Prompt #1720 The Voynich Manuscript

This is a teaser for my book, Patterns on Pages. It was selected by the San Diego Library for inclusion in the Local Authors program. As a featured book, it will be displayed in the Main (Downtown) Library the entire month of February. 

The story began as a response to Prompt #1720 The Voynich Manuscript on the same site as in yesterday's post--The Writing Reader. I titled the story, Secrets of the Sequenced Symbols. That's the tagline for the book as printed. To the right is the prompt illustration.

The number assigned to the year by the Julian calendar isn’t important. On the day the hundreds—perhaps thousands—of years of accumulated strain along the San Andreas Fault was released, calendars lost all meaning. The seismic event was so large that the most pessimistic of predictions read like good news now that we live beyond The Day The Earth Shattered.

Some visual records of the massive destruction remain in digital format. They are few in number and brief in length. Once the Pacific Plate lost its hold along the San Andreas Fault, geologic energy in the form of seismic waves spread through all Earth’s tectonic plates. Plate borders slide, sank, rose, pushed and increased in size.

Nations on every continent were eradicated. For some, eradication consisted of loss of all building of consequence. Factories, refineries, hospitals, governmental edifices, prisons, apartment complexes were reduced to piles of rubble during the nearly two hours of horrific earthquakes. Power lines, aqueducts, highways, railroads, airports, and transmitters of all types went from state of the art to obsolete in the same two hours.

The Himalaya Mountains rose 3 meters in two hours as The Indian Plate forced itself inland. The African Plate and Australian Plate, prime movers of the Indian Plate, also ground against one another. The African plate split. The earthquake generated by the split generated tsunamis across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

Entire coastlines disappeared under massive tidal surges. Volcanic eruptions spewed ash and superheated air into the atmosphere. Sunlight and visibility were reduced to less than twilight levels for months. Air quality wreaked havoc on respiratory systems worldwide. Lava from many of the simultaneous eruptions melted or buried topographic landmarks along the Pacific Rim and elsewhere.

Walking through a suburban neighborhood after a fast-moving wildfire or a tornado reveals block after block of smoldering wall studs, flattened chimneys and empty foundations. But, every so often, a house remains intact. Not a burn mark on it. Not a shingle out of place.

Nature’s capriciousness was visible in the devastation following The Day the Earth Shattered. For reasons unknown, enclaves on every continent were spared. Some retained functional solar or wind power. Others escaped the worst air quality. Still others were double-blessed.

What appears to be a reasonable estimate of the number of people that died during the quakes or soon thereafter from disease, starvation or suicide is 6.5 billion. Small pockets of survivors huddled together in isolation from each other and the rest of the world. For all intents and purposes, civilization had been erased. What would become of humanity was uncertain and not optimistic.

There are no written records of the cataclysmic catastrophe. As time progressed, written communication of all kinds diminished then disappeared. There was no time to invest in reading or writing. Not with wild animals and disease organisms running rampant.

The story that follows begins an estimated 200 years after The Day the Earth Shattered.

Prompt #1720 The Voynich Manuscript

  Marin looked left and right. She moved her left hand toward the book.

  She stopped and looked both directions a second time.

  Convinced that no eyes observed her, she once again extended her hand. This time, she allowed her fingers to make contact with the cover of the ancient relic.

  The sensation of handcrafted bonded leather beneath her fingertips brought with it a realization. Some might consider this action sacrilege or worse. She performed a ritualistic gesture to the Deity of the Cross.

  Satisfied that her chosen gesture would protect her from those she might have offended, she reached out her right hand. She allowed both sets of fingers to caress the cover for several seconds before she lifted the book from its stand in the library.

  “So this is what’s got our Council in a tizzy,” she murmured. “What is it about you that frightens them so?”

  She turned, walked to the only table in the room, placed the book on the surface, and slid her stocky body into the closer of two chairs. Stocky was Marin’s self-assessment of her physical state. Most friends followed her desire and used that term when describing her. Other, less friendly acquaintances described her as substantial. Most of her enemies referred to her as fat.

  I’ve got to see what is inside in this book. As the thought shot through her mind, she reflexively wiped her hands on the pant legs stretched tight around her thighs as they struggled to cover the skin beneath them. I cannot leave evidence of my daring deed. And, surely, the grease on my fingers from my lunch of roasted rabbit would qualify as evidence should they stain even the edge of a single page.

  After a follow-up wipe down both sides of her blouse, she felt ready to explore.

  Marin was named after an ancient geographic term for the area directly north S’isco, the coastal city in which she lived. According to legend, S’isco once contained impressive edifices. Of course, that was before the devastation caused by Grumbler, the god who loved to shake the ground. And, S'isco was said to have been the home to millions of people. Marin knew that number was an exaggeration. No more than thousands inhabited the entire state of No’Cal.

  S’isco was now nothing more than a traveler’s stop on the journey from Nor’asia in the northwest across the ice bridge to Soca’mex in the warmer regions south of them. Although limited in status, S’isco maintained the largest library in all No’Cal. She’d heard rumors that their library was the largest in all the U’Sta’Am.

  Regardless of the validity of the rumors about library sizes, Marin knew that books were irreplaceable. Each time she visited this shrine to the Ancients she was careful to respect their abilities.

  “I cannot bring you back,” she whispered to the spirits of those long dead Ancients. “But I will respect your unbelievable achievements.” She lifted one side of the cover with care.

  What she saw inside the book was nothing she hadn’t seen before. While this disappointed her, she was certain that the organized patterns of shapes held a depth of meaning for the Ancients that she could not fully imagine.

  “Every book is filled with these symbols,” she said aloud. “They must have held special significance to be so carefully bound and stored in this library.”

  “I see my dreamer with the vivid imagination is back.”

  Startled, Marin let the books cover drop back into the closed position. She turned in her chair. Standing just inside the door to this shrine was one she called a friend.

  “That was unkind, Brother Lincoln,” she chastised. “I might have damaged the book in my frightened state.”

  Lincoln laughed.

  “Sister Marin. I’ve seen you with books before. I don’t think a physical manifestation of the Deity of the Cross in the chair next to you would frighten you that much.”

  “I suspect you are correct,” Marin admitted. “Will you sit with me and look?”

  “I will.” Lincoln covered the distance between them in two long strides. “Although I see you have chosen the better chair.”

  “I chose this chair because I had no companion. If you wish, I will switch with you.”

  “Thinking of the desires of others before your own. You are nothing if not consistent, Sister Marin. I was making an observation, not asking for a different chair.”

  Marin felt her face flush at the words of praise. Lincoln had a way about him that brought that feeling to her often. She was torn between the joy she felt at the sensation and the irritation at him she felt for causing it.

  “A chair is a chair,” she said as she pushed herself up and switched seats.

  Lincoln smiled. He loved this woman. She might never accept that, but he knew he did. He sat in the vacated chair.

  “What imaginings have you created from this?” he asked as he hefted the book.

  “I’ve not gotten that far,” she confessed. “You interrupted my deliberation.”

  “Then, we shall deliberate together,” he decided and flipped the cover open.

Patterns on Pages is available on Amazon in print and eBook format. If you're looking for a page-turner book to give (or receive) as a Christmas present, this is the one!

By reading the book, you'll also see what editing does to early drafts like this one! The scene above is pages 15-17+ in the final edition. Pay particular attention to the wording and vocabulary of the conversations.

Kindle 99¢. Print edition (238 pages) $6.99