The Compass That Pointed to Afternoon
The compass pointed at my left trouser pocket.
I took out a biscuit. The needle followed it.
“Well,” I said. “At least we agree on something.”
The map made a small, offended noise.
“You haven't asked where I would like to go.”
“You're a map.”
“Exactly. I spend my life knowing where everything is. It would be pleasant to be somewhere for a change.”
We set off along a track that the map described as promising. The compass described it as biscuitless, but came anyway.
At the creek, a teaspoon lay beside one of my boots.
I looked down. I was still wearing two.
“Spare?” asked the map.
“Not one I brought.”
The boot declined to explain. The teaspoon appeared to be pointing upstream, though I couldn't tell whether this was advice or how it had fallen.
We followed it.
In a tree, a magpie was wearing my hat.
“Lost property,” she said.
“I haven't lost it yet.”
“Then I've saved you time.”
It was a good hat. Still, the brim made a handsome little veranda around her nest. She had arranged two buttons beneath it and was standing beside them with the air of someone expecting guests.
I left her the biscuit.
“Deposit?” she asked.
“Lunch.”
She looked briefly disappointed that the transaction had become so simple.
The compass turned toward an empty tin beneath the tree. Inside was another compass. Each pointed firmly at the other.
“Company,” said the map.
“Argument,” I said.
“Give them a minute.”
We did. They remained entirely persuaded.
I put both in my pocket. It seemed unkind to leave them separately convinced in the bush.
By then the track had brought us to a patch of shade. There was a flat stone for sitting, a comfortable slope for leaning, and no obvious reason to continue.
The map unfolded itself beside me.
Across the blank space beneath the trees, it wrote NOWHERE.
Then it crossed that out.
SOMEWHERE COMFORTABLE.
“Better,” it said.
I sat down.
The magpie arrived with a second biscuit. I didn't ask where she'd found it. She didn't ask where I'd found the stone.
We shared it. A few crumbs fell onto the map.
“Sorry.”
“Leave them. They mark the spot.”
For a while, there was only a breeze moving through the leaves and the small business of a magpie eating carefully beneath somebody else's hat.
I took the compasses out. Both needles had settled toward the camp.
“Tea,” I said.
“Eventually,” said the map.
I laid them down and stayed a little longer.
The magpie offered me one of her buttons. It was blue, with a chip at the edge.
“What for?”
“You looked short of a button.”
I wasn't, but I thanked her and put it in my pocket.
The compass turned toward it.
Apparently it was learning.