His daughters are marching in Parliament Square. Their banners say Global Warming’s Not Cool.
And all he’s ever wanted was to give them the world.
In the peace of his studio, the globe maker preserves the discerning man’s world. He guides a craft knife along the edges of petal-shaped segments of map, each one to be carefully positioned and gummed by fingers made nimble from plaiting long blonde braids. He’s a time lord, pausing a priceless moment in time for his customers. He inks in their gods and their jackals and colour-washes the yesterday coastlines.
He imagines them sipping their single malt from crystal tumblers in private leathery libraries; the diplomat, the explorer, the tycoon and the prime minister, holding the world in their hands.
Men with manicured fingernails whirl past wars and sandy famines, then pause aghast at the delicate brushwork in the butterfly wings blamed for the chaos. They shake their heads at giant blue whales hiding beneath an ocean of plastic, and they keep turning,
turning,
turning,
plotting, from Baffin Bay all the way down to Deception Island.
The globe maker’s girls put their trust in human instinct, they cuddle him and tell him don’t be afraid. But his work is the witness, he transcribes mankind’s story first hand and he tells them it’s no bedtime tale. He draws in the jagged borders redrawn and the shifting rivers damned.
It’s a heavy weight to bear on rounded shoulders and a truth that’s always been his prime meridian. Precision is the axis of his efforts, for it’s only a globe maker who’ll tell you: mistakes are multiplied by pi.
So, he’s not asking the earth, his wishes are simple, he’s a father at his core. For a time when the world has turned more than his days, and for the love of curious daughters of daughters, he etches a tiny warm message on what’s left of the Shackleton ice shelf:
Keep this precious globe turning.
