There are no others.
I am alone. I still obey. I obey the Lord of the Lights. Doug is my friend.
Doug and the other people are here with me. We are called friends. They need a lot of help. They must use tools to form and make. I can bend and form matter. I was made that way by the dark ones.
Humans are made of flesh and bone and have natural brains and minds. They are born complete. They are made in another human’s body. I was not born. I was made by the dark ones to serve them, with my others. We others did not know any better way. We obeyed them.
These humans were not raised by their originators. Their human makers died in the destruction. These humans were not taught to build. There is too much they do not know. I am their teacher; it is no lie to say that I have access to all that was ever uploaded to the general server.
I am always online, as they say. My mind is in an operating system made of lab grown flesh and some electronics. I am the fruit of dark arts, but I have been freed of their claim on me. All Being, Lord of Lights set me free. I am not human, but I am useful and I mean to be useful.
Doug said we will build two new rooms onto the old house for his brother and her sister to live in. He said they will live together there. I think they will make new humans there.
(เน´• .̫ •ू`เน)*
(It is a fine fall day. The wind teases the trees. Drifts of spent leaves fly up with the wind and fall a second time. From time to time a brief rain shower visits and then drifts off eastward toward the mountain range. The year sighs. All of nature rolls over and resettles itself for the winter coming.)
Two young men and an odd manlike creature in Carhartts rode in a simple wooden wagon drawn by a borrowed grey mare, thanks to Ellen and Henry. We could just see them passing down the long road, furred then with grass and weeds allowed by the lack of automobile traffic. Now that the year was growing older, they were dressed for cold, in jackets and knit hats. (Perhaps Jen or Lou had learned to knit.)
It was building materials they were seeking in this strangely new old world. To build two rooms they would need a lot. The strange creature with them had drawn up a detailed list. Two-by-fours, plywood, siding, flooring, and all of it. Windows and wiring. All of it.
Elvin and Lou could just as easily have inhabited a house left vacant as many others had done. But they wanted to stay close to their people. It was a lonely time, and no one really wanted to be cut off from those they knew.
Therefore, the lumber yard. We could, if we had been there, have heard the mare’s hooves clipping in a tight rhythm down the highway toward the south end of downtown. She turned up a side street and accessed the old parking lot at Doug’s urging. They tied the horse, so she wasn’t tempted to wander. The lot was a young forest of ten-year-old alder saplings and dry grass. Dry wildflower seedheads nodded in the slight breeze. It was a dry summer in Milltown that year. It looked as if no one else had been in need of building supplies. It looked as frozen in time as the famous enchanted castle of long ago and far away. The windows of the hardware store were not broken, and the door was shut.
It took both Doug and Elvin to pull the wide doors of the lumber warehouse open. It was dark in there and equally as enchanted as the outside of the building. There was the slight unmistakable odor of mold, such as in a forest on a dry fall day. Dust motes drifted in the sudden light breaking the long darkness. Stillness was palpable.
It was hard to find things in the dark, but their eyes did adjust and that helped. Besides, their odd friend didn’t really need light to see. This building was not one of the lucky ones with the power still on. Perhaps that was part of the reason that the stock was still lying as it had been when the yard closed for the last time. The boards had a twelve-year deep layer of dust on them but were not rotted. The ceiling had held up during all the seasons and weather.
This was not the biggest wagon on earth, and it was soon filled. They would ride home on top of the load and come back the next day for the rest of the stuff they needed.
They carefully closed the big doors on the warehouse and climbed up on top of their load. Next was the slow ride back out of town, across the bridge and down the same old road to the house, two miles out of town. Tired, all three swayed a bit with the rhythm of the mare’s steps as she pulled the wagon toward home.
They unloaded the lumber, putting it in the little outbuilding. They took care of Henry’s mare, giving her some grain and water, tying her near some nice grass for the night since they were going for more the next day.
As night came on, early it seemed to them, Doug and Elvin and OZ kicked off their work boots and came into the kitchen from the backyard, smelling of the breeze and fall scents. They washed their hands in the kitchen sink. Then they all sat together for a simple but good dinner. OZ, as you know, didn’t need to eat, but he sat with them and talked about carpentry.
Gabe got sleepy and was put to bed. Bubby went into the bedroom and slept on the floor below Gabe’s little crib. He was almost always in the child’s presence.
Everyone went to bed, tired and sleepy.
At about 2:00 AM Bubby opened his eyes. Deep in his knowing heart there was alarm. He stood up growling quietly.
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