Henry Lion Oldie. Annabel Lee

Henry Lion Oldie
Annabel Lee

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   …This manuscript was found in a half-broken desolated bungalow on the island of San-Sebastian – one of the last strongholds and shelters of Mankind in the hard, troubled times after the Great Break. Banished from the cities, left to their own resources, – some gave in to the persuasions of the Avoiders of Objects (the Empters) and emigrated after signing the contract; some adapted to the new lifestyle, quickly losing restraining moral factors. And some went away to the rapidly developing hotbeds of the Necrosphere, and their further fate remained unknown. In that time few had associated the forming of the Necrosphere with the Great Emigration caused by the signing of the contract between man and Empter…
   The manuscript itself was almost rotten, so that there was impression that its pages had been in the water for a long time, and what remained was written in a clumsy, uneven handwriting, as if it was hard for him who had written it to hold a pen in his hands – or whatever had he held it in, he who had written this tale too similar to a true story…

 
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me. ^[1]
 

   …Turquoise waves, bending in foamy white crests, were rolling on the scattered gold of the shore, and I was sitting on the sand, looking at the sea. I was looking at the sea, and it was licking my scratched bare feet. My name was Renaldo. I was born on this island, where incredibly huge coco-palms thrust into the incredibly blue, deep sky. I loved my island. Do you feel? Grownups used to tell that San-Sebastian (that was the name of our island) had been formerly a part of a continent. But that was long ago, before the Great Break. That’s why we live in the white stone houses – though here there’s nothing to build them from – and we have a school, and a church, and even an electricity station. But the grownups still regret, they miss the life on the continent where, according to their words, people had lots of stuff like that… But I’m all right without it. I have the sea, and the sky, and coco shells for different games, and home – and I don’t need the rest. Grandfather Ignacio says I am like an Avoider of Objects, but I have nothing to compare to. I’ve seen an Empter twice, when he visited the settlement, and both times I was being sent immediately to the shore to play, and from the distance he was ordinary and dull. I am fine. I can sit and look at the sea, and think of things, and the sand flows through my fingers and tickles them a bit…
   “Hi, Renaldo!” someone’s shadow obscures the sun, but I know this is Annabel – she walks after me all the time. She always… What does she even need?!