A young psychiatric patient, known as Lili, is having a profound effect on both fellow inmates and medical staff alike. As she begins to unravel the truth of her hospital admittance, she persuades her sceptical psychiatrist, Katherine Kolinsky, to begin a search for Truth in her own self. Thousands of miles away in eastern Canada a young fisherman, Averi, is about to be capsized, both in the sea and in the heart. At first troubled and resistant, Averi surrenders at last to the inner journey, coming to see through the loving guidance of his friend and confidante, Nyx, the Reality of his own existence. As Truth unfolds and falsity is wiped clean, so it becomes clear that Averi and Lili are not separate, that the former lives in the mind of the latter, an alter ego and a signpost to Self-recognition. It shall take the delicate unpicking of a densely woven tapestry to cut through the layers of 'psychosis' and delusion. Only then shall Katherine the psychiatrist be convinced that 'madness' is not all as it seems.

Averi and the UNKNOWN

'FROM THE LIGHT OF WISDOM'By Saraswathi

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2012 Saraswathi
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-4335-2

Chapter One

One evening a being named Averi was chopping vegetables in the kitchen of his wooden home. The carrots were already done, cut into wide rings instead of sticks, for these were the makings of a fine stew. Averi put down his knife and picked up the peeler. Inside came a twinge of impatience, for although he enjoyed swede very much indeed, it always appeared as slightly more effortful to prepare than the other vegetables. Averi stopped. Along with that twinge had come a thought, or at least it appeared as a thought. But it had raced so silently across the screen of his vision that he had absolutely no idea what the thought had been. Averi rested the heels of both hands on the chopping board and stared down at the grain of the wood, at the red of the pepper, at the mottled green of the courgette. A thought had come, it had been too fast to register, but Averi had seen it nonetheless.

At that moment a ladybird skirted the circumference of his knuckles. It seemed to be making a clear line towards the ring of the electric hob where the onions were frying in a pan. Averi's eyes followed this determined friend. A thought came to turn off the hob, but Averi had come to such a standstill that all movement seemed impossible. Nevertheless, he watched his arm lift up and reach across to the dial. He saw his fingers turn the temperature to zero and draw the pan towards the ladybird, so as to prevent the little fellow from reaching the rim of cooking heat. Averi watched all this as if his arm and fingers were quite independent of him. And then the most unusual thing occurred. Averi realised that he had watched the thought to turn off the hob when it came, just as he had seen the thought that had been too quick to decipher. Averi blinked hard. His eyes had begun to smart from the sweat of the onions, and so he stepped away from the stove and the chopping board, crossed the wooden floor of his wooden kitchen and opened the kitchen door onto sharp October air that frisked his nostrils and his ear ways. There were gulls in his hearing and the slick tang of sea salt on his tongue. Could it have been his dream last night that was causing this confusion? Certainly, it had played on his mind all day, for not a word of it made any sense. Averi breathed, slowly and deeply, consoled by the brush of high tide.

The next morning held a grey sky. It hung low on the rooftops of all the wooden houses, deep-pitted and heavy jowled. Rain had come to stream-line the town and Averi was glad of it. It was running still in rivulets and the smell licked his pores. A wind, too, was in the air; not quite arrived, but warning. The great firs at the side of the road were shifting uneasily. Averi stopped at the bottom of the hill and listened. A north-easterly, for certain; but its smell was unusual. If he was very still, Averi could discern the best course for a catch. But this blow was foreign, a scent with secrets he could not yet decipher. He was unnerved at not knowing; the boys would ask and he would have no answer to give them. Averi kept to the walk. It was alarming to find himself anxious, and this early morning climb would brace him.

It was certainly the best the town had to offer. The road rose, ever so steeply, up and away from the shore, past more wooden houses – for many houses were wooden in the days to come, and it was a rare thing indeed to see a dwelling of stone or the red brick of Pisces as folk were apt to call it – until it reached the centre of Quartermaine itself. There, on the corner opposite the hardware store, was the Boat Shop. Averi tucked his chin into the neck of his wind-breaker and crossed to the window to look. A giant lobster pot hung down from a chain and clustered around it were all the things that Nyx liked to sell. The fishermen of Quartermaine always came here: he and Trindar, Raul, Haiti and Patch. Nyx sold them their wind-breakers, their bibs, their braces, their sou'westers and their great yellow boots. But anyone with a taste for tackle or fishing-rods might find here what they were looking for: perhaps books on tides, on navigation, on the hundreds of species that Averi had never even seen come into the warehouse; on dolphins and seals and turtles from the Exotics, and the mythical whale-fish; and boxes of bait if you didn't mind putting your hand in and collecting a pound-full yourself. This was Nyx's special joke. Today, she was there already, earlier than all the other shop-holders, standing behind the counter with her head bowed low over a ledger. Her hair hung free, dark and smooth as the tone of her skin. Averi lowered his eyes and turned away. If he was late the boys would know why.

The warehouse sat squat and blue-boarded on the harbour wall. Years of salt had seeped into the grain, whitening and wrinkling the paintwork. That was why Averi and the boys called her the Old Lady. She was weatherworn and faded and all the more beautiful for it. Averi took off his glove and felt the wood of the window frame. When the weather was drier this would need stripping and sanding. Weatherworn was one thing, rotten was another.

Herring gulls, the morning party, were tussling for breakfast. Averi turned to watch and, as he turned, what he saw was panoramic. He froze. Here it was again, the very same that had come before the stew last night. The very same that had left the stew uncooked and unimportant. The very same that had sat him most of the night on the decking, unable to move despite the cold eating his bones: the strangest feeling that had swallowed him whole until nothing existed but space. In front of him, it was not the view itself that was panoramic. This was as it always was: the concave of the land like a giant crab's claw, the harbour – a man-made pouch that held just enough for two dozen boats, and the great ocean a little greyer than usual and frothy in patches where the wind was hustling. But what was experienced was panoramic in a way that Averi knew and yet did not know. Fresh as an old friend it seemed. Inward and yet outward. It was neither one nor the other, but so broad as to have no edges. The gulls continued, oblivious, their raucous cries heard in a silence without end. Chariot was there, rocking as if impatient, her scrubbed deck glistening still from the rain. A red woollen hat peered out of the hold. It was Trindar, his unfeasible bulk a comfort. He waved. Averi felt his arm wave back as if it were no longer attached to him. An arm that did as it was bade to do, except that he had not even bid it. He was smiling, too, that he was certain of; a smile that reached into the back of him and went beyond.

- Quite a blow it's kicking up, Skip.

It was Haiti taking him by surprise, with his deep voice and a one-armed hug. Haiti loved a squall, and the light of a rough sail shone in his eyes.

- It's a blow, alright, Averi replied. Yeah.

The warehouse doors swung back on their hinges and there was Patch, so swaddled you could barely make out the shape of him. Patch believed in layers, perhaps because there was so little of him. Roll necks and sweaters and great padded waterproofs and a brown woollen balaclava under his hood. There was no sign of his namesake, the patch of white hair in brown. What a collection of days it had been since the other children had first pointed their fingers. Averi had knelt down, that school day morning, to retrieve the carved sailing boat that...