The Shop, continued
Dec. 6th, 2008 01:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerIt was pure luck that I heard the news that Sunday, and even then I didn't connect it with anything. It was Liliana's turn to be in, so I was preparing for my usual intensive day of slobbing around and thinking about tidying up a bit, and I discovered I was out of oven chips (potato-based products were something else the shop didn't supply, Sir Walter Raleigh not having turned up in the game world yet). This meant a trip to the mall. I could have bought actual potatoes from a local farm, if I had been free between nine and eleven-thirty on the fourth Friday of the previous month when the farmers' market happened, but strangely enough I wasn't, so I had to make do with processed muck. On the upside, I didn't have to peel and chop oven chips.
The radio was on in the Currys next to the supermarket, and something about Saudi Arabia nagged at my memory for a moment and then went away again. I was just heading for the escalators when someone grabbed my arm. It was Nick.
"Glad I caught you, boyo," he said. "We need you. Liliana's not in."
"But but but," I said, waving the bag of frozen oven chips feebly.
"You can put them in the fridge inside," Nick said, towing me back towards the shop.
"What's happened to Liliana?"
"I dunno, something about a family crisis. Come on, will you?"
I had really been looking forward to this day off. As ever, though, I couldn't manage to build up a really good head of resentment. Liliana had problems of her own, and if I had a crisis I'd want to be able to take the time to deal with it. I resigned myself, and let Nick drag me into the back office. He stuffed my oven chips into a plain carrier and promised to put them in the "really cold bit" of the fridge, and I booted up the computer.
The map that came up was smaller than normal, with only eight territories on it. My home patch was also small, but reasonably provided with the necessities. The other seven territories were shrouded in the fog.
"As I was telling you, Sire," the hermit said, "I believe the strange crystal that powers these ancient machines was once mined somewhere in this region. If we can locate the old mines, we may find some deposits remaining that we can use to repair the machines."
I couldn't think of anything I would be less keen to do, but I didn't say anything. Well, I couldn't.
"It would greatly assist my study of this forgotten science if you would lend your strength to my researches," the old fool went on, and my knight promptly pledged his assistance and that of his men. Obviously, the goal was to explore the remaining territories, claim them, and let the hermit see if there were any of these crystal deposits lying around. Equally obviously, there would be, and probably in the last place I looked.
It was as I was sending the knight into the first of the territories, and finding there a large and enthusiastic collection of bandits, that the connection hit me. At first I thought I must be misremembering. Then I thought that even if I was right, she couldn't possibly know yet. Then I noticed that the knight had teleported back to the castle, and put the unpleasant speculations out of my mind.
When lunch time arrived, with two territories claimed (and found free of crystal) and my settlement growing nicely, I went to a public phone and called her. It rang for a long time, but eventually there was a click and a voice said "Hello?"
"Are you all right?" I said, which was a stupid thing to say, but then so would anything else have been.
"I don't really know," she said. "Not yet."
"Are you sure it's--"
"He was actually on the phone to me when it happened," she said. "He was arranging for me to pick him up from--" She stopped, and I heard her breathing, hard and deep, fighting not to break up. "I heard the--the thing go off," she said. "It was right next to him, and then the phone went dead. I'm--I'm actually waiting for a call back from the--the place, you know."
"Oh. So I should get off the line."
"If you don't mind. Um..." She paused again, and I could almost feel her on the other end, trying to find a smile. "Thank you for calling. I'll be okay. Just give me a few days."
"If you need me, just let me know," I said. "Take care."
On the way back to the shop I tried to remember what she had told me about Roger. Practically nothing. I had imagined him as big and sandy-haired and smiling, a successful man, a husband and father doing an important job and pulling down a decent wage, a scathing reminder of everything that I hadn't achieved in my life. Now he was, possibly, not there any more. Like a soldier going up against bandits in the game world, his little blue ghost had floated off the top of the screen and there was nothing left. Only you couldn't click on a building and turn out Rogers on demand.
I wondered what it was like to be on the phone to someone as they were dying. My parents had both died two hundred miles away, and my brother had made it down to the bedside both times, and I hadn't been able to, or hadn't tried hard enough. I still wasn't sure about which it was. I couldn't imagine how Liliana would be feeling. All of a sudden the shop and the game seemed futile, trivial diversions from the ultimate reality, the one inescapable fate.
Well, futile or not, there was still this mission to get through. It was obviously a breather, a slackening of the tension after the last two. No major adversaries, no big threats. No distraction from the increasingly morbid tenor of my thoughts. I went through it almost on autopilot, exploring, building outposts, fighting the bandits and the occasional prides of lions or solitary bears. No terrorist bombs. She'd wanted to go and live in the game world. If she'd taken Roger there, he might still be alive now. If that was being alive.
The crystal deposits turned up, as expected, in the last territory to be cleared, and the hermit went into ecstasies of scientific curiosity, tapping the glittering outcrops with his little hammer, dancing for joy. Victory duly happened, and so did four o'clock, and I automatically gathered my things together and went home. I hesitated by the public phone for a moment, but the moment passed, and I went on my way.
The flat was cold, and I put the heater on and sat in front of it for a while, thinking.
At about half past eleven I woke up, stiff and aching. I took off my coat and shoes, made myself some instant chocolate and drank it, trying to ignore the grittiness. Cocoa beans. We had to get some cocoa beans into the game world. Gradually I began to feel better, and I made myself a sandwich, only remembering at that point my oven chips still in the fridge at the shop.
Oh well. Maybe one of the twilight staff would find them and wonder what they were.
The radio was on in the Currys next to the supermarket, and something about Saudi Arabia nagged at my memory for a moment and then went away again. I was just heading for the escalators when someone grabbed my arm. It was Nick.
"Glad I caught you, boyo," he said. "We need you. Liliana's not in."
"But but but," I said, waving the bag of frozen oven chips feebly.
"You can put them in the fridge inside," Nick said, towing me back towards the shop.
"What's happened to Liliana?"
"I dunno, something about a family crisis. Come on, will you?"
I had really been looking forward to this day off. As ever, though, I couldn't manage to build up a really good head of resentment. Liliana had problems of her own, and if I had a crisis I'd want to be able to take the time to deal with it. I resigned myself, and let Nick drag me into the back office. He stuffed my oven chips into a plain carrier and promised to put them in the "really cold bit" of the fridge, and I booted up the computer.
The map that came up was smaller than normal, with only eight territories on it. My home patch was also small, but reasonably provided with the necessities. The other seven territories were shrouded in the fog.
"As I was telling you, Sire," the hermit said, "I believe the strange crystal that powers these ancient machines was once mined somewhere in this region. If we can locate the old mines, we may find some deposits remaining that we can use to repair the machines."
I couldn't think of anything I would be less keen to do, but I didn't say anything. Well, I couldn't.
"It would greatly assist my study of this forgotten science if you would lend your strength to my researches," the old fool went on, and my knight promptly pledged his assistance and that of his men. Obviously, the goal was to explore the remaining territories, claim them, and let the hermit see if there were any of these crystal deposits lying around. Equally obviously, there would be, and probably in the last place I looked.
It was as I was sending the knight into the first of the territories, and finding there a large and enthusiastic collection of bandits, that the connection hit me. At first I thought I must be misremembering. Then I thought that even if I was right, she couldn't possibly know yet. Then I noticed that the knight had teleported back to the castle, and put the unpleasant speculations out of my mind.
When lunch time arrived, with two territories claimed (and found free of crystal) and my settlement growing nicely, I went to a public phone and called her. It rang for a long time, but eventually there was a click and a voice said "Hello?"
"Are you all right?" I said, which was a stupid thing to say, but then so would anything else have been.
"I don't really know," she said. "Not yet."
"Are you sure it's--"
"He was actually on the phone to me when it happened," she said. "He was arranging for me to pick him up from--" She stopped, and I heard her breathing, hard and deep, fighting not to break up. "I heard the--the thing go off," she said. "It was right next to him, and then the phone went dead. I'm--I'm actually waiting for a call back from the--the place, you know."
"Oh. So I should get off the line."
"If you don't mind. Um..." She paused again, and I could almost feel her on the other end, trying to find a smile. "Thank you for calling. I'll be okay. Just give me a few days."
"If you need me, just let me know," I said. "Take care."
On the way back to the shop I tried to remember what she had told me about Roger. Practically nothing. I had imagined him as big and sandy-haired and smiling, a successful man, a husband and father doing an important job and pulling down a decent wage, a scathing reminder of everything that I hadn't achieved in my life. Now he was, possibly, not there any more. Like a soldier going up against bandits in the game world, his little blue ghost had floated off the top of the screen and there was nothing left. Only you couldn't click on a building and turn out Rogers on demand.
I wondered what it was like to be on the phone to someone as they were dying. My parents had both died two hundred miles away, and my brother had made it down to the bedside both times, and I hadn't been able to, or hadn't tried hard enough. I still wasn't sure about which it was. I couldn't imagine how Liliana would be feeling. All of a sudden the shop and the game seemed futile, trivial diversions from the ultimate reality, the one inescapable fate.
Well, futile or not, there was still this mission to get through. It was obviously a breather, a slackening of the tension after the last two. No major adversaries, no big threats. No distraction from the increasingly morbid tenor of my thoughts. I went through it almost on autopilot, exploring, building outposts, fighting the bandits and the occasional prides of lions or solitary bears. No terrorist bombs. She'd wanted to go and live in the game world. If she'd taken Roger there, he might still be alive now. If that was being alive.
The crystal deposits turned up, as expected, in the last territory to be cleared, and the hermit went into ecstasies of scientific curiosity, tapping the glittering outcrops with his little hammer, dancing for joy. Victory duly happened, and so did four o'clock, and I automatically gathered my things together and went home. I hesitated by the public phone for a moment, but the moment passed, and I went on my way.
The flat was cold, and I put the heater on and sat in front of it for a while, thinking.
At about half past eleven I woke up, stiff and aching. I took off my coat and shoes, made myself some instant chocolate and drank it, trying to ignore the grittiness. Cocoa beans. We had to get some cocoa beans into the game world. Gradually I began to feel better, and I made myself a sandwich, only remembering at that point my oven chips still in the fridge at the shop.
Oh well. Maybe one of the twilight staff would find them and wonder what they were.
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 05:00 am (UTC)