Songs From the Wood

by Chris Harris

Part 1 and Part 2
appear in this issue.

conclusion

None of this could yet be published. This would be viewed as heresy on a very grand scale indeed. All Tom could do was to wait for that breakthrough that would lead to the unlocking of the language he studied. As things progressed, he began to realize through revelations thus far, that the final solution would be nothing less than “Extremely profound.”

Such associated complexities had protected birdsong. The riddle could never be solved as it stood, because on its own birdsong was simply gibberish. Only when other factors were considered, such as Tom had identified, did any sign of a coherent structure appear.

It was so easy to invent outrageous solutions. In fact the whole fascination of the subject, was born of the illusive nature of its meanings. But had he gone too far now. Was looking for words in the sunlight or in ultra-sound really a sane activity, or was he losing the plot?

How had such supernatural solutions evolved; Tom was not entirely guilty. Whilst he had suggested some of the more unbalanced possibilities, it was Hunter and Gatherer who had verified and expanded them. Was there a flaw in the logic and the tools employed for the task. Or were all three of them, now completely adrift in an ocean of fantasy.

Tom made a concerted effort to start again. Without stopping the program he stood back and tried to view the topic from the standpoint of a layman. He drew flowcharts to show how a novice might approach the problem. He even introduced a rule to avoid the exploration of any ideas that he felt might result in a bizarre conclusion.

Try as he might, he failed. No matter what direction an idea took, its path, and the paths of all of its off shoots, always led to the place where Tom now stood. Every fork of every route, even if dismissed as “Impossible,” led unfalteringly to the impossible possibility that had forced this exercise in the first place.

Tom began to feel an unusual contentment. Despite appearances he was not a patient man and despised the laborious statistical analysis of his subject. Now that he was fully computerized, he had more time for life knowing that his machines worked on, even if he himself took time out.

The weather had been beautiful now for weeks. All the trees of the wood surrounding his house hung heavy with the scent and colour of their full summer livery. Here, in paradise, Tom would spend hours submerged and intoxicated by it all.

Trips into town became increasingly tiresome. Since his retirement, the reality of his need for solitude had blossomed. For the first time in his life he was allowed to become the recluse he’d always really been.

Children from the village would peer through the trees at him. He would hear them giggling and sometimes over the microphones he’d learn what they were saying about him. “Mad Tom” was his nickname and some of the more mischievous kids would use duck sounders and make other bird sounds.

Tom remembered these woods when he was young. He’d always played alone and even then had a reputation of being somewhat odd. How the human-race loved to taunt and tease their fellow man. It became more fun in a group against an individual. Like a kind of witch-hunt.

Then as now they were all so full of hate and jealousy. In a constant state of changing allegiance, they even hated themselves and each other. Adolescence and adulthood provided only the ability to hide their ugliness. Hidden inside remained the primary human drives of vanity and self; to be different was to be thankful.

Under the stars on a warm and clear night felt like heaven on earth. No longer chained by the nine to five slavery of earning a living, Tom often reversed his night and day routines. Sometimes he’d spend an entire week getting up at night and going to bed at dawn.

At night the woods fell silent. It became a world of darkness, instinct and pure cunning. Even man, although no longer threatened by predators in the U.K, still carried an hereditary fear of the shadows of the night.

After dark all of the senses changed places. The powers of sight and agility were replaced by those of stealth and acute hearing as all mobility lapsed into the coma of the small hours. The wood at night lay worlds apart from its alter ego of the daylight hours.

Removed from the hierarchy of survival, Tom looked on. In the silence he could hear the stream from his porch at night. And the frantic screaming of bats filled the air as they swooped and dodged in erratic blind-flight.

Foxes came very close to the house. Man was their only real enemy and so Tom felt honoured to have gained their trust and more so to have earned their friendship as he knew he had.

Another visitor also graced this humble abode. How strange that such a small creature should sound so large and fierce. As a young child he was convinced that beyond the curtains lay a jungle full of leopards waiting to devour him; that was until he’d met the hedgehog.

The dawning of the day like dusk was special. It was more than just the rising or the setting of the sun, much more. At dawn the entire consciousness and pulse of the woods erupted showering ever-brighter shards of light and life for miles around. At dusk an intimate joining of the shadows as the invisible sounds of the day began to brighten.

To miss either dusk or dawn is to miss indeed. Tom felt charged by either event and sometimes wished they could occur back to back in an endless cycle. For him the experiences of dawn and dusk could only be truly felt, if viewed as the end and the beginning of night.

Some he knew, viewed his life here as an empty and lonely existence. Tom’s father had been an extrovert and threw wild parties inviting all the villagers and every passer by as well. Everybody came even if they didn’t want to; it wasn’t so much an invitation as a command.

His two elder sisters were equally flamboyant. All the young men for miles around were frightened to death of them both. Some would feign illness rather than be trapped with them at one of their father’s house parties.

Tom’s mother had been his anchor on reality. She was a very shy lady but with a warmth and aire about her that somehow tamed her husband and daughters. For Tom she was the dearest and most understanding person he would ever know.

How thoughtless and callous the passing years could be. First to leave were his sisters. One married an American and moved to The United States, and the other left to pursue a career in Scotland. Five and eight years later saw first the death of his mother, and then of his father.

If nothing else, Tom was a realist. He knew and accepted loss along with the inevitable changes it would bring. His fathers pipe and his mothers hairbrush remained and were cherished. The room his sisters shared was cleaned with the bed changed regularly. This was not a shrine; they were simply memories.

He’d never been tempted to move from here. To live anywhere else held no attraction for Tom, and leaving the family home would be such an emotional wrench. His parents had worked hard to secure this little piece of paradise, and he was not about to undermine that dream.

Surrey was a beautiful county. Much of it remained unspoiled and this part in particular was exceptionally picturesque. Its ancient charm had escaped the housing developers and the money machine upon which they were dependent. The infrastructure of the local community was still reliant upon working farms and this kept the fields and meadows free from mutilation.

Many nearby towns had not been so fortunate. Whole areas of woodland had been transformed into so called country estates. The road names of such were Oak Drive and |Parsons Meadow, but boasted no such open space or greenery; it was rural genocide.

Adverts from the developers were hilarious. They would lure potential buyers with the delights of the open countryside. Two years later they would tear up the neighbouring fields in a new frenzy of construction. To add insult to injury, the sales pitch used to attract the new wave of victims remained unchanged.

Space was running out for much of Surrey. Each village, once separated by two or three miles of rolling downland, became so large as to merge with its similarly expanding neighbours. All the streams and rivers ran dry as a quantum leap in the demand for water spearheaded the demise of rural England.

Tom detested the modern world. The possession based and control freak natures of its occupants left him cold. He couldn’t understand and wasn’t remotely interested in any of their pursuits. Even the radio set he used for company had become a tool for the characterless predators that sought to pollute the entire globe.

His house in the woods in the countryside was his sanctuary. Tom lived almost exactly at the centre of a protected area stretching ten miles in every direction. Even here the developers and politicians couldn’t resist delineating the zone with name, “The North Downs National Park.” This apparently caring label was created of course, only to facilitate a speedier destruction of all other lands.

Resentful of the “National Park” tag, Tom was however grateful. Not only would his immediate surroundings remain in tact, he would also, by virtue of the size of “The Park,” be saved any visual intrusions even from a distance. Life it seemed, given his good health, could continue.

Hunter and Gatherer had been busy. From the output of recent days it seemed as though they were onto something. Studying their reports though indicated that they were as confused by their findings as was Tom. How frustrating it would be to discover and confirm the existence of a coherent language without being able to understand its messages,

The recent work of Hunter had been in wavelength value. It appeared that there was a high incidence of sounds with a wavelength divisible by the number thirty-three. Time and time again the computations revealed that in nearly all of the songs sung by birds, only sounds with wavelengths fitting this criteria were used. What could this possibly mean?

Tom began to sense a kill. The correlation was indisputable even though its significance wasn’t yet clear. Hunter couldn’t let go either and buried himself in the task of trying to resolve this most promising lead.

Mathematical roots to a natural and spoken language seemed ludicrous. Such tongues did exist of course, but these were derived for machines and used in specialized roles. They would remain second or third generation languages that could only exist as the creations of naturally evolved speech.

Hunter had discovered a coded language. It’s words had no meanings in themselves but conveyed information stylized away from direct speech. The purpose of creating such a cumbersome animal could only point to the complexity of its subject matter. Could the minds of birds really cope with this scenario?

The patterns in the math’s were awesome. The visual impression in the clusters of figures, gave the mysterious dialogue the appearance of being a multiple-choice conversation. Its composition at first seemed to generate, present and then isolate the many variables within its structure, much like an open forum. Next, those same variables would be assessed, re-evaluated, discounted or accepted; it was breathtaking.

Tom’s ultra-sound hunch had paid off. It was there in the figures, and just like birdsong it rang out in wavelengths divisible by the number thirty-three. For the first time since his studies began, Tom felt close to a conclusion.

To the left of the control room sat Gatherer. The moment its printer began to report would be the moment of discovery. There was a new sense of urgency in the standby light as it winked on and off throwing its green light into a darkened recess.

The night, already warm, grew closer still. Hunter laboured feverishly on as every twist and turn in the mathematics unfurled. The dynamics of every frantic moment danced and merged with the next in a chaotic blur across the screen of the monitor.

Surely something must be happening. There had been false alarms before but never on this scale and with so much activity. And the progressions of the figures had gone too far now to represent mere chance.

Suddenly a new sound filled the room. Hunter was scanning samples of birdsong and was doing so in the “Speakers On” mode. Exactly why the speakers were being used was a mystery and a quirk of his that had developed only recently.

The samples although different, were being taken from an identical period in time on selected days. Hunter was replaying several tunes simultaneously, but was running each track at speeds varying by multiples of the number thirty-three; the accumulative sounds left Tom feeling like a drug addict in a bird sanctuary.

Slowly a pattern to the sounds began to evolve. Despite the variety of species and number of songs sung, only two words were ever said here. One of the words agreed to the number thirty-three and all the others said “NO.”

Just then, and like genesis itself; Gatherer spoke. Its hitherto dormant printer burst into life indicating a positive translation. Almost immediately the machine fell silent again and left Tom rooted to the spot unable to move.

Should he or should he not look at the printout. It was a moment he’d dreamed of for years. What if it still made no sense, and where would he go from here?

Slowly he gathered up the strength to move. Rising from his chair he approached Gatherer with a tightening knot in his stomach and now stood before the machine.

He knew what he saw was indisputable. Although in the wrong format, he knew that Gatherer’s programming would soon re-align these findings and re-print them in their international standard.

The print read:

OX0X0XX0...OXOOXOOO...XXXO0XXOO...OOOXOXXO

RE-ALIGNING... Please wait.

Thirty seconds later and the mystery of birdsong became history as the printer continued:

11010110..01001000..11101100..00010110

01100100..11001001..00100010..11110110

10001000..11101011..00101011..10001001

01100010..10010101..11110101..11010101

11111011..10011010..01000101..10001000

DECODE POSITIVE

COMPOSTION= “STANDARD BINARY”

PROGRAM RUNNING.... Please wait.