Waking up early wasn’t a common event for Fritz’ adult life. It was more of a habit that he had as a child, but not from the normal exuberances of youth. Far too many mornings, just as the sun was lacing up his boots for the daily shift, Young Fritz awoke feeling ill and drained from a feverish sleep. Barring the rare few weeks he felt well he spent most days reading or dozing off to the television when a book became too exhausting.
Every time he was overwhelmed by influenza or even the most mild of pestilence it would happen in the same way. He would awake - much like he did today - at an early hour with a terrible scratchy sensation at the very back of his throat. Just like every time he would wake up and try to fool himself that he perhaps slept with his mouth open the night previous and that a gulp of water would make him feel more regular. Invariably, a few mouthfuls of water would complete the illusion he was succeeding in selling himself and the feeling would go away… but only just
After he finished off the last of the water he collected then stowed the wine bottles back in his satchel. Before he had descended back to his room he found a rather clean red bucket in that utility closet which he left on the roof to collect a bit of water the night previous. It wasn’t enough to be confident in, but it was more than he had before. Fritz, however, had a growing feeling of foolishness eating at him. He was still obsessing over water, which was a given in his situation, but it rained nearly every day. Did he really need to worry about purifying and hording?
In the end he decided it couldn’t hurt. It was something to keep his mind on and with plenty of water he thought he could probably heat himself a bath or a shower at some point, somehow. That would be luxurious, indeed.
It seemed that Fritz had woken up at dawn, the sunlight just starting to increase in intensity. The Chemist took the opportunity to sit on the front steps, appreciating the cool air and listening to the morning fowl whistle and call. He wondered a bit where Sage went off to, somewhat surprised when he couldn’t find her in the building when he checked. Another bizarre behavior he would have to figure out, no doubt. Yesterday, there wasn’t an apparent problem that she had with sleeping in a building. Maybe that was just stress? She was rather engrossed in her writing; practicing and such after the fact.
In the end, there wasn’t too much time for him to ponder; a figure appeared a little ways down the road that Fritz recognized as Sage. When she noticed him her relaxed walk turned into a light jog, the her bare feet hardly making a sound on the cobblestone road. He couldn’t help but wince slightly when he noticed. It was fortunate it wasn’t pavement like in the city and the road on the way to this town, but, he couldn’t imagine the damage to his feet if he were to go barefoot.
He took a look at his foot-ware and realized that while his shoe was fine, the rubber of the sandal was starting to come away in small chunks. It wasn’t lasting as long as he would have thought; perhaps that was too much faith to put in a slab of rubber. He would have to make time to find or potentially make for himself a better pair of shoes, preferably the former.
As Sage slowed down and gave a joyful wave Fritz stood and greeted her as well: “Good Morning, Sage.”
“Mor-nin’ Fitz.”
“Yes, a rather early one. Do you usually wake up around this time?”
She nodded and pointed at one of the decorative trees across the road, a pair of birds bounding and hopping amongst the branches. “They let me know. Wake up with them. Why’s Fitz voice so… odd?”
“Ohh, I just woke up with a sore-throat today. It will go away in a bit.” He said, pensively massaging his neck before shifting the conversation to something else: “Do you mind showing me where your people were gathering fruit in the forest? I’d like to pick more fruits and look around the area.”
She was quiet for a moment, apparently deep in thought and Fritz thought that perhaps he had offended her or asked something that was taboo. Then she nodded and showed off her warm smile, disarming his worries: “I show Fitz!”
In her typical fashion, she skipped away towards the forest by a couple of paces before turning to watch him follow. The Chemist couldn’t help but smile to himself, remembering this odd kind of dance from a couple days prior. Surely the novelty of his appearance would wear off on her soon, but, he wasn’t quite confident that it would.
During his casual tour of the country side he took the time to appreciate the views, compared to his exhausted entrance to the dense hamlet. The rolling hills and neglected farmland was almost breathtaking in the dawning light. There was a cool thickness in the air and the tall grasses had fat dew-drops weighing them down before the sun had time to dry the earth. It was a peaceful and pleasant start to the day, a blessed sensation of content drawing a tuneless whistle from his lips. He couldn’t recall the last time he whistled.
Sage took almost immediate notice of this, pausing for a couple of moments whilst her ears flicked a couple of times in his direction. As she came trotting up to him, a puzzled expression on her face, she asked: “Whats Fitz doing? Making… that sound.”
“Oh? I was just whistling. Do the other people you live with not whistle?”
She shook her head a couple of times: “No… wistel… like the… the… Keh-tall?”
“Well… kind of.” He said, feeling a bit dazzled by this Fox Woman’s curiosity. It was such a simple question, but it had a difficult answer. He wasn’t a physicist, being able to explain exactly how a kettle whistle would require too much speculation than he was comfortable with. Perhaps he could accept the speculation for himself, but, he couldn’t do that for a student. She deserves a more thorough answer than he could give; currently, at least.
“You remember how the kettle whistled when the water in it started to boil? Well, steam caused that. I whistle by just blowing air.”
“Ooohh.” Sage interjected: “Steam? Air?”
Fritz nodded to himself; impressed that she was asking about the states of matter, even if she didn’t realize it. He remembered his own introduction to physics which, quite as a matter of course, lead to his introduction to his chemistry career. So, he launched into a light lecture, essentially an introduction to physics and the mechanics of the natural world. She seemed to understand the words that he was telling her, but, he wasn’t sure that she had practical knowledge she could link it too. As they were walking, Fritz pulled out and started jotting down a few notes, answering questions as they came.
“Day Five/Friday: I told Sage about the states of matter today. She seems pretty interested, but, with all the questions she’s been asking it doesn’t seem like she knows the implications of what I’ve been telling her. I had the thought that I should come up with some simple physics experiments to help her with that. Perhaps after she has a better grasp of reading and writing. I could also fold that in with basic arithmetic by using measurement units. Sage asked me about density in so many words, so, I’ll use that as well.
I wonder if this is how teachers would come up with lessons to teach?
At any rate, the forest seems to be a group of orchards that have become overgrown. There is a sharp division in the trees with each type of fruit. I’ve seen oranges, which explains where Sage got them from. There seems to be different patches of trees every so often, mostly citrus fruits. Between each orchard there’s regular forest or what was once a field. Maybe crops, maybe just grass - it’s indistinguishable at this point - another couple decades it’ll be more forest.
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I don’t think I’ll tire of fruit. If I find some jars, I should be able to make preserves. Sugar might be an issue for those, maybe I can extract it from some other fruits. With all the agriculture perhaps there’s some sugar beets around; I will have to ask Sage if she’s seen any sometime. I should also look for salt, most of what I’ll find should be iodized. That will be important for my diet, I need to stock up on a lot of necessities like that. Might need to make my own supplements if I don’t find something vital. I should, theoretically, be able to cook up something.
I wish I had Mom’s foraging guides and apothecary books; there has to be plenty of wild plants I could use in this overgrown world. They may not know the names of fruits and vegetables, but, I’m sure if I describe something to Sage or her people at least one of them will know what I’m talking about. That is if they are as friendly as Sage is.
So far it’s been a cool morning, lots of dew, very humid in spite of the lower temperatures.”
The writing about produce and food had actually started to make him feel a bit peckish; not to mention the succulent smell of fruit in the air. Fritz stuffed stylus and paper back into his bag, but, before he saddled over the low stone wall he noticed an odd patch in the trees. It was a part of the orchard but… all the trees looked stunted and there was a thicker amount of underbrush. Some of the trees were dead but still standing, the odd clump of sickly leaves clinging to the ashy branches. Arboriculture wasn’t a skill he had under his proverbial hat. To him, anything could have ruined such a crop.
“Sage, could you tell me what kind of fruit those trees had?”
“Ahhh…” She sighed out, looking at the blighted trees and recalling that sweet fruit that had stop falling long ago: “Small, deep red… round, sweet fruit. Tough skin, soft inside.”
Fritz nodded to himself, before simply saying: “Ah, Plum trees, maybe.” Sage did have a language for the physical world, which was an interesting trait that she had. It was a basic language, based purely on attributes of an object rather than it’s name, which didn’t seem to exist in any measure. It was a theory of some sort.
“Why no more plums? Tree… went yellow, then; no more plums.”
“I’m not exactly sure. The trees got sick, but, I don’t know why they got sick. Maybe they weren’t getting enough nutrition or a disease killed them.”
“Sick? Nu-ition? Disease?”
“Sick happens from a disease. Disease will… make you feel like you don’t want to move or that you are weak. It will also make you cough or sneeze. If you get really sick you feel… heavy, like the air itself is crushing you and it’s hard to have the energy to eat. All you can do is sleep until you feel better, at times.”
He wasn’t a nutritionist either, but, he did understand how the body processes food. He immediately thought of cellular respiration and the metabolic process, but he paused for a long while before he thought up a way to explain it: “Nutrition is the stuff your body needs from food. Trees live just like we do, but in a different way; their food comes from the ground and the air. They turn this food into fruits and seeds so more trees can grow elsewhere.”
Sage kept walking in pace with Fritz, but she slowed down before pointing at the trees: “They are… like me? How?”
The Chemist grimaced and had to pull an excuse: “Well… you’ll understand it eventually. Once I’m able to teach you more, it will make more sense.”
The Fox Woman grew quiet and didn’t seem to want to ask any more questions, instead she looked out into the undergrowth and walked along at their relaxed pace. The morning melodies of the countryside were calming and Fritz felt a relaxing nostalgia once again bolster his spirits. The sound of dew dropping from the vegetation was in a low rumble while the morning birds were chattering and singing with the occasional coo from the somber doves; it was something he often enjoyed from the open window by his bed on his better, formative days.
Unfortunately the moment was shattered when Sage stopped mid-stride, eyes locked onto something in the distance before she took off in a flash. Compared to her meandering from before this was an explosion of movement as she jumped, vaulted over the wall and sprinted off into the underbrush. He went to call after her, but stopped when he saw a small brown shape kicking up dirt and litter as it escaped.
There wasn’t much he could do, he realized as he looked over the wall. She was swift in this terrain, ducking and weaving around trees and branches while crashing through or vaulting over patches of brush. Whether she caught the animal or if it got away she would have to come back to where he was, after all. So, Fritz crawled over the wall and went to the closest fruit tree he could see. This one was a rather nice, red apple tree, the fruits just recently starting to fall to the ground. It was kind of odd to him, however; he’d always taken apples for a fruit that preferred the more mild climates. Much more mild than the subtropical climate where it rained all the time that these seemed to cope just fine in.
By the time Sage had returned, the satchel bag was half full of the plump, round fruits and he was biting chunks out of one that turned out to be particularly crisp and delicious. The huntresses’ chase had been equally fruitful, as she had brought back a rather large rodent-like animal; the throat of the creature torn out and it’s eyes locked in terror as it was dispatched by a feared predator. Sage’s face was once again painted with blood and Fritz felt another shock of unease at the sight.
“What kind of animal is that?” Was all he could think to say.
“Ground Digger. Fitz… doesn’t know name?” Sage said, tilting her head in mild confusion.
“Hmm, well, no. Where I came from was a much colder place for much of the year. Some animals that you have here might not of liked where I live… used to live.” Fritz explained.
Sage wiped a hand across her mouth, smearing the blood on her wrist and face. She looked down in a bit of annoyance at the smear and then looked to Fritz in request. Digging through the apples he produced a rag for her to use, before she asked in a somewhat sorrowful tone: “Will… Fitz be going away? Sage… wonders why you… here.”
It was a complicated cocktail of emotions that ruptured from the compartment Fritz maintained in his mind and it took a few moments to sort himself out before he answered: “No. Where I’m from is far away… and… dangerous. There was… is a lot of bad things that happened to my people. I have noth-”
There was so much pain to remember those years, so visceral was every moment he had to suffer at the hands of those jackals that his chest felt as if a Atlas-ian burden had been suddenly and cursedly placed upon it. Every word was listened in on, every mistake or missed quota was turned into espionage. There were no innocents, only those that had yet to admit to something. With a long sigh and a shake of his head, he did his best to push all that he had suffered and lost out of his mind. Back into the box, back into composure.
“Listen, Sage. I do not want to talk about where I came from, but, don’t worry. I’ll be around here for quite a while.” He said, as both a boundary and an assurance before changing the subject: “So, is that animal good to eat?”
After she wiped off her face she held the large rodent aloft: “Yes! Good meat. Da ‘n mam ‘n them eat with Sage.”
Fritz shouldn’t have been surprised that Sage had a family, but now his curiosity was spurred at the mention of it. It would be very curious to see how similar this primitive family would be to the modern version. Perhaps he would be an ultimately lucky individual to see the first steps of a fledgling culture: “Oh? Do they? Do you hunt for them often?”
She nodded before hopping over the wall in a single, graceful motion: “Da ‘n mam hunt too. Mmmm… she and him do not… know how to.”
Fritz hopped along after her, the stone boundary taking some effort to haul himself over. The second half of her answer confused him, but, there wasn’t a pressing need to decipher it. He’d be able to see this family shortly, he assumed, as he followed The Fox Woman. During their trip his mind wandered to considering this woman’s odd features. Why exactly were they here? They certainly weren’t the architects of the decaying husk that was once an advanced society. Where did they come from? How did they get those animal features? With all the different animal types, how did the genes for those get passed down? Moreover, where did their language come from and why was it so patchy? Did they lose concepts or did they never develop them?
For perhaps the first time in life there was a mild throe in the back of his mind at not researching anything to do with culture or genetics. As they ambled along the orchards turned temperate forest, a wide and well-worn trail started to wind through the contours of the land and the obstacles of tree and foliage. It was a rather short cut of wood, apparently some kind of buffer strip before alternating fields of tall grasses. Beyond that field - which had once grown rye and alfalfa - there was a rather tall and wide hill that rose subtly from the countryside. The mists of early morning were fading as the sun ascended in the sky, finally kicking away from the horizon it had been slumbering under.