The Origami Dragon And Other Tales (2 page)

Perhaps he is
my new handler, as my last one took early retirement. I was
pleased: we didn’t work well together. When I crawled out of the
river he didn’t even try to dress my wounds. He was worried I would
contaminate him.

The second
booklet belongs to the missing person. There is a photo in it of a
woman with dark, curly hair. She is wearing glasses, a wedding
ring, a smile. The sculptor reads the lines of concern on the young
man’s face. They are traumatic, serious, deep. It is his wife that
has been taken. The company has given him the best assistance they
can offer. They look after their own.

I love my
family, preferably from a distance. My foster parents did their
best. My sister is loud, brash, rude, unkind. She has found her way
into the employment of the same troubled souls as I. My sister
knows it is not in my nature to turn this matter away
.

The silence is
broken only by the rain as it sings a soft goodbye to the sculptor.
An age goes past before the sculptor nods briefly, turns to pack
away his tools. The agent finally relaxes a little, takes a moment
to see my work.

The stone has
become a man: naked, muscular, contorted. His lower body is still
in the stone; the man is struggling free from it, hacking at it
with a crude hammer. The man, his tools, his features, are all
carved from the stone of his birth. The statue’s body looks tired
as it works at its task, so lifelike that he expects to see its
breath in the cold air.

The details are
missing, particularly around the face. The stone is unfinished,
raw, breathtaking.

* *

The storm beats
angrily against the stone tower perched precariously on a rocky
spire. The spire stands alone in the ocean, the tower a relic of an
ancient empire. The tower had once served as a lighthouse in these
troubled waters, now it is dark. The waves beat at the spire
angrily, trying to tear it down. The tower is an insult to the
oceans, a mar on their skin, an isolated stronghold of solidity in
a world of fluid motion.

There are
only three ways into the tower. The first is by boat, the second by
chopper. This night is too rough for either. The third way is hard,
hard, hard
.

The waters are
too rough to swim. The storm is surely too strong to challenge in
its own domain. To bet everything on the strength of muscle,
tendon, ligament would be to risk all on folly. The tower guards
believe themselves safe from intrusion.

They are wrong;
there is a figure in the water.

I swim, trying
not to think of the monsters beneath me. I hope they aren’t hungry.
The rain falls around me, encouraging, invigorating, lost in the
waves.

His stick-like
body is a stranger in the water, unwelcome. His body slides through
the water as if he were crawling through mud. The waves push it,
pull it, attack it every way they can. The body won’t sink; its
progress is slow, relentless. The wind howls, the body crawls, the
tower waits.

It took me
three days to track down the abducted woman. That in itself is a
message. The company aren’t without their own resources; they only
need me for exceptional circumstances.

He reaches the
bottom of the spire. The waves try to dash him against the stone, a
last attempt to destroy this unwanted intruder. The swimmer leaps
from the water, rides a wave meant to crush him, catches on a thin
stone ledge. The swimmer is dressed in loose, dark clothes. He
begins to climb immediately, pulling himself away from the angry
water. His body is impossibly tall, thin, strong. He climbs like he
swims, crawling up slippery stone, grasping at treacherous
seagrasses growing along the cliff. The waves roar beneath him.

There was no
reason for the woman to be taken other than to get my attention.
So, I am crawling into a trap. My sister doesn’t know this, my
superiors do
.

The climber
moves slowly, never stopping, never slipping. It takes an hour to
reach the brickwork at the bottom of the tower. He pauses there,
rests. The tower is large enough to house a hundred men. It has few
windows, one entrance. There is no light in the tower. The climber
picks out the silhouette of a window half way up the tower. The
window is tiny, barred, perfect.

I hate being
away from my work. My sister says my obsession makes me cold, hard,
like the stone I carve. The company prefers me this way
.

He pulls the
bars off the window silently. The hardened steel bends like soft
plastic beneath his fingers, falls away silently. The window is too
narrow for a man to climb through; he pushes through somehow, drops
silently to the ground. There are three beds inside the room. One
is occupied by a sleeping man, a gun set beside him.

I owe the
company. My debt is complex, deep, unacceptable. I work to be free
of them. My sister doesn’t know this. She thinks the company is
marvellous. It saved her life once, she always reminds me.

The thin figure
examines the sleeping guard. He checks his gun, subtly sabotages
it, replaces it. He passes a three-fingered hand lightly over the
guard’s face to keep him sleeping. The guard is carrying ammunition
capable of killing the intruder. This is rare, dangerous,
informative. This trap is lethal, this game will end in death. The
intruder exits the room, passes through the dark corridors, a
shadow in a world of shadows, unnoticed.

These guards
are killers, the best of the best. Some nearly notice me, some
almost hear me. They were told I would come in a storm; they don’t
believe it could be this one.

He hunts as he
searches. He traps sleeping guards in their dreams, stalks those
awake. He is a haunting ghost, a skeletal hunter.

They come to
realise that I am amongst them. They expect me, for what little
good it does them
.

The guards
patrol in pairs, fight well, disappear quickly. The invader finds
the abducted woman in a cell on the lowest floor. She is asleep,
safe, oblivious. He leaves her, continues hunting. There is only
one locked door in the tower on the top floor. He ignores it.

There will
be no rescue while the storm rages, the guards patrol, the trap
sits unsprung. I will crawl on the ceiling, creep along the walls.
I will stalk them in the shadows, drag them into the
darkness
.

Nothing stands
against him. The last handful of guards cluster together for
safety, a herd of hardened men trembling with fear. They know what
he is. He shuts them down with a grenade made from light itself. It
works; their shots are distracted, wild, wide. Only one manages to
hit him. The bullets bite with familiar pain, knock him backward.
The intruder is prepared for this. He ducks, rolls, throws a small
stone at the gunman. The stone hits the shooter gently in the
chest. He falls, stays down.

Those bullets
hurt. If I could bleed I would be dead.

The thin
intruder searches his opponents thoroughly, finds only bullets, two
keys, coins. He takes the coins. The woman is safe, stuck. The
storm roars across the sky. He walks to the top of the tower,
stares at the last locked door. There are cameras watching the
door.

I can be
patient.

He waits for an
hour. The door swings open. He enters. The room is empty.

I’m safe for
as long as the rain falls above me. The rain is my safeguard, my
ally, my friend
.

Silence falls
suddenly. The absence of noise startles him. The storm has died. He
knew it would. Help is minutes away; the woman is safe. There is
more, worse, distressing. The rain has stopped completely.

The patter of
rain has fallen silent. I cannot remember a time when the rain
didn’t call to me, watch over me, protect me!

Friendly
laughter echoes across the room. A camera on a robotic arm turns
towards him. He moves. The camera tracks him. There is more
laughter. It is charming, kind. It scares him.

“I finally get
to see the thing that has been such a thorn in my side!” the voice
declares excitedly, “with a little help from my friendly weather
controller.”

I don’t know
who this man is. He can stop the rain, my lifeline, my friend. I
don’t want to die today
.

“I don’t like
you,” says the voice happily.

I cannot
escape
.

The topmost
storeys of the tower explode. The woman is safe, her rescuer’s
scarecrow body is thrown into the sky.

* *

A helicopter
searches across the ocean, circling, darting, rising, falling. It
is one of many in the air. The company is looking for lost
treasure, no stone will go unturned. They defy the laws meant to
restrain them, they search with every tool at their disposal. There
will be a price, they will pay it gladly. The missing agent is too
dangerous to let free, too valuable to let lie. He is the company’s
ace, their silver bullet, their last resort.

A powerful foe
wants him dead. This alone makes his recovery vital.

I am asleep,
resting, drifting. I am cold yet comfortable. Do I dream? Am I a
dream myself? It is hard to focus.

This search
involves stranger forces than men in flying metal. Winged creatures
search the waters from above, green serpents beneath. Eyes watch
the waters from far away through means mundane, magical,
electrical. There is little hope.

One whirling
metal bird sees something in the water, drops, hovers. There is a
splash as a body enters the water. A struggle amongst the waves;
two bodies are pulled out.

I can hear
voices in my dreams. They are talking about me, to me, around me.
My head hurts. I don’t know where I am, only that I am in trouble.
Did someone slip chilli into my food? I don’t remember.

The body is
broken, waterlogged, motionless. The medics cannot do anything with
him. Needles break on his skin, his chest is still, his skin cold.
There is no pulse. They are told this is normal; they shake their
heads in despair.

Insects bite
at my skin. I am young again, too tall for comfort, too awkward for
sympathy. My sister teases me. She tells me that one day she will
be a model. We play with the family greyhound. We are
happy
.

The chopper
lands on a private estate in the country. The airfield is
unregistered. The pilots are taken aside after landing,
blindfolded, interrogated. Their work this night will earn them
either rapid promotion or death. The body is dragged across wooden
floors into an empty room, dropped.

Two men enter.
One opens a briefcase, pulls out a long syringe. The other man
holds the body down. The syringe is wooden. It enters his body
smoothly. They talk quietly, discussing rumours about their
patient. They know little. The body stirs slightly.

There was a
day when the rain fell in love with the soul of a tree. The rain
woo’ed the tree, sang to it, blessed it. They had a child. The
world is made of such unlikely liaisons. The rain’s brother, ocean,
heard of the tree, became jealous. It ravaged across the land to
destroy the tree. The destruction was indiscriminate, ripping up
forests, tearing apart the very ground itself. The child survived,
the tree did not. The rain took its son to safer places.

The syringe
contains rain water. It enters his veins, calls to him. It is not
enough. They leave him, their job done. His sister arrives,
escorted by the company’s most senior leaders. They beg her to
help. She has tears in her eyes, a letter in her hand. They argue
over the letter’s contents. It is years old, written in elegant
copperplate. It is his will.

I grew,
learnt, became. The ocean forgot me, the rain did not. My human
family were good to me. I will miss them; I am dying now. I have
been killed by a smiling enemy, a wrathful uncle, a forgetful
sister.

He is wrong;
she has not forgotten. The company men are surprised by the force
of her passion, insistence, anger. They shrug, pull the body
outside. The body is heavy, too heavy. They drag him as best they
can. One man finds a shovel, another picks a point in the ground.
They bury him up to his shoulders, his head above the soil. They
plant him like a tree, pat down the soil, wait. The sun rises,
clouds march across the skies.

And it begins
to rain.

“Don’t trip
over the elephants,” warned Shaun.

I hadn’t
noticed that that herd had come over to investigate the back of my
bare calves. I froze as Shaun gently shooed them away. He was great
with the animals, whereas I had only been working with them a few
weeks and still felt like a clumsy titan.

The herd’s
matriarch led her family away from us, so Shaun and I continued
planting. The largest of the elephants came up to my knee, but the
younger ones were so small that they could have fit in the palm of
my hand. The Park’s smaller species of animals had an unfortunate
habit of getting under foot, particularly the zebra. There had been
heartbreaking accidents, which is why only the most conscientious
workers were allowed to walk on the soil. Shaun and I were
considered gentle enough to get by. We both went barefoot and
gloveless, for the work was delicate and we would need all the
senses at our disposal. We were planting a mixture of tree species
in a small grove alongside a riverbed in the hope that they would
flourish there.

I took a tree
from the platform suspended next to my shoulder and dug gently in
the soil with my small shovel. The tree, already half-grown, was
the length of my forearm. It was a baobab,
Adansonia
digitata
, and I planted it carefully in the soil. I picked up
another tree from the platform. It was smaller than the ones I had
already planted and covered in fruit. A few birds played amongst
the branches, investigating its offerings even as I planted it. The
next plant was a thorn tree,
Acacia erioloba
, and I had to
handle it with care.