The Event Series (Book 4): Filling in the Cracks

by Thomas Larson

  Each in their own way suffered with the losses, but each also kept moving forward. It was their way of dealing with the empty spaces in the heart that were created. Linc dove back into the farm and kept it going while Teckla worked with the horses at the stables near Romanica. And in the end I think that it was the loneliness and the land that brought them together.

  When everyone moved to the Archive the horse farm had to be abandoned, it was too far away from the new home. At first the horses were kept on the grassy area around the Archive, but it was quickly decided that they would be better off at the oxbow, where Linc’s farm was. There was already other livestock there so it seemed a good idea. When that happened Teckla and Taylor would take turns visiting the farm to take care of the horses. But as time went on Taylor seemed to find other tasks to take care of at the archive and Teckla would spend more and more days there.

  Besides helping with the horses and soon the livestock she also helped in the clean-up of the farmhouse. She added a woman’s touch with curtains, and decorating. She would help Linc gather crops and firewood. With time she was there every day, and then it was every night too.

  “Well, that is a Reader’s Digest version of the story,” came a female voice from the back seat.

  “And it was a little more interesting than you made it sound, I mean the getting together part,” said a strong sounding male voice beside me.

  I looked to my right, but there was no one there. I checked the mirror and the back seat was empty. But I heard the voices, I was sure of it.

  “Tek, you want to tell him about it?” said the male voice.

  “I guess” was the reply.

  After a moment or two of silence the female voice, I figured out it was Teckla began, “have you ever been really, really happy, and in love with someone. Actually, I think you probably were because of the way you told the story Ann and the Tom character. You portrayed it as just a beautiful bond.”

  I thought about it for a minute, about my life and yes, there were those moments and periods of time. Although I kind of messed them up and they went away. But this is not about me here.

  “And have you ever had those bonds ripped away, not like you were just thinking, where you fell apart over time, or lost interest. I am talking about having that person torn from you, in death?” Teckla asked.

  “Well, I, in person, no, but in the book….” I answered, was I talking to myself or them?

  “Right, you did good with the Ann part, perhaps a little over the top, but not too bad. And you really did a nice job with Edwin and Arcelia, but you never felt it, not really,” Linc interjected.

  I drove on, in silence and thought about it.

  “So in our case we each had a wonderful relationship with our other half. We fit together, enjoyed each other and had that bond, it was not perfect, we fought, and struggled, but the key was we wanted it to work. We made it work, that was where we succeeded while so many fail,” explained Linc.

  “Now imagine that point, that event where the bond is torn apart, right in front of you, imagine the pain, the sudden emptiness. You talked about it with Ann, but did you feel it? Did you really see the blackness of it all?” Teckla asked.

  “No, I mean, I kind of felt some of it, as I was writing it, Hey, I even cried at parts, but not for long.”

  “So until you have it happen, you don’t know what it is like. And when you are in that blackness you find it hard to even move or even breathe, yet you have to. You have to take that one step, small as it may be and then another. I was lucky, I had Matt and Mark to help me keep going. I buried myself in doing things, tasks, mindless tasks and it helped.” Teckla told me.

  “My situation was a little more difficult,” said Linc, “I had no one, and everything, my family, my kids, my wife, all gone, and their deaths were played out in front of me.”

  I listened, I remember what I wrote about those deaths, it was for the story, I never considered what it would have really been like.

  “In my case I was able to focus on keeping the dream, the farm alive, at first for their memory, and then over time for my own sanity and finally, for Tek.” And even though I could not see him I felt there was a smile in that voice with love shining through.

  I turned left onto Main Street and started toward the Big Y. I was thinking about these two, and what they were sharing.

  “So, what happened, how did you two…..” I asked

  There was a chuckle from both, and after a couple moments Linc said, “I don’t really know, it just happened.”

  “Oh come on you, it was more than that,” piped in Teckla.

  “Okay, well you tell the story then,” replied Linc.

  Teckla started, “Well, we had the whole thing with the farm animals and the resurrection of the oxbow farm. See, Linc was working hard at it. And he was doing well, we still had the horses up at the archive, but you told that part of it already. And you told about moving them down to the farm. While Taylor and I would take turns taking care of them I found that Lincoln and I would spend time together, I would help him in the fields, and we would talk, just talk, about nothing, and about everything.”

  “It was like a ray of sun coming through the clouds, from the darkness and the focus on the farm and the loss of my wife, there was a something positive in all the darkness. It felt good, and I felt guilty,” added Linc.

  “I felt that guilt too, Frank had……and then I realized that I couldn’t bring him back and then it was okay to move forward, to live and love again.”

  There was a minute or so of silence then Linc spoke up, “Janet came to me in a dream, she had the kids with her. She was smiling, and happy. She looked at me and saw my sadness and got this stern look, ‘Lincoln, you need to stop, we are fine, we are okay, but you’re not. Heal yourself,’ she told me. ‘What do you mean? I asked’. ‘You know, be what you once were, I give you my blessing to be happy’ was all she said. I was confused by it.”

  I had not realized it until then, I had never given a name to Lincoln’s wife. I started to apologize for it but he cut me off.

  “Its okay, don’t worry about the name thing, it was not that important, and now, she has a name.” said Linc.

  “As time went on Taylor spent more time up at the archive she had hooked up with Gillie and they wanted to spend time together so that left me to go to the farm more often. I think it was a hot day in September that we were working in the fields or herding some animals, no wait, we were putting some hay in the barn and Linc tool off his shirt. I had seen him do it before, and well it never had any impact. But that day, for a 45 year old guy, I saw him as … well, it was just a case of ‘wow’,”

  I could sense the smile on Linc face, and the slight flushing of Teckla.

  “We had dinner that night and had settled into the living room of the farmhouse. We often did that, had a coffee, read, talked about life, or the farm. But that night it was different.” Linc offered.

  “Yeah, you dragged out a bottle of that homemade dandelion wine and we built a fire in the fireplace,” said Teckla.

  “Guilty, as charged, I am not sure why but we ended up laying on a blanket on the floor in front of the fire, it had been cool that night and actually the fire felt good and as it the fire was dying, we got gigglier. I think it started with just a touch, then I took her hand and held it. I, we were kids again, teenagers in love, or maybe lust.” He fell silent.

  “Pretty much, the flood gates opened and the void was suddenly filled…. Oh, that sounded bad, what I mean was the emptiness, ah, crap…..we ……” as Teckla spoke I could sense the red of embarrassment.

  “We did it, and we became united in more ways than one, okay!” Linc spurted out. We all kind of laughed at that.

  “And that is how we connected, became whole again.” Teckla proudly exclaimed.

  “And we stayed together to the end. We lived and loved each and every minute of it, good times and bad. Sort of a happy ending,’ added Linc.

  “Sort of
?” I asked.

  “In the end, the cancer, many of us ended up with it, our best guess was that the old world, technology had left its mark on us. We both had it, and as it got too painful, we ……” said Linc, a sadness to his voice.

  “We had made a pact, we decided that night in September that we would stay together and die together. And we did, we kept that pact, it was a gentle end though, not like some of the other. A gentle passing, together, in each other’s arms.” Added Teckla, but there was a sound of success or victory, kind of a pride in what they had done. “I love you Linc!”

  “I love you too Tek.”

  As I rolled into the parking lot of the Highland Park Market I stopped and sat for moment thinking about what I had just heard, or experienced. I envied them; they had something very special, something that many of us never find.

  Lucy

  I have always enjoyed a nice walk out at Bolton Notch. There is an old rail line that ran from Manchester to Willimantic that has been turned into a bike and walking path. Even on the warmest of days it would remain comfortable for a stroll because of the tree canopy that covered the trail. The other thing interesting about this place was that often while walking along listening to the playlist on my iPhone I would have an inspired thought for my story, the Event Trilogy.

  I still enjoy heading out there, especially now at this time of year when the leaves are turning colors. There are not a lot of oaks in the area, but rather it is birch and maple trees. The colors are brilliant, reds, golds, yellows all blending together. Add to it a foggy morning and it is just a mystical place begging for adventure, or inspiration.

  Today was not such a day; it was warm, and sunny but perfect for walking. I chose the path to the left today and began down the trail. In the early part of the walk there is a deep cut in the rock that had been blasted all those years ago for the railroad. And as I walked along I was listening to a podcast. It was an old radio play called ‘Dimension X’. This one had to do with the arrival of aliens to Earth and the result of the meeting. It was not a good ending for humanity.

  As I walked along, it was quiet on the trail, I mean there were birds, and an occasional squirrel and I had a couple of cyclists pass me by, but no walkers. To my right on the trail was the drop off to the brook below that fed into to the pond at Valley Falls. On my left was the man made cliff that was blasted away back in the railroad heyday.

  As I came to the gazebo, an old stop off point for the steam engine trains to refill their water supplies. I could see two women with a little white fluffy dog walking toward me on the trail. As they got closer and closer, I saw them stop. They were pointing at me, and seem disturbed. I took my head phones off and when I did one shouted, “Hey, you can’t have your dog running loose, he is supposed to have a collar!”

  A dog? I thought, I have cats, no dogs as I turned to look behind me. It was not a large one, kind of greyish, shepardy looking. It had been following me apparently. It sat down about 10 feet from me, tail wagging.

  I turned to the women and said loudly, “This is not my dog, I’m sorry; I don’t know what to do.”

  Clearly they were agitated.

  “Well, it might try to eat Spanky!” one shouted back as the other got onto her cell phone to call someone.

  “Look, I think it is friendly, and maybe lost, let me try to get it over so you can get by.” I offered and turned back toward the the dog. I am not sure how I knew, but I did, there was something about this animal that was okay, it wasn’t a danger.

  I moved over to the little clearing to the left, and called gently to the canine. She, I figured out it was a she, got up and walked over to me. She sat down next to me, I guess you call it ‘heeled’.

  I waved to the women and signaled them to pass by, and slowly, hugging the far side of the path the passed by. The dog just sat and watched without so much as a twitch.

  After they left I spoke to the furry canine next to me. “So wild beast, why are you following me? Were you going to grab Spanky right out from under their noses?”

  The eye, those golden eyes stared at me and although she did not speak, I could understand, in the look and with a voice in my head. “You are of the clan, you are one of us. You have always been one of us, a coyote.”

  “Whoa!” I said aloud. And yet, I sensed this was true, kart race name Coyote, nickname Coyote, the idea of the changeling or the joker, all related to that animal.

  “I, we liked the story, all of us in the animal realm. You brought us back to where we once were, on an equal plane to the humans. We worked together with you. Margo and the Momma, Lance with the horses, the Raven and Matt, there were connections as there once was,” the Coyote spoke to my mind.

  I shook my head up and down. “I thought it was important, have always felt a connection to nature and the spirits of animals, wait make that other creatures, animals sound kind of arrogant.”

  “And that is why humans and animals no longer have the bond that you found in the story. It was and is that arrogance that blocks the bond, humans placed themselves above us, but even beyond that they placed themselves above the Earth. Men think that they can take what they want, that they are entitled, and that they are gods. They are not.”

  “I know,” it was the only thing I could say.

  “There are those, like you who see it, and you do work at trying to restore the balance, but there are too few, and in so many ways you are powerless to stop the tide,” added the voice in my mind.

  I sat in silence, I thought, and remembered some of the blog posts I had created on this very subject. Humans, I thought of Futurama and Professor Farnsworth with his quote; “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore!”

  “Tom, it is okay, the Earth will survive, it will continue and life will continue. There is a great die off happening and it will leave few untouched. Man is among those who will be touched and touched quite hard. But those, like you, those who join with nature will remain, and start over. It will be like in the book, it ended, but it didn’t end.”

  I was kind of sad in thinking about where humankind was going, the damage we have done, and are still doing. As I sat, the Coyote curled up and put her head on my lap. I gently stroked her head.

  We sat like that for a while, then she perked up, “They are coming!”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Those women called the animal police, they are coming” said the voice in my head.

  “What should we do? I mean I can claim you, but I don’t trust them” I said; look down at the head in my lap.

  “It is fine, I have delivered Lucy’s message to you and I can return to the woods, I will be safe, for now.”

  I smiled, how I loved that character.

  In the distance I could hear, then see the EPA truck coming up the path. The coyote sat up, gave me a doggy kiss and ran into the woods. She was free, and safe.

  When the EPA truck got to me the officers got out and asked me about my ‘dog’. I told them that it must have been a stray and that a gentleman had come down the path shortly after the women had left and took it away. They seemed annoyed that they had to have made the trip. We talked for a bit and really, they were not bad guys, they did what they could for nature, but it was the laws, man’s attempts to save the world that interfere more than help.

  After they left I just sat and thought about what had just happened and the message that I had been given. I started back up the trail and looked, checked to the woods to each side to see if the coyote was there. I think I caught a glimpse a couple of times, but maybe not.

  I felt good, at peace, I am Coyote clan.

  Krezz

  There are a number of meteor showers, eclipses or passing comets that just beg to be watched. Unfortunately, where I live there are not a lot of good viewing sites due to city lights and dust. But that being said I have found over the years that when there is something extraordinary I could take a ride for about 2 ½ hours to either the Berkshires or out to Cape Cod and find a place to
set up a cooler, a chair, my old 35 mm camera on a tripod for a long exposure and then just sit and watch.

  The Persied meteor shower this year was one of those events. It was claimed that it was going to be the most prolific display in decades in part because the moon was in the new stage of its cycle.

  So I drove out to a place that I had remembered from my youth when the family stayed at the cape for the summer. There was a little spot off of Scorton Creek that would meet the needs perfectl. The area was more and more built up despite the rumors of a building moratorium. My plan was to get squared away with my hotel, have a nice fried everything platter (*Captain’s Plate, or Seafood Platter) and get to the site for about 10 pm.

  I rolled up to the creek at a little after 10, unloaded the car and set up my little observation post in the sand and was settled in by 10:30. It was quiet, well sort of, there was the gentle sound of the waves rolling in but the tide was out and the waves were not all that big.

  As I looked at the sky I thought about things, old things like the summers that were spent here in Sandwich. I thought of the old flames that had burned bright, then cooled, Deb, Jo-Anne, Susan and a few others of the era. I tried to keep in touch with them after the summer was over to perhaps meeting them the next year. It was one of the interesting things about vacation weeks, so often the weeks were locked in the same cycle from year to year and the same folks were usually there each year.

  I wondered what life might have been like had the distance not been so great or if I had been a different person back in the day. I remembered beach fires, and playing football on the sandbar. It was a happy time, carefree youth, and escape from the routine of college and high school.

  As I sat in thought I heard footsteps crunching in the sand. I had seen a few other people set up like me with coolers and chairs so I did not think much of it.

  “May we join you?” a voice asked.