Read The Arrival of Missives for Free Online Page A

thirst, through a forest without tracks or guidance. I was directionless, but nothing mattered. I did not look down at the rock I carried within me, and I did not attempt to touch it. I walked onwards until, by sheer chance, I came to a place where the forest ended and farmland began, and found there a collection of wooden buildings that must have once housed animals, but were now empty. They appeared to have been left that way for some length of time.
    A small barn with a heavily slanted roof, the two sides raised up to a steepled peak like hands in prayer, had a rusted trough outside, into which rainfall had collected; I put my head inside it and drank deeply, uncaring of the metallic taste. Inside, a dusting of grey straw remained upon the floor, and I lay down and slept. I had no thoughts beyond my immediate needs. I think, perhaps, these were my last moments of true connection to my humanity, because humans are creatures of the earth, are they not? To drink, to sleep, to respond to these needs and think no further upon it – we are like the mice in the fields and the deer in the forest when we obey these instincts. I am not saying that the rock inside me has removed such demands; I must still eat, and drink, and take my nightly rest, of course! But I do not complete such actions without the knowledge that I must keep the remains of my body alive only for the sake of the rock, and what it asks of me.
    I did not stay long at the barn. Only long enough to come to the realisation that the rock could not be removed. It was fused within me, rock melded into flesh with no discernible seam. I thought at first of trying to prise it from me, but when I put my hands upon it to make an effort I discovered the purpose of the rock. It bore a missive, activated only by the touch of my palms upon it. How can I explain it? The rock itself was a tool of communication, and it opened a…portal within my mind. A portal to the future.
    I thought I was going mad, of course. It took me a long time to understand that the images I received were not originating from a disturbance within my own mind, but from the rock.
    I cannot adequately describe what I see except in the most general of terms, for it makes no sense in words and my arm is already tired of writing. I will put this down, then, and rely upon your trust in me to guide your thoughts on this matter further: I have conversed with the leaders of the future. They are fearful. They plant images into my mind of the wars that await us and are befalling them, and they have devoted their lives to finding a way to end all such conflicts. They use the rock to reach back and enlist aid in their struggle. I am determined to do their bidding because I have been shown what will become of mankind if they do not succeed.
    Now, my dear Shirley, I have enlisted you.
    After reflection, I can recognise you now for what you truly are: you are a Godsend. I wonder if you have been presented to me as an instrument in much the same way that I was chosen as the instrument of the future. For, you see, I have been given a task that I simply could not find a way to undertake. But you – you with your charm and grace and feminine ways – will make easy work of it. And I promise you I will not ask you to do anything that will be beyond your talents.
    So start by fetching those horseshoes, my most able pupil, and I will be forever in your debt. As will the world and every living thing upon it.
    Yours sincerely,
    Your schoolmaster and ally,
    Mr Arthur Tiller, Esquire.
    He ends formally as if he has written his passion, his desire to communicate these events, out of himself. Yet I find myself no closer to understanding. Am I meant to take his story literally, or to treat it as some kind of parable from which I should learn? It occurs to me that this could well be a test of my loyalty, to see how blindly I am prepared to follow.
    I must also consider the possibility that he is mad. I know men have returned from the