Tales of Disturbance

The Fox and the Starlight

But he was not Kilgraston.

No. He was not brave or outspoken or revolutionary. He was just a  cog. A dutiful cog in a mysterious machine. What the machine did was none of his business. 

And he wanted no trouble.

Yet something had disturbed him that day. And the following evening when he was given the piece on the Fleisters, there was a strange taste in his mouth. A sudden chill that travelled down the length of his spine.

Regardless, he had dutifully typed out the happy news that the Fleister family had been comfortably resettled in Olfia in the far North of the country with generous government benefits. Fleister and his family, he had written, had  been invited by our benevolent government, to take up a wonderful new opportunity. They had accepted the generous offer to be redeployed in Olfia, North of the Captial. Hermann Fliester, a mind so exacting and brilliant, had been carefully selected for reemployment and promotion by the  Department of Nuclear Physics to carry out important, essental work to ensure the continued sustenance and prosperity of our great and glorious nation. Herman Fleister and his family had therefore been redistributed North of the Country. He had paused for a moment, then added: with attractive benefits including a heated pool, a car, servants, and tutors for the children. 

He knew these details were unnecessary, yet they painted a more comforting picture for the public, and even those who believed they were mourning. Why not let them think of this family playing in a swimming pool; Fliester relaxing with his family at the end of a long days work in a power plant? Officials had never complained about these details, so he took it as acceptable, even desirable to put them in. Later, he had seen his careful words, printed in bold red ink on a propaganda billboard and then in FREIKOPFS, the government newsletter where they were reproduced in white font on black, taking up half a page. 

But he could not shake the strange feeling that had come over him. He could not define it. He struggled to pin down, but the closest word he had for it was shame. 

It was when he had suddenly compared his actions to those of Kilgraston. 

Kilgraston was a hero. 

He had cared when Kilgraston had been shot at, and even more when he had gone on the run with his family - for who could go on the run for long with small children? They were sure to be caught and executed. Any day now. But all the same, his compassion was an island that he could only see from a very different shore. A vast expanse of water was between him and the far off place. 

Perhaps things have been getting to him, for these memories rotate in his head like cogs in a tedious machine as he walks deeper and deeper into the night's winter chill, the icy wind still blowing, the night sky still an open heaven before him, astonishingly bright. 

The fox dips out of sight for a moment then reappears from beneath a hedge. At the other side of the housing estate, it has followed a road, once a main road, and come to a large gate. The fox stops and seems to stare at him, as if gathering a series of profound thoughts. Partly swallowed up by trees and darkness, he is surprised to see a church. It is in the ancient gothic style, its roof rocketing sharply upwards to a sharp apex. He thought all churches had been destroyed, yet this one looks beautifully preserved. At the top, a long spire needles through the sky.

He is close to the creature now. But it does not run away. Instead it looks towards him in a human way, as if it wishes to ask a difficult question. The unspoken words hang in the cold, dark silence and just like that, it makes a sudden dash and is gone, and there is only the wind and the stars staring down and a clear plain silence, punctuated only by the white strips of his breath.

The simple building looms in front of him, like a solemn judge rising to its feet.

The oak door seems locked as a human heart.

A slow, black insect seems to creep through his stomach, as his mind flits between fateful possibilities. Lurking soldiers. Being captured. Winter in prison. Torture. 

But he has come this far, and suddenly decisive, he undoes the lock and pushes the gate. With a scrape and a screech of metal on metal, it opens, and looking quickly behind him, he steps into the dark church yard...