An Elegant Gesture

The cold wind battered the fortune teller’s wagon, threatening an early frost. Two girls climbed down, shivering and giggling.

As they rushed off through the red and orange leaves, a bent little man in tattered, dark layers emerged from the shadows of the gnarled oaks. His overgrown, bushy eyebrows were twisted black and white bristles, and stiff white hair curled from his ears. As the girls recoiled, he put one crooked finger to his lips. “Shh! No screamin’ please. No yellin’. No need, an’ it hurts ol’ Tom’s ears. Wha’d the ol’ witch say, eh? Wha’d she tell you? She say which way you’re goin’, or did she fill your ears with drivel about boys and babies and your ever-bright future?”

Her attention riveted on the little man, Melinda, the older girl, gathered her shawl more tightly about her. He can’t be more than three feet tall, she thought. Must’a been caught in the cleansin’. She put one hand to her side, felt for her sister and moved the younger girl safely behind her while still eyeing the little man. And drunk, I’d wager... and at least a gazillion years old. “I don’t wanna hurt you mister, but I need you to stand aside an’ let us pass. Ain’t none a’your business what she said an’ we got errands to run.”

A grin burst across Tom’s face. “Hurt me? You? You’re no threat to me, girly girl.” He laughed. “An’ you got errands to run! Like almost everyone on this great big ball a’wax, you got errands to run! Too busy to trifle with trouble an’ rumors of trouble an’ troublin’ things. Nah, you’re no threat.” He laughed again and, with amazing agility that belied his appearance, began to dance in a little circle. “Errands to run! Errands to run! Boys to chase and husbands for fun! Babies to have and wars to run! Bombs to build, and then you’re done! Bombs an’ planes an’ tanks an’ guns—errands to run an’ we’re all done!”

As he danced, he noticed the girls were edging cautiously back toward the wagon. He twisted to a stop. “Whew! Takes it right out of a fella! Ah, well, a guy’s gotta have a little fun, eh, even in these times. Where you goin’, girly girls? You’ve nothin’ to fear from ol’ Tom. Errands to run, indeed! Errands to run, and you’re just the two silly girls to run ‘em.” He pointed his finger at them again. “The cleansin’ missed you, didn’t it? Put the notion in your mind that errands and other normal things are still possible. Errands to run!”

“Now see here, mister, there ain’t no reason to—”

He laughed again, then took a handkerchief from his hip pocket. He removed his hat and mopped his brow before putting his hat back on. “Yeah, well... that’s the way of things, ain’t it? Ain’t no reason for nothin’. The whole world’s busy with errands to run. Nothin’s nobody’s business no more an’ nobody pays no attention to nothin’ ‘til it’s too late to do anything except blame everyone else for runnin’ their own errands an’ doin’ exactly the same thing you’re doin’.” He shook his head. “Ain’t my business, you say. There ain’t no business no more, you silly girls, or no livin’ neither, and you don’t even know it. You got errands to run! You don’t even know which way you’re goin’. You don’t know that, you don’t know nothin’.”

The younger girl peeked around her sister. “Well, maybe we do know! Maybe we know just as much as you!”

Melinda frowned. “Hush, Lucinda.” She reached behind herself to hold her sister in place, then looked at the man. “Look, mister, we know which way we’re goin’, but there’s no reason to tell you. And frankly, I find your interest a little disconcerting.”

“Int’rest? I ain’t int’rested, Missy. Not in you. I’m only int’rested in them you’re gonna talk to later this same day. Them few that’s got the sense to watch the sky and feel the ground and sense the air for changes in pressure an’ high-pitched whistlin’ screams. Them as know what cordite smells like an’ the meanin’ of the taste of copper when there ain’t no pennies about. Them as ain’t too busy runnin’ errands an’ chasin’ after witches’ dreams to help save their fellow creatures.” He wagged a hand in the air. “But it don’t matter none. You two go on, you silly girls. You got errands to run, boys to chase, babies to have, bombs an’ tanks an’ planes an’ guns to build. Hey, you got a whole civilization to destroy, an’ I’m here t’say y’ain’t got much time to be about it, so you’d best get on your way.”

Melinda said, “You know so much, why are you worried about the witch? An’ she ain’t a witch anyhow—she’s a fortune teller—but why are you worried about her?”

“I ain’t worried about nothin’, Missy. But you’re wrong. She in that wagon is a witch. She let you see past the black curtain? Of course she didn’t. I’ll wager there’s a control plate behind that curtain, an’ it runs on the ‘lectric. An’ it—”

Melinda smiled. “Ha! That’s a lie! There ain’t no ‘lectric, mister. Ain’t been since the old days, some say, an’ I say never was. It’s all a memory of somethin’ that couldn’t be an’ never was. See? An’ that’s the way of it.”

He put up both hands. “Oh, I’m sure knowin’ there ain’t no ‘lectric is part of your knowin’. Only there was an’ there is, right there in that wagon. An’ there’s a picture screen on that control plate too. Lots of people had picture screens before the last war. You think none of ‘em survived the cleansin’? After all, you did.”

A short, odd squeal came from the direction of the wagon. It changed, the pitch higher for a brief moment, then lower. Then it fell silent.

The little man grinned and pointed past the girls. “Hear that? That sound like anything you heard before? It ain’t. That’s the ‘lectric.”

Something nudged aside something else in Melinda’s mind. Something atrophied flexed a bit, then a bit more. The edge of a worry crept in, and a thought broke loose. “I... look, mister, I know....”

He looked at her closely, waiting, then wagged a hand in the air. “Ah, you don’t know nothin’.” He turned away as if to go back into the woods. “You don’t wanna know nothin’. You got errands to run.”

“Wait! What’s so— I mean, why? I mean, so what if she has a picture screen thing in there?”

He stopped and turned around. “Ah, a flicker of life! Sure you wanna know? Might innerupt your errands.”

Lucinda stepped around her sister, but remained close to her side. “I wanna know, mister.”

Melinda took a deep breath. She nodded. “I... we wanna know.”

Tom nodded and gestured the girls to come closer. When they were near, he said, “There’s maps on that picture screen, maps for the whole world. This witch an’ others—her kin—they clear us out—us that lived through the cleansin’—an’ then they got the whole place. Most of the weapons was used up in the war, but not all. They’re gonna use the last few big ones on us: some’ll go up in a nuclear blast; other’s’ll die gaspin’ for breath, their lungs full of gas; some’ll get eat by little bugs, bugs so little you can barely see ‘em even with a microscope; an’ some—”

Melinda frowned. “A what?”

“A microscope... a little tube. It’s got real little glass in it but it makes little tiny things look real big so’s you can see ‘em. Anyhow, me an’ mine, we’re doin’ a tellin’. Figure out which way you’re goin’—bugs, chemicals or nuked—an’ we can stop ‘em. We can stop ‘em cold.”

Behind the girls, the rusted hinges on the wagon door creaked. Tom’s eyes grew wide. “We can stop ‘em, but there ain’t a lot of time.” He shook his head, then swayed a bit, seeming to lose his balance.

Melinda put her hand on his shoulder as if to steady him. Her voice was calm and quiet. “Tell me, mister... tell me how we stop ‘em.” When he didn’t speak, she moved her hand to the side of his neck and face. She bent and looked closely at him. “Mister? Tell me what you know... tell me how we stop ‘em.”

He shook his head lightly. “Gotta... gotta hurry... an’ I forgot there’s....” He swayed again.

Melinda released him and stepped back.

Lucinda moved to the right, watching him carefully.

Tom staggered. “There’s... one other way.”

Lucinda said, “What way, mister?”

He looked in her direction, but she slipped out of focus. He turned back to Melinda. “There’s nukes an’ gas... an’ bugs an’... the pla....” The word was lost in a gurgling sound.

Melinda shook her head lightly. She leaned toward him, the corner of her mouth slightly curled. “Play? Place?”

He staggered back, slapped his hands to his throat, trying to push the words out. “Pla—” he said, and collapsed.

From behind the girls, someone said, “The word he was looking for is plague. And that, my dears, is which way he’s going.”

The girls spun around, their eyes wide.

A woman was approaching, her hand raised in an elegant gesture as she continued to glare at the figure on the ground.

A spasm shuddered through him head to toe. He stopped clawing at his throat and his fingers curled into fists, clutched tightly at his chest. He spasmed again, then retched violently, the force bending him almost double. He vomited, the vile green and yellow stuff mixing with the rotting leaves and twigs on the forest floor. He strained a final time to raise his head, bits of vomit and detritus stuck to his cheek. Then he twitched hard and was still.

Melinda looked at the woman, then raised her hand in an attempt to mimic the elegance of the gesture. “Mother, will you teach us that one?”

* * * * * * *