TWILIGHT

[Cookie Parker]

WORKS FROM AWOL TRANSFERRED HERE



Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 12:22 pm    Post subject: Twilight  

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The sun is high in the sky, and the spring air is clean, and crisp in my lungs. I hear the familiar jingle of metal on pavement, and hasty footfalls and I realize it?s too late. The coins that were to be tribute from my lord have been lifted. We have been in full dress armor since day before last, lest anyone traveling from Kallidan see us otherwise. To give chase now would prove futile, and foolish. Surely we have been seen by the sentries by now. So, my life shall be sacrifice, I only hope that my message does not fall on deaf ears before my head leaves my shoulders. Not all the friends in the world can change my fate, but I let a tight smile escape my lips for a moment as my thoughts turn to the fate the thief has chosen. Every innkeeper, every blacksmith, every guard and peasant would recognize those coins, struck by The Guild as they were. They would know their purpose, and how he came into their possession. Oh, yes. That filthy rotten thief has not a friend in the world...
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The rain falls red now. It has for my life, though I am told that it hasn?t always been so. During the tellings I hear of blue skies, white rains you could touch, and trees ? all of this happened before the Siren, and the Big Rot. Word is spreading now of a child born who doesn?t need the machines to breath, and I am happy that perhaps we will adapt and thrive again, as we once did. Though it quashes my hopes that things will return again to the way they were in the Before Time. David has the Sick again, and we are nearing our ration of shots. With Cold Quarter approaching, I pray we don?t need more ? perhaps we can trade canfoods for some shots?
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My grandfather owned, and leased out a good portion of the farmland outside of a dust-speck of a town. He also ran the mechanical shop. As such, much of the county was beholden to him, though he lived a modest life. My grandmother was a small lady, the kind they used to call 'frail'. She came from a family of nine and was dirt poor, so the best anyone could say about her for quite some time was that 'she married well'.
Times being what they were, certain things were expected of a newly married couple, and so a daughter was born in short order. Eleven months later, my mother was born. My grandmother would have no more children.
For two daughters growing up so close in age, the competition for attention becomes consuming, but strengthens both. The envy and animosity they bore for each other early on has never faded, though eventually they grew to value much different things.

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Tucker and his coworkers sit outside a large grey building. The sun is just coming up, and the men are tired and dirty.

?Things?ll be different. You?ll see.?

Tucker takes a deep drag from his cigarette and lites another with it before crushing it beneath his heal. He regards his audience with contempt.

?Slack jaws, and longhairs, the lot o? ya. You don?t mean shit to nobody, an? you ain?t gonna mean shit. Not to nobody that matters. Not to the boss man. Not like me.?

He sits back on the bench now, takes another drag, and drapes his arm over the garden wall.

?Not like me atall. I got a plan. Won?t be workin? the night shift with you lame-ass punks no more!?
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