Untitled ( Part 22 ) Giving up.

I found a crackle and it did nothing.




When we first saw it lying in the middle of the crossroads it became a race. We all ran forward and leaped onto it at the same time. I managed to grab hold of it at the same time as I cracked my head against Rosh's head. She came out worse but I ultimately got the crackle.

I held out my hands and it gave me a star and then it popped. I have never heard of a crackle giving anybody a star before so I don't know if I was highly honoured or unfortunate. You always get a feeling as soon as you hold the gift to your head but this time I got nothing.Zilch.


I could feel the girls' eyes digging a hole into the back of my head. Jealous eyes no doubt. They were digging a hole big enough to burst through to the other side of my face.


'So what have you got?' asked Ink.

'Nothing yet.'


'Nothing? But how does it feel?'



I couldn't believe we were talking openly about things like crackles. You never talk about them and under normal circumstances you never told anybody about your gifts. But these weren't normal circumstances. everything had turned off. We were on our own.


'I can't feel anything,' I said.


I desperately wanted it to be mindspeak even though it didn't seem relevant any more seeing as we could all talk freely. Or maybe invisibility. That is another one I have fantasized about. I closed my eyes and tried to listen but I couldn't hear anything at all.


'Maybe it was dud,' said Bag.


'Come on,' said Rosh, 'let's keep on looking.'



I was sick of looking. We had been looking for hours and we couldn't find anything. Just wall upon wall, colourdor upon colourdor. I kept looking up to see if the stammies had come back on but they were still blank. We were still on our own.


Even though we all hate the stammies I felt a distinct sense of unease at their absence. When you've spent your whole life being watched from sunfest to moonfest, even when you're on the tutt, you can't help but feel lost without them. We were all slowing down and more and more of the girls we passed in the colourdors were sitting down or crouching in a corner. There is only so long you can walk around in circles before you start to lose the will to live.



We found Coin levitating near the ceiling and she hardly acknowledged us. She just raised her eyebrows and looked straight ahead. She looked to all of us as if she had given up. But I had strange feeling that we all looked like that because we were beginning to give up.