by Ed Hurst
hang of it.
They worked through the morning, stopping to rest from time to time. An hour short of lunch time she was sweating just a bit and they had already drained the water jug he had brought. They stopped to rest at the wood pile, which stood at the top of a rise some ways behind the cabin. He heard the sound of an approaching vehicle, not the old man’s tractor. It was an old car pulling a rather large trailer.
He waved at the driver, and then commented to Lana, “People can’t see your smile from a distance, so we wave to welcome them into our presence.” She tentatively raised one hand, but dropped it again. She stood silently in place while Thomas went to greet an unusually animated old fellow driving the rig. That is, he was somewhat more subdued than Thomas, and smiled a good bit more than most Finns. He owned one of the cafes in town, and chatted about how slow it was this summer.
Tom helped him load up as much wood as they dared in the trailer. He waved again as the car braked hard to control the descent back down the long gravel drive toward the main road. He found Lana sitting on one of the logs. “Ready for lunch?”
She nodded her head and he reached out his hand to help her up. She paused, looking at it. “It’s both to help you and to touch you as a friend.”
“Friend,” she repeated with just a hint of a smile, and took his hand. She continued holding it for a few meters as they walked.
He sang an old hymn about friendship all the way back down to the cabin. Near the end, she began faintly echoing the chorus with him. After lunch, he realized her help was making the food disappear a little faster. It was time to visit the village, but not just for food.
Thomas coudn’t gauge what a slow season would look like, but the village was neither bustling nor sleepy. Most businesses offered multiple services. Even the old Lutheran chapel was actually more of a community center. There was no resident pastor, though at times one would visit there on his vacation and perform a few simple services. During most of the year, a deacon would visit monthly for standard social services. There was only a part time secretary living in what would have been the rectory attached to the chapel.
Sometime in the past, when people cleaned their holiday rental spaces at the end of the season, finding random pieces of clothing and the like, they duly turned them in to the mayor. The stuff collected in a closet of the chapel because there was no other place for a lost and found. Nobody ever came looking for anything. When the current secretary was hired, being a hard core neatnik, she organized the closet, and quickly began using it for charitable purposes. Tom heard about this and was hoping to bolster Lana’s wardrobe beyond a single outfit.
But he was just a bit nervous, wondering if he would encounter any resistance to getting Lana help. If she had worn out her welcome in the village, it might be a little difficult. He was hoping his own good relations would overshadow things. As it was, the secretary either hadn’t encountered Lana, or pretended so, and took her in charge, rifling the closet for usable clothing which might fit her. At least Lana was being more verbal than she might have in the past, so things proceeded in Finnish while he waited. Eventually Lana came out with a couple of bags filled with clothing. On her feet were like-new trainers and frilly socks which matched. He decided to let her carry her clothes for now as he thanked the secretary. At the door, he thought to ask about underwear, and was told the little variety shop had some.
Making sure Lana could tell him what sizes she wore, that was the next stop. He picked up a few other items, as well, including a cheap day pack and some reusable shopping bags. Then they crossed over into the grocery section. By the time they left, his pack was loaded and both of them were carrying the garishly colorful shopping bags. If anyone was uncomfortable with Lana’s presence, he never detected it.
As they lugged this baggage back up the road toward the cabin, Thomas turned and asked, “Do you think you’ll be staying with me a while?”
Apparently she hadn’t thought along these lines at all. Finally, she said, “Don’t send me away.”
He stopped and turned to face her. She halted with him. “In the hospital, you were just an object among many which justified keeping the place open. You weren’t a person. When you left, you didn’t know how to reclaim what the hospital had taken from you. Out here in the world, you have to stop acting like an object. You have to be a person, or you’ll always have trouble and pain. The hardest thing is not living with abuse, as you already know. Once you figure out who you are, the hardest part is dealing with other people who don’t abuse you, but don’t care, either. You have to give them a chance to care, perhaps taking as much as they are willing to offer.”
It was not staring, but she gazed intently at him. He continued, “I’m not your custodian. I’m your friend. I don’t have to take care of you, but I want to. Maybe we can be more than friends someday, but right now that’s a lot for you. As long as you don’t do anything to hurt me, make me feel sad, I want you to be with me. But more than that, I want you to find your self.”
As they resumed walking, he turned his head and added, “I hope you believe I am the one person you can trust right now, because I don’t intend to hurt you, or let anyone else hurt you.”
When they got back to the cabin, he helped her organize her things while pointedly refusing to make too many decisions for her. He took some of the shopping bags for temporary storage of his stuff so she could have her own space on her side of the bed.
Finns were not particularly demonstrative, so he wasn’t sure if it was something she saw, or where it came from. After going down to start dinner preparations, there was a moment she came up beside him. He didn’t look directly at her, and after waiting a bit, she said his name. “Thomas.”
He stopped what he was doing and turned to face her. In his mind, it was a big moment simply that she would call his name to initiate contact on her own. How big the moment, he would not have guessed.
Looking down into her upturned face, he saw clearly the liquid pooling on her lower eyelids. She reached out her hands, not quite touching his shoulders. “Hug me,” she said simply. He complied, taking her in his arms gently, letting her decide how it should happen. It was clumsy, slightly stiff, but it was a start. They held each other for a while. The rest of the evening passed as if in another world.
In the middle of the night, he awoke on his back. Lana lay on her side in relaxed slumber facing him, her arm across his midriff. What woke him was what he felt sure was a familiar, audible voice. It was attached to a vivid memory of his Osage friend, walking away into a glowing cloud, turning just enough to speak a couple of words. “Farewell, Thomas. You are home now!”
After awhile, he faded back off to sleep, never to see that face again in his dreams.
8
That winter, several national governments collapsed, or were so changed they were hardly the same government.
Americans were not ready, and things were chaotic. Thomas heard bits and pieces, and realized he could never go back. European governments were generally more stable, at least where there hadn’t been huge immigrant populations from what had been third world countries. Even with generational culture shifts, the Europeans themselves were fairly stable, preferring to keep their lives as orderly as conditions permitted.
Somewhere in southern Finland, the couple living in the cabin on the hill became the center of a resurgent spiritual life in what had become a rather isolated village in a very depressed economy. If anyone remembered how it was back in the spring when the woman first wandered into the village, they pretended they did not. She was a good ten kilos heavier, and didn’t really look the same, anyway. Quite the beauty now, her equally beautiful singing voice filled the chapel during their frequent gatherings, and no one seemed to tire of hearing her.
There were many stateless refugees in those days. She and her husband were simply two more. But because she had a unique talent for translating so many languages, the village drew quite a few families seeking a new life in a quiet rural home. They brou
ght important skills. So the village was a bustling place, with all the rental space taken by permanent residents. More housing was under construction. There were new businesses, a health clinic, a new school, and the village was planning a new chapel, as Thomas was now the de facto pastor. The village had little interest in getting all the right paperwork. Because they paid taxes and tithes, officials far away said little.
It was as if someone in the village had turned on a light, and as the world became a more dark and difficult place, the beacon burned ever brighter.
The Recovery of Rez
The ancient truth of love will never cease being true.
Setting: Distant future, among the stars
1
The alloy claws made a hideous sound scraping across the transparent surface of the bubble, but were unable to so much as leave a scratch. These cargo bubbles were very tough, but he had never planned to find out just how tough, not like this.
If her claws of exotic super-hardened alloy could have cut through the crystal clear material which composed the bubble, she would have followed up with a slice on his body, as well. Lots of slices, he figured. He would survive for awhile until she grew bored with abusing him, then she would find some way to make his death slow and painful. Of this he had
