They called it "the scientific revolution." But that had been the King's downfall or so Tom was told. The masses who revered the monarchy were now educated enough to start questioning the systems that were put in place.
But all that had changed when the attacks started. The Brilliant king was an old man by then of course and the next Bearoux took his place. He had been just fifteen.
Some say it was the pressure of ruling from such a young age that drove him mad, others said he was destined to be a tyrant from the start. But whatever the reason, Bearoux the Boy went down in the history books as the dark ruler-- Bearoux the Black, they now called him. Power hungry and extremely greedy, he had rid Mliss of any threats from the foreign lands but replaced those fears with eccentric and unjust rules of his own.
"Ay he was truly mad, that Black King was," the storytellers had whispered. "We all lived in fear of him, we did. Used to snatch up babies from their mothers' arms and sacrifice them to the Twin Faced God. Believed that he was a god himself, he did."
The people of Mliss had finally risen up against the Black king, burning down most of the royal palace and killing him and his family in the process but that wasn't depicted in the mosaic which simply portrayed Bearoux the Black seated heavily on his dual throne.
But a part of Mliss had died along with its King. Once a booming land full of opportunity, Mliss had been plunged in panic and chaos. The rioting had gone on for weeks, destroying much of the city so carefully built. But it was months later that they were dealt their final blow-- the Pulse Stones, or Kubles, as they were correctly called, the energy source which powered the whole city had run out. Without it, Mliss had little way of sustaining itself.
The Wheels had come next-- large machines that had to be spun manually to power the cables that helped move the city along. They were hardly efficient or convenient but it was the best they had.
They thought they got the best of it, thought Tom, trying not to be bitter. Life in the new Republic of Mliss left most wishing for the days before the uprising. It was true that the Pulse Stones were controlled by the crown but at least hundreds of people weren't dying from exhaustion and starvation. Tom knew these were empty wishes. "What-ifs never put food in no one’s belly, little one," Skii told him gently once as he bristled. Still, years of working at the Wheel left many holding on to their wishes. Change is never easy. Many fight to hold on. Many more fight to let go.
Tom stared at the last scene in the mosaic. The artists had installed this panel only very recently, amidst much grumbling that it was a waste of taxes. But the Mayor had been insistent. “It holds our last hope,” he had explained.
As always, Tom wondered what the generation before him were thinking when they decided to overthrow the king. Surely, it wasn't as bad as this?
The sound of footsteps drew Tom out of his reverie and he realised the old record keeper was shuffling back to the desk.
He's probably as old as most of the books here, Tom thought to himself. He had practically run out of breath when Tom showed him the scrap of paper where he had painstakingly written down the name inscribed on Felix's typographer.
"What's that say?" The old librarian had asked, squinting at the letters messily copied in an unsteady and untrained hand.
Tom had just pushed it closer to the librarian's nose. He didn't feel like explaining his shortcomings right now.
"Ah, I see," he finally wheezed. "J. R. Muriel. I might have heard of him. What about him are you after?"
Tom had no idea.
"I just need to know..." he suddenly felt foolish. But it is worth a shot, he had reckoned. "I just want to know who he is. If you had anything about him in the public records."
"Well, we can pull up his address, his occupation, if it’s listed, that'd be about all, son."
Son. The word gave Tom a fresh sense of urgency as he watched the old man hobble away.
He had been afraid that the old man wouldn't be able to reach the back of the room, let alone find him any information, yet here he was, shuffling back, waving a piece of paper.
"Professor J. R. Muriel..." he coughed then, as if the trip had taken absolutely all the breath out of him. Tom waited patiently while the old man rattled and shook and panted. He wondered whether to thump him on the back or where he could get him a glass of water from when the coughing stopped as abruptly as it started.
"Professor at the University of Mliss, Mathematics Department, it says."
Was that his father, then? A professor. Imagine that? The father of a street pest was an educated scholar.
"He must be getting on quite a bit now, this Professor. Says he came out of retirement a few years ago to take up a public service post.
"There's something else I found," the librarian continued in a frail voice. "I knew I had heard that name somewhere before. He was in the paper a few days ago." He pushed a copy of the Telegraph towards the boy. "See, Renowned Scientist Arrested over Death of Wife."
Tom stared at the newspaper helplessly. It was time to come clean to the librarian.
"Could you read it to me?" He asked in a small voice, refusing to meet the older man's eye. The librarian broke out into a fit of coughing again and Tom was worried the answer
might be no. But he finally sighed, and mumbling inaudible complaints, took the paper back from Tom and sat down at his desk.
Peering through his somewhat dusty glasses, the old man started. "Ezra Orson was taken into custody yesterday, as the prime suspect for the murder of his wife, Kaelyn, the City Guard confirmed. His son, Felix, aged 16 has been missing since shortly after the arrest was made and there are increasing concerns about his safety. Ezra Orson was renowned by the University of Mliss for his study of the Theory of Duplicity, on which he collaborated with Professor J. R. Muriel. Professor Muriel, who currently serves as the Chief Engineer at the Department of Energy Manufacture and Distribution, was not available for comment.
"See, that's where I heard the name. That's all they have to say about him though."
"Could you please read the rest?" Tom tried.
There was an exceptionally audible sigh but the old man continued.
"After his brief success as a recipient of the acclaimed Builder's Scholarship at the University of Mliss, Ezra Orson dropped out of academic circles. He has not been granted bail and the Chief of the City Guard was not available for a statement, however, continued on page eight."
The librarian delicately leafed through the pages with trembling hands. Tom strongly resisted the urge to reach over and turn the pages himself.
"Ah, here we are. Continued from page one. ...a source at the Mayor's office strongly suspects that Ezra Orson was involved with the CAUSE. Mayor Frankly has continuously condemned the work of the CAUSE which has only strengthened in the recent months.
"There are pictures as well, look here..." Tom craned his neck eagerly at the artist sketches which accompanied the article. Ezra Orson must have been important if they included sketches-- the newspapers hardly ever contained pictures now that photographs were near impossible to produce.