Limanora : $b the island of progressSweven, Godfrey
Science
Limanora : $b the island of progress
Sweven, Godfrey
Islands of the Pacific -- Fiction; Science fiction; Utopias -- Fiction
We had noticed a certain distraction in his manner, an absence of
thought or of consciousness, when he was describing the development of
his magnetic sense. And when he ceased for the night he could not rest
but paced uneasily along our platform of cliff which overlooked the
waters of the sound. The moon had begun to wane, and our weather lore
bade us look out for storms at the beginning of her next phase. I could
not go myself to rest for thinking of his strange narrative and the
wonderful people he had sojourned amongst. I sat up many hours writing
out what I could remember of his conversations and descriptions while
it was still clear in my mind.
Some time after midnight I looked out and saw the silver moonshine on
the still waters below and was attracted by the beauty of the scene. I
had thought that he had retired, but I had scarcely seated myself on a
projecting boss of rock that took in one of our widest views, when his
musical voice startled me out of my reverie.
We fell into such sympathetic intercourse as the beauty of night often
stimulates in two sleepless spirits meeting under the moon. He told me
that the earth was then tremulous with suppressed passion, and that
far off in his old home in the Pacific her heart was about to break.
He felt waves of magnetic feeling pass through him, and they drew
his soul back to Limanora. He knew that the spirits he loved there
were yearning for him. For his heart quivered and throbbed with full
memories of all he had known and experienced. There was anguish in the
magnetic undulance vibrating across his being. It was not merely that
a great storm was approaching; that he had known for some days. There
were human pulsations in the ether which beat like an ocean upon his
brain. That was why he could not rest. If only he could have his wings
again, he would try to respond to the call. But it was useless with the
recrudescence of his muddier humanity to attempt return by such aërial
means. I offered to go with him on the morrow to the nearest city and
charter a ship to carry us to his former home. But he would not listen
to my proposal, and bade me seek rest and sleep.
I began to feel that I was intruding on the privacy of an agonised
soul, and I bade him good-night and left him to his own thoughts.
The exhaustion of overcharged emotion soon let me drift into troubled
unconsciousness. Dream followed dream like hurrying clouds over the
moon. At dawn I woke in nightmare. The hut was shaking. I thought that
I was still dreaming. But the swish of the rain and the lashing of
the tree-branches on the roof soon made me understand. The calm of the
night before had given way to tempest; and the earth was suffering
rupture.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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