An Island In the Mist
written by: Rand Hill
Jones La Pierre looked at a fresh painting. He was a proclaimed artist with a slant toward the written word. His latest work is a drawing of an island. His job, from a noted publisher of fantasy literature, was to describe human history from its beginning. Publisher Jimmy Jack wanted all forms of life to be included.
“Start with age zero, Mr. La Pierre. Go with life unto itself, Jonesy. Human life or not. We’re counting on you. So many tales are told to adults and children alike.
“Our present Bibles are near-fiction. In our latest world, those books promote heresy. Lies. Does anyone know what or who came alive before dinosaurs, Zionists, Christians, Muslims, all forms of religion?”
Jones himself dared to be different. He was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. His Canadian father died one year later, his American mother, the one who named him, died in a tornado after turning age twenty-four. His grandparents died serving their country. America.
He was two years old. A babe, still in diapers. Socialists in two governments covered costs of bringing him up, and his further education. He was a master of nothing but art and the written word.
These days, he survived in Surrey, B.C., a centre near Vancouver and the U.S. border. At six feet tall, he appeared thin and wiry. Jones travelled the world, writing and speculating on Wall Street.
For a babe born so very poor, he was rich with talent and loaded with cash. An individual of note, with nine published books and a million bucks in American bearer bonds.
He looked at his painting again. An island divided into two parts. One with a tall bridge separating tall peaks. Identical twin mountains rising above the Pacific. A small sailboat gliding in between them. Each island has blue and white waves pounding rocky shores, along with sandy beaches.
His islands contained one tall palm tree each. Splotches of green and brown paint. A barren canvas needed real life, a subtle beginning. Planet Earth.
Jones went to bed thinking … what is life? How do others begin to describe vast and near-forgotten centuries?
Part One
His painting needed human lives and careful shading. Jones drew and painted characters in human colors. Both islands the same, but different; one with white paint, and shades of brown and yellow. The other island black and brown, with shades of white. Natural human colors.
One island representing North, the other one South. A classic situation, one that exists today.
No blue, green, or red human beings. An assortment of browns in both painted overworlds.
Jones wondered what came first, a planet of rocks and water.
Life included sea creatures, birds, and dinosaurs. Little or no mention of them in The Holy Scriptures. Should he paint a flying monster, one with fins and two sets of wings flapping?
Part Two
According to historians, life on Earth began with men and women, probably half apes living in caves. In a short time, they discovered food, drink, and fire. Only a little history was discovered on those they called primitives, known in media as ‘Caveman.’
During a period spanning sixty thousand years, primitives learned the art of producing ‘Modern Man,’ men and women produced billions of children, found shelter, and roamed an entire continent. Asia, Euro-Asia, Africa, Australia, and North and South America. Finally, they found and survived in Arctic ice and Antarctica, the southern pole.
Jones La Pierre found that Modern Man also discovered that strange others had wandered Earth as well. They found people of color. As he indicated in his drawings and finer art.
Wars began. Politics with men [mostly] wishing either riches or power, or both. Wicked people invented war machines, submarines, missiles, and robots with artificial intelligence. All peaceful at the beginning, but later used as weapons to decimate others or for defense. Wars made currency for rich mongrels.
Jones, never sure why his publisher wanted a written book, literature as such, facts were facts until proven not. His publishing firm catered to an entire world of historical, perhaps hysterical, readers. Libraries. His small edition would likely be tarred by religious orders, banned by half the world’s countries.
Jones pondered his notes and drawings, his life itself, once as a Main Street beggar. He consumed all the written works by famous historians and essayists. Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell.
A most horrible notion came in a nightmare. He would be tarred and feathered, spiked upon a cross. ‘Lesson learned, Heathen.’ Treated as a savage, the same as ‘Indians’ and ‘Blacks’ were set back years ago.
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