It’s been a while … oops!
Chapter six is the title of the book ‘Indigenous’. It starts so soft and gentle with emptiness and no life but finishes with the horrific scene with the shaman.
The opening scene is that of an ocean coastline. I used the memories I had of walks with my daughter Linda and my sister Ellen along the coastal area of Hastings. I remember the lack of trees and shrubbery among the sand dunes. I find having a visual image of something gives me the sensation that what I am writing about is real – even if the world it is in is not. Naturally, I have not been to all the places described in my books; it would have been nice, but not everything is possible. I do a lot of research to try and achieve this sense of realism in these scenes.
The beach scene is followed by one of my strongest childhood memories: Ferns. This comes from my young teenage years when I would play in Tile Hill Wood woods near my home at the time. I can remember crawling underneath an ocean of ferns to hide from the rest of the world and the heat of the day. The air underneath was always cool, and had, what I would describe as, a sweet scent. I can remember twisting and turning among them to avoid leaving any traces whatsoever.
As I read this chapter, I noticed that the beginning is mixed with lots of varying memories. Another is the comment about changing from swimming to running. Again, this is taken from personal experience. While working in Millstätter See Kärnten, (Sorry, I am not going to translate the name to English because I think names are important.) I took part in a biathlon where you had to swim first and then run. I can clearly remember climbing out of the lake and trying to run. My legs were not sure where or what they were supposed to do. The sensation lasted only for a brief moment, but it left a lasting impact. Fortunately, I did not fall or hurt myself.
After this romantic walk through my memories, I finally reached the Indigenous camp. Now, it was time to do some research. Throughout my books, I always spend a lot of time doing this, and this chapter is no exception. Everything about the Indigenous camp was googled and confirmed to be correct (as good as the internet allows.) I really wanted this scene to be as authentic as possible. I did not want people to think I wrote it based on prejudice. Therefore, the separation of women and men was all checked. I want my writing to provide useful and truthful information concerning the varying Indigenous people I describe. (In book two – I talked about the Inuit.) There are a lot of different minorities all around the globe. My inquiries made me wonder if, perhaps, we too, will be one day Indigenous. As the internet and AI take hold of our society – life without it becomes part of the past, and this history and culture are politically controlled (and removed in places.) Heroes become villains. Statues are destroyed. This doesn’t change the past; it only hides it from view. (The comment I made about Cleopatra was influenced by what I was learning at the OU at the time, and it questioned the truth of history.)
As we grow and learn, our attitude toward things, change. This is normal. What was once allowed becomes taboo. I think, generally speaking, this is a positive development. A problem might be, however, that building something too fast can cause mistakes that will reveal themselves later and perhaps too late to fix. I wonder if future generations, those born into a world with fully integrated AI and an iNeck-styled connection, will think that we were barbaric?
A positive memory from all of this is feeling proud when I described George with an All-American DNA.
Before I go on, I openly admit that I am not a computer geek. It sounds like it at times, but the truth is, I know very little about the technical side of some of the things I describe. Fortunately for me, there are lots of good people out there who do know such things and are kind enough to share their knowledge and explain it online to anyone who is interested.
It’s all this needed background information that slows my writing down! I knew someone else had to be responsible for it. (Smile.)
Some things, though, my kids taught me. We spent many a happy hour playing Mario Kart together. Without this, I would not have understood certain sections of the chapter.
Try and guess which parts.
To conclude, the chapter is a kind of emotional rollercoaster. On one side, I am writing about a very intense and vivid scene concerning cannibalism, and the next, about the sheer beauty of a Peacock butterfly. I think it needs this to help intensify the one dreadful scene. I knew, when writing it, that if I portrayed this moment wrong, then the whole story would fail. It would not be believable. I can still see the scene rolling out in front of me, my own private cinema, in slow motion and moments of horror and fear. But it had to be. It was very important to establish another part of George’s character. He is not a hero. This scene is not about a super person doing super things, but someone like the millions of people living today who do good things simply because they believe it is the right thing to do. That is how I want to present George. So yes, maybe at times in the book, he does things you might not like, but he is supposed to be human.
