Remembering Kentucky

In the halls of the ancient food court.

Remembering Kentucky was my entry into the October 2021 edition of the Furious Fiction microfiction contest by Australian Writers’ Centre [link]. In addition to a word limit of 500, each month’s contest has a unique set of constraints. These were the constraints in 2021:

• Your story’s setting: a COURT of some kind.

• Your story must include a character who measures something.

• Your story must include the words BALLOON, ROCK, UMBRELLA (or words containing those exact strings of letters within them).

My story required some painful cuts to get it below the 500 word limit. I am publishing it here, absent those painful cuts. Dear friends, I present to you: Remembering Kentucky.

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Thoom.

The first heave of earth was felt as much as heard: a wall of in-rushing air, extinguishing all their torches and carrying with it the scent of long-settled smoke. The rumbling carried on in waves, each landslide inviting the next. Some echoed from above; others grumbled at them from still deeper caverns.

Volya’s was the first voice to break the uneasy silence.

“Sound off?”
Kanya: “All right over here!”
Corian: “I’m fine too.”
Manni: “I’m fine. Merkin? I hear you. Are you all right?”
“I—I hit my head. I think—I think I’m blind.”
“You’re not blind, Merkin,” Volya said. “We’ve lost the light.”

Kanya, gripping her torch in her teeth to fiddle with her flints, grunted something in indication of her efforts.

Volya scanned her thoughts. At the cusp of realizing the obvious, she was interrupted by a cry.

“For Peltor’s sake, free me!”

Kanya succeeded in reigniting her torch. In the amber light, Volya saw Taïm, co-leader of the expedition, buried up to his waist in rubble.

Corian was first on him, improvising his rock pick for the indelicate work of loosening dirt and ancient concrete. Volya followed, then Manni.

Volya: “Now Taïm, don’t move. There could be spinal—”

At the first sign of liberation, Taïm had already hopped, then scrambled over the rubble and stumbled to a halt in the center of the party. He dusted himself off with temper, eyeing the group as if preparing to rebuke them for their sloth.

Merkin, eyeing the wall of rubble: “How long to clear this?”

Taïm: “Kanya, will you light our torches? We will split into three groups.”
Merkin: “I estimate 300 cubes blocking the entrance, minimum. Between six shovels, that's—”
Taïm: “We'll let our rescuers worry about that.”
“Rescuers?”
“The town knows where we are. They will come. Now, we are students of the deep and dark. Let us study!”

Volya was uncertain; yet, if it was a lie, it was the right lie for the moment.

“Split into groups”, she said. “North, East, South.”
Merkin, perturbed: “If it pleases you, may I remain here? I want to assess—”
Taïm: “If you want to measure something, Merkin, count the paces across this cavern, will you?”
“As you will it.”

The team spread out to fulfill their duties. Within minutes, reports were ringing out.

Corian: “The ornamentation here suggests Greek influence.”
Kanya: “I see an attempt to adapt proto-English script to a... broadly East Asian orthographic style.”
Taïm: “Judging by this shrine, we can tell that the area was settled by a military expedition from Kentucky.”

Were they all Kentuckians then? Volya wondered. No. They must have integrated. And what an integration it was. The cultures of three continents under one umbrella.

Was it a market? A temple?

Two theories of how this world had passed. Theory one. The ancients stole fire from the gods and unleashed it on each other.

Theory two. They grew too much. The ballooning of their appetites led to a ballooning of their waste. They angered Medea, goddess of the ecosphere, and died.

This chamber, the researchers concluded, had been a courtyard for the ritual consumption of food. Such a chamber would have been exclusive to the priestly caste, but opened to the public on holy days.

The task of the Peltorites was a humbling one. To see the harmony these ancients had achieved, and yet to see also their fate in the depths.

Volya renewed her vows. If they returned to the surface, she would honour the people of Kentucky, and take up their mission of unity and peace.