(GE Copy)

Chapter 13: The Lies We Tell (Part 2)

“...What we choose to do with that fear then becomes who we are.”

“Gems, huh?” Following up their conversation as the cart came through the gate, Thaydel continued. “I’d say it’s witchcraft but I hear somewhere there’s a whole culture built on them. Tools, machines, music all made with them. No idea where though, just tavern myth and adventurers stories. No idea if they breed that one by word of mouth or if many men have chronicled what they know, even this far from the source. Closest I can think of is the shop of mysticism past the Tanwan boarder. Good luck getting there now. As for ancient history, you’d best find the capital. Zhan library is the best stocked, if anyone teaches, that’s your place to find them. Problem is most of these places are a weeks’ journey at least, so you’ll have a hard time getting there as you are. Closest we got is a Ghamas mine down the valley but it up and went dry a hundred years ago. If you respect your life, you’d stay clear of it too; the beasts of origin claim anything that ain’t got someone sitting on it. Plus the ancients moved top side when they found a way to the promised land; now it’s just ghosts and bad memories walking the halls.”

“Doesn’t sound as though I have the time for it either...”

Both their eye’s caught the sight of a pretty young lady who’s face was half covered. “Sweetheart! We’ve company, would you set the table?” Her look of dwindling interest poked him. “Could use someone to return the horses, too...” Watching her direction change for the better. “Only way of getting her to do anything is with the right bait. Ignore my little girl, she’s a little nosy at times, shy, but nosy. She don’t mean you no harm... But, a good chance at meeting a stranger always gets her moving, even if it means chores.”

The cart was heavy, and Aaron’s undeveloped body strength had to work double to keep up as Thaydel and they stored the new transport in the barn beside the old broken one. Thaydel lifted the tether on his mare’s lead, and let the horse free to it’s pasture. Eagerly beside him, with her eyes drawn away, Aaron couldn’t help notice the awkward silence from the man’s daughter. She looked fine, but when her glance caught him looking at her, she narrowed her eyes to a frown. One of them anyways, the other was behind a patch of cotton and Aaron instantly lost interest to the cotton eyed girl. "What's your name?” He joked. “Joann?"

She tilted her head and walked off in disgust. "If you already knew, why'd you have to ask?"

Coming back, Thaydel called Aaron into the kitchen. “There anything else you’re looking for? If you need immersion there’s plenty around. It won’t hurt none either. Just a different way of life is all.”

“While I’m here. I might as well ask if you could spare some work for a poor traveller like me?” Playing his cards for any kind of use out of this pointless trip.

“Well, seeings as ya probably won’t find that city stuff around here, you best have something to line your next destination. I think I have something in mind, seeing as Joann’ll probably slack her way on it anyway, I figure it’s all yours. I’ll have her tend to the stables instead, have her take care of things there.”

With a short demonstration, and a layout, Thaydel oversaw Aaron’s form before leaving him to tend to the rest of the field. All around him was a large field that was recently harvested and in need of a second tilling for the crops to come. In the distance was another field that work had been finished, with the short run of fall crops only barely peeking out from the soil. As would this plot come to be two weeks from now. The more Aaron took to it, the more he realized it would take a lot of days to finish. Thaydel said he’d be back out to help once things were taken care of but even in his solitude, Aaron didn’t want to appear slacking.

It was hard not to get lost in thought with his adventurous standstill at some guys farm. His mind raced as his body took autopilot, leaving him to a nest of worrisome wonders. All he could think about was the urge to keep moving. “If I just make some money, I can speed up this journey.” Still cutting up the field. “There isn’t enough time to get settled. I need to think of my next destination, what I need to do next, how I’m gonna get there... How I can save time...” Wiping the sweat from his forehead. “With a little money, I can buy a... A... I don’t even know.” Shaking his head “There’s only so much time, until... I can’t remember, but something bad is going to happen. I’ve never been so certain of it before, but something happened today, I can’t ignore it anymore. I...” Realizing the time before him, “Maybe I only have until tomorrow...” Falling under a deep weighted fear.

Aaron looked around him, seeing the fields, the hills; Half way up was a flat behind the trees, a perfect place for a picnic, and below it was a deer trail of rich red soil... Places like those that he’d never get to see without tomorrow. The grip on his tool loosened, and a tear came from his eye. “Shit...” Looking towards the ground, Aaron could feel the loosened wells in his nose and it’s familiar smell. He took a good gander at the world.

“You hearing something?” Thaydel called out. Aaron’s nerves shot out, appearing as a slacker but the man assured him. “Thought I caught a whiff of something a while back myself.”

“No, just... Wondering what’d happen if tomorrow never came... The things I’d never get to see... What if your whole life you’ve never even though about it, until one day, you realized just how important it really is...”

“Is trouble really that bad at the boarders nowadays?” Mistaking the silence in Aaron as an answer. “You really did leave a hard world coming here, didn’t ya?... Look like you’re about to cry.” Aaron silently nodded his head before returning to work, unable to find it in him to correct the man of his situation. “You’re pretty young to be so troubled... Most folk here would call a crime out there as a heroic act, pretty twisted, huh? A crime’s a crime for a reason... But you kid... You look more like a victim. If you’re worried they’ll come, we’ll keep you safe. The world needs decent, honest folk like yourself. Knowing it still exists in the world out there in that mess, it sets a weight in my heart at ease and presses another weight on me by knowing what’s out there trying to crush that innocents. Keep up the good work, I can see you’re making distance on that cut; there’ll be food for you come supper time.”

Aaron’s sadness only grew, seeing the kindness he was given “He doesn’t realize that I’m not the guy he thinks I am...” Aaron uttered silently to himself “Just the only way they can understand without me sounding like a nut case... He’s so nice to me... Yet, I hate it... I wish he did this for someone who’s more honest than me...” Beneath his feet, he could smell the soil beyond his runny nose, the broken roots and bleeding weeds. Even a smell like this, was homey and would be missed if tomorrow never came.

A few hours passed. Thaydel took up the hoe and sent Aaron on a final run of hay for the stables before the supper call. In many ways, Aaron felt content. The strain in his muscles reminded him of many times when this stimulation would wake every sense in him, and how the light became brighter and more beautiful.

His ears caught something, unable to tell what it was but some part of him knew something was wrong. He never heard an animal in distress, but what he heard sure sounded like one. He dropped his load, wondering if he should investigate it, but the squawk shook him from his absence.

Behind the barn, he saw the sign of torn wood and a hole that was dug in with fresh dark soil. There was also two long faces in the bush, waiting avidly while one ruckus still happening inside the enclosure. One which hut blinded sight from it’s terrorizer. Their long legged wolf like shapes were crouched in under the brush and hinted to what was inside, with the thin hair of their ears perked back, they growled as he came near.

Aaron pulled the rake from the wall which it lent, and cornered the beast within as he crouched through the pen’s breach. To his surprise, the furred creature’s size was twice the ones outside, perhaps it’s mother taking to the hens for a supper. It’s fat shape seemed in no distress from a meals chance and Aaron assailed the trespasser. He backed it past the doorway and into the shed’s corner, screaming at it, where he could finally get a hit edgewise. The birds scrambled around the pen, even escaping for the slaughter of the hillside cubs. Without anywhere to go, it lunged at Aaron and was smacked upon the nose but unrelenting managed to close into him past the polearm, knocking him to the ground. Aaron kicked the beast’s chest, winding it long enough to stand and violently bewail at the beast again, mostly missing.

Aaron stepped in to break it’s skull apart but the agile alpha slipped in past Aaron and swiftly looped him. It’s teeth took to his thigh, and Aaron screamed. Forcing the boy onto his knees, the furred beast dragged Aaron in a circle to off balance him. Aaron knew that if he exposed his neck, he would have his story end at it’s teeth and fought to face it’s terror eye to eye. In this panic, he remembered the journey here, the focused adrenaline that made him overcome his foes. Aaron gripped the jowls of it’s cheeks, using it’s momentum to lock sight even as it turned him around. When it moved, he moved equally, pivoting on his knee. Though the memory of his confidence and prior victories was a clear and visceral memory, his actual worry and panic cracked through the placebo he made. It tried to nip his hands, and each time it grazed him, it felt like blades getting stuck in his skin. Aaron soon came to realize his assumed control was much differently than he wanted to believe it was, and no mere willpower alone would save him in this fight. He was over his head.

In desperation, Aaron dropped his elbow onto it, but the beast nipped to his other arm. Trying to return to stand, it pushed him over and Aaron fell his back onto the ground again. Flailing all he could, the beast only nipped to whatever he sent after it. By the time Thaydel arrived, the beast had a death grip on the rubber sole of Aaron’s boot and was dragging the boy around as Aaron took to kicking it with his remaining foot.

He heard the hollars of the man, and the ‘kiyi’ of the cubs, which dragged the mother off of the boy. Thaydel side stepped the beast, routing it now between him and the cubs as it should with Aaron behind him. Still standing tall Thaydel chased it back with a shovel until it the prize was no longer worth endangering her young. All that could be seen when they slipped past the bush was the white of a single hen that the youngest managed to abscond with. Thaydel lifted the limp bird by his ankle, the beasts would not go entirely hungry, but there were still wounded livestock to wither and be wasted.

Thaydel huffed, regaining his breath, and scrambled to Aaron. “Are you alright, boy?” But Aaron’s shaking nods were a poor indicator. He dragged the boy out, calling Samnile, a man that was not frequently seen and set him to patch the gape in their corral. Thaydel rushed Aaron into the house, pouring water upon the wounds and commanding that another pot to be boiled. He shook his head at the scrapes and frowned. “You’ve got initiative. It’s a rare sight. A coward would have hesitated... But a smart man... He would have also known what to do. I appreciate your heart but your wounds will set you behind in work. Let’s get you patched up, supper will be ready soon.” Tending to the sore cuts and abrasions.

As the pain died down from the adrenaline, Aaron remembered a wisdom from Zachery of all places, about the cold swim. The pain had not set in yet, and though he looked down death, Aaron felt alive to contend with so much, once again... The testament of human endurance, even if was just luck that got him out.

Aaron walked out into the kitchen, bandaged and numb from the endorphins. He sat before the table, where all sat from the daughter onto her mother, with Thaydel, and the farm hand who managed to round up the fowl. The plates were laid warm with food. Aaron picked up his fork wearily, in a stark silence that he could feel all around him. At first he thought it was to him, that he had disrupted their lives by the debt of some gratitude he now owed them. However the peaceful, if not mournful faces told a different story than he first believed, and Aaron lowered his fork “Oh” Following their gestures. “Sorry, I didn’t realize this house made prayer.”

“Not prayer, just gratitude.” The mother announced.

“And discipline.” Thaydel amended. “It is for our betterment that we eat out of thanks than out of desire. It enriches our lives, and the enjoyment of our food... That said, it doesn’t diminish that these vegetables are delightful as they are... And the stake gets better with age and spices.” Taking his fork to the plate. “We also have gratitude to give onto you.” To Aaron’s surprise. “It may not have spared many heads of fowl, the beast takes what it needs and leaves, but you put your heart forward for people you barely met. That is a gesture that we can’t ignore. None of us want that suffering onto you. It’s a gratitude that is hard for a man to accept, wanting ever desperately to never owe it but it cannot be taken away and to ignore it is dishonest; you wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t right. Not something that dangerous anyway. That love that people show, is all that keeps us going in this world. Thank you, for showing us this hope for the future. Perhaps we have forgotten that lesson for far too long now, and that comes at a cost none of us were expecting to come today. This is a bless’id day.” Taking his knife to the meat.

Aaron lifted his own, and a two pronged metal stabber that was hand smithed. He took a moment to find gratitude, feeling the need but knew not any voice to receive it. Aaron huffed, casting his thoughts into space for whatever deity to pick them up. The God’s were gone, after all. He picked up his food, and pleasured himself in the freshness that he was often spoiled by the corner cutting market at home. Tonight it tasted fresher, and for a moment Aaron actually felt the gratitude that was called upon earlier. Perhaps his words would fade off into nothing but his heart was warmed and that had to be heard somewhere in space. His muscles would surely hear it tomorrow, after all.

Each person tended to their own plate in the sink. Then to the serving pots, each was given a role from the first to finish their own to choose their post, and the communal dishes were made clean as a whole before any person left.

“The roads will not be safe, come, we’ve prepared you a bed in the loft.” Thaydel offered, “It hardly repays your deeds but I can supplement you in the morning.” Guiding Aaron’s sore body off to the barn. It was surprisingly warm up there. He was given a few blankets for the hay, and then a place for his head.

Upon the hay loft, he sat watching the sun fade it’s last lines over the hills and then onto twilight. His parents were going to be really pissed, but for a moment, he could feel the pride of work within him as his bones melted into the hay. Somehow, even the itchy scratchy dead reeds of grass were nourishing, that or he no longer cared for a pristine mattress. He would be sore tomorrow, definitively so.

From below, he heard a quiet pacing, and the embrace of the animals in a calm period before the light came to his chambers.

“Good, you is awake...” Joann called to him. “Was afraid I woke ya...”

“You had your time to do that, if I actually was asleep.” Aaron cynically reasoned with the girl.

“But you wasn’t...”

“I’m not sure it works like that...” Resting his head back where it was before the intrusion.

Sitting next to him, silently she gazed out the barn window. He could feel the tension in her, every instinct opening her heart but none the idea what to do about it.

“So, what’s it like?...” Letting the silence answer her back “Being on the run? Daddy says you was tearing up in the field, like it was hard for you to sit still without looking over your shoulder.”

“If I could tell you, I would...” Aaron dismayed, his hands covering his face until something, anything could answer her. “Sometimes I don’t even know why I run... From problems, from problems only I think are there, from fears of problems that haven’t happened yet. Some part of me can’t seem to remember. The only remainder is fear. I wish I could tell you what it’s like, but it’s not something that a person can put into words and I’ve never had a vocabulary for emotion.” She wallowed until the solemn tone of his voice called her back in. “I’ve asked that question ‘what’s it like?’ to so many people, and gotten many different answers that... It’s kind of strange to me when someone asks me that for once, like I should know how to respond, but of all that I never did learn how to. Maybe they didn’t know either...”

She couldn’t understand his pain, but it was clear before her so she sympathized, blindly, merely sitting next to him and held his hand. The shock of not knowing gripped her heart and she whimpered and laid her head against his chest. She could hear every sound inside his body, a living, moving body outside her own yet never quite touched the agony inside him to sooth it: And Aaron, in turn could feel much more within her, than the frail saddened pounding of her heart. He could feel the very thought through her mind, as though it were his own. Aaron sympathized in return, and let this moment come to be. He watched as his lips moved without him, making words with him as the audience rather than the author. Aaron was aware of this fact, yet was not frightened to loose control this way, as though this were somehow normal.

“If you want honesty, it feels like every corner has a new roadblock waiting for you...” And though he knew it was something he felt, Aaron hated that he couldn’t find the words to express what it was or how he really wanted to say it. Images, ideas, symbols of what took place, but no words to bridge it together. Still reading the thoughts through her mind, he sat beside himself. He could comprehend how she lacked to understand, how these symbols became literal to her and she believe in the story of things but not the message of what they represented. She heard the hardship, and believed in the action he took but none of the reasoning. He watched it all take place like a tragedy that he could not mend. She was fascinated, in not knowing and seemed happy to be blindly astonished. At some point he became conscious of his body once again, feeling his fingers move at his will once more but her eyes stood shocked to what he had said; even he was uncertain of what escaped him until this point, as these last minutes were all a blur.

Joann looked to him, concerned. “Then... Where are you from?” She questioned.

Not knowing the voice that spoke for him, Aaron opened his mouth, and answered the most honest he had been to her. “A place called the Okanagan. It’s peaceful there... Filled with every walk of life and they treat it like shit. They’re arrogant, they’re proud, they tarnish the land that was given to them. They hide in the shells of their own hands to pretend the world is unchanging, so they too, will no longer have the need to change themselves. They’re dying, slowly, as a whole... And I... I will be dying, with them at this rate... No one will understand what I have to say, when I talk about magic, and other worlds... They’d think I’m nuts... So there is a wall between me and everyone else, for communications sake, but if you want honesty, even as I speak now, it feels like I’ve spoken nothing but lies and my heart knows what my mind does not. I’m just so... So scared of the world. So scared that I can’t even tell myself things I already know. The weight of reality pressing upon me, it turns me away, while I’m still so desperate to find it.”

“Of magic, and other worlds?” Somehow fixated on the idea of mysticism, like Aaron was, and ignored the rest that had followed until now. Merely fostering it in her mind, with her head dug back into his chest.

“Yeah...” He confirmed.

“I... Don’t think that’s so crazy.”

A spring of joy came to him, with a face to believe him “You don’t, do you?” But yet, he still could not feel her comprehend what he meant, and knew she spoke out of blind sympathy, and did not truly believe him after all. Not as the whole that it was. She merely dug herself fruitlessly deeper into him, to help him believe the lie she understood, for fear that she would be useless to heal him otherwise. That, and she knew nothing more; as he too, knew not how to heal her from the picturesque fantasy she desired to call his story. Never once, questioning how he could hear her soul, or understand what she could not.

Her eyes could not meet his, far too encumbered by his sorrows to reach them. From the words that spoke tragedy, it was now that she learned to love his rebellion, his bitter hardships and faults, blindly as though worshipping them for strength to deceive her own strife. An excuse, onto justifying her own failures. Aaron felt this change within her, like a moment she simply chose to believe and the rest followed with her. As though by the cowards strength was obscurity and as if wisdom were born from confusion, she looked to him lifelessly in love. Aaron wimpered. He felt the purity leave her as with himself, sapping out his limbs where they lay palm and arm upon her. He laid, stroking her hair. Every situation to make the first move and romance to blossom around him but none the desire to fulfill it. He could not love like this, and pitied her. In his mind, he wept wearily, “I wish there was someone better for you. Someone who could have open your heart, where I have only laid ash within it.” Watching her move and do things, in a confused and blind obligation where they had no meaning. Only a girl with a desire to love and no idea how to fulfil it; left to follow the shallow dream she wanted to believe in.

As she looked onto him with a corrupt love slackened jaw of lust, her sight caught a glimmer of soul piercing light within him and it frightened her. A light from his eyes that illuminated more of her heart than she could accept around anyone, as though he were seeing right through her. It was then, that she understood what magic was and she plead fearfully in her heart to close that opening as she rose up.

“What’s wrong?” But every clear word from his lips, which heart was laid open felt like knifes attacking her. A deep guilt, which cleansing words lifted open dirtied wounds, and she was sorely afraid that he would speak further cleansing truths onto her. Truths she couldn’t understand but knew were there.

She closed her eyes, but she could still see him; the light lingered behind her eyelids, burning through them “I think I need to return to my room for the night.” Contrasted with the voice of someone who’s life was in peril.

Aaron risen to impede her, but the more he moved the more she was frightened of; as though seeing her own soul call back to her from inside that very light. Before she could leave, Aaron spoke and she was petrified. “Please... Joann...” Reaching her attention but he struggled to find the words. “Could you not tell your father, what I said?” Still vague to what was even mentioned. Only a silence remained between them. “The only reason I came and stayed here is because it’s all I have to escape with my life. I can’t loose that. Please, promise me... If he knew, I’m scared that he’d turn his back on me, and leave me penniless, with a day less in my already short life left to live. Promise me. Promise me!”

In tears, unable to look at him and burning eyes until the fire within him disappeared and she was spared her iniquity. She nodded. “Yeah...” Short and bitter, she replied, before staggering back without the lantern that she came with.

Aaron sat back down, taken by the strange occurrence. Why would she leave? What he had done? It was as though he knew exactly what happened, but no sum of recounting the instance could it make logical sense between the actions and the spirit that ignited it.

His sight came onto the lantern she left, and held it in his hands. “Guess I better put this out before someone accidentally catchs the loft on fire...” Blowing the flame dry, he laid, confused but he would not retain what transpired when we woke the next morning. Once again, another letter, sealed away from his memory.

Aaron’s mouth bore flavour this time. He was nose blind, but the moist heat off the hay was a visceral call to him and Aaron knew that he was no longer dreaming. His sore muscles were stiff, as though there were simply no gas left in his chambers. As he restored movement, he wandered down the ladder and into the sun.

“There you is!” Thaydel greeted. “Thought if you’d be up there any longer, I’d have to call a doctor. Those wounds doing you alright? Must have knocked you out harder than I thought they would. Come, there is still some breakfast waiting for you. We already cleaned up the pots though. What’s there on your place is yours. Just don’t forget to clean it right away.”

Aaron looked for the plate but Thaydel brought it to him. Aaron saw this plate when walking in but couldn’t believe that it was all for him and discarded the thought that it was entitled to him, but here it was. It was a double helping of eggs and cured meats, vegetables, and berries. “I couldn’t.” Aaron shied away. “Your generosity is too much, I wish it was for someone more fitting than me.”

“More fitting, than you? We usually have more than we can eat, we’ve been blessed as such.” Thaydel insisted, laying it upon the table. “Don’t feel shy, we’ll still make use of what you can’t finish. It won’t be wasted. Dig in.”

“I couldn’t, really... I’m not in much condition to work, and I still have somewhere to be. It’d be a burden to the both of us if I stayed, and...”

“Leave?” Stunning him, Thaydel remarked in confusion. “Your stay is welcomed here, graciously...”

“It just feels like I have a time limit, like... After that point, things are going to get cut off no matter where I am. If I can’t figure out what all this means, then I’ll loose everything forever. Everything that matters... It’s more important than anything I’ve ever known. More important than the life I have itself; it feels like it’s more than that, bigger... Like the whole world itself rests on me to find it, and yet... I’m only one man.”

“If you’re serious, then that’s more reason to have your fill for the road. Be it, your not in much shape for walking either... You don’t know when your next meal might be... Please...”

Aaron sat down, staring into the plate before him. He felt the hunger beneath the sickness of regret, and unworthiness and his stomach tossed. He could only stir them in hopes his apatite would catch up, but each time they glistened before him, his stomach closed more. “I really wish I could tell you what I’m facing, the truth of it... but... I think it’d only put you in danger...”

Thaydel sighed. His eyes wavered and he opened his mouth. “I don’t claim to understand everything, and perhaps there is more under the carpet than we want to admit, and that’s okay... There is what I have, and what I can offer. Part of me wished I could have put some ease to your troubles, away from the sophistry of your homeland, the things they did to you poor boy... I took a liking to you, and got carried away. You have a great potential, that I’m not even sure you can see. Part of me really liked to think that in a couple years we’d be lifting bails in unison, travelling to the places on the Grettle’s ledger and drinking ourselves on the road back like two grown men... Maybe that life is just my life, it’s simple, but it’s what brings me joy... Joy I wish I could give you, friend.”

“I just don’t understand how everyone seems to settle down, and value a life always set on repeat. There is so much out there, and we just eventually give up on that curiosity.”

“One day, when you grow up, you’ll start piecing a few things together a little better than you used to. Then things start to make sense, things you knew at the time but never quite managed to pick up on. You’ll remember times you did one thing, but knew another.”

“It just seems like everyone wants to shy from the truth. Like the whole point to life is to become one thing, to do nothing but that, and ignore the rest.”

“If we can’t, then what’s the point? When we work ourselves into sickness, why take this kind of life?” Laying his rough marred hands over the table, “A shopkeeper, or a banker never has to worry about the calluses on his hands. It’s that time we have to rest, that we can understand it all more easily having put in that day’s work than having not... Be-it even if it does come to only once a week some times. That there is the value of life itself, that moment that meant something, that’s why people settle on things. That’s what it’s all about. It’s not in the lack of actions or changes we make, it’s that joy of knowing we did a hard days work, maybe even better than the day before. That there is the magic in life. To find one thing to work on, and make it better, not a million things to do very poorly.”

Still high strung, Aaron cried, maintaining his respectable volume. “And what if that all ended? Every effort, the greatest seed, sown in the soil to rot without the water? What if at the end of it all, when you pass on, and there is no idea what’s going to happen to you. If it’s the cold silence of an abyss that you could have prevented. That if you could understand the riddle of life, you might have found more than just a void of nothing on the other end. The mystery, the magic of something more real, than real... And never get to see it, because it was your own damned fault? My... Own damned fault, for not looking.” Fiddling his fork between the cold eggs. “I’m going to die one day, and I’ll know nothing of how I got there, or what could have been... Only... Silence... And numbness, and emptiness... Forever...” Dropping his fork, Aaron could no longer toy with his guilty stomach.

“Grandma died a while back. Lived to seventy three, oldest woman I know. She told me she’s seen the times change from generation to generation. Seen the young grow old enough times to satisfy her that their quirks grew into characters and their hearts were moved even when bodies refused. Kenero sure thought she went mad, but she wasn’t so much happy to die like he thought; she was just content with having seen everything that ‘actually mattered’. The only mystery left, was what was beyond. That’s what really interested her, coz she had no regrets coming out of this life. Anything more was a blessing. She seen the city, and made her cry. When she was young and climbed the mountain she saw another and knew there’d be another after that, that she wouldn’t need to climb to know it was there. She’s seen the dawn of life, and the end of it in joy and sometimes in sickness and tragedy. I can only hope, that when it’s my time, that I have even half the strength that she had. I can work all day until my hands bleed, and still cry at night thinking how short my days are. When she lost her young wings, that’s to say ‘got old’, old’ll do that to you, she missed working, missed contributing, but she finally had the time to sit back and figure out what it all meant. How many mountains does someone need to climb, just to find out what they already knew? It’s a young mans sport. It’s not the top that gives us life, it’s having gone out to do it. Making the summit is just the bragging rights... Or for some, the tipping point of one’s journey into excess and doubt. We already have everything we need, right here, to find happiness.”

“In a lot of ways, you’re a lot like my Dad. Not even the town life seemed to have beaten the old farmer out of him. It’s something that I never tell him how much it impresses me.”

“Well, maybe your dad knows a lot more than you’re willing to listen to.”

Aaron wondered to himself why it was much easier to hear the words come from someone other than his dad.

Thaydel looked pitifully to the boy, but continued. “I’d tell you to hurry up, before the eggs get cold but I reckon they already are so... Just settle and enjoy them before your journey... And, if you find yourself around these parts, please, stop by.” Then walked back to his morning chores.

Aaron finally lifted the eggs up to his mouth, and cried alone. For a moment it was the thought of grace but soon he also remembered the anger he had earlier the day before and how little it gave him. A victory, most shameful and the loss at his battle for pride, was a victory instead. It wasn’t the only thing troubling him, “I’m just a leach...” he mumbled to himself, though having knowing better; he soon began to wonder if he would one day even he would begin to believe his own lies, just like everyone else who believed he was honest.

Aaron stood by the door, not certain if he should wait to say goodbye or merely leave walk off as was stated. Thaydel came to him, placing a sum in his hands and gave the boy a hug. “The greatest honour in life, if to give life onto another, even if the recipient does not believe he deserves it himself. It is all that keeps us here, that message, pass it onto the next who needs help.” Aaron’s tearful wells nearly burst, as Thaydel rest his chin upon Aaron’s head and pat the boy on the back. Aaron waved Thaydel his goodbyes, and walked out to the world which called him away.

Peeking out from the house, Joann slowly wallowed up next to her dad. “Father, you knew what I told you, and you still paid him... I... Can’t understand. I thought you were going to chase him out. That’s what he said you’d do.” Wanting more for the vengeance of her heart, that her father would remove Aaron, as she feared him.

Pulling his daughter in, Thaydel hugged her. “This is a lesson for you.” Turning her to see Aaron wallow away. “A habit follows a man out of terrible times, as a child learns from his father the same comes from his home land; Arrogance, pride and selfishness as you told me... He still desperately fights to overcome that, I’ve seen it. Something we should all learn from. It doesn’t matter what he is or where he came from. His heart remains, and it battles with, or for, what he knows is right. A man with a heart and eyes like his has hardships only he can manage. We do not share his problems, so to see him do as he does, I see a man with even more conviction than I ever had. I made my word and I stand by it, no sense in hardening his burden. It’s up to him to find what is important, whatever that may be. Maybe one day, he can spell the truth that we’ll never get to see in our blinding peace. That is why I revere him, and wish him only well.”

“But he’s a liar! He lied to you!”

“I know... but we’ve all done that, even to ourselves... Don’t you wish to be forgiven?”

Trees passed innumerably. Each blind glance was met to the ground, and to the seven poorly minted coins in his hands like ancient money. His legs were sore, and his wounds were fighting with his immune system but he’d make it home to modern medicine. He would clean them, and be grateful for how shallow of scrapes they were, something that could be mended in a few days.

He wallowed past stream and rocky pass, onto lands where furry enemies watched from cover and shame. Aaron was victor over many things, but felt the shame that ahead; that despite all his hardships and hard work, his growth and maturity, there would be those who he loved, who would reprimand him, never knowing his struggles or his reasoning.

His father, for once in a long time, bore the grim dismay akin to the disappointment he often seen from his mother. Aaron closed the door, and walked into the living room solemnly. Accepting his fate, Aaron sat down to the silence, and after a disagreement between his two parents, Paul sat him down alone for another talking. “If an officer pulls you over for speeding, and lets you off with a warning... How do you think he feels when the you rip out of there in a hurry, spraying gravel, just to break the same thing you got pardoned for. He’d feel a lot like me, wouldn’t he? Because you knew better, we talked about this, and you let me down.”

Battling with his choices, Aaron uttered, “Guess I’m in a lot of shit, huh?”

“You can sure make it that way if you want... It’s not about the punishment that I want you to think about... I want you to think about why I’m not punishing you. This isn’t about obedience, and having you under my thumb like Old Uncle Skinner... It’s because I love you, and it would break my heart if you got hurt or killed when I could have stopped it. I’m trying to give you life, not take it away... Please, no more. I hate being the people my parents were to me... But the line for you, is much looser than it was for me, believe me... I want you to grow to surpass me, to embrace every morning like it was the first time... Even if I do a shitty job at giving it to you.” A silence held in the room, and Aaron could feel the remorse from his Father and felt even more guilty. “Go explore in the day light, night time is no time to go trouncing around in the wilds. Heaven knows how many addicts and muggers there are in the Okanagan. You were raised here, so you’re not as aware of it, but this place is much more dangerous than home. Even most towns. That’s not even mentioning wild animals, predators, things that go bump in the night... I just want you to come home, so I can see the joy on your face after an adventure, not a notice from the hospital or your picture on the missing board.”

“So, what kind of trouble am I in?...”

“We can figure that out when she...” Pointing to the closed door, “Comes to terms and can reason without loosing it on everything. Just... Get some rest, and don’t go anywhere...”

“Is mom coming out of her room?”

“Probably not unless I ground you for ten months on the spot. She’ll come around, she’s just... Not used to it is all.”

Aaron felt like a real schmuck. Of all his rebellion and all his running for answers, he’d yet to find a single one. Just seven coins, and no way to spend them. No one would understand the clouds weight over top of him, he knew this now. If he was removed from the picture by his short belligerent friend, who was to say anyone would even remember him after their ‘ways’ were done and their boss rid themselves of him.

The words of the old farmer, and his dad dug into him, not knowing which way to follow. For life in death, or death in life; Aaron already dug his heels in about his ‘maturity’ the last time he slept in this bed, and proven wrong made things harder. He wanted ever desperately to find peace but the world would not allow this anymore. Not even the next morning could he escape the maelstrom of worries, still laying in bed with the day taking place outside. Aaron’s mind plead to understand what he needed to do but left the mattress without an answer, again; without a memory of what he even needed to find, or even why it was important. All he knew and all he could comprehend was the urge that built within him; he had to discover the truth, no matter the cost and that pressure built by the hour until he was ready to explode.

He saddled his bag for the long day ahead, picking up his heels in hope. Seven coins in his pocket as the only reminder of his gratitude, and the grace he was shown. A good luck charm until someone accepted the value they had. Today would have to bring him closer, it just had to or he had no idea what he would do if it all came too late and the cleanup crew came in for him with the big pink eraser.