No Sense (anything can happen) part 12

When I woke up, Noah was gone. What dim light had poured in from the couple tiny windows was gone now, and the little house would be pitch black, if Noah hadn't left a few candles flickering; two on the hearth and two on the table. He probably hadn't been thinking of me when he left out the candles, as I had been sleeping, but I supposed he wanted to keep up appearances, make sure it looked like someone was still living here. I stretched and walked back over to the hearth. I sat on the stool and stared at the flickering flame, wondering. Wondering how I had gone from a single "mom" working in a small town coffee shop to an immuno to a disease that had killed- and was killing- most of the Earth's population, now incognito inside a tiny house that looked like something a family of slaves on a plantation might have lived in. Wondering why in the world there was a monarchy going on here, why the government officials, as I supposed was the best thing I could call them, called themselves "Great Ones" and dressed in medieval costumes. Wondering how humanity had come to a point where it thought its only means of survival were to tweak people's brains, turn them into happy little robots who could never be greedy, angry, selfish, or human. And wondering why...why my sister was gone. Why she couldn't be a survivor while my flesh rotted in the ground, dreaming of a world where she lived, and the quarantine bubble created for immunos was not full of robots, but instead rules. And my little sister. Before very long, my body felt exhausted, and I crossed the room back and fell asleep again.

The third time I woke up in the little house, the smell of warm bread reached me at the same moment my eyes registered the room around me. I blinked, adjusting to the dim light, and sat up. The smell reminded me of the bakery at the grocery store by my house, how Jen would get so excited when they announced over the intercom that fresh bread had just been taken out of the oven. I remembered buying baguettes for her and how only half of the baguette would be left by the time we got home. Sighing, I stood up and walked over to the swinging doors, pushing them open to find Noah standing behind the metal island, picking chunks of bread off of one of the two loaves in front of him. He grinned, widely, strikingly, at me, and said, "Morning, sleeping beauty." I blushed, despite my best efforts, and said, idiotically, "Is that bread?" Noah nodded, "That it is. Would you care for some?" I hadn't realized that I was starving until I saw the bread, but by this point I was fully aware, so I skirted quickly around the island and ripped a large piece of the bread off, eating it like a ravenous dog and then immediately reaching for more. Noah laughed and said, with an eyebrow raised, "Hungry?" I blushed again but stuffed more bread into my mouth anyway. The last meal I had was the feast with Delatrix, which now felt both as if it had occurred five minutes ago and five days ago. With all the sleeping I had been doing, and the lack of a clock or actually substantial windows, I wasn't sure which estimated amount of time was closer to the truth. Noah pushed the loaf I had been eating off of closer to me and I obediently finished it off as he stored the other loaf in one of the enormous fridges. "Sorry I wasn't able to get more," he said, moving back toward me, "Sneaking food is harder than you'd imagine." He stood in front of me with his body angled in toward mine, leaning on the island, and my pulse raced like a marathon runner. After a moment of silence, he squinted at me as if I was blurry and informed me, "You look very tired." I blushed bright yet again and looked at my feet, and then he added, "And yet very beautiful." He grinned at me as red overcame my cheeks a fourth time, and then asked, "How do you manage that?" I ignored the question and asked, "How did you smuggle that bread?" He smiled and turned away from me, walking toward the kitchen doors, "Just call me Clyde." I bit my lip and stared at the counter. It was so bizarre, that counter. The whole kitchen was bizarre, really. Something so elaborate in a house that was so simple. I looked up after a moment and followed Noah into the main part of the house. He was sitting in front of the furnace on one of the stools, staring at the tiny porcelain doll on the mantle. It was a little maid with an apron and braids piled on her head. I walked over to my cot- which seemed to be where I would be spending most of my time in here- and lay down, staring at the ceiling. A moment later, I heard a sort of scratching noise coming from Noah's direction and turned onto my side to find him chipping away at the wood with a pocket knife. I propped myself up on my elbow and asked, "Where'd you get that?" He glanced back at me, his light eyes illuminated by the fire behind him, and asked, "This?" I nodded, almost dropping my head with the motion. "I had it in my pocket when we left the Great House." I stood up and walked towards Noah as he turned away from me again. "What are you doing?" This time he didn't turn as he replied, "I'm carving our little mantle maid." I smiled and looked at the outline of a face on the mantle. I pulled up the other stool and watched as he etched more details onto the tiny maid's face than there actually were on the porcelain figure.

© 2011