A young woman, we’ll
call her Lindsay, is walking. Where is
she walking? This way. You can’t tell where I’m pointing. Well, if you could, you would see that I am
pointing down a back road outside of a village.
The village is Lindsay’s village – it is called Tockwell. It is home to many good machinists, and it is
only a few miles from the larger Towns.
This back road is largely dirt and
worn down rubble. It may have, at one
time, been paved. To the right, all is
woods. They aren’t the thickest or
darkest woods. Should a child get lost
there, they can find their way back if they have a good head about their
shoulders. Even if they don’t, someone
from either Tockwell or the village over can hear them yelling for help. Still, the stories propagate – goofy little
tales of trickery and evil, meant to scare young ladies into the arms of their
suitors. On the left, if you stop to
stare between the trees, you can see houses again, just over fifty yards away.
Lindsay is frustrated. She lives with her boyfriend Jora back in
Tockwell. That’s not why she’s
frustrated, though. For a long time,
things between Lindsay and Jora were fine.
Before that, they were great.
Lindsay works as something of an accountant for Tockwell’s shipping
yard. She takes inventory of the goods
that come though, helps in budget management.
Jora rarely holds a job for more than a few months. He’s good at finding jobs, just not keeping
them. Up until today, Jora was a
logger. Up until today. Lindsay isn’t frustrated because Jora’s lost
another job.
Lindsay came home from a long day of
work. She’d found Jora playing guitar on
their back porch. They live on the
bottom of a two-flat. Jora’s dark brow
was even darker today, and clouded together – his eyes distant. Lindsay asked him what was up. She received no response. Lindsay and Jora have been together three
years. When Jora pretends not to hear
you when playing guitar, he has bad news that he hasn’t been thinking about.
Eventually, Lindsay got his
attention. She asked what’s wrong. Jora blurted that he wanted to move to the
Towns. This didn’t sit well with
Lindsay. She doesn’t hate the Towns, but
Tockwell was good enough for now. The
Towns changed people. Especially people
like Jora, people that never seemed to find solid ground. For another matter, it’s already off-putting
enough to the homely people of Tockwell that Lindsay and Jora live together,
and have been since being together just two years. To take off for the Towns out of nowhere, and
for what chance? Lindsay asked this of
Jora, knowing and fearing the answer.
His music. Jora wants to take off because he thinks
there’s “more people to make it with there.”
Lindsay had a quick feeling, like a rising sneeze, that she could put a
stopper on this nonsense. That feeling
passed. She was home early – and Jora’s
almost never home from logging before six.
Lindsay asked how Jora’s home early.
He said if they’re going to talk about moving, they shouldn’t change the
subject. With a few more prods, Lindsay
confirmed what she’d suspected: Jora quit the logging job.
They’d had a fight. Jora called Lindsay unsupportive, claiming
she was calling his dreams childish. She
insisted that wasn’t the case. She’s not
mad because Jora quit “yet another” job (that got him boiling), but he’d been
taking steps behind her back to have less to leave behind should they decide to
move, placing the burden on her. In any
event, Lindsay took off for a walk. It’s
only natural she’d find the same back road she’d walk on as a young girl
whenever the children at school called her things like “Drifter Kid,” “Dandelion
Fluff,” “Homeless Girl,” all because her father has to bounce between the Towns
for his job.
At last, back to present time, when
Lindsay steps on the heel of a wee, stooped man with a pack twice his
size. The pack is at least three feet in
diameter, almost spherical with how many odds and ends are pushing against its
seams. The pack looks quite like this
little man’s oversized shell. The man
begins to howl, like an old man being subject to a cruel prank where a young
boy pops from behind a tree as he’s disguised as a monster. Lindsay yelps and steps backwards. She’d been so lost in thought, she hadn’t
noticed this man and his cart-sized backpack walking in the same direction as
she, in the exact same path in the road.
The man continues his pathetic howl, though he doesn’t fall at
first. His steps just grow smaller,
slowing his pace. Then he drops to one
knee, still moaning, then the other, before at long last, the pack pushes him
flat against the ground, snuffing out his howl.
Lindsay has a hand to her breast,
stunned silent. I’ve killed a man, she thinks.
I tripped a man and killed him. Skipping out for the Towns doesn’t seem like
such a bad idea anymore. The fallen man,
barely visible beneath his voluminous pack, muffles a cry against the ground. His arms wave feebly, like an overturned
beetle. Lindsay issues a sigh of relief.
The moment after Lindsay’s finished
congratulating herself on not killing a man, she scurries forward to help him
up. She’s barely taken the man by his
shoulder and forearm when he begins to thank Lindsay profusely. It wasn’t exactly true to say the man’s pack
pinned him flat against the ground. He
was actually somewhat arched, roly-polied even, because of his overlarge
stomach, like his pack in miniature.
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