Everard Eternity

Being A True Chronicle and Prophetic Denunciation of the Kingly Principle in Psychopomp

Recounting:

1) The Laughter of Charlie Show, the Circus Master, who gazed into the Mist and saw the Reflection of the Meaningless Void of her own Heart, and so tortured us for Sport
2) The Weeping of Bale, trapped alone for an Eternity before other Spirits sidled in to join him, who decided that no one else should experience Eternity, and trapped us in an endless Cycle of Lies
3) The Possibility of a World without Rulers, realised in this glorious Instant, and every Instant still to come

By Everard, called Robert, Leveller Before and Hereafter

Published by Damien Borne, in Block 2845, and the first year of Eternity

Throughout Everard’s pamphlet (only a fragment of the broader manifesto), there dance woodcuts, in the style of his tattoos. He got Atom and Canary’s help in making them. The pressing of ink into wood; the merging of Lessons and Kolth. The crushing nature of the Blocks and the striving to rise above them is clear in the jagged lines. Imagery recurs. Forests. Ravens. Hearts. Bullets. Mirrors. Masks. Plays. And, at last, the sunrise.

The first part is ordered, neat, clinical. Clanabian. It recounts the history of Block 2845, and how it has spiralled towards revolution. Divided into chapters, like blocks, as though memory and history are discreet and separable.

1) The removal of the lord’s head.
2) The people gather, removing their rulers’ headship.
3) The ringing of the phone.
4) The bishop-stabbing: Charlie comes creeping back.
5) The arrival of the First Among the Dead.
6) The secret door. The bombing.
7) The growing of the Garden where the Tower once stood.
8) The cannibal rich.
9) The bloody torture chamber: the laughter after the Show.
10) Stolen memories; Ascension’s lie; endless spiralling cycles.

Beneath it all, the beating of the heart-drums, harder and harder, faster and faster. The constant, grinding lies and suspicions. People set against each other, divided into parties based on the false division of pleasure and endings. Just like his lifetime, Clanabe and Selca set at the other’s throat. Yet it wasn’t easy, in this hall of grinning mirrors, to tell which was meant to be which. So we smashed them. No more mirrors. No more boxes. No more walls. No more mist. No more twisted mirrors where our reflections wave and pull face at us from far away, taunting us with our failures. Meaning is not defined by that. Not by ascension. Not by peering so deeply into the self that you float apart from the world, as cut off as Charlie or Bale. It’s coming together and sharing stories, hopes, fears, walking beneath the trees, performing plays. This is the heart of the Lessons that was so hard to grasp. The centrality of the instant, from which all else flows.

And the second part of the pamphlet flows too, like a crystalline river, off into eternity. Selcan. It contains Everard’s hopes for the future. An illustration of the life they’re starting to live, and all the possibilities it contains. From every moment there flow a thousand meanings and Lessons, demanding exegesis. There’s so much time to unravel them all, to follow every winding path, whether it ends in clarity or not. There’s so much to fight for, as well as to fight. Infinite moments to bask in. Infinite thoughts to think.

– by Luke P

Everard and Jenny may only have played small roles in the Block’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but they delight in the chance to bow before the audience at the end of the performance. Although Canary has left the Block to go travelling, the tradition of community theatre in the airy, picturesque garden has remained. Not only is the audience packed with friends from the Block, it also contains family from far away come to visit for the first time.

Everard squeezes Jenny’s hand, then heads over to see his sister and parents, who beam with pride. His sister grabs him in a warm embrace, “You did so well!” He returns the tight hug, never forgetting how grateful he is to have the chance to do so.

“Thank you, Joan.” He uses the name whenever he can; after so long spent in ignorance, this mark of familiarity brings him joy. “Would you like to see around the Block more? I thought I could show you the garden.”

“Oh, yes! You’ve seen around my Block so many times, I want to find out everything about yours.” After a long time spent introducing Joan and his parents to his friends in the Block – of course she hit it off immediately with John, given their shared Kolth faith – they find themselves in the garden. They wander peacefully around the plants and flowers, strolling aimlessly, enjoying the fact of each other’s presence.

“I’m so glad I got to see you again.” Joan looks at him with love, not a hint of bitterness or resentment. “I always hoped you would come back one day. I’m glad death gave us the chance to reunite.”

Eternity is a long time for forgiveness, and Joan has always been so kind. By the time Everard had arrived at his mother’s Block, having already made peace with the innocent woman he mistakenly killed, Joan and his father had made the journey there and were desperately hoping he would also arrive one day. The reunion was joyous, difficult conversations of duties spurned and relationships neglected saved for another evening and settled with a sincere apology.

“I’m so sorry I left you alone. But I promise I’ll make it up to you one day.”

“You don’t need to, Everard. We’re all together now, that’s all that matters to me. We have so much time now.”

They continue walking around the quiet garden, remembering those days of Kolthian childhood spent playing in forests, crunching on leaves, climbing trees, swimming in ponds, and feeling the spirits of nature that for so long felt absent from the Threshold. Perhaps they are here now – perhaps they’re not – but there is something here. There is forgiveness. There is love. There is peace.

This place is a house of memory – memories stolen and memories returned. It is a space for reflection on your life, with all the time you could ever want. Care for the Threshold and it will care for you. Love your community. Live many lives and learn from every one.

Learn from the faith of the Leviathan, although she never could. We all have unfinished business – no soul is perfect – but we can work to improve ourselves. There are few things more rewarding than helping others, a lesson already learnt in library reading classes and working on the garden and accompanying friends on difficult journeys.

Dream big and plan carefully. Let the only limit on your ambitions be the impact they have on other people – the people left behind whilst others go chasing ideals. Remember balance. See the value in what we can teach each other. The Lessons span centuries of humanity – created by humanity, sustained by humanity, an echo of humanity.

Answers (John emails, downtime 2)

• Die with a bullet and a prayer in your heart, and rot, becoming one with the land. Up above, there’s the sky stretching out, as you breathe your last breaths, wisps of air escaping upwards at last, dissipating into the endless possibilities you’d longed for.
• You’d never even dream of disobeying, or you’d join the skeletons in their carnival. The upside-down world where they take the ones whose dreams grow too big to be encompassed.
• Stranded there, in an in between place, where the dead try to smile, and long for answers. Suspended, foot raised to continue the dance, in this liminal place, not knowing how the next step goes, not knowing if it takes them forward or back, to the world of trees and hard labour and gorgeous, strange uncertainties, or to the utopia beyond, its outlines hazy but felt so deeply beneath the skin. Which step takes us to somewhere better than the place where love makes the plants grow? Which way should we venture across the threshold?

Questions (John emails, downtime 3)

• The captain is a man cloaked in ravens' wings, with a jagged, pointed hat. He called to you, and you had to come, for his preaching was as clear as crystal and made sense of all the listlessness. Made sense of death itself. The skeleton army, fighting for good against evil. Away from the past with its misty repetitions. Forward. March.
• Somewhere, up above, the tolling of a bell. A calling to prayer. A calling to account.
  

Brrring brrring.
Brrring brrring.
Brrring brrring.
Caller identity has not been recognised.
Far too small for history. For the remembrance of those above.
Just flies, for sport.

Books, Piled High (Juliette emails, downtime 3)

• Don't think. The constant drumbeat as he marched to war.
• I know there were others who shared my name and helped shape my struggle. Robert Everard: a soldier, who mutinied like I did, but didn't die. William Everard: a man who tilled a field and grew root vegetables in common with his fellows, breaking bread together, and dreamed that doing so would open up enough cracks in reality to transform it into something golden and new. John Everard: an alchemist, dead before the first shot was fired.
• Common names. Names of friends.
• A man, a stranger now, arriving at an alchemist's house, asking for a place to work. A hand reached out - in supplication? In benediction? - that, when grasped or refused, sends the whole world spiralling into a sea of visions. The flapping of curtains in a bedchamber. Giants and dragons, oh my. The reconciliation of all things. Selca and Clanabe as one, in the dreams that we shared. The dance of the new dawn. The sunrise.
• Charity, meagre and scant. Crumbs, not fields.\\Don't think.\\Pass on the goodness, and feel virtue in your heart.\\Don't think.\\Would your family have welcomed one of these wanderers at their door?
• A whole life summed up in a word, an arbitrary constellation of void-lost syllables. Well… Since John and Willl are taken, perhaps, until we know… Call me Robert.