Albert paused to wipe the sweat from beneath the brim of his hat. The spring had been unseasonably warm. The sun’s rays shimmered in the sky like mid-summer, and the clouds still clung to the mountain tops. Albert stretched, and held his arms wide to cool himself. He stood arms out and looked around.
From his vantage point he could see one of the abandoned barns. Five years had it leaning to one side. His gut ached, as if he had been punched, at the sight. Albert thought of Trinexious as an unused barn, tilting to one side and wondering if anyone would fix it. According to the radio reports the majority of the farms in Thurvi Province, like all farming provinces, no longer yielded pre-Plague amounts. If it weren’t for reduced demand Trinexious would have faced a planet wide shortage of food and fabric.
Albert had turned the radio off half way through the report. Of course, people in comas didn’t demand dinner.
Barns weren’t the only things let go. Albert went to town whenever they needed anything not available through their own efforts or Klink, and he saw the coma-less victims, as he came to think of them, everywhere. No one was untouched. People all over Trinexious were being effected by the Plague, and very few of them could see anyone’s hardship but their own.
At least, Ralph and Selena had kind words to give if anyone came looking for guidance, but that didn’t happen often. When it did, they always said the same: give up everything except that which is most important. The Tarmons had experience with letting go.
The first thing Ralph and Selena let go was the planting of the crops. The back fields had lain overgrown and unused since the first year. They now only planted enough to feed the herd of shawk with a little extra, and a small garden near the house. For the first couple of years they tried to maintain the herd, however, they lost more calves than survived. Ralph was forced to sell off a portion of the herd. Albert recalled the set of Ralph’s jaw when he made the deal.
Albert had seen it all.
Shaking his head, Albert looked out over the shawk. Woolly-headed, stubborn, bleaters Ralph’s dad, Saul, had called them. The all purpose animal. Soft, long coats sheared in early spring and mid summer could be sold for textile use. Milk was drunk and made into cheeses and butters. Slaughter and processing produced the staple meat of most Trinexioun diets. Some had even been broken to be ridden or to pull large heavy carts that the average klystral would refuse to pull.
Shawk were not gentle animals. They were complacent. Large, thick bodied, with horns spiraling in circles growing from behind their ears, it was easy for a shawk to hurt a person unintentionally. Studs could be nasty when roused. Fights between shawk, even females, were spectacular. Only a klystral could move a shawk that didn’t want to move.
A few klystral grazed among the herd. (It was an easy way to cut the cost of feeding them.) Klystral could be sustained on almost any kind of grass, wild or cultivated. Albert was always amazed by the klystral. They weren’t the only animal on Trinexious with dual pupils, but they were the only domesticated one. The steeds had large eyes, and tall ears with short hairs lining large the openings to funnel sound. Scaly plates ran up their long faces, and split around a forelock of hair. The plates protected the nasal cavity and their acute sense of smell. Some klystral were trained to smell out lost things and people.
The klystral had evolved to be masters of awareness in their environments. Long heads on longer necks could be turned much farther than one would expect because of the folds of skin below the jaw bone where the head meet the neck. A klystral could stretch its head around and look at a rider, or even bite if it wanted, but was more likely to itch its own rump. The sight of a klystral stretching its head back along its body to itch at its rump or hind legs amused Albert. Though split hooves made klystral very steady, Albert watched every time to see if the animal would fall over.
Albert often wondered how the animals came to be domesticated. Klystral could survive without the people who kept them. Albert was glad he had convinced Ralph to just turn the extra klystral loose in the little used pastures no longer fit for the shawk. A shawk would bust up a failing fence just rubbing its head on it, but a klystral would only graze on the wild grasses and jump over the fence if it wanted out. Albert didn’t want to see the klystral sold off, but he knew it might come to that before it was over. A good klystral was worth much to many Trinexiouns.
Albert shook himself, and surveyed the section of fence he was mending. He didn’t think he had missed anything, and he had stood there too long. He gathered his tools, and started back toward the big barn closest to the house. Albert looked at the sections of the barn roof he still needed to replace. Only the house got immediate attention when repairs were needed, but rains would be setting in soon. Though it wasn’t an old house – the families built it when Ralph and Selena were married – the two story wood and stone home was tattered. But weathered paint was the least of Ralph and Selena’s worries. The large barn was the only one used regularly, and a leaking roof could cause damage to equipment and supplies.
No matter. It would wait one more day. Today was William’s tenth birthday, and they would be celebrating this afternoon.
Albert looked forward to the holiday and birthday celebrations with William, not because it excused him from his work, but because he would want the same treatment if it were him.
Albert took his turn spending time with William. Albert loved a good story, and remembered William did too. Albert read all his favorite books to William. When he finished those he asked the people from the university to provide more fiction. They provided him a constant supply of stories, but he knew they only did so to add another element to their experiments.
When Albert’s voice would grow hoarse, he would turn on the radio and listen to the news and different radio plays. Albert listened to the same news as Ralph and Selena. Growing numbers of comas. Growing numbers of deaths. Growing numbers of ‘fear induced incidents’: abandoned comas, violence against families caring for victims in the cities, disappearances. He would comment to William about the stories they heard, and ask him what he thought. Albert told William often that it never paid to be uninformed.
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