Green Monkey Dreams
G
REEN
M
ONKEY
D
REAMS
Other books by Isobelle Carmody include:
The Obernewtyn Chronicles
Obernewtyn
The Farseekers
Ashling
The Keeping Place
The Stone Key
The Sending
The Red Queen
(forthcoming)
The Legendsong
Darkfall
Darksong
Darkbane
(forthcoming)
Scatterlings
The Gathering
Greylands
Alyzon Whitestarr
Metro Winds
Tales from the Tower Volume I & II
(as editor and contributor, with Nan McNab)
The Wilful Eye
The Wicked Wood
ISOBELLE
CARMODY
G
REEN
M
ONKEY
D
REAMS
First published by Penguin Books Australia in 1996
This edition published 2012
Copyright © Isobelle Carmody 1996, 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The
Australian Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
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Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
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Fax:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â (61 2) 9906 2218
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A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au
ISBN 978 174237 947 0
Some of the stories in this collection were first published in a slightly different form: âRoaches' in
Into the Future
, edited by Toss Gascoigne, Jo Goodman and Margot Tyrell, Viking, 1992; âThe Monster Game' in
Family
, edited by Agnes Nieuwenhuizen, Mammoth, 1994; âCorfu' in
Crazy Hearts
, edited by Frank Willmott and Robyn Jackson, Hodja Educational Resources Cooperative Limited, 1985; âThe Witch Seed' in
Bittersweet
, edited by Toss Gascoigne, Puffin Books, 1992; âSeek No More' in
Goodbye and Hello
, edited by Clodagh Corcoran and Margot Tyrell, Viking, 1992; âLong Live the Giant' in
The Lottery: Nine science fiction stories
, compiled by Lucy Sussex, Omnibus, 1994; âThe Pumpkin Eater' in
She's Fantastical
, Sybylla Feminist Press, 1995.
Cover and text design by Zoë Sadokierski
Set in 11/16 pt Adobe Caslon Pro by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Stephen,
to whom all of my stories truly aspire
Contents
âChuangtse dreamed of being a butterfly, and while he was in the dream, he felt he could flutter his wings and everything was real, but on waking up, he realised that he was Chuangtse and Chuangtse was real. Then he thought and wondered which was really real, whether he was really Chuangtse dreaming of being a butterfly, or really a butterfly dreaming of being Chuangtse.'
Lin Yutang,
The Importance of Living
âThere are many sorrows in heaven
waiting to be sent to us as Angels . . .'
T
hey ask me to write down all I remember of the Glory days. A hard thing, because there is so much of Sorrow in the telling. My mind shies away from it, looping
backwards and forwards in time.
Last night, I thought of a girl I grew up with in the sister-house who told me that minebirds sing a song just before the deadly gases kill them, to lift their souls to heaven.
Wakened this morning by the bells that toll the beginning of the solar day in Freedom, I tried to remember her name, and found I could not even recall her face.
Hearing the bells ring now, for dusk, I realise an entire day has passed like the blink of an eye, and it comes to me that if death is a kind of song that lifts the soul out of the body, sorrow, too, can steal a soul and carry it away.
Perhaps that is what is wrong with me.
Yet the story must be told, and there is no other but me to tell it. I must make them understand that there are many Sorrows in heaven, waiting to be sent to us as Angels of death. I have told them, of course, but they nod soothingly and their eyes glide away. They think I am hallucinating or perhaps that I am mad because of all that happened. They think of me as a child, telling themselves I was too young, blaming themselves.
But if I learned one thing in Glory, it is that flesh is the greatest lie.
My youth was the main objection when I was proposed as an agent, but my sponsor was Erasemus, Tribune of the body that administers Freedom. He had been a very young man when he became Tribune of Freedom, first of all cities. He was one of the initiators of the plan to establish autonomous self-regulating cities which would have the same rights as a country once had over its citizens, and it is rumoured that it was his decision that bells be rung at dawn and dusk in gratitude that we wake and sleep in freedom.
Erasemus is also my father â an archaic word. Very few children of Freedom know or care who their progenitor is. Before the nation and country wars that changed the world forever, a woman bearing a child would remain together in one dwelling with that child and any others spawned by her, and the man who impregnated her. The woman was owned by the man, and the children born to them were owned by both. There was even a contract of slavery in which she would vow to love and obey him, before witnesses, as if loving was something that could be commanded. It was all part of the vast greedy possessiveness of those times that people bound themselves together in little nations called families.
Despite the fact that such conditions were inevitably destructive, and more often than not produced psychologically flawed adults, this custom of families continued right up to the wars. Fortunately the anarchy that followed, while dreadful, broke down the old corrupt and meaningless systems. Now, it is not forbidden to know who one's mother or father is, just not important.