Place names change over time. Often in response to something that happened at that location that changed how people thought about it. For instance, did you know that it’s nigh-impossible to easily find an English source for what the locals called ANZAC Cove before WW1?
What about when the meaning behind the new name is forgotten… why is this place named [name here]? It doesn’t fit with the surrounding place names… – RecklessPrudence
(#00303)
Part of Shayde’s holiday ‘home’ on Earth included some small amount of touching base. Or, in her case, seeing what had happened to places she knew in the five hundred years since her departure.
So far “nearly normal” Nimbin was a thriving alternative energy research centre, Woodstock was an industrial complex and the little village of Dafadd Gwedyll ar Afon was an oak grove. And ruined stone buildings.
Now, she came to Berkely Campus. What she called Berkely Campus, anyway. The roads were still there, but it had transformed. The strict, age-related industrial education model had long since been replaced by a better model. What was once a green was now a playground. What was once a corner cafe was now a reading library with inbuilt futons and a pillow pit. And what was once the energy experiment building…
Was the Hackmeyer Memorial.
“Na, that’s just insultin'…” Shayde murmured, staring at the bronze statue of a balding man in a knitted vest at work at his desk. The sculptor had obliterated the unflattering combover. And, evidently, thousands of superstitious students had done something to the toe of his foremost boot.
“That’s from 'is publicity photo,” Shayde wailed. “He never sat like that in 'is life, an’ he certainly never worked at that desk. He was always sittin’ on the corner tryin’ tae make his package look big. The bastard.”
Five hundred years had been kinder to Ernest Hackmeyer than it had been to Katie Walker. She was only mentioned by name at a little plaque by an oak tree.
Katie’s Oak, the small plaque read. Plant an oak and think of me, it will grow and flourish longer than we.
Smaller font indicated that the tree had been planted as a memorial to the single life lost in the Hackmeyer Effect Incident at this location.
“Five square inches,” muttered Shayde. “And that plagiaristic sexist bastard has a whole damn statue with my fookain maths on it…”
Rael felt sorry for her. Everywhere she knew in her youth had been erased. Even her presence in the world. “You should see something,” he said, and took her elbow to guide her.
The other gates to Berkely Campus had a gigantic bas-relief bronze of women in historical dress doing symbolic things. A team of ladies unravelled a galaxy. More ladies did chemistry. One showed two men a DNA helix.
The Bronze was still new. It hadn’t had a chance to tarnish.
But there, in the foreground, leaning on a globe of the world while jotting in a notebook, was Katie Walker - ringlets and all. If one stood at the right place, one could see Hackmeyer’s stolen formula in full.
“It’s called The Unsung Heroines,” said Rael. “All the women who had their roles in the field of science overwritten by men.”
Shayde leaned on her effigy’s head to peer at the notebook contents. The curious would give Katie Walker a shiny halo. “They got it right. They put the right one in.”
“From Katie Walker’s original notebook,” said Rael. “Recovered at last from the Locker of Mystery.”
“Damn it,” muttered Shayde as she returned to the footpath. “Na I got somethin’ in me eye…”
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