We all gathered around ready to listen to the stories that had been passed down from generation to generation, to be honest I'd heard the stories many times over in my thirty years of life, this evening wasn't for the benefit of myself or the other adults here in our community but mainly for the children within the group.
I guess that the fables we were used to were no different to stories all children listen too, all children believed in fairy tales, knights in shining armour and beautiful princess at one point in their lives, but these stories had more meaning and in some sense they were true, well, we couldn't disprove them, how could we, we were living, breathing representations of those stories so I guess we had to just take them at face value.
The gathering in the town hall was a quarterly ritual, the Olders and the pregnant mothers had the seats while the rest of us either sat or stood around the stage and the periphery listening in. As our Historical Leader started you could see the kids looking up at her, wide eyes and full of anticipation, this would be their first time to hear our histories and being as they have just become of age it was going to be shock to the old system I can tell you.
The town hall was a wooden structure, basic in its boxy form, clear glass window adorned all sides to allow as much light in as possible, the strong oak floors were worn and had been walked over many, many times in the past, the whitewashed walls were bright, a little too bright, at certain times of the day they seemed to blind you with the brightness they omitted, no pictures, posters or decoration was hung on them, just plain, white and bright. It always boggled me as a child how they stayed that way, well the answer is not so magical or mystical, the whole place is painted every year, so that blew the fantasy of an otherworldly building from my mind quickly, especially when I have been selected on more than one occasion to do the redecoration.
The hall sat squarely in the lands we called home, all the buildings were built concentrically around this building making it the first thing you saw when you opened your front door or looked out the windows.
I guess if we were able to view our land from above it would look like some weird spiders web of buildings circling over and over again, we were a lucky community, we had running water courtesy of the river that ran through our land and the mountains above that every year during spring managed to fill the river and alongside that our holding ponds. We also the means to create electricity in the form of wind converters and we had enough land to sustain crops of many grains, vegetables, fruits and farm land for rearing animals for milk and meat consumption, we were a lucky group I sometimes hate to think what would happen if disaster struck and one of those 'luxuries' was taken away.
Tucked away from the circles stood the main hub of activity, again in a circular pattern, the hub held most of the buildings that you didn't want to see, that would mar the beautiful views we had, the hub consisted of the forge, tannery, slaughter house, linen row where our clothes were made, grain stores and warehouses holding the groups goods before it being shared amongst us all, this area was a blot on our peaceful landscape and was strategically hidden by hedges and evergreen trees to mask not only the noise and ugly aesthetics but the smell.
We were very lucky indeed, as a group we hardly ever suffered from sickness, we were a healthy bunch but that didn't mean when something serious occurred we were without the means to help and if the worst happened we had a cemetery, within our culture we didn't bury our dead, we burnt them, It makes perfect sense to me, I mean bodies took up space and long ago there were rumours that the deceased could affect our water and food stocks buy accidentally poisoning them, I don't know how true this was but I'm glad we didn't have to find out. Now once our loved ones were burnt, we place the ashes in small earthenware jars and add a small name plaque to signify who was laid to rest.
The cemetery like everything around here was also circular in shape with the oldest plaques in the middle and the newest snaking their way around, it was surrounded by a circular wall of evergreen plants, I always like it there, it was peaceful and it was somewhere I went to when I needed some family time.
The cemetery and Hub, were somehow connected, yet tacked onto the main areas, two circular bubbles added onto the outside of the main area, I guess the shape you would see in your mind was that of ears added on top of a head, Or a flower that was almost through with the game of he loves, 'he loves me not'. Inclusive yet separate.
Our whole land was tucked away in very dense woodland our land looked as if it had been carved out of the forest, I had always assumed the trees that had been removed were used to create the buildings we resided in but that was just a guess, we still had a mass of numerous trees, bushes and flowering plants, this is all you could see.
It looked like one day it would creep up on us and consume us and take us back to when it was just forest and bushes, but so far, we were safe, no such secret creeping of the forest had occurred.
We were told as children that our land had a circular wall surrounding it with no entry or exit, this made any movement in or out practically impossible, though I've heard whispers that some people have scaled the walls to sneak a look outside, I never knew if this was a truth, but to be honest I wasn't too bothered either way, after all, I just never knew if these stories were true of not.
I walk toward the front of the hall, and glance around before the real reason were here commences.
I suddenly have an involuntary shiver run down my back making my skin rise with goose bumps, I know it's not just the anticipation I guess it's just this place, this building, these stories that make me feel like I'm living in some sort of fairy tale, one day, yes one day I vowed to myself, I'd find the truth, seek out the Others and then return to either prove them right or blow these stories out of the water, I was just biding my time.