Minestrone
RUSSELL WOODS MORRIS
The sun sank behind the towering weed, and the light that baked my nape slid away.
I rolled my head, measuring the feeling of how the skin stretched. A touch confirmed it. It had the warmth of tea, forgotten then rediscovered. I asked my father how it looked yesterday, and he said it looked like I’d stolen it from a geriatric Italian. My cousin had compared it to leather. The former knew me better, even if he decided not to show it.
The bench creaked as my hand returned to it. I stiffened slightly, not wanting to learn whether my bad luck would win over its sturdiness. Not knowing the answer brought a question to mind; should I stay?
The bench itself was fine. It was harder to make out now that the sun was occluded, but it was made entirely of wood, seat and legs and all. Unpainted, typical for what was made to be out of the way, but still, its material remained hard and unyielding. Unpleasant to some, but to me, it was like a shoe that had been worn in.
I glanced away from it, looking around, my eyes and mind passing over the way the gravel path in front of me, a formerly grey, dirty stucco, had darkened into a vague stitched blanket.
If I looked at just those things, I might have gotten the impression it was like my home. An open space with no rooms, and very little furniture. But my home had no view, not so much as a picture of one.
I looked up from the path, up to where its edge met the expanse from which this mountain had sprouted. It was a green carpet, still lit by the sun. Trees dotted it here and there, but my eyes were drawn to the strip; it was a thin band of dead grass, longer than our mountain was tall.
There was too much to look at for me to compare it to home, that place on the border of our town. Too distracting, too large, too busy for the eyes. And, and this was the cincher, randomly noisy. Wind blew through, sharp and harsh, tickling my still warm neck and whistling through my ears.
Then, silence fell. But it didn’t stay quiet. The sound of running feet picked up, beating against the gravel.
A group of children ran through my field of vision. Some glanced at me, but the group's eyes were set on the prize; what little light was unblocked by the weed.
At the time, it had seemed to me their game had been interrupted. Very little would motivate them more than the threat of their bodies turning cold in the dark, robbing them of their youthly energy. They could play harder, faster, but they’d feel it later when they grew hungrier, and would jealously eye their family’s dinners. At least, that would be the lesson I tried to teach them. It was sensible. There would always be another, better day to play.
The notion of following them came and went. I’d spent long enough under the sun's light. More, and I would burn. And none were younger than thirteen. They didn’t need supervision.
Seconds passed, and silence returned. It lasted longer, this time.
More footsteps. One set, this time. I didn’t turn, not until the person stopped a pace from me. Tall, well built, beige shorts and a light orange shirt.
'Diego.'
'Carmel.'
The man regarded me, then shrugged as he turned his head skyward. He sat next to me, and the bench didn’t hesitate to groan.
He frowned. 'Someone needs to fix this thing.'
'It couldn’t hold three.'
He glanced back at my face, features tightening for a moment, before shrugging and staring off into the distance. He did that, when his hands were idle. When they weren’t, he would glare at the task in front of him. Apparently. My cousin worked at the slaughterhouse with him, and would often insult him whenever I met her. Last time I’d come over to her home, she gossiped about the latest incident over the mug of tea clutched in her hands.
'He went from staring at the ceiling to fuming when the boss called on him. And the way he started chopping the meat!' She had shuddered, then yelped as hot tea ran down her hands.
After half a minute of fretting over it, she’d returned to the subject with a passion. 'Honestly, you’d think he’d know how hard we have to work. We don’t have much in the way of staff, but still, it’s not like the town is as big as they used to be way back when. I do my job, and I don’t pout about it. Is it really that hard?'
Diego grimaced as he turned away. Then he sighed, loudly, strongly. He shifted on the seat, even though it hadn’t been a minute.
'Bay was annoying today. She wanted me to mind the kids, like they need it. Seriously, the youngest of them is thirteen. It's not like they're going to jump off the mountain to see if they can fly.'
I wondered if my cousin had a point. She had a habit of complaining about anything that bothered her whenever we met. She’d never mentioned him trying to talk to her before either, but that didn’t say a lot. She never initiated, and she wasn’t terribly approachable. Having her stare you down while you were busy would be uncomfortable for most people.
The wind picked up as he tried to keep talking.
'Look, I’m trying to make conversation here. Be friendly, yeah? Isn’t there anything you want to talk about?'
I inclined my head to him to show I was listening. 'I don’t have an opinion about those things. I’ve never spoken to Bay before, or you, so a worthwhile topic isn’t coming to mind.'
He blinked a few times. 'I, uh, well, why are you sitting here?'
'I lost my hat while doing some work on a broken gutter a few weeks back when the wind blew it off. Burnt my neck, too. Started coming here to get a tan.'
His mouth opened in a silent ‘Ah’. Silence fell as his jaw rose. It stretched, and he leaned away from me slightly. I decided to take pity on him.
'You were supposed to be minding the children?'
A scowl flickered over his face at my words, and I realized a moment later that he would have taken them as a dismissal.
'Yeah, but like I said, they don’t need it. If everybody holds their hands wherever they go, they’ll never be able to handle themselves on their own.'
I nodded. There was logic there. I hadn’t trusted myself to use a hammer until my father talked to me about what we used them for, and how important it was that I could do things for myself. My mind latched onto the part about nails, about how we would drive them into things to hold them together. Especially buildings. Young me had heard it and made it her mission to do it, and do it right. I liked my home, after all.
I thought about asking him if her attitude wasn’t truly justifiable. We didn’t live in the stable times of the past, when wars and finance rendered lives cheap, when there were always more bodies to throw at problems. Our town's population was, frankly, too small to call it a town. Any number of children dying would be a complete tragedy.
But, I countered myself, that would just be me being insensitive again. My father had told me I had a problem with that. While I shared his logical thinking, a useful trait, I tended to be too direct, hurting people’s feelings. I had decided he wasn’t wrong, going by my small group of friends, and resolved to try catching myself whenever I made a mistake. Now seemed like a good time.
So, I went with a more diplomatic option. 'I haven’t really met Bay before. I just know that she takes on looking after them when she has the time for it.'
'Well, yes. It’s not her job to look after them. But shouldn’t somebody else be doing this?' He shrugged his shoulders at me, before leaning back again, back to where he’d shuffled away earlier. 'I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining, but the least they could do is pay me for it.'
My brow twitched, slightly.
'Everyone is busy, Diego. They can’t stop doing their jobs just to take care of the children. They are getting older, but they’re still young, still dumb. They haven’t made the same mistakes you or I have. They need someone to be there, lots of someone’s. Or else, later, everyone is going to be sorry, and nobody is going to have a clear answer on what to do about it.'
His brows knit together, and the corners of his mouth tightened. 'Somebody still needs to do it. And they can’t just bother me about it at the drop of a hat. I’ve got my own time to worry about. Like, she can’t just smile while asking me like children make me happy. That’s her thing.'
I wanted to respond. Rather harshly, too. Bluntly hammer at him with logic. But I’d just done that. He had annoyed me, and I gave him my longest response yet. But it didn’t do anything. He let everything I said slide off, and made it someone else’s problem.
It struck me at that moment that I should probably listen to my cousin's judgement more. She might spend a lot of time just watching, but that’s a lot of time to think, too. A lot of time to judge, to weigh.
The weed shuddered.
Diego groaned. 'Really?'
I didn’t turn to look as the area around us was thrown into stark, blinding relief. I didn’t need to. Once as a child was enough. The memory of my eyes burning in pain pushed my gaze away, like twin magnets.
I didn’t need to turn, either. I knew what I would see. It took a moment. Veins of light flashed on its surface, outshining its usual soft glow. And then they burst, ballooning out and popping across the surface of the weed, and within. The entire plant would bulge slightly, then deflate.
But that was not the end. In the words of my father, miles of mass being displaced in the span of a moment made other things move. As the light died down, the air followed. It rippled, along with the ground. Beside me, Diego braced himself on the bench. I covered my ears.
For a few seconds, everything shook. If my hands weren’t over my ears, my brain would have too. As the din died down, another picked up far off to my side. The children.
'Damn kids.'
I glanced at him, then back to where I could still hear them. They were getting quieter, but not by much. One of them probably got hurt. Fell over on the hard ground and scratched their soft skin. They hadn’t built up that kind of toughness yet.
I caught a glimpse of his startled face as I turned.
'Hey, wait-'
I heard the sound of him shifting on the seat. Too quickly. The sound of snapping wood, followed by a yelp, rang out.
He probably hit his head on the ground. I didn’t turn back to check, or ask later to find out. He’d be fine either way.
Still, that experience wasn’t a complete waste of time. I asked my cousin about Bay, and at her recommendation, I met with her. She can get a bit reckless with her energy, but that’s fine. She knows when to have fun.
Russell Woods Morris found a passion for reading at an early age, particularly in fantasy and science fiction, inspiring him to practice his own storytelling. With extensively informed inspiration, a wealth of ideas can and did follow, ideas that often have to be wrangled into a manageable size.
