No one could remember a Saturday in Alderville being so bright. At least not among the four hundred or so residents who remained there, most of whom weren't really given a choice. To Thomas Ibold, though, it seemed he cozld recall a few such days, despite having spent more than twenty years away from the place. Walking along the creek, he was reminded of sunbeams slicing through the treetops as his old friend came tumbling down an oak that was, apparently, more stubborn than it looked. Naturally, he felt his anxiety ramp up as he now watched his son clinging onto a branch far too thick for his ten-year-old hands and far too high for a comfortable landing.
"Come on Jack, get down now."
"But I haven't even gotten to the top yet!" he shouted back
"The treetops can wait. You see that hill over there? We must climb it before sunset!"
"Fine." Jack said with a disgruntled sigh, sliding down the tree in a few smooth motions."
The path to the hill ran through the town centre, which Thomas had grown accustomed to in his youth. Nonetheless, he was surprised seeing how little had changed since his departure. The medieval church still had all of its stones in place, moss steadily filling in the cracks between them. The well, though now weathered and no longer in use, remained as a landmark of time gone by. Right in front of it was a quaint cottage, still gleaming the same white he marvelled at as a child. It still served as a shop, its interior completely unchanged apart from the technological innovations it had since been equipped with. As he walked into the old pub, he could recall the exact floorboards that made an awful squeaking noise when stepped on. To his dismay, some of the ones that used to be safe bets no longer were. Above the trodden floorboards, the ceiling hung damp as ever, old clothes draped across the beams revealing more of the black, rotting wood they used to hide. The air was permeated with the scent of beer, flowing from faucets chipped in the exact same places that had irked him many years ago, leading him to wonder how Joe, the old bartender, ever managed to put up with the awkward grip they demanded. Goodness knows where he is now.
The pub was no place for a ten-year-old child, though (much to the dismay of Jack's curious mind), so they continued towards the hilltop. Nature in the English countryside brought Thomas a quiet joy, a kind of peace that felt overdue after years of traffic and bustle in the heart of Manchester. Perhaps it's simply time that has a way of mellowing people out past a certain age. It is understandable that a man who is pushing fifty might find deeper meaning looking at the same daffodils his younger self would have regarded merely as commonplace. Thomas, though, could hardly imagine a place he might visit Alderville from only to find himself unimpressed by the lush greenery at the height of spring. Nestled right between two hills, Alderville truly felt like an oasis of serenity in the moors of the English north. His pondering, though, was suddenly interrupted by Jack:
"Dad, isn't the hill over there?" he asked, realising they had gone off track.
"Yes, but I have another thing to show you first."
They continued along the road, then along a cracked footpath, until everything dissolved into dirt hedged by thick shrubbery.
"Are we going to... a playground?" Jack asked
"Not quite." Thomas replied.
"A football field?"
"No."
"A cave?"
"Not at all."
Jack fell silent, beginning to ponder where it is they might be going.
"... Some kind of forest dwarves' lair?"
Thomas chuckled. "Even less so. You'll see in just a minute, okay?"
The dirt path suddenly began to spread out into a small field specked with dandelions, and then narrowed into a backyard encompassed by a series of slanted, wooden fenceposts. Inside, a small pond fringed with lotuses sat beside a cosy garden decorated with red, blue and yellow flowers surrounding a homey cottage. Black tiles trimmed with moss covered the roof which rested upon stone bricks darkened by centuries of rainfall. A vibrant red door stood beneath a modest overhang with a large, rectangular window on either side shimmering in the afternoon sun. An old, wooden barn perched about a hundred feet away from the cottage housed three horses and a small tack room containing saddles and other leather gear.
"This is the house where I grew up." Thomas said, a sudden wave of melancholy washing over him.
"Really?" Jack replied.
"Yeah, far from all the modern conveniences you are familiar with."
"Well you must have had a television right?" Jack awed in disbelief.
"Oh, don't be silly! We only had a radio in the kitchen. Although, it didn't play music all that often."
"How so?"
"Well, most of the music back then was far from what you kids are hearing now, anyway. You ever heard of the Platters?"
"The Platters?" Jack repeated, puzzled, as his father started to sing.
"They said, "Someday you'll find
All who love are blind", oh, oh
When your heart's on fire, you must realize
Smoke gets in your eyes"
"That sounds so boring." Jack responded.
"I don't know what I was expecting..." Thomas muttered to himself. "If that's hard for you to imagine, just try to think about how I slept at night."
"It seems nicer to sleep here, though." Jack said. "You know, with the quiet and everything..."
"Oh, no, no, no." Thomas rebutted. "We didn't have mattresses like you do nowadays. Everything is harder to come by in the countryside. We slept on fern sacks filled with hay."
"And?"
"That's what I mean when I say you could never know how I had it in my youth! You wouldn't have asked that question if you ever had to shift around for hours as the hardened stems poked at your back."
"That does sound bad, to be fair." Jack admitted. "You must have been tired as well after foraging for food all day long."
Thomas chuckled. "You ventured a bit too far into the past there, bud. Do you see that wooden structure over there?" He asks, pointing at the stable, "That's where we used to keep all sorts of animals, from pigs, to chickens, ..."
"Cows?"
"Yes, cows too. So we had eggs, milk and meat much like you do today."
"Meat? You didn't have to kill animals, did you?" Jack's eyes widened.
"I mean, no, I didn't have, you know, to..." Thomas stumbled. "...You see, animals have to eat other animals in order to survive. You know that, right?"
"Yeah.", Jack replied.
"Well, you'll find out with time that we're not much different. We cared for the animals and all of them lived very happy lives. It was a relief, though, when I moved to Manchester and could just go down to a store to buy anything."
"Wait, but what happened to the animals?" Jack was curious to know.
"Don't worry, they were still taken care of! Your grandma and grandpa stayed here while I was away."
"But don't they live elsewhere?"
"Yes, they do now." Thomas said. "But we all used to live together in this little cottage before I left. Age caught up with them, and they no longer had the strength to look after the farm. So they sold the property and moved into a flat in the city."
"Why did you leave them, though?"
Thomas smiled. "What a curious child you are, huh? Well, I had to go to Manchester to study history. You have to do that if you want to get a job."
"Oh, so that's why you are never home today either!" Jack exclaimed
"Oh Jack, I'd be at home with you all the time if I could." Thomas replied. "But being a historian isn't easy, you know? Reading old letters, rummaging through dusty records... it takes a lot of time to understand how people lived before us. I have told you many times before, though, if you are doing what you love, time passes very quickly."
Everything fell silent for a couple of seconds.
"Shall we go to the hill?" Thomas asked.
"Yeah!" Jack yelled excitedly as he began to run back down the dusty path.
The hike up the hill usually took about an hour and a half, but Jack's constant complaints about the duration of the ascent, together with Thomas' endless ruminations on his youth, easily stretched the climb past two hours. The air filled up with whens and how longs any time a wild bird or a rustle in the bushes failed to break the silence for more than a minute. In dire moments like those, Thomas often took it upon himself to fill the quiet with constant stories about the many landmarks along the path. "That very bush," he would say "is where my old mate Ed was hiding from what he thought was a boar. You wouldn't believe how close Eric's grunts were to the real thing..."
After hours of marching up winding dirt paths and slicing through overgrown shrubbery, they found themselves only minutes away from the top of the hill. The sun hung low enough to wash the sky in a soft afternoon gradient, yet still high enough to call it daylight. As they approached the summit, skyscrapers tinted in pale blue began to slowly emerge from the horizon. Various apartment buildings then followed, revealing themselves in a jumbled mass of rooftops surrounding the city centre. Finally, the rusting industrial infrastructure on the very outskirts of the city came into view, along with abandoned, dilapidated factory complexes with caved-in walls and boarded-up windows. Thomas stood awash with emotions.
"There's Grimshaw. Isn't it big?"
"Wow, it really is!" Jack exclaimed.
They both stood still for a second, taking in the view.
"Look," Thomas said, pointing to the right. "that is where grandma and grandpa live."
Jack nodded in aknowledgement.
"And over there," Thomas said, pointing to the left. "is the building I was born in."
"But weren't you born in Alderville?" Jack interrupted
"That is why I took you up here. When I was two years old, I moved with my parents into the cottage we stopped by. Alderville was all I knew by the time I was your age."
"They must have really liked the town!" Jack concluded.
"Well, that isn't quite the full story. I always used to wonder what was over the hill and would constantly beg my mother to take me to the top. But she always refused, saying: "It's not the time for that yet." That was until the morning came when, for reasons unbeknownst to me at the time, they rushed me to the basement as sirens blared in the distance. I was scared, as any other child would be, by all the noise so close to home. We were okay, thankfully, when sirens sounded for us to emerge from our shelters. Outside, it appeared to me like nothing really changed, apart from the walls of dark smoke rising behind this very hill."
"What happened?" Jack stared in astonishment.
"So, the following day started like any other, apart from the fact that everyone slept poorly the night before. The smoke, though less prominent than the day before, was still rising behind the hill. I asked my mother: "Where is that smoke coming from?" before she took me by the hand and led me along the summit to where you and I are standing now."
He felt his eyes beginning to tear up.
"I saw all of these buildings reduced to rubble, and the factories engulfed in smoke and dust. The horizon was pulsing in yellow and orange, with an intensity no sunset could match. Yet, everything felt peaceful, and hauntingly quiet. I asked my mom: "What happened here?" And I'll always remember what she told me: "Do you remember the time we saw a boar hunting a rabbit in the distance a few weeks ago?" I nodded in approval. "Well, humans are not much different. You'll find that out with time." We then sat in complete silence, only broken occasionally by birds chirping from the trees. I didn't understand what she tried to say to me, but it ignited a flame of curiosity in me that has been burning ever since."
"Did you find out what she tried to say?" Jack asked.
"I'm getting there. Come on, let's go down while we still have enough daylight."
Jack, walking alongside his father, was completely perplexed, but he would be lying if he said he wasn't intrigued. Thomas felt a tear softly running down his left cheek, the one opposite of his son.
"Will you tell me when you find out?"
"I'll try to."