4.
 "Maggner Eon, this is your second warning." The supervisor's chalky face and dim eyes were faintly alarmed while the beam of l!ght in the coil soaked color from Eon's skin. "Work diligently, Eon, or you will be disciplined."
Pine scent, moonlight, peaceful closeness punctuated only by their separate urgencies: "Oh Eon," her voice caressed, "I'm so sorry. I've been pushing you too hard. It's just that, well, I'm scared, the Noma you see...
He longed to touch her, and knew he never could. "I've decided, Bridget. I am going to buy the harp."
"Oh good! It must be soon, Eon, the Noma..."
"The day after tomorrow, Bridget. I figured it out. There will be enough cred left over to buy passage to one of the work worlds, maybe a farm world. I was a strong man physically..."
"You still are, my sweet."
"And I was intelligent."
"You still are, my love."
"I don't want to live without you, Bridget." It was from the heart. He ached with every word.
She regarded him with dark, thoughtful eyes. "Eon, I want you to take me from here, away from the Nomas. But you will meet a, well, a woman one day..."
"You are a woman, Bridget."
"You are sweet. A real woman, darling, and you'll want to have children with her. Will you promise me—?"
"Yes?"
"—That you'll let me go then? Find me a nice new owner?"
"Don't talk like that! You are a part of me, like my heart."
"Hush now, get your sleep. I love you, Eon. There, there, I know, you don't have to say it, I see it in your sweet eyes. Rest now, and I'll sing to you. A lullaby. A love song. From the long ago Earth."
The sled rushed close in a welter of dust and steam. "I will be watching you closely, Maggner Eon."
"No need," he said. "Today is my last day. I am cashing my way out of here."
The supervisor's face dulled with incomprehension. "But no maggner has ever quit." Nothing like it had ever happened, and this ghost of a man looked befuddled. For a moment he was fatherly as he cried in a reedy voice: "We have no life left, no spirit in our souls, oh dear, what will you do my boy?"
Eon laughed kindly. "Poor old fellow. Don't worry about me. I'm physically strong, and I am smart, and I have more spirit than you or anyone else around here knows about. Watch me, I'm going to work hard like ten maggners so there'll be no excuse to withhold my last pay period." He muscled the l!ght beams about—a man filled with joy. The Bridge must have functioned a trifle better that day though none of the galaxy's traveling souls might guess why.
Then, suddenly, for the first time ever during working hours, the icon: "Eon! Help me!"
"Bridget!" He dropped the coil.
"Maggner Eon, you must pay attention to your work!"
He ran across the shiny floors, dodging the l!ght beams, hopping over shimmering power puddles. "Bridget! I'm coming."
The icon: "Darling..." There was a tear under each eye. "My darling. It's too late."
"Nooo!" he cried, running along the daytime streets thronged with citizens resentful as he in maggner's overalls shoved them out of his way.
The icon: "Too late, Eon. Get out of here, save yourself. The Noma is beginning her song."
Eon heard a high-pitched keening, filled with evil and dripping glee. "Keep talking, Bridget, I'll be there in a few minutes."
The icon (breaking up, wavering, staticky): "I love you, Eon, remember me always, my darling." The icon, sentence chopped off and eyes wide open in terminal surprise, winked out.
He cried: "I'm running as fast as I can!"
He felt the silence and her absence hit him like a blow deep in his soul.
A terrible dread was in his gut, cramping him up, making him stagger. It was exactly the feeling when he'd lost Lana and Lanalana. Not again, Please, not again!
People milled outside the store window when he arrived panting and choking. People pointed through the broken window, toward the blackened corner where the burned ruin of the cherry-wood harp stood. The Noma stood unscathed in the other corner, in silent pride.
A young girl, a store clerk, stepped back holding a depleted foamer. "The damn thing just blew up," she was saying, "started belching smoke, burst into flames."
Eon hurried inside the store. "Nooo..." he cried helplessly, leaning over the ledge behind the window display. Bridget's harp was fried. Its brain box was gutted. Its strings lay shriveled, blackened. The icon in his head was gone. He felt the emptiness again, that dreadful loneliness of the soul. And cried. Cried as he had not cried since that day on the lake.
|
Thank you for reading. If you love it, tell your friends. Please post a favorable review at Amazon, Good Reads, and other online resources. If you want to thank the author, you may also buy a copy for the low price of a cup of coffee. It's called Read-a-Latte: similar (or lower) price as a latte at your favorite coffeeshop, but the book lasts forever while the beverage is quickly gone. Thank you (JTC).
|
TOP
|
MAIN
Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
|
