Rusted Words

Abraham wandered down the street, between the fallen buildings and the waist high weeds that grew in the cracks in the asphalt. Nathaniel and Joshua were still arguing. The clan had dispersed from the place that no one could pronounce, spreading out in what was left of Ambler. It was directly against the rules of the clan, against the basic rules of survival. No matter the mythical nature of their journey, they were in a very real place, and a strange place at that. No one knew what did or did not lie in, under, or above the empty streets. Nonetheless, they had drifted away, in small groups and individually. Abraham walked alone, hands jammed in his pockets. He saw three people hurry down the street ahead of him. He stopped and watched them as they climbed over the wreckage of the train and back towards the bus. Abraham pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and walked to his right, off the main street. He only walked a few feet before sitting down on the curb. Bending over at the waist, he curled his arms around himself and stared at his dirty toes poking out of his sandals.

He straightened up again, looking to his left and right staring at the faded destruction around him. It was no different here than any other place he’d ever been. He sighed and looked behind him. Half hidden by a clump of weeds was a twisted strip of metal. Abraham could see something imprinted on the metal, and he reached out to pick it up. Bringing it close to his face, he picked out the barely discernible letters, which read to his astonishment “Spring Garden Street”. His eyes widened and he held his breath, re-reading the sign, unable to truly believe what he was seeing. He held his breath and didn’t dare to blink. The words did not change, and tears began to slip out of his eyes.

 

“What are you thinking about?”

 

Abraham jumped to his feet and was three steps down the street before he looked back at the source of the question. Matthew sat opposite of the curb where Abraham had been. His chin was propped on his hands, and his eyes followed Abraham down the street. The tattoos on the back of his hand stood out in comparison to his smooth, beardless face.

 

“Godsdammit Matthews!” Abraham snapped as he stopped running. “You nearly stopped my heart.” He walked back to the curb and sat down again. Matthew watched him, chin still resting on his hands.

 

“What are you thinking about?” Matthew asked again. Abraham picked up the sign from where he had dropped it, turning it over and over in his callused hands.

 

“Nothing” he replied.

 

“Then who are you thinking about?” Matthew asked.

 

Abraham threw the old sign aside. “Godsdammit, weren’t you supposed to be writing?”

 

“I don’t want to neglect the stories that are happening now for the story of how we arrived here. I will find time to write, and do justice, to both.”

 

Abraham sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He could feel the invisible weight of the farmer’s tattoos that covered his neck and broad shoulders.

 

“Elisabeth” he answered.

 

Matthew followed Abraham as he abruptly stood up and walked to the intersection of the main street and what they know assumed was Spring Garden.

 

“Do you think that this is all real, and not just some hallucination we are all sharing, lying in our search for the truth?” Abraham spoke softly. He pointed in towards the derailed train to his right, the place that no one could pronounce to his left. “Chapter thirty seven, verse twenty four, I turned right on Butler, catching a view of the tail end of a plow truck turning down Spring Garden, revealing the emptiness of the main strip” he quoted.

 

“The Book of Daniel” said Matthew. “Blankets.”

 

“Yes, the Book of Daniel. He described a town just as empty and quiet as it is now, except covered in snow. Have you ever seen snow?

 

“No.”

 

Abraham sighed again. “Neither have I. We stand on Spring Garden Street. Is that the train where the Narrator met Rachael?” He pointed to the rusting hulk again as the midday sun pounded down. “That would mean the Narrator lived right up street.” Abraham strode down the cracked sidewalk, concrete heaved by time and weather as Matthew followed.

 

“How much of their Stories are true? How did they find so much extraordinary in the ordinary?” They quickly reached the end of the next intersection and Abraham turned left and practically ran down the block. It was ruined and decaying, the same as every place they had passed so far in Ambler. He did not get very far before all his energy seemed to drain away, and he stumbled to curb and sat. Matthew followed, sitting on the curb opposite. “Did they spend the night somewhere here?” Abraham swung his arms wide. “What else can we find? Perhaps if we turn another corner we can find Full Slab still stuck in that pipe?”

 

“Perhaps we will. Who knows what is around the next corner?” Matthew said.

 

“Do you have any real answers or just more silly fucking questions?” Abraham snapped.

 

Matthew sat, his chin propped up on his hands again. “I can tell you that maybe it doesn’t really matter. Their Stories just hold a cracked mirror up to life so show us certain truths. No matter how real or unreal the Stories seem to be, there is always something to be learned from the study of that reflection.”

 

Abraham took a deep breath and quoted again. “A few stray hairs from Racheal’s head tickled my nose, and I smoothed them down as much as I could without disturbing her. The house was silent, the street was silent, and her breathing was silent. And I’m not sure that I’ve ever been happier in my entire life.”

 

“We know what Rachel meant to the Narrator. Now what did Elisabeth mean to you?” Matthew questioned.

 

Abraham began to speak.

 

“The clan where I was born and raised wasn’t destroyed by highway harriers like I had told everyone when I stumbled half dead and half out of my mind into our clan’s village now. I told that very lie right into Joshua’s face. He was leader of the warrior caste even back then, and wanted to question any stranger thoroughly to ensure the safety of everyone else. The very real pain in my eyes masked the lie and fooled him enough to offer a place of safety. Even so, it took a long time before I was fully trusted. I worked very hard and said very little. Everything that I had learned farming I poured into the soil and crops, and as they grew, so did the trust and acceptance of the whole clan. I helped to provide for them, and they helped to provide for me. It had been years since I had truly had a home.

 

My first home, that I had fled so long ago, is many, many miles from here. I don’t think I could find my way back there if I wanted. My family were farmers, good ones at that. We had a small but very fruitful holding. It was only Father, Mother, and I, so I learned to take care of myself and help with the farm at a very young age. The neighboring families would help us with the harvest of course, and we with theirs. Elisabeth. She lived in the next farm over. We knew each other our entire lives. Even when the duties of the farm fell on my shoulders at an early age, she would always make the time to see me. Even the thought of her visiting the next day or week, or just the last time I saw her would make me smile.

 

On Thursdays when the clan gathered for the discussion of the Stories in our crowded meeting hall, I would find room to sit next to Elisabeth. The clan would break bread and share beer and water, recite the Stories, learn from them, live by them. Our clan lived by the Iron Law. The Stories had one clear meaning, one interpretation. The Lorekeeper of our clan would discuss with us those lessons and we would live by that Iron Law. One my favorites was Blankets in the Book of Daniel. The Lorekeeper would recite the end of that Story and tell us to appreciate everything we had in our lives, our families and our farms.

 

The only time that I could find no solace in the Stories was when by my parents sickened and died. The trembling fever swept through the clan, and both my parents were taken. I never grew sick for a day, and could only watch them waste away as I took care of them and the farm by myself. Elisabeth was forbidden to come near by her parents for fear of getting sick as well, and I spent days in the fields and nights trying to sooth my suffering parents. All in vain, as they suffered terribly for several months before dying in agony. The trembling fever finally passed by the clan, and they helped me to bury my parents. I took their help with quiet gratitude, the small gifts and foodstuffs they passed to me as I was determined to stay on my family’s farmhold by myself. I went back into the fields as soon before the hour of their burial had passed, declining any more help. It was later that night as I sat in the empty kitchen in the empty house that Elisabeth stopped by. She held me and only had to say “I’m sorry” before I began to cry as if I would never stop. A few stray hairs from the top of Elisabeth’s head tickled my nose, and I held her tighter and kept crying.

 

The next few months were very hard, not just for me but the entire clan. The trembling fever took many, including the old Lorekeeper, and his apprentice took over. The crops began to fail the livestock to grow weak and die as well. Elisabeth and I barely had time to see each other, sometimes only at the weekly meetings for the Stories. It was there that the new Lorekeeper began to find darker messages, portents for despair and blame for the troubles of the clan. I did not want to believe him, but his word was the Iron Law, a law that had sustained the clan for decades. I was shaking inside as the Lorekeeper recited Blankets again, finding a new message in the ending. He saw the Narrator as looking back on his long life and seeing that one night as the happiest he had ever been. The Lorekeeper’s eyes did not blink as he proclaimed that life would not get any better, that it was doomed only to get worse. The clan left that meeting under a black cloud that day, and I threw myself into the farm again, trying to salvage something that was left of the crops. We were all so busy again that I only saw Elisabeth again at the next meeting. I hurried to side and held her hand as the Lorekeeper began to spout forth declarations of anger and hate. The beer began to flow heavily, as it had ever since the clan began to suffer, more of an escape in drunkenness than a shared ritual of community. After hours of rage, one man stood up and spoke out. The Lorekeeper’s unblinking eyes focused on the source of the interruption. He was a man from a farm a long way away, one I barely knew and would not recognize passing in the street. He spoke out against the Lorekeeper’s diatribe, pleading with everyone to remember the lessons we had learned from the Stories and the seeds they planted in our heads that grew and sustained the hopes of the clan for years. Trembling inside, I was about to raise my voice in support when he was drowned out by the shouts of the rest of the clan, deriding him for speaking out against the Lorekeeper. None louder or more forcefully than the woman by my side. I huddled by her side as she stood up and shrieked. I was afraid, and fear pulled my jaws shut. The Lorekeeper’s eyes narrowed, and his voice bellowed out one word above the noise of everyone else. “Blasphemer” he said. And with that one word, the clan fell upon this lone man, tearing him apart. And I stood up and ran. Fear had pulled my jaws shut and drove me out of the meeting. I turned away and never looked back. The last sight I remember his Elisabeth’s beautiful face, framed by her dark hair, twisted into something I could not recognize by anger and hate as she surged forward with the rest of the clan to administer the justice dictated by the Lorekeeper.”

 

Matthew looked on as Abraham sat on the curb, shaking, as he hugged his knees to his chest. “I still believe. I try to believe in Elisabeth as she was before. Maybe I’ll find her again.