9. Usefulness
Once again, it was springtime on the little volcanic island. Having made it through the section of spring in which everything is brown, wet and rotting, Tourmaline was laid down in a field appreciating the new growth all around him. Back home, he would’ve been treated to pretty flowers of all types and colors, but here the variety was quite limited. Not that they weren’t interesting, though. The grasses that lived here were short and sharp, and at this time of year, had a single flowery thing with a tall stalk and a big, white, puffy head. They kind of looked like dandelions, except if one were to exaggerate their proportions by twice or even thrice as much. The way their big heavy puffs bobbed in the wind was entertaining, he could watch them for hours.
That was exactly what he’d been doing today, in fact. Just watching the little puffballs bob around in the breeze. The spiky guy, who still didn’t have a name yet, sauntered over and joined Tourmaline in watching the puffballs. They’d bloomed last spring, too, but not nearly in such numbers as they were at the moment.
Tourmaline let his mind wander, and he was thinking about what it was like back home on the big island. It was spring there, too. He could remember a couple of flowers that grew wild on the rolling fields that made up most of the island. There were maybe six or so flowers that the gems encountered in their daily lives. First there were flax plants, which had pretty blue flowers and a long tall stalk. The stalk could be cut down, dried out and brushed into fibers for fabric, and the seeds could be crushed for their oil. Then there were powder plants, which, as the name may suggest, were the main source of the white powder that gems would cover their bodies with. There were also crocuses, which bloomed at the very start of spring, and their pistils could be harvested for yellow dye. (Not that anyone used yellow dye…) Then there was another plant filled with a black tar-like substance for black dye, and there was another plant with colorful flowers that would be grown in the communal planters. Finally, there were roses, which had big beautiful flowers in white or red. In the fall, they’d grow big fruits filled with ooze that the gems would make glue out of. He remembered that his late friend Gaspeite was taking on a pet project to try and breed the roses together to produce different colors, after finding a yellow rose one day. He was so excited to have found something new, and honestly nobody really cared about it, but this kind of thing was the only matter that he was really interested in. It seemed as though Gaspeite had been permeating Tourmaline’s every thought these days. Whenever he’d go out on a thinking limb, he’d always pop up in there somehow. Technically, Gaspie was still around, if you count a couple of pieces left over as “being around”. The rest of him was on the moon, probably being worn as a fancy necklace or being fashioned into arrowheads at this point. Well, maybe not arrowheads, he wasn’t a strong enough mineral to be useful as a weapon. Fancy necklace, though, maybe. Rainbow, Tourmaline’s friend on the big island, said that he’d bring Gaspie’s remains over when he’d make the trip over, next time the seas froze enough to walk on. He wondered how Rainbow was affected by Gaspie’s kidnapping. If it was enough to make him voluntarily pick up the winter shift, the loneliest job of them all, he certainly was shaken. Though, after losing ten different partners over the years, surely he’d gotten used to it by now, no? Tourmaline had never lost a partner before. Even Gaspie wasn’t his official partner, as much as he was his friend. For his purposes, Psilomelane wasn’t on the moon either, just somewhere in the sea. Probably. Either way, Tourmaline hoped that he’d be able to offer Rainbow a change of pace by letting him come over to his secret island, a place where the moon people never visited. A totally safe place, a totally peaceful place.
Anyways, Tourmaline was still watching the puffballs bob around in the wind, as with the spiky guy, who was now laying on his belly beside him. Most of the plants on the big island had some kind of practical use. Certainly, there had to be some kind of use for these puffy things, too. Maybe he could figure out a way to make clothes out of these grasses, and not have to rely on stealing fabric from the old island. They were quite fuzzy, after all. Maybe their fuzz could be stretched out into thread and woven together. He began to think about the other things on the island. What else could he work with, here?
He noticed a waxy, shiny, bumpy sort of growth on some of the stems of the flowers. He popped one of them off, and shone it under the light of the sun. It was kind of gold, a bit red in places. He crushed it with his fingers, and it leaked out red ooze. He examined the mess in his hands, and found the remains of a poor crunched little bug, filled with the red ooze. The resin was just a shell. Huh. Red stuff. Maybe for dye? And resinous stuff… maybe for glue?
Tourmaline got up and began wandering around to look for things that could be useful for building a society here. He had resin, or wax, or something similar, and he had red dye, and he had puffy stuff that clothes could be made out of. Next… maybe he’d need something hard to make tools out of, and maybe a few other colors of dye. Black, for sure, as that was the color that everyone wore, and as all gems were different colors, black was the color that everyone was guaranteed to look alright in. But maybe he could experiment a little, introduce some more dyes into the situation. Maybe yellow and blue, and that way he could make any color he wanted.
On his walkabout, he noticed more and more things he could use. There were little lichenous things growing at the base of the shell. As he wandered around the island, he found different types growing on the east and west sides. Some were bright, electric green, and others were dark and almost gelatinous in appearance. He could maybe use some of these for dyes, perhaps?
He scaled the volcano and thought about the minerals that grew in there. Maybe some of them could be used for dyes too? He remembered last winter when he snuck over to the big island, he was reading a book where he learned about a mineral called orpiment, which was bright yellow, grew around volcanoes, and could be used as a pigment. Maybe there was some growing around here? Or maybe there were other similar minerals of different colors, too. He didn’t find much, but he also wasn’t looking too hard.
From the top of the volcano, he could see for miles and miles around. He sat for a while, admiring the scenery, and looked down onto the field. He could see the shell that he and the spiky gem lived in, as well as the spiky gem himself, both miniatures from such a distance. He recalled the plain of shells he’d encountered in the sea, and imagined a great big pile of them on the field beside the current one. A little neighborhood of shells, perhaps each one home to a gem. He pictured a tall, pointy shell. Rainbow could live in that one. He imagined a white, smooth shell. When Quartz comes back, he could live in this one. Then he conjured up a spiky shell. Maybe he could live in that one, and the spiky guy could live in the original shell. Then, maybe, a kind of greenish shell over there. Maybe once Rainbow brings the bits of Gaspeite over, he could transplant them into a new body, and he could live in that one. It was at this point he realized he didn’t know exactly how much of Gaspeite was left over. Was it just a few pieces? If so, that was kind of hopeless. But maybe if enough of him was around, there’d be enough microbes to keep his personality and some memories intact even if introduced to a bunch of new body parts. Was that even medically possible? He had no idea. He could test out that theory, though. He did, after all, tell Rainbow he wanted to be a doctor if he didn’t have to fight. And here he was, not having to fight, so anything was possible.
He made his way back down the volcano, and into the sea, directly north. He was pretty sure what’s where the big pile of shells were. It was a few hours of walking, nothing he couldn’t handle. All this time of walking around in the sea and on top of it had gotten him accustomed to walking all over the place, even when it was really, completely, utterly boring. He had his thoughts to entertain him. Eventually he reached the pile of shells and picked out a couple that might make for good houses. There was a nice, big, stripy shell. He wanted to take out that one. He grabbed it by the aperture, and tried to pull it.
Nothing.
He shimmied into the gaps between the shells and tried to push it with his feet.
Yeah, nothing. It was just too heavy.
As a guy made entirely of tourmaline, Tourmaline was quite dense. He could lift all sorts of things that would be too heavy for fleshy creatures to manage, but even this was too much for him.
He picked out a smaller shell, which thankfully moved, but not without considerable effort. This shell was just big enough for one gem to hang out in, which wasn’t great, but maybe would make a good storage shed. He began to roll it along the seafloor, and it took another couple of hours to get back. He rolled and rolled and rolled it all over the little fuzzy grasses, and leaned it up against the big shell that he and the spiky guy lived inside, piquing the latter’s interest as he watched his shellmate bring the new shell out from the sea. The spiky gem made his way over and took a look at the shell.
Tourmaline grinned. “Check it out! There’s more in the sea, but they’re too heavy.” He gestured to the sea, hoping he’d understand that there were more out there. The spiky guy poked his head inside the shell. This one was considerably shinier than the other one on the inside, and it was mesmerizing. The two spent a long time just looking at it together.
He went back into the sea to get some more shells. Maybe some smaller ones to use as containers. Back home, trees would be stripped and their pieces of bark would be glued together to make a solid thing, like bowls or tool handles. Trees were rare and took a long time to grow, so this was done infrequently. Here, however, there were no trees at all. Perhaps a shell could stand in for wood for now. Another couple of hours later he brought a handful of smaller shells back ashore, each one maybe the size of his head. He decided that it wouldn’t be feasible to bring all of the shells out from the pile, at least not until his two other buddies came over to help. Something to work on later.
In the meantime, he went to collect as many of the little shiny lumps as he could, combing through all of the little fuzzy plants and picking them off. He had a great big pile of them by the time the day was up, and he dumped them all in the new shell. His next order of business was to figure out what to do with them. He figured that was a tomorrow thing, so he went to bed for the day.
The following morning, he checked in on his stockpile and found that it was swarming with little grey bugs. It seemed they’d all noticed their little resinous homes had been plucked off of the flowers and escaped to go make new ones. He was going to maybe crunch them up into dye, but then again, he hadn’t even made fabric out of the fuzzy plants yet, so perhaps he could try again later. For now, he had the resin. He figured he might try and heat them up to see what would happen. He piled a bunch of lumps into one of the little shells he brought yesterday, and scaled the volcano once more. He, carefully this time, made his way into the center of the bowl and looked for a nice, hot spot. A little spewing geyser would do. He placed the shell on top of it, and waited. The stuff began to melt. Cool! Perhaps this could be used as a kind of glue or sealant for the gems. But if it had to be melted, it would only work when hot. Hm.
He didn’t actually have anything he was planning on using the stuff for, so now he just had this hot bowl full of molten liquid. He could perhaps leave it up here until someone gets broken to try it out. He set it back down. He then noticed that his fingertips were significantly lighter than before, as though the color had been sucked right out. He’d never really been exposed to this much heat at once. Sure, he’d set things on fire before, but they were always put out quickly. Being at the top of a volcano for the better part of the day and handling hot stuff seemed to not bode well with the blues and pinks in his body. Yet another project to put on the shelf, at least until he got some gloves to wear.
He made his way back down into the field, his efforts being mostly fruitless, and got back down on his belly to watch the little bobbing flowers. It just felt nice to do work.