Twinfinity: Quest for the Prim Pockets (6)

Chapter 6
Coloring the Canvas

∞

“The Gods were never satisfied with just one world,” Panpar began. Right from the beginning there was no doubt that whatever story this simple looking older man was going to tell, was going to be a long one. Their Aunt Veranda had called him old, and indeed he had an older appearance to him, but that appearance of old was more of a perception, than a reality. It was a perception created through wisdom, and early greying hair, but in reality the man couldn’t be older than forty human years. Veranda herself was older than that.

In truth, he not only wasn’t old, but his body was also fit. (A fact hidden to them all by the loose, baggy sack that he wore as clothing). He didn’t return the wooden table; didn’t sit at the hard chair at all, but instead turned Veranda’s rocking chair toward the table, and sat in that instead. It was another indicator that the story they were in for was a long one.

Once he was sat, and comfortable, he reached through a slit in the side of his makeshift outfit, pulled out a small pouch, rolled some of the tobacco into a moist brown leaf, and lit the end of that tobacco with a magical wooden stick that had a red tip on the end of it. When he did this, none of them knew what tobacco was, nor did they understand what he was doing or why. All they knew was that the smell of what he was doing was offensive to their noses, and the idea of drawing fire into a person’s body, filtered through leaves or not, was utterly ridiculous to them all.

But nobody informed him of their opinion at the time.

“The Gods,” he continued, “weren’t even satisfied with ten worlds, or twenty, or even a hundred. They have thousands of worlds spread amongst those twinkling lights in the night sky that we haven’t even begun to understand. The Gods,” he said emphasizing the word Gods as if he were saying it with distaste. “Create worlds much in the same way that a baker creates bread. Crafting one loaf to be white, and another to be brown, and yet another to be yellow, all of them having a different taste, and all of them tasting better with one meal, than they do with another.” He rocked back and forth in the chair as he began his story and his eyes were intently focused on both Veranda and Freebus as he spoke.

Jo-Laina could remember every word that Panpar had spoken that night clearly. She could picture every word that he spoke as if he were speaking them at that very moment to her instead of years before. And she could also remember her thoughts as well. He had talked about the God’s and the ‘worlds’ they created as if he knew for sure that what he was saying was true. He talked of the twinkling lights in the night skies as if they were those worlds, instead of the God’s shining lights down onto theirs, which is what everyone else believed.

“And when the Gods decided to create our world, they did it out of boredom,” Panpar continued. “They didn’t create our world to survive and last throughout the ages as they did others. They created our world just so they could sit back and watch all of the inhabitants kill each other off. Each of the Gods created their own race of either warrior beings, or predatory animals, and they did it with the idea of watching us all kill each other.”

“You speak these things as if you know them for sure, old man,” Veranda butted in. “And not as if you are speculating. You can’t know these things. You can guess them, but you can’t know them.”

“Ah, but I can,” Panpar answered her claim. “You see, my lady. I may look human, but I am not. I am a Puntarian.”

They all knew the word punta, to see in the dark, and they all knew of the Muntarians, also known as listeners. And they knew that the word Muntarian stemmed from the word munta, which meant to hear from silence, so the word Puntarian, automatically meant at least something to them when they heard it. It registered to their minds and clung there like a bat hanging from a tree during the day. It fluttered invisibly in their minds as they waited for more of the story.

“You see in the dark?” Veranda asked.

“I see some of what has happened over time.