literature

The Mere Tide P17

Deviation Actions

bluewpc's avatar
By
Published:
65 Views

Literature Text

Outside the storehouse she stopped to check a pictographical receipt. The house needs in ink depicted various staples and meats. She squinted at it a minute to commit it to memory then pocketed it and parted the esik and went inside.  

An ornery quartermaster tabulating winter stocks marked reproachfully her entrance.

Сіз бұл жерде жол берілмейді, he said.

Hello, she said.

The room was full. She turned down an aisle of bins overflowing with goods. She picked out canned tins on the basis of their labels and when she had a stack brought them to the counter and went back to gather other things. The quartermaster took the stack and made to restock the tins.

Hey.

No.

Esent no steal. Деньги.

Деньги.

Let it pay. Node need on fightin over it.

She showed him the money. The quartermaster brought her groceries back to the counter. She shopped on. Going counter to aisle and back again. She paused before a spitted hogget.

Gotta meaty her bones shes twig sprite, she told the quartermaster.  

She hefted the leg, vertical spit and all, and brought it to the counter.

Whats yer tally?

The quartermaster rung up her purchases. He told her.

She fetched out of her clothes crumpled wads of dollars, rubles, hyrvnia. A handful of gold, another of silver, sufficient funds to turn traitor anyone.

Whoever pricey stost, she said.

At the den Holnifa trimmed the roots about their entrance and the face of it freshly planed. Her brother had supplied them with a heavy curtain for a door and it hung suspended between two nails.

Is lookin pretty nice, said Dachni.  

Is pretty nice.

Got some rice.

Ok.

Theys some ice.

Ok.

Ye got lice.

Dachy.

Dachni laughed. Got ye chocolate too. Youll like it ifn ye aint had it afore.

She stooped to go inside but a calamity of child erupted before her.

Whuh?

Holnifa pointed at her boots.

She looked at them. Chocked with mud. Wholly encased.

What about em?

Holnifa rolled her eyes in a high exasperated sigh and took her bags and put them inside and knelt at Dachni's feet and undid the laces of her boots and pulled them off and clapped them together in cloddy explosions of mud.

Сізді тазалаңыз.

She set the boots aside and turned Dachni around by the hips and steered her inside and about the room and positioned her on a cushion purloined from her mother's.

A samovar warmed itself and as it began to whistle Holnifa turned off the heat. There were two china cups with a silver tea bell in each and she poured them full in her elegant manner of propriety and they sat together sipping in their peace and she turned and kissed her very gingerly.

Mooching her friend that night Dachni thought she tasted very good and she thought about that and then she rolled away.

Holnifa sat up. Is there wrong?

Dachni pulled on her shirt. Wont be no long, she said.

Көп ұзамай қайтып келіп.

She climbed out through the shanyrak and walked along the stream under a moon like a wicked minx eye. An oystercatcher called. Pipits. Diurnal creatures all. The willows were of a strain that could bear sub zero climates and they were entering full bloom. As with most things she held that the greater sin was not to disbelieve in god but that god should quit belief and the pilot of a night would articulate her thoughts well saying that man may well abdicate the management of the seasons yet what dark age would reign if the gods lost faith? The wind that drove the reefs of overcast did stir the catkins. And does cold precede the creeping death? No. The firstborn would not have heard. Likewise the first stars dead in the void. A man is in a moment either good or evil. Lapsed to one or the other and there is no means by which to swing back the pendulum. And knowing that evil can be got to by the least of ways she gave thanks to the simplifying fact that life was not so long any man be provided two chances.

Serenading of a morning Holnifa turned them towards a whalebone kerege half sunk into the ground. She rapped upon it and the structure elicited a hollow sound unworldly. The esik pulled back and the wizened face of the shaman regarded them.

Holnifa performed a slight bow, pulling Dachni down with her.

Сәлем. көмектескеніңз үшін рақмет

Whatre sayin?

You be thank you.

Oh. Aye hank ye thieves.

The shaman smiled demurely.  

Holnifa squinted at the moonish shining of the sun peeling back the darker shades of the departed night. She cupped her sleeve where it folded over her stump and she tugged at Dachni's shirt to show the meagerness of it and she asked had he anything to better clothe her. The shaman played the hem of her shirt between his fingers.

He nodded. Ол суық үшін киінген емес, he said.

What?

Holnifa squeezed her. Суық оған алаңдатпай емес.

The shaman held up a finger for them to wait and withdrew into his yurt. When he came out again he carried two looms and two chairs and he paired them together and bid them sit. He passed out balls of cotton yarn and he tied an end to the beam of a weaving frame and warped it and undid this work. Holnifa followed his example, a tongue stuck out the corner of her mouth and Dachni smiling followed not at all.

Work woman, commanded Holnifa.

Dachni laughed. Yes yes yes.

They warped the frames and the shaman provided shuttles made of mirrors with which they woofed them under his supervision. It was hard work and errors abounded but performing to their capability loomed and their shuttles shot back and forth and would betimes pass in parallel in a moment of infinite reduction as occurs between two ineffabilities.

They managed shawls. They dashed about with them as capes ridiculous as comicbook superheroes and the day was perfect in its way.
© 2017 - 2024 bluewpc
Comments0
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In