They call us 'Delvers' because they think we want to fall.
That it is a matter of power, of desire and want, rather than the compulsion that it truly is..
Here is the lie, there are human beings and Delvers, Delvers are genetically gifted with the ability to peer into the patterns of the universe and speak the bits and pieces they find into reality.
Here is the truth as I know it. Reality is unwounding, and only those who are willing to see it, actually can.
Simply put Delvers are human beings, that have at some point in their life, found themselves in sync with the world around them just enough that they're 'inner eye' opens, and they begin to see the world in ways that suddenly make a bit more sense, and oftentimes find themselves trying to sound out a word or letter where there was none to see, or vocabulary, at least in the world most people see. and if they just so happen to say it even a bit correctly, even sound out a single character, that character might just react to your call.
Not that that's what the public likes to acknowledge, too stuck in the 'us vs them' to realize it's just another artificial difference cooked up to-
Sigh… calm down.
As for how I know this, I am Sam, and I am technically just a regular person.
See, you only 'become' a Delver when you speak out to the world, right? So if you never do that, you just remain as a 'regular' person.
But the thing is, it's really hard to do that when for some reason… the more I try to ignore the words, the characters, the more I see them…
In everything.
- - - -
Another day of my walking into the old employment office building, another day of pretending the spirals in the fluorescent lights above don't spell out 'expresevi' which with a rough translation, probably mean something like 'artificial blaze'.
I then walk up to my employment official's cubical, I never learnt her name, but within the folds of her smile reads 'herenrt talvute' which could mean 'eternal forgiveness' or 'Last Chance' it's a bit of a toss up really…
As I get to the official's cubical I sit at the plastic and cloth cushened chair both read with the suffix 'sevi' which I have found is typically referring to artificial things.
In Her three piece suit coils the word 'mearverint', like a snake, it sometimes peaks out of the weave, haven't quite found what that means yet, but I am brought to attention at the snapping of her fingers, in so doing, the sharp bounds of a whispered 'thanqim fisz' which might mean 'burst winds' but could also mean 'sharp sound'- she snaps her fingers again and I finally focus on her deadpan green eyes, she's looking at me with that unimpressed gaze, like I'd forgotten something…
I try not to stare directly at her eyes so as to not read the words within their depths, people don't typically like it when I read the words that lay there…
"Mr. Dighser, I see that you're back, even when you said you would try your best with the last job." She says with a smile
"It wasn't up to code, there were too many violations to be ignored, I had to leave."
Her smile twitches, and the words I know to be from her lips come, "really? Did you report them? We need it on record so that we know to stop sending people there until the problems are fixed." She said this in the voice she uses when she's dealing with people she doesn't like.
I nod at her to indicate that I have but my attention is drawn at once to her brown hair as from it peaks out 'orlosevi' and I'm reminded a bit that her full head of hair is fake, not that big of a surprise, but she's talking now, she's saying something, and I'm pretty sure i replied in an appropriate way, but all I can think about is the subtle screeching of her voice that even as she speaks crows out a soft 'provneb knoqvern fu mivionh' which I was having a hard time understanding over her nasally chattering on above the murmurs
which is around when she decided to cough loudly to get my attention and put on the table three collections of paper, -employment opportunities, risk, reward, details, and other such necessary information.- and she says "your going to need to get your act together Mr Dighser, i know you have what it takes to do what you need to, all you need to do is keep it together, ok?" Her words, supposed to be reassuring still made me feel a slight annoyance for reasons I wasn't able to parce.
I nodded at her before taking the middle one and going back to my car, I looked at the writing in the paper but as I did the ink warped in my view and it all changed to a new paragraph of text that repeats once it gets to the end, one that makes my eyes hurt just from looking at, so I take out my phone and ask the virtual assistant to pull up the text to speech photography app I installed. seeing as whenever I try to look at anything digital something like what happened with the ink happens there too, but instead of a sentence, it's like a million incomprehensible words the size of each pixel of the screen.
Meaning, looking at pretty much anything digital gives me a migraine, so I just use the text to speech to read or rather, listen to it read, since words on ink change to something symilarly incomprehensible, I use the text to speech for that too.
The employment opportunity I had taken with me was three pages long, it turned out to be an antique shop requesting a long term employee, 23.50 per week, paid once per week, requirements: detail oriented, careful, the owner needs a replacement before going on a leave of absence…
I am neither of those things, to my knowledge, I cannot be detail oriented because I basically can't read, and I tend to get lost in thought and distraction easily… I would also be the only person employed, meaning there would be no one there to guide me in how to care for the shop in the absence of the owner.
And I tend to get splitting migraines while around old things, seeing as the words in them are louder, more violent in their attempts to get the attention of those who can see, I might just accidentally break something if it comes on fast enough.
This is a bad suit for me. I was about to go back inside to get a different job but that would mean having to deal with the official.
I spoke the coordinates into my phones GPS, I might not be able to see the map but I am able to hear the assistant's voice to guide me.
After a not too stressful drive -since the words lay within the colored paint, I am actually able to see the signs better.- and I make it to the antique shop.
As I get out I read the plaque on the front of the building. The sign says 'Silver linings', and in the silver background of the words gleams 'yosined viltograt' which might mean 'sterling silver' but could also mean any other number of things… I make my way to the door, ignoring all of the cracks in the concrete that lay 'kerentset, or the winds that whisper with every breeze 'malathoom'…
I turn the brass handle of the door to the shop I might be working at, trying to peel my eyes from the brass's reflection that tries to beam 'erinotile' into me, and focus for a moment on the maybe, spruce? Wood door, and my eyes are forced to glide upon the nooks and knots, and it's only my opening of the door that has me moving on from attempting a translation of the paragraphs that lay on it's surface.
The older something is the more of a story it has to tell, and the more impossible that story is to ignore, I don't go near forests… or the older part of town, the stories there would drown me, and it's probably a bad thing, that I'm here, seeing as this is a place that contains lots of most likely very old things…
This is a bad idea, but I'm already in the lions den, and I can't go back even if I dearly wish I could now. Because what might be an ashen oak flooring covered in a thin layer of matted carpet has me rooted to the ground, I can feel it trying to tell me a tale, trying to get through the new carpet, my shoes, my socks…
within the fixed cracks of the porcelain plates on one of the standing tables glare at me with a countless words, none I can speak but any who could say the words of it, I know in doing such, that the air they would speak into would itself shatter.
There are pots in the corner, for plant growth, they're cracks speak of a different world, one of steadfastness, and growth.
In the ceiling fan's whirring speaks of artificial winds, and it's blades of a constant motion. The same kind the very earth cracks on about if one were to have the patience, or years, to listen.
In the splinters of a bench to the right sneer the makings of hard work and determination, this place is a treasure trove for Delvers, the furniture alone has some examples of the words some might want in their 'arsenal'
It is true that Delvers are compelled to witness reality, but some wield it for their own gain, others would rather forget it exists at all…
I can't speak the words, I know not how to sound them out, can't even try to lift them into life, something about me is lacking, for I cannot say any words of the world. But I know what their purpose is, I know what form they call for, and I know what would happen if even one of these words were spoken with full force.
Catastrophy…
There are so many voices, so many ways my eyes slide in just the right way to see what is underneath, even in the silverware's reflection lurks a path talking of tarnish and repair, let alone the silver itself.
The old man behind the counter and the counter itself, both have so, so much story to them, this man has seen more than any I know, but he is near the end of his life, most of the words that used to be there have vacated, leaving behind the wrinkles and aches they once layed their rest inside.
My throat doesn't want to open, but I place the information document on the table, one that yearns to share the lore it holds.
But my eyes keep on the person infront of me.
He has seemingly fallen asleep in the chair he is sitting on, so I press on the bell on the rather cluttered table, the bell chimes, and in that chime, sentence after sentence enter my mind with the sound, and as much as I would prefer they would simply leave, these, as well as every word I have ever heard, stays there, stuck to my brain, waiting to be translated, to be understood.
My mind has been cluttered, impossible to navigate for, years now…
And he opens his eyes, startled, and by god, in his eyes lay paragraph after paragraph, I was mistaken, this man is no where near the end of his life, he has not been abandoned by the living language, it spins from pupil to iris.
The words insert themselves into my brain just like all of the others, at every second, more fill my mind.
As I reel from the information overload of what his eyes had to say, I try to keep myself from falling over in dizziness and shock, and as I maintain my upright posture, I only catch the tail end of his sentence.
"Sorry could you r-repeat that?" I say out, stuttering a bit due to the overwhelming information being constantly pushed into my head… I am starting to get a headache, again.
"I just asked what chyer starin' at." At this I flinch and then blink and look away, his voice has even more wisdom in it's gravel. Even more information pushing it's way into my mind, the migraine would have been paralyzing, and if this was the first time I had been forced to undergo such a state of pain, it would have been, it was paralyzing, the first through fifteenth times I talked to an person like him.
Now it just hurts…
Either way I go to respond, but he cuts me off saying "how much?" I look at him, a bit confused.
He reiterates with "how much of the truth can you see?" I was a bit shocked, i though I was being at least a bit subtle…
"Uhh, don't, really know what your talking about…" I say, not looking him in the eyes. But he scoffs and says.
"Boy, y'eave already looked me 'n tha eyes, I know ya saw, this ain't a place o' judgement, 'specially not fer talkers like us." as he said this, he crossed his arms, which had my eyes slipping between the seams of it and finding the words, it's become practically unconscious, to find them, find as many as I can…
Talkers, that's what we call each other, less dehumanizing than delvers, gives a more human side to our ability.
I mutter out a "lotta letters, 've never seen so many in one place." It was a lie, but newly awakened talkers typically only saw the occasional letter through their day to day, but could see more of the letters in places like this, simply because there would be more in one place.
A talker who can recite a word, let alone a sentence, or a paragraph. Are increasingly rare these days. And all the more dangerous in the eyes of the government.
He said something else, I hope my response was appropriate but he nodded and started to explain something, this is when I retuned back into the conversation "ok yer hired, all ya need ta do is man the register an' restock tha shelves, jus' if some'n comes by." I nodded, that seems easy.
"Ahh, and o' course yah gotta clean tha floors daily 'n dust off tha ol' relics."
That sounds a bit more difficult but still, do able.
I nod at him again, and he eyes me and says "not much of a talker for a Talker ey? Ha! 'M jus pokin yer rib! Alright, I'll be off, 'f ya need some guidance, 've got a pamphlet on the table!" And he points at a plastic pamphlet on the counter in front of me.
In the corner of my eye I catch a coat slithering off the rack, he had whispered a word associated with that coat, that brought it to his grasp.
But he didn't really speak, because you can't really speak the language of the universe, since there aren't really words, I only quantify them into words to hold onto at least a little bit of my sense.
It is closer to enacting the verbal version of a physical concept, it just so happens that if that thing likes you, or is just a bit bored, it will react.
Some things have their truths emparted through sound waves, others prefer to wear them on their sleeves. But you can't really have a conversation with them, without speaking their 'language' and even then, most things physical in nature are to our perspective, slow to respond, there is a kettle, on a mini shelf on a wall here, in the crack of its handle it has just responded to something someone told it, about, three years ago? The 'words' that lay in living things are more prone to reasonably fast conversation.
It gets confusing, and the complications really don't help with the headache, so I take out my migraine medication 'adzenophil' I think my doctor said it's name was, it uses ink for its labeling… ink likes to be really obvious with its messages, but in so doing obscures the actual message that the ink was written for, I once tried to translate the message the ink always put down, but it ended up being a poem about the end of times, and how the world will be drowned in thirteen colored lights and fourty two unique species beetle, either that or something about a walnut… and when I finally used the text to speech app to get an understanding of what it actually was talking about, I found that that the thing I was translating actually was a letter from my Mom asking me to come home for thanksgiving, she sends the letter every year because she thinks I don't know how to use a phone…
And this isn't something that's changed, it's always the same poem. About the same thing. And never even a hint about the original text.
So that's why I just use the TTS.
As I think about all of these things, I make my way to the seat he was at, and it in it. Taking care not to look at it, but my hands still caressed the patterns, and just like that, the word invaded my mind anyway. 'Encrat revinuh tul krail botrane' or what could have been 'faux fur on cotton' or maybe something like- I'm doing it again…
I take a deep breath and remind myself that I am infact, a regular person, entirely sane and whole of mind, who doesn't see anything other than reality in the exact way everyone else sees it, and take out from my pocket, my prescription medication, and pop two of the headache pills in my mouth. It takes a while, but the constant -nonexistent- crashing and tearing and whining and whirring and screeching and ringing, eventually becomes more tolerable if only slightly, and I open my eyes, that i had forgotten I had closed, and keep my eyes on the exit for the rest of my new job's shift, which was, with my luck, all of nine hours long…
No one entered.
I clocked out and went home after cleaning up the shop.
The thought strikes me, 'he never said how long he would be gone…'
- - - -
Ok that's all folks, byeee