Galloway

Chapter 6:
The next day, having packed up most of his stuff into Beryl and locking up the flat, Johnny headed north, following the old A75 up into the hills. The northern side of the Transition Zone lay much further out than its southern edge that hugged the city. The village where his parents lived was thirty miles away and another Zone line was ten miles beyond that, or so he was told. There were plenty of backroads in this area and he used these to avoid the checkpoints. He had lived his entire life in these hills and had travelled these roads from his parent’s village to the city every weekend. When the Splintering had rearranged the entire planet, it had only managed to add a single mile onto his commute. The villages he passed through mainly consisted of old cottages that hugged the road, while newer houses were built further back, with the newest on the furthest edges. It was all still the same, nothing had been changed by the reditus up here, and it showed. The people were largely untroubled by the muta. This was the land of the Covenanters and there was a racial memory of resistance against religious persecution. Many of the villages still had monuments standing in honour of those that had resisted the English kings and their religious policies.
As he drove passed one, he read the inscription:
"Why seeks he, with unwearied toil,
Through death's dim walls to urge his way,
Reclaim his long-arrested spoil,
And lead oblivion into day."
Johnny pictured a group of farmers reading it before turning and standing in the road with loaded shotguns and thunderous scowls. Enough to see off any but the most determined contingent of Committee enforcers, he was sure. The muta were not welcome here and had learned to stay away.
Category:Paradise
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