2. The Old Man in the Canyon
1
A low whine reverberated through Bugenhagen's cabin, a sound the old man was becoming all too familiar with. What started as an indiscriminate hum quickly escalated into a scratchy moan, further amplified by the custom-built sound system Bugenhagen and a few others had assembled not too long ago.
The old man knew he could simply switch off the system, therefore keeping the steadily-more-frequent noise at bay, but why else had he had the system installed if not to listen to the sounds of the Planet?
I don't sleep much these days anyhow, he thought as he sat up in his bed on the second story of his cabin. He winced at the familiar gunshot-like crackle of the joints behind his knees, and then grabbed for his cerulean robe.
"Is something wrong, Grandfather?" a voice called from across the hall.
Bugenhagen smiled to himself. He had been trying to be stealthy. "Ho Ho Hooo, Nanaki! I'll certainly never have to concern myself with unwanted guests in the middle of the night with you around."
There was a moment of silence, and then the voice replied, "Grandfather . . ."
"Everything is fine, Nanaki," Bugenhagen said, rubbing at his stiff back. "I just want to take a look at the stars."
"There's been a lot of noise lately," Nanaki said, now walking slowly out of his room.
"Indeed, there has been," the old man responded, and then stopped short in his slow walk. "Nanaki . . ."
"Yes?"
"Is it keeping you awake? That is, the noise and such?" Bugenhagen watched the reaction of Nanaki.
Although he at first seemed as if he was going to respond with a shrug, Nanaki eventually replied, "Many things keep me up."
Bugenhagen allowed a small smile. "Still brooding about this and that, are we?" A real smile did appear then, as he watched Nanaki shrug. "You're just like your father . . . powerful, brave, and of course, stubborn to the very end."
"Grandfather, don't . . ."
The old man continued, "If someone had wronged you years ago, and then tomorrow that same person told you that the grass beyond this canyon was green, you would spend half a week conjuring up a way to prove that he was wrong, that the grass was actually blue."
Nanaki shook his head and smiled. "For all the intelligence you have, Grandfather, you have an equal amount of stubbornness as well." He blinked and then looked up at Bugenhagen. "If my stubbornness has come from anyone, it's come from you." His face then became solemn. "I inherited nothing from my father . . ."
"Nanaki . . ." Bugenhagen said, but Nanaki was already turning around and jumping back into his bed.
The old man shook his head and sighed.
Nanaki, what am I going to do with you?
2
He made his way down the wooden stairs, listening to the creaking boards as well as his creaking bones. He stopped with only one stair to go, as if willing his fragile body into silence before he took the final step.
A minute later he had both of his slippered feet on the floor. He smiled. "Ho Ho Hooo!" he said quietly. "It's a miracle."
His momentary victory over his old bones was short-lived however, when another sound whimpered out of the dark speakers in the darker corners of the living room.
Seems wrong to worry about a bone or two of mine, when everyone's bones on the Planet may be in trouble soon enough.
3
It had started roughly two months ago. One of the canyon children had been bringing Bugenhagen his week's worth of supplies. The poor thing had tripped over a new prototype he'd been designing, spilling the supplies every which way.
Bugenhagen had gone outside and found the child sprawled out on the ground, surrounded by his week's essentials.
He'd taken the boy inside his home, and had used a bit of water to wash out a scrape the boy had received during the fall.
After the boy realized that Bugenhagen was not going to be mad at him after all, he began to settle down, and they had talked about this and that.
It was during this time that the boy stopped speaking mid-sentence, and had asked, 'What was that?'
Bugenhagen had been perplexed and replied that he hadn't heard anything, but the boy had been insistent that something had made a strange sound.
After remaining silent for a few minutes Bugenhagen began to suspect that the child had simply invented the charade, but before he opened his mouth to say so, he heard a whispery-low moan.
4
Being a man of nature and science, he rapidly became interested in what the sound was, and even more, where the sound was coming from.
He looked at the system that had been installed, and then followed the black wires that ran out from it up the wall and then to the ceiling high above. Beyond the ceiling, on the roof of his cabin, a giant megaphone-shaped structure now existed, angularly pointing up towards the sky above.
It had taken a while to figure out that the sound was coming from above, and Bugenhagen wondered how a bravura occurrence such as this had yet to be written down in any of the ancient textbooks he stored under his bed. He hadn't even heard any word-of-mouth stories involving sounds coming from the sky.
He was housed in a higher elevation, sitting on the pinnacle of Cosmo Canyon, but there were certainly taller buildings in Midgar, the great city across the sea. There were also numerous mountains that reached much greater elevations than anything else on the Planet.
But still, not one word about a sound rushing in from the skies.
And it seems to be aimed directly at my little cabin. I've yet to hear it even just three feet outside the door.
As he walked through the steel door that housed his room of possessions, he tried to puzzle it all out.
His assumption had been that the Planet itself was making the sounds.
'But why would it do so?' he had asked.
He was a learned person, and in his long lifetime had discovered many things about the Planet. Contrary to the beliefs of the generation before him, Bugenhagen understood that the Planet itself was alive.
Alive, and with its own consciousness.
He smiled, remembering how many years it had truly taken him to understand that strange concept.
'A consciousness?' he had once said. 'The Planet has a soul?'
When he had finally understood the monumental concept well enough that he had felt it within his own soul, he ultimately decided to drop everything that he was doing and began to dedicate his existence to the Study of Planet Life. The small society that existed within Cosmo Canyon was a perfect place away from cities and technology, and there he and a few followers began their study.
Over time, more and more people had ended up at the canyon, all reporting the same strange pull that had led them there, all saying that there had always been some kind of void within their life.
Bugenhagen and the other elders over the years allowed that void to be filled with the goings-on of the Planet.
Now, as he made his way into the conservatory, he asked again, "So why would the Planet be making these sounds . . . towards me?" He took a breath and paced around the room. "Simply because I am helping its cause? Because I am supplying others with the true knowledge about the Planet?"
With the quick push of a button a holographic model of the inner solar system appeared around Bugenhagen.
The vast model had been a generous gift from a man Bugenhagen hadn't seen in a long time.
He gazed at the Planets, the stars, the hurtling rocks, and found himself walking through the holographic and multihued images.
Looking at the greenish-blue Planet that he and many others were occupying, he could not see any noticeable change.
But minute after minute, as he sat perfectly still, simply gazing at the image of the Planet, he knew in his heart that he felt something.
He couldn't be sure what it was that he felt, but as he looked at the Planet, and remembered those eerie sounds echoing through his house, he knew that some sinister chapter in the Planet's history had begun.
But what character will I be? What part will I have to play?
Bugenhagen closed his eyes, allowing his anxious thoughts to overwhelm his old mind.