Hieroglyph (14 page)

“It is causing social upheaval in many sectors. Everything is affected. Business and trade, political structure, science, the arts, religion—everything. Universal literacy might seem like a simple change, but even American slaveowners knew the power of reading would not lead to simple results.”

The interviewer remarks, “It is anything but simple. I'm going to turn to our legal expert. Can you help us understand yesterday's UN mandate that calls for governments to support free distribution of OPEN to all children in the world?”

“It is indeed . . .”

LEARNING TO READ:
An
Anthology.
Read by people of many ethnicities—girls, boys, women, men—translated into English by the grok:

How language

Feels in my hand:

Sharp

Sinuous

Like cutting into rainbows

With my brain.

Pathways arise

I follow them

As if up a rope,

Pulling myself up

Hand over hand.

A rough tongue licks my brain

Vision ripples; re-forms. Once

Small, I ride the wave,

Made huge

By just

A word.

I am made Other

I am made Past

I am made Future

I am the stranger

Walking past me in the street;

I am the cat

Asleep at my feet.

Word-lightning zigzags;

Inner.

No other hears

When I hear

Each thought

So private

Yet utterly public.

I read my great-grandmother's letters.

She is dead

Yet her voice speaks to me

As if she were alive. She rings in my mind;

She sits next to me

On this summer afternoon in Cairo.

Words leap through mind like wild gazelles, their flight

A bright path etched on air.

Meaning strikes like sunlight: story feeds me.

When my mother went to the protest in Kabul,

She wore her brave blue burqa.

She did not come back.

My video flies to YouTube:

The million-colored scarves

Of women chanting in the street

Light spills across them

They are like ridge beyond ridge

Of mountains, transparent

In the sunrise

They are thoughts! They are thoughts! They are thoughts!

Reading my first novel:

I do not finish so much as

Let it fall

And move amazed

Through a changed day

Where all seems hushed and new

I was like a red horse

With a sun in my heart

Running through the woods

Of northern Michigan

And I could write it down for other kids

To be that horse

To be that day.

Reading was like a stranger

Who came to town and stayed.

Some said she was dangerous,

But that seemed so unlikely.

She pitched in where she was needed.

Helped with the kids and cooking, built web pages, organized yard sales,

Set up carpools, organized like-minded people

Soon we could not live without her

After a year she started her own business.

Now she owns the town.

Learning speech sounds: letters

Stand out, flamed with color

A fleeting stage, they tell me.

They flip and mirror: my brain follows

And soon they settle; normal.

But now I know their ancient selves

Stretch far back in time.

Once
things,
before they changed to sounds

And then sounds changed to lines

Stood on their own feet, walked through time,

Omnipotent

Taking on local color

In neighborhoods of minds.

WAVES OF PEOPLE MARCH
down Wilson Boulevard, their chant “O-P-E-N” a roar. Their signs read
RADICAL
LITERACY
FOR
ALL
.

Camera pans to coming clash:
BAN
BRAIN
MEDDLING
.
KEEP
OUR
CHILDREN
FREE
.

A MURMURING UNDERTONE THROUGHOUT
the flashes, like words a running brook makes when you listen without thinking: What does it mean what does it mean to be what does it mean to be human?

DO WE WANT TO
be human, or not?

I DISCOVER A SEARCH
function and follow the bright ping of Melody.

Melody's twenty-year-old voice, low in my head; her bright face above a podium: “All the
with
words. Com-munication. Com-plete. Com-munity. We kids glimpse this vision”—a short, lilting laugh—“I know, I'm an adult now, but when I chose this path I was a child and became part of a network that is actually growing younger, as more children—nearly a billion, now—are reading fluently, with understanding, by age seven, because more of us are reading than ever in history. We are also producing our own literatures—trading them, learning about other cultures and also learning how universal some problems are. Just as there is a natural ‘sensitive period' for laying down language skills, which OPEN replicates, we are finding that there may be a ‘sensitive period' for incorporating and practicing one's ethical and moral framework. When loyalty is freely chosen, based on conscious decisions, we find it is fluid and dynamic. When loyalty is fear induced, as in many repressive regimes, it is deeply damaging. We are learning the kinds of strengths and skills we may need to determine the difference between the two for ourselves, so that we can make positive decisions about our own commitments as we mature. I may find out I am wrong when I am older, but in my personal experience I have found that most very young children are idealistic. They can tell the good from the bad, and, mostly, want to emulate the good, to be good people. But when we are children, we are powerless, and, being plastic, we emulate the behavior of those around us and mirror their emotions. Thus, even in families where you might expect a happy result, unhappiness and resulting unpleasant behaviors are a part of life. Perhaps the gray areas of human behavior—lying, cheating, stealing—and most definitely the black areas of psychopathology—may be deviations from the norm that are actually sicknesses, illnesses that can be healed by the proper application of OPEN and optimal experience of empathic states, so that it will become almost physically impossible to hurt others and look on without feeling remorse, pity, sorrow. However naive it may be, most children believe that a perfect world is possible—that their parents will once again love each other and remarry, for instance. Unlike earlier children, we have a new power. With the invisible power of literacy we can put ourselves in the place of others. We can't help it. We feel deeply the power of anger. The anguish of injustice. We can rejoice in our own individuality and in the group with which we identify without needing to do away with others. We are far too addicted to the joy of learning and life to have time to contemplate the destruction of others.

“The religious instinct, at its best, builds vast cathedrals and motivates people to be empathic, to help others, to share, to do no harm. At its worst, it is a means of creating sharply defined classes of people—those in power, who can bully with impunity, and those without power, without human rights, who must submit or be hurt, ostracized, or even killed. This is the history of all religions through all time. In an initiate, pathways of thought are established in the mind that, in some cases, claim to obviate the need for deep thought regarding morally complex issues. We have seen both escape from cults through the use of OPEN and the paradoxical establishment of new cults. It takes strength and help to leave a cult, where all of one's important relationships exist, and seek a more healthy life. No one can predict what effect OPEN will have on religion, though it is interesting to try.

“These issues are, of course, far more complex than any one person can fathom. Systems and philosophies from religions to economic treatises to legal and governmental frameworks and science have proposed cures for the ills that so visibly plague humanity. Some even claim that human nature is itself to blame and that we cannot change what is worst in us without losing what is best in us.

“I think that is an empty, morally bankrupt approach. When we look around and become aware of human suffering, all of us must think of how best we can improve matters. Perhaps new ways to manage resources will bring an end to war. I don't know.

“But I do know that universal literacy, however radically it comes about, will be part of the solution.” Applause. A woman approaches from the right side of the stage, smiling.

IT IS SUDDENLY A
new world.

MY BROTHERS GET THE
shot and grow up, to my great surprise, to be great guys.

A STUTTERING RUSH OF
sound, pictures, words, sharp and colorful feelings, then Melody's voice and pictures cease.

I am Alia again, and the tang of salt water, the rush of wind, and the roar of surf bring me back to my surroundings.

I open my eyes. The blue sky and the sparsely populated landscape (I'd been spun across the globe, into classrooms, threaded through history with tremendous speed), and the random cries of the children on the beach below take me by surprise, as when you stop moving suddenly and the world surges forward.

“Do you still paint?”

Melody seems surprised. It takes her a moment to answer, and her voice is slow and thoughtful. “I stopped painting for some years. I was too busy, too happy. I think my painting came from anger. I've painted now and then over the years, in spurts. But it's not the same, and I think that my father was always sad about that. He thought I'd lost my genius. I certainly lost my anger, and that was what propelled my painting, back then. I had no other way to express myself. Dead ends inspire creativity. I've found new challenges, though, that give me the same deep satisfaction as painting once did.”

She touches her fingers to her thumbs in a certain combination, and her body glows with complex bioluminescent patterns. “I still love to explore color, pattern, and form. To create these, I studied bioluminescence for two years.”

My eyes widen. “Can you give me some?”

She laughs. “See? Design your own! Figure out how to do it!”

I gaze back out at the sea and breathe in sharply at the wonder it now, quite suddenly, contains—a new wonder that wells from all that I see and hear—coordinated, strident, almost as if it is shouting at me, a complex combination of forces and properties, chemistries and habitats, no longer a toy but an astonishing field of information and relationships, some, probably, unknown. Some that I might discover.

LIFE BURSTS OPEN.

I SAY TO MELODY,
“This is your art. Opening minds.”

Still sitting cross-legged, hands clasped in her lap, Melody lowers her head and nods fiercely, so that her whole body rocks. When she looks up again, her face glows with quiet satisfaction. “I think that's true. I never realized that.” She leans over and gives me a long, strong hug, whispers in my ear, “Thank you, Alia.”

She stands, spreads her wings, leaps, and dances with the wind, furling, diving, spinning, and gliding, until she is another pixel of blue in the distance, indistinguishable from sky and sea. A dot of infinity.

Leaving nothing resolved,
I think, with slight vexation, watching my friend take yet another pounding in the surf below.

Except: everything has changed.

I pick up my board and carefully make my way down to the swirling surf.

Antishock/Shutterstock, Inc.

STORY NOTES
—Kathleen Ann Goonan

I was intrigued by the
Hieroglyph
project when I was asked to participate by editors Kathryn Cramer and Edward Finn and began thinking about what might lead to meaningful change in our future.