CHAPTER
3a
The
Polje.
Hafyen wandered off retaining his smile but as his
journey extended his thoughts focused on other matters and as the countryside
began to change, he paused in his long journey.
Looking from where he was now, he saw his feet were braced on a
weathered boulder sunk into the crest of this jagged hill. He gazed down at the rugged and fertile
landscape, everything he could see ahead, behind and far, far beyond is known
to its inhabitants as their world and they call it the Polje.
Hafyen has a fortunate history of travels which have
shown him the geographical limits of this Polje, to the east and the west his
adventures have been terminated by the mountains soaring mightily beyond their
clouds. To the far north he once visited
ice-bound cliffs rising to unfathomable black heights, starting at the east
cliffs and running unabated to the west they gradually melt their waters
through glacial valleys down into humid jungles then drain into the lakes and
seas of the more temperate, populated regions.
The Polje variously climbs and rolls tens of thousands of miles
southwards until vast forests again meet the foothills of cold, impenetrable
southern mounts.
Hafyen had been to the known limits of the
Polje. In these remotest of places and
on his travels between, Hafyen met the peoples and exchanged learning as he
could. He probably was, in all the
history of the Polje, it’s most unique traveler.
From where Hafyen stood now he could see just a tiny
speck of this huge locale, this place he wandered through with fixed purpose.
Just here small towns were laid out before him, in the distance a city stood
clearly defined by its rigid edifices puncturing the horizon, its roads
thinning as they weaved their way further from the centre of population. Streams, hills and plots of land - green,
brown, and grey, farmed, fallow or developed, - bordered by woodlands or
fences, all made up the muted palette of this bit of the Polje that Hafyen now
stared at.
Hafyen could not see to the western cliffs from
where he stood, but he knew them well.
From within the Polje, people can never sight their edging summits. Billowing clouds permanently hug the cliff’s
craggy heights obscuring vision and wetting the rock-face. The cliffs are hard, smooth and
seamless. No one has been able to scale
their soaring heights.
Although everywhere above the landscape huge winds
prevent navigation at higher elevations, Hafyen was a frequent traveler on the
Polje’s sonic zeta-jets, the fastest aircraft, which flew just below the
perpetually tormented elevations. He
frequently elected to take the three days necessary to fly to the northern most
runways of the Kunqua towns from the southern reaches of the Buliez outskirts. Hafyen enjoyed the thrill of rapid flight,
the ability to be as high as possible flying over this land, to see the vast
and varied vista roll beneath him as the colours of day and the lights from
cities at night bought a constantly changing experience.
There is much land past the populated north and
south regions and most of it is yet to be explored. The Polje holds more lands and peoples than
an individual could hope to explore in one lifetime. Hafyen is perhaps the only person ever to
have been there and done that.
As a recent distraction, or critical investigation,
he hadn’t decided which, Hafyen had been noting down the theories and beliefs
of people he met and how they thought the Polje came to be. He enjoyed learning of the many beliefs and
ideologies and he felt privileged to have been introduced to these fervently
held truths by people who were mostly shy of their beliefs. He was equally interested in those who too
willingly tried to berate others into their particular theory. Hafyen was amazed at how popular a topic of
debate the creation was, and how readily he could incite discourse. Many a
drink was consumed in discussion and many a fight has resulted from divergent
beliefs. No substantive conclusion
exists around whether the people of the Polje are an evolved product of
environment, or a spirit-created life form.
There are even different omnipotent spirits in every region to discuss
and disagree about. This variance of
beliefs and the attempts at convincing others is the garden of prejudices,
fears, ignorance and fatal disagreement.
Hafyen has always had his own ideas and they typically collided with
popular consensus. On matters of belief
he gained more insight by being the witness than the judiciary.
At one end of the debate are the academics, the
theorists and dreamers who Hafyen meets in his travels. They are typically frustrated in that they
cannot escape the confines of the Polje to find comparison. These pragmatists are putting forth
exploration plans, and from time to time expeditions are funded to scale the
Edge Cliffs or to build craft to penetrate the atmosphere. Billions have been spent in efforts to defeat
the physical boundaries and while most attempts fail spectacularly, a small
number attain greater and greater heights.
Unfortunately no significant insights have been
gained.
The populations keenly absorb reports, digital
images, simulations and multi-media representations from un-manned
missions. Educated people have a clear
picture, within the limits of technology, of the entire Polje, a solid
comprehension of their weather systems, their geology and of the visible solar
systems. But no one has a comparative vision of what exists or doesn’t, outside
the Polje. Simply because of this
absence of a comparison, everyone shares the fascination of leaving the
Polje.
Hafyen has argued that; ‘It may not be necessary to
escape the Polje, because we have all we need to live here. All we really need to do is overcome
objections and challenge obstacles. The
more objections we address, the more frequent the resolution. The bigger the obstacle we challenge, the
sweeter the reward. Surely living among
frequent sweet rewards is sufficient? ’
When delivering this speech Hafyen came across a few
folk who understood that avoiding obstacles may shorten your life. These were
the people who rejoiced in seeking new obstacles. They knew the experience of failure is equal
to the exhilaration of success and that both must be equally savored.
Hafyen had also said that ‘no failure is complete
and no success total’.
He remained amazed, as he stood looking over the
land, how few people in the Polje are yet to understand this simplest of
truths. He wondered if it mattered.
For now, he had a specific obstacle to resolve, so
he turned and strolled cheerily into the landscape before him.
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