Authors: Melissa Horan
“How’d you sleep?” as if taking a survey to see if the city’s inn was adequate.
“Oh, just fine, thanks.” He said heavily, shielding himself from the newly risen sun.
May smiled with a wink, “How’d you wake up?”
Jason smiled, “Not as great… thanks…” He put his hand to his head.
As if in apology, May handed him something and said, “Hey look, here’s a perfectly ripe mango… you should eat it, it will help. The liquor is a little harder here, I think.” Still, there was a small smirk on her face as if the teasing wasn’t over. He expressed his gratitude and she felt that it would be okay if she tried to continue their conversation.
“What
was your criteria for who you brought with you?”
He frowned and shook his head
nonchalantly, “I didn’t have any. I wasn’t recruiting a bodyguard, just… friends… so to say.”
May was
still interested in picking his brain, so she offered to give him a tour of the city and help him walk off his hangover. He agreed, and for the next few hours she took him around the market place, and a few streets behind. Now he was asking her questions. She didn’t mind. He even admitted that he thought she would be a good person to have on his side. Everyone seemed to know her and she was trustworthy and intelligent.
Though surprised by the compliment she said thank you and they continued on their way.
By evening, men were setting up a stage in town square where Jason would stand and give his speech. May volunteered to help, then spent most of the rest of the night wandering around town, sneaking, or eaves dropping into conversations here and there. Probably about fifty percent of them were conversations about politics, twenty percent were romantic, another twenty about farming, and ten percent were nothing consequential.
That same night, she took a detour through the neighborhoods to intentionall
y pass by a large building, which was a hospital. That building was always associated with self-reflection, so she passed by there probably more than was healthy. She could have chosen whether or not to have her baby there. When she first determined she was pregnant, she sat across the street and stared at that building, realizing she had the choice, but never wanting to go inside.
Again, that feeling of wrongness weighed heavily on her. She didn’t even want to toy with the idea. But, she sat and stared nonetheless as if it made her more human to recognize there was a choice to be made and one option was, in view of all consequences, better than the other.
…
The powerful feeling she felt that night returned full force now.
Jonathan w
as watching her as she peered outside, determining what time it was.
Maybe it was morning again.
She thought. It felt like that darkness… the kind of quiet that had had long hours to really settle. Now she looked around the room, blinking. When her eyes adjusted, certain shapes and figures were obvious to her. People, on the couch, on the floor, across from her at the table were calmly sleeping. Sweet peace. All of the windows were opened and there was a breeze. She noted that it smelt like morning with a mixture of blood, too, when the breeze came strongly enough to wisp against their faces. The smell of blood caused her to look for the source.
It didn’t even cause a fright when she saw Jonathan staring at her maniacally. She treated the offense as if he were a clock face, and she couldn’t read the time. Then, she said, “Sorry” and looked at him sadly.
Coming to, she patted her hand against her daughter’s head, petting the hair gently and slipping her fingers through it. Then she realized a little hand was knotted up in her own hair, mimicking the familiar motion sometime in the night.
Voluntarily returning to the vague memory-dream she was having, May lost focus of the room and stared blankly at the table.
…
After staring at the hospital that night, May had traveled slowly past a few more houses to see if a light was on in the library again tonight. It wasn’t.
Janine was still up when May entered the premises. Despite that May was in her twenties Janine gave her a reproving look at her lateness. May shrugged,
“You know… politics… pretty much like a bed time story… or maybe a lullaby.”
“Politics the lullaby, philosophy the ABCs, psychology for breakfast… sure… I get it.”
May laughed, but Janine didn’t. She was concerned about May’s poor sleeping habits. Her mother asked whether she had determined the reason for it yet. May tapped her fingers against her forehead,
“’cuz I can’t turn it off…” Then, switching to what she felt was a more important subject asked, “how’d she do today?”
Janey was going through some separation experience. May had really tried to be a good mother and take the girl with her wherever she went, or stayed home… but lately May was having cabin fever. She couldn’t handle being inside as much as she was, so Grandma offered to watch her for the day and May took a break.
May now sat at the table, zoning out through the window. She really was very tired. But she knew if she slept, she would miss the speech in the morning. Tapping her fingers twice she got up again to retrieve a book. Sitting back down, she started reading. It woke her mind up and she was so involved that she hardly noticed Janine going to bed.
“Goodnight” Janine said. May waved her fingers without looking away from the book.
In the morning, May did her chore quickly, and earlier than usual so she would be done in time for the speech. Thomas joined her, and together they weaved through the bodies in town square so that they were almost in front. There was an un-embarrassing amount of people there, but certainly not as many as there should have been considering the size of the city.
Jason climbed the stars to applause and began his speech. May wondered if he would be different publically than privately. To some extent he was. Though he remained sincere, his sentances were shorter, more encouraging phrases, memorable mantras that were carefully designed to bring out his audience’s best interests without having to explain much.
About twenty minutes in, May was being pushed from behind and realized more and more people were crowding in. The typical late group. Yet, it meant Jason was doing a good job – he was winning them over and catching their attention. Most of them, except Thomas, who kept muttering things under his breath about stupid jargon and Jason’s character flaws, were interested in what he had to say.
Being pushed the way she was, was becoming terribly uncomfortable. She’d never been fond of being nearly in the center of one-hundred sweaty bodies. With every desire to leave the disgusting mosh pit, she tiptoed to see if she could move further to the front or to the side. To her right and up a few rows she saw two familiar men, so she pressed her way through the crowd until she was near them. Dane saw her and gave her a small nod, to signify that she was welcome to join them.
“What do you think so far?” Dane asked when she was within earshot. He tipped his head briefly toward the stage.
May shrugged, “Eh, he’s a nice guy, but not really my type.”
She paused for a second, reading Dane’s face that made it clear that he was deliberating whether she was an idiot, trying to hit on him, or just joking.
“I meant the politics” He said, laughing gently.
May smiled, “Oh…” she started dramatically, “Well, I have a bad habit of making too quick of judgments. I guess I can’t say that I really know, but I don’t think he’s being very honest with the people.”
Dane squinted at her, “I think first impressions are pretty accurate… how do you think he is being dishonest.”
“I think there’s a much more frightening reason he’s here, that’s obvious to everyone in their daily lives, but he’s dancing around the subject in relation to politics because its touchy. And, he’s not giving pros and cons… he’s not teaching them.”
Darian scoffed
conversationally, again coming into the conversation so he could disagree, “Of course not, he’s trying to sell himself. If you’re trying to get a date for the night, do you tell him all the reasons he’ll hate you, then see if he lets the good out weight the bad? No, you play it up and let him figure out the downsides later.”
Dane laughed widely, “I would
not
go on a date with Jason if my life depended on it.”
May laughed, and Darian smirked and rolled his eyes, “Well, me neither, but you get the point.”
They were quiet for a few minutes, but Dane, not really caring about what was happening on stage, Dane took a step back to line up with May and leaned over.
“So
… we found something yesterday about three miles south-west. It’s like a road, but bigger and made up of millions of tiny rocks. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”
May replied, “Yeah, I know exactly what you are talking about. I’ve tried following it before, but only got a couple miles before turning around.”
“Does anyone else know about it?” he asked. May noted how good he was at keeping eye contact and the affect it created in their conversation. She remembered thinking how dark and welcoming his eyes were.
“I don’t think so, and I’ve really got no leads about what it means.”
Dane was obviously thinking critically about the situation and was silent until Jason was finished. When he ended his closing remarks, Dane turned to her instead of applauding with the rest. With and inquisitive face, and fingers over his mouth, he said, baffled,
“So, nothing?”
She shook her head and frowned. They began to walk away from the crowd together, no questions asked by Darian, and no discomfort between them wondering where they were going – though they didn’t know. Dane folded his arms and closed his eyes, thinking deeply as they walked.
“Does it make you curious?”
“Ha!” May blurted out, “I think that’s a pretty silly question. Does it make me curious? I’ve wanted to talk to someone about it for years, but didn’t know who to talk to. I’m fearful to tell most people about my questions because I don’t know much and that scares people.”
Dane laughed, Seems like you’ve done the same calculations as I have and jumped to the worst and most far-fetched conclusions.”
“Which are what? Can you verbalize them for me? Because I don’t have the eloquence for it.” She spoke out of passionate desperation. She thirsted for help to understand and was so glad to finally have someone to share her questions with. Dane didn’t answer right away, which was fine because it was half rhetorical. They were silent for probably ten minutes, off in their own little worlds.
May looked up, “Do you think it has anything to do with the corroding jungle?” she asked.
He grimaced and shifted his hands up and down as if he were balancing the air. “Mmm… I dunno. Everything I’ve read on that is speculation. If nature spontaneously creates life, does it also spontaneously kill it? I haven’t decided if we are supposed to cultivate all of it… or if it
should
live on it’s own.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know.” May muttered.
“Jason didn’t say this,” Dane began, and May watched his eyes, “but part of the reason they’re trying to set up a unified government is because they’re afraid we’ll have to make a mass exodus and relocate.”
“But everywhere I’ve seen or heard of is the same. As many miles as our cities cover and everything’s dying at basically the same rate? Something’s wrong. Are we supposed to help nature, or is nature supposed to be helping us?”
These questions had been marinating for years. What a relief it was to get it off of her chest!
They were almost in the jungle before Dane said,
“Let’s go this way.”
May stopped. “Have you been to our library?”
“That’s where I was headed – haha, I beat ya! You don’t happen to write in the books you read do you?”
“I do as a matter of fact.”
“Haha. The librarian couldn’t seemed to decide if he hated that the books were written in, or if he was just glad they were being used properly. I’m glad it’s you, ‘cause I have some questions for you.”
They made their way back through town center where many were doing their day’s shopping. It was probably an hour before noon, and was getting overwhelmingly hot
. May could feel sweat beading up and trickling down from her forehead, over her temple, and more dripped down the middle of her back. The stench of hundreds of other sweaty people was being wisped under their noses as te passed through an area so thinkwith people that they couldn’t walk side by side and had to pause their conversation.
The library was one street behind the town center, so it was a little quitter. There weren’t enough books to fill the whole space that the building occupied. It was about twice the size of any of the houses. Windows were set up at equal intervals around it, but you could never see inside of it during the day. When they entered, the librarian turned around after scribbling something on a large wall map.