This is a story that my great-grandfather told me when I was a child. I've told it to you before, but were you listening? So I am writing it down, and when I leave on my travels your mother, my daughter will be able to read it to you. My great-grandfather told me this story when I was being disingenuous or insincere, a fault I was prone to when I was young. You might think because of this that he made the story up to teach me, but that is not so. It is a true story from his own life, and when he returns from his travels he will tell it to you much better than I can.
On a very clear day go and stand at the top of the hill and look out to sea. On the far horizon, if the air is clear enough, you will see a thin grey line. This is the cloud that covers the old land, the land that my great-grandparents left to come here. In that land the sun almost never breaks through the cloud to shine on the land. The cloud moves slowly, always east to west, and when it drops rain it is hard and heavy as if the cloud is angry. There are many stories about that land, about the cruel lives of its people, and you have heard and will hear many of them but this story is about the time when the four families left that land to come here.
My great-grandfather, when he was a boy kept running away to the sea-shore to look out at the edge of the cloud where it hung out over the ocean about a mile from the shore. He could see the sunshine filling the world beyond the cloud and he yearned to reach it somehow. When he was grown he took his wife, his brother and his wife and two of their cousins along with their wives and all their children and left the city (much is written of this city elsewhere and you know it well, but this story is not about the city). They came to the coast and travelled east having heard rumours of a green island standing a few miles from shore covered every day in sunshine. They were looking for a place to make a new home because the cloud they lived under was not like the cloud that passes over our country, in the mid-afternoon leaving a gentle mist that refreshes the earth and the people who lift their faces to it. We call this cloud "the Cow" do you know why? In this story I will tell you why, but not yet. The cloud of the old land, however, settled into the minds of the people like a kind of death and those, like my great-grandfather, who hated death longed to escape it.
They travelled east for many days through a difficult country of thorns and weeds, swamps and marshes. Eventually they saw it, out to sea, the green island soaked in sunshine. But to their dismay they saw that a village was already built there and, if they strained their eyes, they could see tiny figures of people walking about. Naturally our forefathers were disappointed, they had envisioned a place where no people were. However they determined to cross to the island anyway and see if they would be welcomed by the inhabitants and they began to build a boat. The timber nearby was very hard to work and this was a much harder task than they anticipated. During this time they noticed two strange things about the island, no smoke ever rose from it and, when night fell, no lights appeared. Did the people there have a fuel that burned without smoke? Did they go to sleep when the sun set?
Eventually the boat was built, it has a famous name which I need not mention since you all know it well.
The fathers set out but they left most of the wives and children, all except my aunt who, although she was small, insisted on going with the men. The water under the cloud was wild but they could see that where the sun finally touched the water it became calm so they struggled through. Then came the moment, a very great moment in our history, when the boat passed into the sunshine. Our forefathers felt the light enter their hearts and their minds like a sudden flood, washing them clean of all the misery and cruelty of their lives and all those strong men wept like children. Only my aunt, the young girl did not cry but her eyes were fixed on the island, two green hills, small woods and a village of bright colourful houses. It looked a perfect place and they became anxious to reach the island, imagining that the people who lived in sunlight in such a beautiful place would not fail to be kind in their welcome. As they drew closer they called out and waved their arms but the people on land did not seem to notice them and simply carried on with whatever they were doing, which was mostly walking up an down.
The sea was completely calm and the air did not move at all. When they reached the shore they found it was bare rock but because of the still sea they were able to step ashore. They had expected to step onto the fresh green grass that they had seen from the shore but the bare rock was simply painted green. In fact in that instant it became clear that the entire island was rock that had been painted. The paint was dry and flaking and came away on their hands when they touched it. On the face of all the men was blank confusion but, my great-grandfather told, the face of my young aunt could not be looked upon because of the deep distress upon it. They stumbled forwards and up to the bright village and its people but as they drew close the truth of the place became clear to them. The people, the houses even the trees were all shapes made out of tin and painted. The people painted in bright and beautiful clothes, each face smiling with eyes painted to reflect such feeling as was in the artists skill, which was considerable since the forefathers said they looked almost more real than real. They moved on tracks by an ingenious system of gears that were powered through a network of chambers and wormholes in the rock that filled and emptied with the gentle rise and fall of the tide. On realisation of what the place was our forefathers were simply stunned and dismayed but none more so than my aunt who broke down and simply wept out her broken heart.
Before they left to return they walked to the very top of one of the hills and looked, for the first time, back at the mainland and the bleak black wall of the cloud hanging low over it and a sense of great tragedy swept over them. But the young girl was looking to the north further out to sea and saw another cloud, a cloud shaped much like a cow.
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