Figgy > Recent Status Updates

“What are the Underborn?” he asked in a tired voice.
“I don’t know much about them,” Nicola confessed. “If Ivory were still alive.…” She gave her head a single shake, as if to refocus her thoughts. “They show up in Shadow from time to time. They look like real people, walk and talk like them, but they’re artificial. Robots made out of flesh and blood instead of metal and circuitry.”

I'm not sure I can finish the sentence because a mishmash of memory and emotion is making me incoherent. I'm back in my flat at Duncan and Amy's, searching frantically for the pink notebook I kept under my pillow.
Sure, I took it. What's the big deal? Baby, I'm your guy, right? I need to know what's going on in that little head of yours. What chance have we got if you keep secrets, Tess?

[1/2]

It was like a handful of giant houses all smashed together with no regard for aesthetics or conformity. It was equal parts horrifying and mesmerizing.

[2/2]

'I should wash my hands,' said Morgan. 'That's what everyone's saying, isn't it? You have to sanitise wherever you go?'
'That's what they're saying,' agreed Don, although, like many, he privately wondered how much of what he'd been seeing on the TV about the developing pandemic was fake news.

ALL ABOUT THE DINGO: AUSTRALIA'S NATIVE WILD CANID.

And Wandi knew it in his heart that he was meant to be here. He was important.
All dingoes were important.
His mama, his papa, his siblings and all the dingoes out there.
Dingoes belonged to this land.
Dingoes belong.

He thinks about how some Humans are very kind and would do anything to keep him happy, and he thinks about those Humans who want to kill his family, poison them, shoot them and hang them up in trees to rot. He doesn't understand how one animal can be so different - how each Human is so different. How there is hatred in some, and love in others.
Maybe he will never understand.

I could hear my mama's heartbeat - strong and constant. Always there.
I was connected to her through that beat. It told me everything I needed to know - when to be quiet, when to play, when to hide away and when to be brave. It was there in my dreams, there in my slumber. It was there.

'Will we be friends forever now?' Wandi asked quietly.
Hermione nodded her head. 'We will be friends for as long as you want us to be.'
'I want us to be friends forever,' he said.
'Okay,' she said. 'So do I.'
Wandi was so happy his heart hurt. At long last he was starting to belong.

'When I was coming here, I saw dead dingoes hanging from trees. Will that happen to my family?'
'I hope not,' Ebony said, her head down. 'Most Humans do not understand us. it seems like Humans often kill things they don't understand - things they are frightened of.'
'But that's not right,' Wandi said. He felt so useless. So hopeless. 'I hope I can see my family again one day,' he added quietly.

When he peed, they all said, 'Don't pee there!'
When he dug a hole with his paws, they all said, 'Don't dig like that!'
When he chewed the grass because he was nervous, they all said, 'Don't eat grass! What's wrong with you?'
'You do everything wrong!' they said.
He would have given anything to make just one friend.

[2/2]

He tried to copy the others, tried to be like them. If one cup sniffed something, he went over and sniffed it, too. If one chewed a stick, he chewed it, too. He tried to keep up and join in their games. But the other cubs were all bigger than him and much faster. If he caught up t them, they bolted away as fast as they could.

[1/2]

'You don't belong here,' the other cubs said.
Wandi found a grassy corner away from the cubs. He curled up in a tight ball and tried very hard not to cry. After Lyn brought dinner, the other cubs slept together in a box, huddled and warm, but Wandi stayed outside in the corner on his own.
He did not belong here and he would never fit in.
He had no one.

'My name is Lyn,' the new Human said.
He looked up into Lyn's face. 'Are my mama and papa here?' he said.
'I know you must be scared. You must miss your family. But you are here and you are cherished,' Lyn said. 'How beautiful you are.'
This Human was not like the others. This Human seemed to understand him. He looked into its eyes - one second, two seconds, three.
This Human was different.
Lyn.

'Don't worry,' the Human said. 'I'm taking you somewhere safe.'
'Can you take me to my mama and papa?' he asked.
But the Human didn't answer.
They kept on moving and the smell of home was getting further away, his mountain home slipping into the distance. He wasn't going back. He was going somewhere far away and he might never see his home again. He cried then. He cried and cried.

The Human's heartbeat was becoming familiar now. He wasn't so frightened by it. It was almost a comfort to have it there and not feel so alone. Even its staring eyes didn't seem so strange anymore.

He stood right near the edge and arched his sore back. He pointed his nose up to the sky and let out a long, urgent howl. It came from the very inside of him. From his guts.
'Mama! Papa! Please help me. Mama! Papa! Please find me.'
He howled until he was breathless. He howled until he had nothing left to give.

He let out a little whimper. A little howl.
'Mama? Mama?'
He listened for her heartbeat.
He listened for her voice.
Please be here.
He wished for her warmth, her tail. For her soft-furred belly. He wished for his papa, his brothers and sisters.
Shivering now. So very cold.
He curled up in a ball and he cried.
He was alone.
Far from home.
It was the longest night he had ever known.

A pulse of air on his fur.
A shadow, long and jagged and strange.
The beat of giant wings.
Mama's heartbeat raced, her howl cut through the sky. It broke open the earth.
Pain slicing his back.
Mama running.
Mama coming.
He screamed out, but his paws were no longer touching the ground.

Little growls, little yips, little squeaks of joy and terror. But he did not want to join in with the rough-and-tumble games. He knew how to find grubs, insects, snacks! Ge may have been the smallest - the one that gets picked on, ganged up on, the one always at the bottom of the pile - but he was the smartest.

'The most dangerous thing of all is the Human,' his papa said in a low voice. 'The tall animal that walks on two legs. If you smell one, you must run. If you see one close, you must hide. They poison us. They shoot us and hang us from trees. They don't even eat us; they just kill us. They just kill.'

Now, Miro could swim with the stars and tickle the songs from the earth. He could whisper up waves and weave clouds to make stories for the wind.
Now, Miro could see all the oddments and snippets, all those hidden wonders and possibles waiting in the shadows.

Miro soon found that the more threads that grew, the easier it was to shed the darkness when it came.
And even though strangers still sometimes stared, or turned away, Miro had the knowing of many others.
And it seemed to Miro that the Curiosities had chosen lots of other people too, in lots of different ways.

And there it was. A single thread of knowing, thin and fragile and almost invisible to his fingers, but there.
Gently, carefully, Miro pulled.

But sometimes, the Curiosities were so loud and strange that people couldn't help but stare.
The Curiosities trilled and gurgled, pulling at Miro's arms and flapping at his legs, whispering in his ears so that all about him disappeared into a buzz of cold noise and confusion.
Sometimes, the Curiosities were so bright and brilliant that everyone turned away.

Miro had never noticed all the oddments and snippets before, all those wonders and possibles waiting in the shadows where no-one else looked.

But slowly, Miro began to see things differently. He began to feel things differently, and do things differently too.
The Curiosities would point and chirp and pull him towards places hidden away from everyday eyes. They showed him how to swim with the stars and tickle the songs from the earth.

At first, the Curiosities were quiet. They blended in.
At first, Miro didn't even notice them, perched on his shoulders and nuzzled in his hair.
At first, Miro thought the tingle he felt was just the warmth of the sun or the murmuring of the wind.

I've lived here a long time and I've never once seen a ghost.
Perhaps I never will.

Have you ever seen a ghost?
Do you know what they look like?
Do they only go in the rooms where the lights don't work?
Do they only come out at night?