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Over the course of many sunrises and sunsets (how many, the party did not know, could not know), the Unexpected Companions got to know their mountain. Whatever magic or science was lording over them was benevolent enough, providing them with meat on a regular occasion, which brought them together in the slaughtering, skinning, and butchering process, the blood of animals creating a kind-of mother’s milk for relationships, in the way of Melville’s milk of human kindness aboard the Pequod.
Under Blake’s leadership, the party came into regular order, and they began to prosper together. Jason took up carving, and his carvings became currency for the group, and whenever someone had a desire for this knick or that knack, a trade was struck up. “A figurine for a tangerine,” they began to call this rudimentary commerce. For example, Umezawa struck out on the mountain, usually with Jason, to find wild rose hips among the various groves above The Tight (as they called the steep bluff belt ringing the mountain). Jason, as was his habit, did very little of the chore, but gave Umezawa a few of his carvings in exchange for the labor itself. Umezawa then gave those figurines to Sano, who gave him a silk scarf she had rescued from the original wreckage. He, in turn, gave that silk scarf to Alayna as a gift, over and above his shame. Alayna promised that she forgave him in full and considered him a friend.
That scarf becomes her, Stoic. The silk gives her hair a luminescence, nay, an iridescence.
Vitamin C had value as a commodity, however, so Blake ordered that whatever Umezawa gathered should be common to the group. “In some ways we have to be communists,” he said. “In other ways, we have to reward labor. Otherwise we’ll die like the Pilgrims did, that first winter.” The Japanese teens did not know who the Pilgrims were, but they all nodded along to the authority Blake was exuding. They developed a system for weighing the rose hips, and a standardized value of “figurines for tangerines.”
They all found they had a hankering for organ meats.
Blake said, “Vitamin C in there, too, along with other nutrition you get from the ground, as opposed to muscle meat.” Therefore, that slightly urinary smell of the liver and kidneys being fried, boiled, or smoked (depending on how Jason felt the fire should be) caused their mouths to water, and the general mood of the party was elevated. “Look for fir tree leaves, the new growth from last year, if you can, and down on the ground, under heavy spruce branches, check for any wild garlic that may have survived this frigid winter.” They never found any wild garlic.
Pretty soon, Umezawa was jangling piles of figurines in his pocket.
“I’m tired of being the bank,” said Jason, after one sunrise. “I can’t keep up with this white-hot production-based economy. And even if I do, I’ll flood the economy with figurines, and then the value of Umezawa’s work will plummet. And then what will we do?”
They took a vote and decided to put a cap on the number of figurines that could be in circulation. As most things were in common anyway, and with the limited supply of resources for creative manufacturing, that arrangement worked, with some stresses when Umezawa wasn’t in the mood for buying.
“We need a smelter,” said Blake, “and then we’d be cooking with gas.”
No one knew what he meant.
The bionics were content to sit and chat with each other, sharing bizarre arcana about their particular training regimes, surgeries, and indoctrinations at the hands of the global conspiracy. While Jason and Umezawa went out daily, weather permitting, to search for vitamins and minerals, the hunting party went out with a different regularity, depending on the meat supply (they could not measure days against each other, even when they tried marking the passage of time. The very effort of developing a calendar was frustrated by an inability of any of them to remember whether they marked a day as having passed). So the hunting party was composed of Blake, Sano, Alayna, and Abe.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Abe and Alayna found commonality evasive, Alayna being a Chi-Can-Am bionic, and Abe being a Japanese high schooler in another world. So he created commonality.
One day, while they were walking together, back from the hunting party a bit, scanning the washes and saddles for signs of animal movement, Abe continued his creation. “This is a lot like The Morose Alpaca.” Alayna giggled in anticipation. “For some reason, when they draw villages and meadows, it comes across as flat, almost monochrome, just sort-of variations of brown and green. I don’t know if they’re doing it on purpose, but when they draw mountains, the colors are, like…” he searched for a word, a perfectly good English word, picking one just for Alayna. “…They’re kaleidoscopic.” He paused. She remained silent.
“Abigail and Nami move through the paths and forests along the mountainsides, where each rock has been colored different variations of gray and red; the color green is used sparingly. Instead, they use purple and violet, along with gold and silver streaks, to give the impression of living trees and grasses, in flower throughout the seasons, whether summer or autumn, in spring or in winter. And they put them in motion, not just your typical fifteen frames-per-second herky-jerky stuff without any rhyme or reason, but they turn the CGI to maximum power, I guess, and the flowers and leaves swirl around each other in a rhythm, visual music, while Abigal and Nami talk through their problems in the episode. I really like it. Abigail is never more beautiful than she is when they draw her in the mountains.”
“Mhm,” said Alayna.
“Oh, you’re not listening,” said Abe. “I’m boring you with this. I bore everyone.”
“To the contrary,” said Alayna. “The way you talk about The Morose Alpaca to me is a little different from how you talk about it to the group. You’re just managing stress when you’re with the group. Here, with me, you’re trying to tell me something.”
They walked along in silence.
Well, Stoic, time to go for broke.
“I guess I love that anime,” Abe said, “for childish reasons, mostly, but also because it carries with it the beautiful, as my music teacher would say. I think what I’m trying to say is that when I’m with you, I know that I’m carrying the beautiful.” Abe felt himself swallow reflexively. “I think you’re beautiful.”
“Beautiful…” Alayna murmured. Abe turned his head to look at her. She was staring out of the mountain, to the beyond, the ranges of hills and peaks which came to their eyes hazy in the winter light. She said, “I carry the beautiful, but you may hold it if you so wish.” She turned her body toward him. “Go ahead,” she commanded. “Kiss me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Umezawa violated you, and I vowed that I would not make the first move because it might be traumatic.”
Okay, Stoic, you are truly stupid.
Alayna giggled, her amber eyes softening with delight. “Oh, really,” she said playfully. “You think that much of me that I would be traumatized forever. I demand that you make the first move.”
Abe froze.
“Come on!” she said, laughing sweetly. “You can do it!”
Abe felt himself swallow hard.
Don’t think about Chainsaw Man. Don’t think about Chainsaw Man. Don’t think about Chainsaw Man. Come on, Stoic, you can do it. But don’t think about the Chainsaw Man vomit-kiss scene.
Alayna pulled his face closer to hers. She whispered now, “I want you to hold the beautiful in your beautiful heart, Abe. I love you.”
With those words, he was motivated to overcome his fear of her and the beautiful which she carried, and he planted his lips on hers, mashing his cold nose upon hers.
“The puffy coats,” he said. “They are a hindrance.”
She embraced him, pulling him with bionic strength into her. He felt her body, which he had seen, there, in her home down below The Tight, against his, and he kissed her again.
Warm, Stoic, and soft.
He held the kiss, adoring the moment, wondering if she also was alive to the moment as he was. She gently touched his lips with her tongue, which blasted into smithereens every boundary between him and the beautiful, and he began to tingle from lip to toe.
After that timeless moment of adoration and opening, he managed to say. “I love you.” He felt a rush of heat behind his eyes, but he did not cry.
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Not at all like Chainsaw Man.
She said, “We should catch up to Blake and Sano.”
They walked, releasing each other to make a pace sufficient to catch up to them before they were missed. A great big space opened up within Abe.
So this is love.
Within this grand space were thoughts bejeweled, passions running amok like children on a playground, the glowing of a thousand sunsets, glittering waters passing over rubies and emeralds, stalagmites and stalactites breaking through pools of blue stone with crystal blades, lights dancing upon ice as pixies and fairies, and a host of wonders and spirits heretofore undiscovered and unknown by this eighteen-or-nineteen-year-old boy cum man, all within the enclosure of a human being named Abe.
The party rounded a bend which took them around a rather large boulder, and they stopped and beheld. Lo! A cave! And the smoke of a campfire was coming from it!