MTC#11 "I call this Scat, Spittle and Gravel..."

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MTC Eleven Write your own Law, by Andy G
If you were given the ability to write and pass what law, what would it be?
Shadows of the Law, by Patrick Darnell
PART 1
The graceful bird flew lazily over the valley just above the trees. She soared higher and landed on top of the big granite rock face that loomed proudly, casting early morning shadow over the valley below. She pecked the stone until little dusty pieces lay scattered on the top. She picked up three pebbles and swallowed them. Turned to the valley and sang a song. She flew away. Other birds watched intently as the larger bird flew off.
Then they began to fly up and gather around the gravel she had left behind and picked up a few pebbles for themselves, not quietly. Much posing and scuffling had to take place and some marking of territory with semisolid discharges. Some skirmishes resulted in feathers coming off.
With their gullets ready to go, they each flew to the valley below to capture their favorite morning meals: for Robins a worm, for Sparrows caterpillars, for Crested Headed ones the whole butterfly. It is a morning practice that goes on every morning, for thousands of years.

When time goes on as if thousands of days appear to meld together into one day; then a routine can develop into ostentatious proportion. The original design can be altered. As the larger bird pecked the granite into dust, and was picked up and deposited below by its cousins, there occurred a gradual change of shape to the rock and valley it shaded.

Then each generation of bird taught their morning trek to each new generation that sprang from the valley. And that also modified the surface of the rock face as seeds and bugs were deposited on the dust from bird dander and poop. So it was, is and ever shall be in the animal kingdom.

Many more seasons pass and the rock face soon took on a more sagged profile. What the cliff swallows had started, to make gravel for her gullet, hastened wind and water and ice in seasonal opposition to tall cliffs. Millions of years pass until one day a scribe walks through the valley.

A scribe, who was perfecting the writing tools of his elders, had learned that some of the best feathers for writing could be found at the base of the old granite cliff. Though he never stopped to think about why and where the feathers originated, he was never disappointed when he went there. He found many different kinds of feathers, in all colors and sizes. The quills were always strong and straight.

The unusual array of fine feathers and quills could be due to centuries’ industry of mornings atop the cliff, birds’ partaking of gravel to finely crush and help digest food to its best chemical source. Healthy diet means healthy quills?
Even if the scribe did not know the meaning, he did take a hard look at the rock face and made calligraphic shapes of it. His first attempt was not satisfactory, but after some sketching he donned a perfect facsimile of the shape of the proud cliff as it stood in his time.
From that he began sketching more during sojourns to the rock face. He devised a series of graceful quill and ink entablature of the various shadows and light that played on the cliff. He also worked backwards until he found the source of patient joy in the numerous birds. He finally understood the place completely, and knew it as the place of convention. The rock itself is the flat tablet upon which nature convenes and scribes its code of laws into glyphs with special tools of erosion.

The scribe’s secret place became known to his tribes-people over time. Children first followed him on his walks, hiding in the trees behind, and watching the carefree gathering of feathers by the contented scribe.

The children soon found out the scribe was not a stingy man, as he began generously teaching them about the shape of the icons that had become his legacy. Mystified, the children loved that sort of sentiment. Many became famous scribes starting that day. More Scribes ascended directly from previous children followers of the old scribe.
Towns naturally grew up in the passing of thousands of years of fertile valley sustenance. Townspeople found very much use for written things – bills, lists, sets, inventories, memoirs – that they sought out and rewarded scribes.

The apprentices went on early morning practices of vertical and horizontal strokes with their quills on tablets, while sitting on boulders that fell off the ancient rock face. By gathering every morning, students were repeating an epoch old custom taught by a cliff swallow. Above them circled the large graceful cliff swallows that landed on the top of the cliff just before dawn and pecked at the granite there. As the sun rose, chatter of the other birds would deafen the students, and make them wonder what all the commotion to be about.

PART II
Earth must at times cleanse herself, and she does so in extinction level episodes. This time, earth's time of preservation arrived in epic order; mountains sank into the sand, and islands disappeared into the sea floors.

The remaining surface of the earth was flattened so that unhampered winds scraped the land sparse. Dwellings turned to dust, and all the large and monumental edifices of mankind fell like houses of cards. Forests dried up, and vines no longer bore any flowers or fruit. The air turned sour with the super sweet rancid smell of decay, and rain did not come. The rock cliff remnant outcropping and valley of the scribes’ quills sank into the sand and boiled in the magma of Earth’s inner crust.

In desperate times it came to minds of some survivors to preserve their written testaments, along with some images of life, remnants of how it had been. Tablets are of no use against elements of nature, even if made of stone. I fear no one after will ever know the alphabet of the happy Scribe.

There must be a sensible vehicle to move the codex of ancient time to the next eras of existence. What if there is no high rising granite cliff in the next period? What if the idea of written code is never discovered? How will commerce amongst strangers and cultural progress find a common path in the future?


PART 3
Shoot forward several Extinction Level Episodes to a recognizable time in the last century, around 1975. I remember my first visit to downtown Chicago. As I walked like a green horn, my neck craned looking up to find the tops of the buildings, I nearly ran into a street sign. I read it aloud to my friend the Chicagoan, “Curb Your Dog by order of his Honor the Mayor Daley,” as it was easily read from my pedestrian eye level.

“What does that mean?” I asked. “Curb your Dog?”

“You know, curb your Dog!” he said gruffly, not realizing I never curbed a dog before. I rode Cutting Horses, but this was different.
"Oh, so the doggies have to poop in the gutters, by the curbs?" sighed me in greenhorn innocence.

We hiked around town all day, and we came to the Union League Club near the Monadnock Building. At eye level was another sign by order of his honor the mayor Daley: “No Spitting.”
"I'll be sure to never spit in the city," thought I to myself.
As the evening approached and we headed back to State Street, I saw actual sweepers pushing carts and sweeping the day’s “you know what” and panning it into their carts. There were lots of people about, but none looked at the street cleaners like I did that evening. They were cleaning up spittle and dog poop and gravel from that day. City dwellers take it all in stride, and well, in the country we shovel out stalls...

I suppose Chicago has need for a code of behavior for city dwelling. I suppose also that a feed lot for cattle like we have back home has also a code of acceptable behavior. Beside the fact that they are not the same codes, those codes would not exist if there were no Chicago and no feedlots. I brood over those ordinances still.
What I had learned that day: Curb your Dog and No Spitting, so it can be spooned up in the evening. They were very effective vehicles to pass on the code of the time, the little signs of ordinance.
Principles of living things distributing eroding materials, must be dealt with in hopes that our cliff-like buildings of the city are not brought down. Could possibilities presented by nature – such as scat, spittle and gravel -- still be so eminent a danger while so defiant a process? Weird to think about that these nuisance behaviors could over time erode and destroy a City’s shine, appeal and value.

PART 4 Conclusion
I write code today that starts with simple concept of “this law makes mandatory the learning of grit, spittle and scatological nuances of all living organisms: so that this knowledge is forever known to the law-writing citizens of earth, despite passage of time, culture, and life as it is known...” by order of... hmmmmmm... you tell me?