Chapter XXII - Modernization

Zuonn looked to all of his people and when he sees no one will open their mouth again, he starts to speak louder for all of them to listen to him.     “The people you have said as a witch is not a witch actually. They are same as us, just human. But, the difference between them to us is about technology. Yeah, technology is about technique you made for something. They have upgrading their techniques so they have unique items that we haven't seen. But the function is same. Do you understand what I mean?” Zuonn tried to explain it as Lucas did to him.     Lucas amazed when he sees Zuonn remembered all of things he has explained to him. Zuonn really a description of a big guy with smart brain. Lucas have a high hope that this meeting will be success because Zuonn helped them. “What are you saying, Zuonn? You have been in the forest too long!” An old man in the front row stood up with his stick. “My father told me about the witches. My grandfather told my father. And now you tell us they are just people with better tools?” “Yes, Uncle Rann. That is exactly what I am saying.” “Then your brain is frozen.” Some people laughed. Zuonn did not laugh. “Maybe,” he answered calmly. “But my brain is frozen because I looked at them closely. And your brain is warm because you never did.” The laugh stopped. *** Lucas watched all of this from the side of the meeting hall. It was not really a hall. It was a big circle of packed snow with a bonfire in the middle, and everybody sat around it on animal skins. But the way these people argued was exactly the same as any meeting room in his office. Someone who talked too loud. Someone who never talked at all. Someone who agreed with whoever spoke last. Lucas almost smiled. *** “Zuonn,” Grandmother Vela called from her seat. “Let the outsider speak.” Every head turned to Lucas. He suddenly felt his throat become very dry. “Me?” “Do you see another outsider here?” Lucas stood up slowly and walked to the middle, near the fire. Two hundred pairs of eyes were watching him. In his real life, Lucas once refused a promotion because it required him to present in front of eleven people. “Um. Hello,” he said. Nobody answered. “Okay. Let me try something different.” He took the pocket watch from his pocket. *** The moment the firelight touched the metal, the whole circle became silent. “This is a watch,” Lucas said. “It tells time.” He opened it and showed the moving hands. “Some of you probably think this is magic. But it is not. Inside there are small wheels, and the wheels push each other in order.” He walked slowly around the fire so everybody could see. “Somebody made this with his hands. He was not a witch. He was a man who spent his whole life learning how wheels work.” “How do you know?” a woman asked. “Because I have seen the workshop,” Lucas answered. “And because if he was a witch, he would not need so many tools.” *** A boy, maybe ten years old, raised his hand from the back. His mother tried to pull his hand down but he refused. “Yes?” Lucas called him. “Can I hold it?” The whole circle gasped. Lucas looked at Grandmother Vela. The old woman raised one eyebrow, and that was all. “Come here,” Lucas said. *** The boy walked to the fire slowly. Everybody was watching, and some of the adults looked ready to run. Lucas knelt down and put the pocket watch on the boy's small hand. Nothing happened. No lightning. No fire. No curse. Just a small metal thing ticking on a child's palm. “It's warm,” the boy said, surprised. “That's because it was in my pocket.” “It's moving.” “Yes.” The boy looked up at him with wide eyes. “Is it alive?” Lucas thought about that question for a moment. He thought about how this watch dragged his soul into a world that should not exist, every single night, for the past three weeks. “I don't know,” he answered honestly. *** After the meeting ended, Grandmother Vela called Lucas to sit beside her. “You did well,” she said. “Thank you, Grandmother.” “I said you did well. I did not say I believe you.” Lucas smiled a little. “That's fair.” The old woman poked the fire with her stick. “Outsider.” “Yes?” “What will happen to us after your people finish their work?” Lucas turned to look at her. “What do you mean?” “You told my people that those silver people have better tools,” she said. “You told them their tools are not magic. You showed a child a machine and told him it is not alive.” She turned her head, and her eyes were much sharper than Lucas expected. “Tomorrow that child will look at our fire and our stone knives, and he will feel ashamed. What will you do about that?” *** Lucas did not have any answer. He sat there beside the old woman for a long time, watching the fire become smaller. “Grandmother.” “Hm.” “In the place where I come from,” he said slowly, “we have every tool you can imagine. We have light without fire. We have machines that carry us faster than any horse.” “And?” Lucas looked at his own hands. “And nobody in my building knows the name of the person living next door.” Grandmother Vela was quiet for a moment. Then she laughed — a dry, short laugh, like a branch breaking. “Good,” she said. “Then tell that to the child tomorrow. Not the part about the wheels.”