The Cosmic Current

“The Viking sons of Ragnar are said to have invaded in 865 AD,” Ms Garlic was saying. “According to the legend, they captured King Aella, and Ivar the Boneless became King of Northumbria. History in those days is complicated, because they did not keep a written record of what was happening, so these accounts were kept by word of mouth for a couple of centuries. Read Chapter Seven and write a summary of it in your own words.”

Ondine was not at all interested in Vikings, so she read her own book instead.

Sheila the fortune teller tapped on the cup three times, turned it over and looked at the tea leaves.

“What do you see?” Kirsty asked her.

“Very interesting,” Sheila whispered, turning the cup around in her hands. “There’s a big snail, and a tiny little face.”

Kirsty leaned over and had a look for herself.

“Tea leaf images are often amusing,” Sheila said, nodding. “And rememeber, the meaning of the pictures is open to interpretation. We’ll focus on the snail. It could be a sign that you are entering a new era of your life, or perhaps that you should be slowing down to take it easy.”

Kirsty smiled, waiting for more.

“The spiral of the snail shell symbolises a never ending cycle of growth,” said Sheila. “Which is very positive. You might have your own ideas of what snails symbolize to you personally.”

Sheila passed the cup back to Kirsty, to let her see. She told her to turn the cup, and relax her eyes, to see what other pictures were there, but no matter which way she turned it, all Kirsty could see was tea leaves. Sheila filled the silence.

“Snails are wonderful, deliberate creatures, people with snails as their power animal always achieve their goals. So this may be a message underlining the value of patience, or reminding you not to hide away in your shell. Snails have to balance protection with trust. They are delicate and vulnerable, yet strong, powerful creatures.”

Kirsty left the fortune teller’s tent feeling calm and happy. She’d enjoyed it, and was looking forward to finding out more about symbolism later.

“That’s all she told you?” laughed her friend Anna when she told her about it, in the queue for the rollercoaster. “That’s too vague for me.”

“It was fun,” said Kirsty, looking at the ferris wheel. “You wouldn’t want to know too much about the future, that would take all the mystery out of life.”

“I thought she was going to tell you your future, or something.”

“Well, it’s difficult to dicypher the language of tea leaves, they’re just all mixed up in the cup,” Kirsty explained thoughtfully. After a minute she continued, “Maybe you can’t see the future because it hasn’t happened yet. It’s unknowable, nothing is set in stone. So the tea leaves are mixed up because they’re really not sure what’s going to happen.”

“There were psychics who could tell the Titanic was going to sink,” Anna said, raising her eyebrows.

“I’m not going on a boat trip,” said Kirsty.

Anna rolled her eyes and giggled.

Back in the tent, Sheila was waiting for the next customer to come along.

“Isn’t it interesting,” she said to her enchanted teapot. “Just about every reading this week has had a picture of a snail in it.”

“Are you sure they’re all snails? Couldn’t they be whirlpools or cyclones?” said the teapot.

“I suppose, but it still seems like a strange coincidence. I hope it’s not a warning that something calamitous is going to happen,” Sheila replied, taking a bite of her Jeavon’s Rabble.

“Snails don’t symbolise anything negative,” said the teapot. “I wouldn’t worry about it. The whole world moves fast these days, cars, trains, helicopters. Everyone does need to slow down.”

“You’re right, thank you,” smiled Sheila.

“You’ve got caramel on your chin,” said the teapot.

Sheila laughed and wiped her face with her fingers, making it worse before making it better.

Two million light years away, a tiny green flying saucer was pootling along at tremendous speeds.

“Slow down or we’ll miss the turn,” said Mavis.

“I’m only going at sixty million light years per hour,” replied Ivy.

Mavis was an amber snail (half a centimetre tall), Ivy was a striped snail (two centimetres tall). Every six hundred and fifty years they made the journey to planet Earth, to visit their relatives.

As they approached planet Earth it became obvious that something was not quite right.

“Wow, just look at it,” said Mavis, looking out the window at all the satellites and space junk surrounding the planet.

“Phew,” said Ivy. “Those are definitely disrupting the cosmic current.”

“I’d say something has caused these elements to leak out from the planet’s surface, and then drifted up to the thermosphere.”

“Yes, and they’ve amalgamated, we’ll need to reverse that.”

They set about fixing the problem. Mavis got out the instructions, and Ivy pressed some illuminated buttons.

“Ok, it says step one is to uncomplicate the elements,” said Mavis.

Ivy looked at her but did nothing.

“Dissolve, then return to sender,” explained Mavis.

“Right, right! Yes, I knew that,” said Ivy, pressing the pink button.

A moment or two went by, and then all of the bits and pieces surrounding the planet dissolved into nothing, and they had a clear view.

“Ok, it looks like they’ve been over run by robots, see how they dominate?” said Mavis, pointing out the vehicles lined up on every street in every town, in every country. “They’ve compromised the ecosystem, we’ll need to do a total reset. Press all the green buttons.”

“Done,” said Ivy. “What next?”

“Now push the yellow button, and that should do it,” said Mavis.

They sat and waited for it to take effect. Little by little, everything returned to the way it was before the rise of the machines (the Iron Age). Geological materials which had been extracted from the earth such as gold, silver, iron, sulfur, oil, coal, limestone and clay, went back under ground, as if mines had never existed, wooden things turned back into trees, and so returned all the creatures and habitats which were destroyed as a result of their manufacture.

“Ah, that’s better,” said Ivy. “Shall we begin our descent?”

As for Sheila, Kirsty and Anna, they were completely unaware that anything had changed, because the magic of snail technology had reached through time, so that as far as they could tell, this was the way the world had always been.

“Everyone get into pairs,” said Ms Garlic, as Ondine came back down to Earth. “I want you to discuss the way the real events were the seeds the myth grew from, and exaggerations and interpretations altered the story over time. What do you think really happened? Are there other myths which we could look at in the same way?”

Ondine smiled at Katherine, and Katherine smiled back.

Violet’s Vegan Comics – making funny, exciting and always entertaining vegan children’s books since 2012