The Glitch stared blankly at the
world around him for several minutes. His head was still spinning from the
process of being freshly imagined and he wasn’t sure what to do just yet.
“I have a body, that’s
important,” he thought. “Appendages in a useful number. Lots of skin, and in
such a lovely color too. Is that yellow? Perhaps blue? I’m not quite sure which
colors are which. That’s something to investigate later.” His mind was rapidly
expanding to take in all the new information available to one so recently
thought into existence.
“I suppose maybe I should try
standing up,” he said aloud to no one in particular since no one was around to
hear it anyway. “Hey! I can talk!” he exclaimed. “I’m sure this will come in
most handy.”
He slowly got to his feet and
did a few squats and leg bends to get a feel for his new legs. He turned and
bent his arms at the elbows to test for range of motion. He flexed his fingers
and toes. He opened his mouth and blinked his eyes. He tried to close his nose
and ears, but nothing happened. “Must be defective,” he thought. “Oh well,
nobody’s perfect.” He swiveled his neck and tried to take in the forest
surrounding him. “What is this place?” he wondered aloud.
As he gazed at the trees and
rocks, something caught his eye. His desire to investigate it immediately took
over, except there was a problem. The thing, a small wooden box with a crank
and some squiggles on the front, was over there, and he was over here. Being
over here was all fine and well for a little while, but now he wanted to be
over there and he wasn’t really sure how to make that happen.
“I would like to be over there,
please, near that thing if you don’t mind.” He tried what he thought to be a
very polite request, but nothing happened. Clearly that wasn’t the way of it. He
thought for a moment and then it was obvious to him what the problem was, so he
tried a different track.
“Please, if you would be so
kind, I would like that thing to be here, near to me so that I may inspect it.
Thank you.”
Nothing happened.
Well this was certainly
disconcerting. “If I can’t be moved to it, and it won’t be moved to me, what
other course of action can I take? I’m not sure I can be any more polite with
my requests and I feel that yelling isn’t in my nature, though I may try it
someday just for fun,” he thought.
Clearly no one was going to do the
moving for him since there was no one around that he could see, so he devised a
plan to lean, ever so slightly, toward the thing and hope that—well, hope that
something would happen. He immediately put his plan into action and leaned just
a little.
Just like that the thing was
closer! He began feeling very clever and more than just a little pleased with himself,
but it wasn’t enough. The thing was still some ways off and it wasn’t getting
any closer. He leaned a little more, and it helped a bit, but he wasn’t sure
how long he could keep this up.
He devised to lean just a little
more, but as he did so something wholly unexpected happened.
He fell over.
I suppose it makes sense to you,
but remember he was brand new to this world and had to figure things out on his
own. There were no other Glitchen around to teach him how things like legs
worked. Luckily there was someone else nearby watching his progress or this
might have been a very long story.
As he lay on the ground
wondering what just happened and feeling very disappointed in his spectacular
failure he heard a voice.
“You’re not from around here are
you?” it asked.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am,”
he answered. “I’m from here. Right here on this very spot. I’ve been here all
of my life.”
“That much I know. I was here
when you got here. What I meant was you don’t have a clue what you’re doing.”
The voice wasn’t mean, but it sounded a little uneasy.
“Oh, yes, you are right about
that. I’ve only existed for—well I don’t know anything about time yet, but it
can’t have been very long. I’m trying to look at that thing over there,” the Glitch
shifted to pull his arm out from under him and point toward the object on the
ground, “but I seem to be stuck on the ‘how-to’s’ of getting over to it—or
getting it over here to me. Would you mind giving me a hand?” In the back of his
mind the Glitch wondered about the voice that was speaking to him, but not
knowing enough about voices he didn’t know to look for its source. Plus he was
really very determined to see the matter through of investigating that thing on
the ground.
“Very well, I’ll help you, but
you have to promise to be nice to me.” The voice wavered a little as if unsure
about how to proceed. “Do you promise?”
“Of course, why would I be mean?
I’ve never been mean to anyone in my life and I don’t intend to start now. If
you can help me I’ll be more than nice; I’ll be grateful!”
“Well, OK then.” There was a
brief silence followed by a fluttering noise like something falling softly to
the ground near the Glitch. “You know how to stand don’t you? Balance yourself
on your legs? I saw you do it before.” The voice was much closer now to the Glitch’s
right side.
“Yes, I do. It made me feel
tall.”
“Alright, well, do that again.
Stand up. Once you’ve done that, just move one foot in front of the other and
keep your balance, like this.” And with that a large black bird moved into the Glitch’s
field of view. It wasn’t the most graceful walk—a little stuttering perhaps—but
it got the job done and was fine enough as an example. “Personally I never much
cared for walking. Short distances, maybe, but flying is really the way to go.
Why you Glitchen never learned how to fly I’ll never understand.”
The Glitch’s face lit up with
understanding. He took to his feet with an exclamation of joy.
The bird let out a shriek and
half-jumped, half-flew back a few feet. The Glitch slowly took one… two… three
wobbly steps before stopping to steady himself. “It makes so much sense! How
did I not see it before?” He turned to look at the bird and the bird was
looking back at him in a manner that suggested it wasn’t sure if it should stay
or fly out of there as fast as possible. For the moment curiosity was winning
out over the flight instinct, but just barely. “Thank you! You’ve been a
tremendous help!” And with that he turned back toward the object on the ground.
It took another three steps to
get there and by that time the Glitch was quietly laughing at himself for being
so foolish. “I could have never leaned this far. What was I thinking? What a
silly idea!”
While the Glitch was busy examining the thing on the
ground the black bird hopped a little bit closer and stared at him curiously.
“What do you think this thing
is?” The Glitch had picked up the object and was turning it over in his hands.
“It’s got some funny marks on the front and these little—“ Right at that moment
the wooden box began playing a bright tune and the young Glitch discovered what
a button was. “Hey! Listen to that! I just pushed this thing on the front and
it made music! I like music I think.”
The bird was still staring at him.
“You really don’t know anything about this place do you?”
The Glitch thought for a second.
“Well, no, not really. I just woke up didn’t I? By the way, who are you? I
should like to know who I have to thank for helping me out.”
The bird shifted uneasily. “I’m
a—my name is Koro. It’s not really a name, really, it’s more of a rank, but it’s
as good as a name now that I’m all that’s left.”
“All that’s left? What do you
mean?”
Koro hopped a bit closer. “Well, my friends and family,
all of my people, they’re gone from this world.”
The Glitch looked down at Koro
sadly, “I’m sorry. That must be terrible to be all alone.”
“I think it will be, but it’s
only just happened.”
The Glitch thought for a second.
“Well, it’s a good thing I showed up. Now you don’t have to be alone anymore!”
Koro eyed him suspiciously.
“That’s the thing. I’m not supposed to be here anymore, and neither are you.
All your people disappeared as well. I think something’s gone wrong and now
we’re the only ones left.”
The Glitch stood and stared back
at Koro in shock. “There were others like me? And they’re gone? But why?”
Koro lowered her head. “I’m sorry,
kid, it’s a long story.” She looked back up. “What’s your name anyway?”
The Glitch looked down at the
music box in his hand. “You know what? I don’t know. You’re the first person
I’ve ever talked to.” They stood in silence for a moment more before the Glitch
looked up and really tried to take in the world around him for the first time.
“I wonder what this place was like, you know, before everyone went away. I
wonder if I would have liked it.”
“Hmm… wonder… sure why not?
You’ve got a lot of questions and maybe I can help you out some, but for now
you need a name, so how does Wonder sound? That seems like a good fit to me.
What do you think?” Koro looked up expectantly.
The Glitch looked around and seemed
to consider the name in his mind. “Wonder… yes. Yes I think I like that name
quite a lot actually. Wonder. Wonder. wonder. WONDER! Wonder.” He continued to
repeat his new name over and over in different ways as if trying it on for
size. After a minute or so he turned back to Koro and smiled. “Wonder. I have a
name and it’s Wonder! Thank you again, Koro. You are turning out to be really
quite a good friend.”
If birds could smile Koro would
have, and maybe she did, who’s to say? “Thank you, Wonder. So are you.”
“So, what do we do now?” Wonder
asked with renewed excitement.
“That’s a good question. To be
honest, I’m a bit out of my depth here. I’m not really sure what we should do,
but maybe I can teach you some things while we’re figuring that out.”
“Really? I’d love to learn some
new things. That walking bit was really spectacular!”
“Well, buddy, if you liked
walking you’re going to LOVE jumping!”
“Jumping? What is that? It
sounds fun.”
“Again, personally I prefer
flying to jumping, but you Glitchen seemed to go absolutely crazy for jumping.
It’s all I ever saw anyone do.”
“I can’t wait to try it out! How
do I do it?”
“It’s easy, let me show you…”
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