Seeing no other way to bring the leaves’ beauty back, he suffered it to happen. The red lake turned brown over the course of many days as the leaves all went the way of that first one. They began going into motion. At first they moved fitfully, each choosing its own course, but he sensed the wrongness of that and put a stop to it and built it back up in a new manner that felt right. Thereafter they did not move singly and of their own accord but in groups, with all the leaves in a particular area suddenly taking flight and traveling in the same direction for some distance before settling down again. At first the movement was in straight lines but as the change deepened, and most leaves disappeared, never to return, the remaining ones began to whirl about in loose gyres that would scrape and tumble over the green grass for some distance before disassembling and falling to the ground for a time.

Part 5

Part 5

Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Kill it, put it on ice, or let it live? Those are the options when you’ve created a monster” was how the keynote speaker began.

This created a stir in the hall, which Enoch enjoyed for a few moments before settling things down.

“That word. The Oxford English Dictionary begins by telling us that a monster is something extraordinary or unnatural; a prodigy, a marvel. Then it sort of ruins everything by letting us know that this wonderful definition is obsolete. Go and look up ‘prodigy’ and you’ll see more of the same; the old meaning of the word is suffused with a sense of the marvelous.”