The Village Under the Storm

Polly had one place written down. "Can you tell me how to get there?" she asked the ewe at breakfast. Follow the coast road west, the ewe said. The Bay of Skaill is a long curve of pale sand. Behind it is a green shelf, and the village sits there, half sunk into the ground.

Polly je imela zapisan en kraj."Mi lahko poveste, kako pridem tja?"je pri zajtrku vprašala ovco. Držite se obalne ceste proti zahodu, je rekla ovca. Zaliv Skaill je dolg lok bledega peska. Za njim je zelena polica in tam stoji vas, do polovice pogreznjena v tla.

An oystercatcher was working the site. Polly asked, "I would like to know the history of this particular monument." People lived here five thousand years ago, he said. They farmed this coast before Stonehenge and before the Great Pyramid. Then sand covered the village for four thousand years, until a storm in eighteen fifty took it away.

Po najdišču je delal ostrigar. Polly je rekla:"Rada bi izvedela zgodovino tega spomenika."Ljudje so tu živeli pred pet tisoč leti, je rekel. To obalo so obdelovali pred Stonehengeom in pred Veliko piramido. Potem je vas štiri tisoč let prekrival pesek, dokler ga ni nevihta leta tisoč osemsto petdeset odnesla.

The wind took half of that. "Could you please repeat that for me?" Polly asked. Every house has the same furniture in the same places. A hearth in the middle. Beds at each side. A stone dresser against the far wall. It is stone because there was no wood.

Polovico tega je odnesel veter."Mi lahko to, prosim, ponovite?"je vprašala Polly. V vsaki hiši je isto pohištvo na istih mestih. Ognjišče na sredini. Postelji na obeh straneh. Kamnita omara ob nasprotni steni. Kamnita je zato, ker lesa ni bilo.

"Could you tell me if the museum is open tomorrow?" Polly asked. She knew she would come back. She stood at the edge of one house, looking into a room laid out the way anyone lays out a room.

"Mi lahko poveste, ali je muzej jutri odprt?"je vprašala Polly. Vedela je, da se bo vrnila. Stala je na robu ene od hiš in gledala v prostor, urejen tako, kot prostore ureja vsakdo.