The Salt Fen

            The boy and the old man stood at the lip of the water. The boy crouched, playing among the drifting hairs of the submerged grass with a reed; the old man stood, staring into the distance. Around them there drifted sounds: the boom of a bittern out on the salt marsh; the clank of a bucket as one of the women drew water from the freshwater well. The weather was clouded, formless; the slight breeze stirred vaguely across the salinated fen as if dabbing its boot in a mud-tinted puddle. 

            The old man spoke. His voice was a hoarse, exhausted croak, worn out from decades of over-use; mucus ground deep in his chest like gravel whipped by an estuarine tide.

            ‘I remember when all this used to be farmland.’ He let the statement sink, settle itself, a heavy log tossed into a morass.

            He waited. There was no response from the boy. The winch rattled as whoever it was finished drawing water from the well; warblers shrilled as they whipped across the salt marsh, searching for insects.

            The old man wanted a response from the boy. He waited, thinking about making his statement again.

            The boy piped up. ‘Look at this, Grandad. Look!’

            Pondering, the old man made his way over to where the boy crouched, at the edge of the water. Holding the reed in a firm grasp, the boy was sweeping it backwards and forwards through the shallows, stirring up a current that made the drowned grass-stems swirl and gesture in limp pirouettes.

            The boy was excited. ‘Look, Grandad, look, they’re waving, wave back!’ He stirred the water again, waited while the grass-stems settled into place again, like the head-hairs on a drowned body.

            ‘Grandad, what’s that?’ The boy pointed with the reed, poking down amid the grass-roots.

            ‘What’s what?’ The old man saw nothing.

            ‘Those…thingys!’ The boy’s powers of description failed him; he pointed.

            The old man craned closer. Amid the grass-stems he now made out movement, the infinitesimal agitation of something, like tiny wings beating. He saw that there were many of them, now another, and another; beneath the water’s surface, tiny, translucent, shrimp-like things, moving like ticks amid the dead hairs of the grass. They were living in the salt fen, feeding on whatever invisible life clung on amid the shrivelling stems of the drowned embankment.

            The boy was looking up at him, wondering, wanting an answer, his small face pursed against the shrill breeze that came in from the sea. ‘Grandad, what are they?’

            The old man pondered for a moment, still looking in surprise and puzzlement at the mite-like organisms that flickered and flourished beneath the surface of the water. Then he gave up.

            ‘I don’t know’, he said.

Computer Games are the Novels of the Future

            You play Gilbert, a fluorescent pink hadrosaur whose task is to rescue the beautiful Princess Crysteen. You are aided in your quest by your loyal sidekick, Muffy. Play ascends through nine separate levels, each with its own puzzles to be solved and challenges to be faced. At the end of each level you must outsmart the Level Guardian in order to board the magic balloon which will spirit you away to the next. Make your way with Gilbert through the forests and grottoes of these nine wonderful worlds, marvel at their many curious and beautiful sights, meet the strange and charming local inhabitants (along with many who aren’t so charming!), collecting as many Faerie Cakes as you can along the way. But don’t forget to look out for Killer Bees!!!

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