64th of Summer
14th Bell
14th Bell
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The floor was rough, hard, and Nellie shifted uncomfortably on it before staring back down at the papers spread out in front of her, 3 pieces of paper and untold hours of her mother’s work. She’d been careful with them all these years, but they were showing signs of age. Creases marked the faithful fold-lines where she, and her mother before her, had bent the pages; the corners were rounded and soft from the gentle abrasions of years of handling, but the images on them were still as crisp as ever. And as indecipherable, though she hoped to change that.
The blueprints she’d liberated from her mother’s workshop years ago, before the fire, held a mystifying mix of information. Pieces of it were simple enough to understand, and Nellie’s eyes traveled those words comfortably, they’d been long ago committed to memory. The rest may have been written in a foreign language, for all the sense she could make of them. Until today, she had simply used the instructions as a tool for her memory, letting the pictures and words on the pages take her back to her childhood. Even now, the images came unbidden: her mother, sitting up long into the night, pouring over papers and bits of metal and wood, candles flickering around her. It had seemed a sort of magic to Nellie, as she’d peeked around her threadbare blankets and watched the dancing play of shadow and light.
Older now, and more practical, she realized her mother must have struggled to see in the shifting of the flames’ light, but that knowledge didn’t kill the feeling of curious awe she’d had as a child. Nor did it quench her desire to conquer her mother’s world, though it seemed, at times, to be an almost impossible feat.
Nellie had attempted to puzzle through the prints more times than she could count, but the sheer amount of careful handwriting covering every inch of available space was overwhelming, to say the least. None of the sheets seemed to have any relation to the next; her younger self hadn’t been overly concerned with things like that, the thrill had been in the taking and hiding, and she’d grabbed the ones that had looked the most ‘important’ – the ones with the most words and pictures.
Funny how ‘important’ and ‘confusing’ turned out to be the same thing.
Still, her mother was no longer here and Nellie had to work with what she had, disjointed and confusing as it was. To simplify things, she planned to transfer the information from her mother’s sheets of paper to her own recently purchased parchment, separating the knowledge she felt comfortable with from the things that had yet to make sense. Studying the pages laid out on the floor, she selected the one that seemed the most straightforward; six small pictures took up the bulk of the front, labeled with words she was familiar with: “ramp” “lever” “wheel.” Pulling out her charcoal sticks and a mostly clean sheet of parchment, Nellie hunched over the floor and began carefully reproducing the first image, the ramp.
It was easy enough to recreate the triangular shape: a flat base, with an angled line up from one corner, and a straight line back down to connect the two. The words were more challenging to mimic, not because they were difficult by themselves, but because her mother had written them in various places on the page, connected by lines and arrows. Nellie found herself navigating an odd pattern across the page as she put down the words below her own picture:
Frowning, Nellie re-read what she’d written. ”Passive mechanica”? There was an arrow on the page, and she followed it, finger lightly tracing the line as it wound up and around the page. It was a scant few words, but that was all Nellie needed. "Passive" simply meant that it didn’t move. "Mechanica" meant mechanism. A mechanism, then, that didn't move. But should that information go under the heading for a ramp? Or should she start a separate sheet for things like that, terms that she didn’t know, but that might be generally useful?
Deciding on the latter, Nellie grabbed a fresh piece of parchment and wrote the words, followed by the definition, at the top.
The blueprints she’d liberated from her mother’s workshop years ago, before the fire, held a mystifying mix of information. Pieces of it were simple enough to understand, and Nellie’s eyes traveled those words comfortably, they’d been long ago committed to memory. The rest may have been written in a foreign language, for all the sense she could make of them. Until today, she had simply used the instructions as a tool for her memory, letting the pictures and words on the pages take her back to her childhood. Even now, the images came unbidden: her mother, sitting up long into the night, pouring over papers and bits of metal and wood, candles flickering around her. It had seemed a sort of magic to Nellie, as she’d peeked around her threadbare blankets and watched the dancing play of shadow and light.
Older now, and more practical, she realized her mother must have struggled to see in the shifting of the flames’ light, but that knowledge didn’t kill the feeling of curious awe she’d had as a child. Nor did it quench her desire to conquer her mother’s world, though it seemed, at times, to be an almost impossible feat.
Nellie had attempted to puzzle through the prints more times than she could count, but the sheer amount of careful handwriting covering every inch of available space was overwhelming, to say the least. None of the sheets seemed to have any relation to the next; her younger self hadn’t been overly concerned with things like that, the thrill had been in the taking and hiding, and she’d grabbed the ones that had looked the most ‘important’ – the ones with the most words and pictures.
Funny how ‘important’ and ‘confusing’ turned out to be the same thing.
Still, her mother was no longer here and Nellie had to work with what she had, disjointed and confusing as it was. To simplify things, she planned to transfer the information from her mother’s sheets of paper to her own recently purchased parchment, separating the knowledge she felt comfortable with from the things that had yet to make sense. Studying the pages laid out on the floor, she selected the one that seemed the most straightforward; six small pictures took up the bulk of the front, labeled with words she was familiar with: “ramp” “lever” “wheel.” Pulling out her charcoal sticks and a mostly clean sheet of parchment, Nellie hunched over the floor and began carefully reproducing the first image, the ramp.
It was easy enough to recreate the triangular shape: a flat base, with an angled line up from one corner, and a straight line back down to connect the two. The words were more challenging to mimic, not because they were difficult by themselves, but because her mother had written them in various places on the page, connected by lines and arrows. Nellie found herself navigating an odd pattern across the page as she put down the words below her own picture:
Ramp. Also inclined plane. Passive mechanica. Useful in moving heavy loads over steps. Longer ramp = less effort needed. Manmade and natural structure – hills, roads, beaches, wagon ramps, bridges.
Frowning, Nellie re-read what she’d written. ”Passive mechanica”? There was an arrow on the page, and she followed it, finger lightly tracing the line as it wound up and around the page. It was a scant few words, but that was all Nellie needed. "Passive" simply meant that it didn’t move. "Mechanica" meant mechanism. A mechanism, then, that didn't move. But should that information go under the heading for a ramp? Or should she start a separate sheet for things like that, terms that she didn’t know, but that might be generally useful?
Deciding on the latter, Nellie grabbed a fresh piece of parchment and wrote the words, followed by the definition, at the top.
.
