《Ursula K. LeGuin - Unlocking The Air》.pdf

Unlocking The Air URSULA K. LE GUIN THIS IS A FAIRY TALE. People stand in the lightly falling snow. Something is shining, trembling, making a silvery sound. Eyes are shining. Voices sing. People laugh and weep, clasp one another’s hands, embrace. Something shines and trembles. They live happily ever after. The snow falls on the roofs and blows across the parks, the squares, the river. This is history. Once upon a time, a good king lived in his palace in a kingdom far away. But an evil enchantment fell upon that land. The wheat withered in the ear, the leaves dropped from the trees of the forest and nothing thrived. This is a stone. It’s a paving stone of a square that slants downhill in front of an old, reddish, almost windowless fortress called theRoukhPalace . The square was paved nearly 300 years ago, so a lot of feet have walked on this stone, bare feet and shod, children’s little pads, horses’ iron shoes, soldiers’ boots; and wheels have gone over and over it, cart wheels, carriage wheels, car tires, tank treads. Dogs’ paws every now and then. There has been dogshit on it, there has been blood, both soon washed away by water sloshed Page 1 from buckets or run from hoses or dropped from the clouds. You can’t get blood from a stone, they say, nor can you give it to a stone; it takes no stain. Some of the pavement, down near that street that leads out ofRoukh Square through the old Jewish quarter to the river, got dug up, once or twice, and piled into a barricade, and some of the stones even found themselves flying through the air, but not for long. They were soon put back in their place, or replaced by others. It made no difference to them. The man hit by the flying stone dropped down like a stone beside the stone that had killed him. The man shot through the brain fell down and hi