Chapter 3

Smug jackass; the phrase popped into her mind and she figured that it must in fact be an accurate representation of the man in front of her, since she was sure she’d never been wrong about this sort of thing before. The man’s curly dark hair was finely combed and pushed into a neat part to the left side of his slightly larger head, a head that was tilted slightly to the side in amused confusion. His eyes were shrewd and a deep grey color, blinking rarely and fixed stoically on Jennifer, eyes that made Jennifer cautious as they ran contrary to the smile resting beneath them. The single raised eyebrow, tilted head and bemused smile came across to Jennifer as rather smug thus leading to her final conclusion that the man’s a smug jackass, but the eyes told her that he’s a smug jackass of a rare breed. All of this of course occurred in the three or four seconds after busting into the alcove and Jennifer was really only consciously aware of these conclusions on the vaguest level, smug jackass was really her only conscious takeaway. Also a more pressing question quickly emerged that broke her train of thought and demanded her whole attention.

“Who the hell are you and how are you out here?!” The words left her mouth in a way she hoped would sound somewhat authoritative, but her dry throat refused to play ball and the words came out more as a prepubescent squeak. The man laughed which did nothing to help Jennifer’s mood, leading her to try again. “WHO ARE YOU?!” She was quite proud of that delivery as it sounded far more like a roar than a squeak, but she was less than thrilled at the man’s chipper response. He merely laughed, still refusing her an answer. She crossed her arms and put on her most intimidating face, a face that looked to anyone viewing it like she had just passed gas and had caught a quick whiff of it. After a couple minutes of laughing the man settled down, wiped a small tear from his eye and smiled at Jennifer.

“Sorry about that, I really shouldn’t have laughed at you. It’s just been awhile since I’ve seen something funny out here.” He shrugged as he placed the thing, which was now entirely brown and smelt even better than before, on a plate. His voice had a noble ring to it and he punctuated each word quite precisely neither slurring words together or leaving a single one unpronounced, giving his voice a scholarly tone that Jennifer also found fit nicely in her initial conclusion; he’s a smug jackass. “Let me make it up to you, since you look so hungry why don’t you join me for dinner?” By context Jennifer figured dinner had something to do with the lovely smell and hunger must be the overwhelming desire to stick the good smelling thing down her gullet. Not wanting to give ground though she stamped her foot and met the man’s smile with stubbornness.

“I asked you a question and I’m not doing anything until you give me an answer.” The man looked confused and, she was pleased to note, a little annoyed.

“Have it your way.” He shrugged as he picked a chunk out of the brown stuff and popped it in his mouth. Jennifer just stood there watching him, doing everything in her power to not show any signs of how much she wanted what was on that plate.

The man was nearly halfway done with the brown stuff and beginning to glance up at Jennifer more and more often, he seemed a bit concerned. Jennifer noticed the glances and felt herself winning whatever it was that was going on and so she clung further to her resolve.

“You really do look like you’re starving, there’s still a good bit left if you want it.” He said, attempting to shrug as carelessly as he had before, but this time it came across far more rigid and forced. Jennifer made no move to the food opting instead to return his shrug with one of her own. She almost broke her stiff upper lip to smile when she saw the man twitch in frustration. She noticed him eating more slowly after that, glancing her way more often, this time around making a more pointed effort to be subtle.

“Look you’re actually going to starve if you don’t eat something so just get over here and eat.” He said with concern on his face, but frustration in his voice.

“I’d be happy to, just as soon as you answer my questions.” She openly smiled, she figured she’d stop trying to hide it, besides it looked an awful lot like the condescending smile he’d given her. She saw him struggling to decide whether or not to give in, his face attempting to keep appearances of being concerned but doing a pretty poor job of it. Clearly, he was someone used to getting his way and she reveled in the opportunity to break someone of their smugness.

“James, my name is James, now will you please just eat something?”

“I asked two questions James and I said I wasn’t moving until you answered both, now how did you get out here?”

“You know most people would be grateful to be offered free food by a stranger instead of interrogating them.”

“I’m still waiting on an answer.”

“I don’t know what you want from me, I walked, happy now? How else would I have gotten here?”

“You know what I mean! I know how you got out here, but why did you leave the city? I thought I was the only one.” James thought about that for a second and slowly relaxed.

“Why do you assume I’m from your city?” Jennifer was taken aback, she’d never considered the possibility of there being people living anywhere else.

“If you’re not from my city then where’d ya come from?” She stammered, her confidence all but faded.

“A city hundreds of miles away, if you’ve never left your city before now I’m fairly certain you’ve never heard of it.” James seemed to be regaining his composure and now motioned Jennifer to sit as he offered her some of the good smelling brown stuff. Jennifer finally complied and scarfed down the food as she pondered what James had said.

“If there are other cities out there then why haven’t I ever heard of them?” Jennifer asked as she licked the remaining grease off her fingers.

“I don’t know, I suppose cities nowadays don’t communicate much, the city I’m from really only ever interacts with a couple of neighboring towns. By the way, I never got your name and, since you so vehemently insisted on getting mine I figure it’s only fair if I know your’s.”

“Jennifer, so if you’re from another city then why are you out here? Is your city horrible too?” Jennifer had finished licking her fingers and was now leaning cautiously toward the snapping light..

“You sure ask a lot of questions…” James said as he leaned against one of the walls of the alcove his hand toward the snappy light, “I’m looking for my brother he… ran away a long time ago and now I need him to come home.” Jennifer noted the hesitation and tilted her head and attempted to raise an eyebrow of her own, she did not succeed.

“So why’d he run away?”

“Not really any of your business.”

“Could be if ya told me.”

“Not happening.”

“Fine, thanks for the food but I suppose I should be going.” Jennifer said coldly as she got up to leave. James sighed.

“Look we had a fight, it wasn’t pleasant, and he left. Now please stay… I actually need a favor.”

“A favor?”

“Yeah, a favor, that city of your’s, would you take me to it? If he’s near here then he probably took shelter there.”

“He didn’t.”

“How do you know? You don’t even know what he looks like!” James shouted, no longer attempting to hide his frustration.

“Nobody new has ever been to my city.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“You’re telling me.” Jennifer shrugged. Her apathy was beginning to wear on James and he found himself falling back on every last bit of patience he had to not throw up his hands and be done with this infuriating girl. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a few seconds and, as calmly and slowly as he could manage said,

“I’d at least like to check.”

“Not happening.”

“Why not?!” And there went the last of his patience.

“Because I’m not going back there!”

“Why?”

“None of your business!” Jennifer shouted as she moved again toward the exit. James followed behind shouting just as loud.

“So that’s it then, you get to ask me all the questions you want, but you won’t answer any of mine?” Jennifer spun back on her heels, planted her feet, threw her arm away from the setting sun and pointed.

“The city’s that way, happy now?”

“There isn’t anything that way!”

“The hell are you talking about just lo-“Jennifer froze as she looked back toward her home and saw nothing but the edge of a cliff. She hadn’t climbed anything to get here and she knew that she’d consistently walked toward the sun so home must be the other way, but James was right, there was clearly no city that way. Jennifer ran toward the edge of the cliff and looked down; nothing. The ravine was so deep and the flurry of snow so thick that, whatever was at the bottom of the ravine, if there even was anything, was lost. With the setting sun behind her and the cliff blocking the rest of the sun’s rays all that could be seen down the ravine was darkness, absolute and total darkness. Above the ravine, looking forward Jennifer could see where the last red rays of sunset ended and where the darkness began. Seeing Jennifer’s clear and genuine concern, James decided it might be best to ease up on the questions, at least for a while. Despite his best intentions, within that calm Jennifer still saw frustration, probably due to hitting another dead end on his whole brother search. Setting all the frustration aside for a moment, James walked slowly over to Jennifer and awkwardly patted her on the back.

“It’s going to be alright, you probably just got turned around is all.” Jennifer nodded, that had to be it, but she couldn’t imagine how, she knew the path she’d taken… but what other explanation was there? She sat down on the edge of the ravine and let her feet dangle over the abyss as she stared longingly out into the nothingness, hating herself for missing a place she’d wanted to leave for so long. She missed her tower, the one she’d never had the chance to sit atop, and, with her feet dangling, she closed her eyes and imagined she was finally sitting on her spot. From her memories she saw the city below, but the memories kept fading as the harsh wind nipped at her face until she finally opened her eyes in defeat. All she could see was the flurry of wind and snow swirling pointlessly over the ravine, it frustrated her and she slammed her fist onto the ground and buried her head in her coat. James sat down beside her, “Why did you leave?” Jennifer looked over at James, his eyes seemed earnest, more so than before and so she sighed,

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“I needed to find… somebody.”

“Who”?

“…Destiny…” She whispered the name softly and saw James’ whole body twitch, “What? Do you know something about Destiny?!” She shouted as she stood, staring down at James excitedly. James thought for a moment, clearly wrestling with something until finally one side won out,

“My brother… he went looking for Destiny. That’s why he left…” Jennifer gawked at him,

“Why? What did he want with Destiny?!”

“I can’t really say… He and I fought all the time, about work and friends and our city and, one day, he just left. He left me a note, there was a lot of personal stuff but he ended it saying that he was going to find Destiny, that he was going to change things, make things right I guess…” Jennifer smiled,

“I think I like your brother, he sounds like a good guy.” James nodded in agreement,

“Yeah, I just wish I’d figured that out before. But I’m going to make it right, wherever he is I’m going to find him and bring him home.”

“Do you think he did it?”

“Did what?”

“Found Destiny?” Jennifer said hopefully. James lowered his head, put up his arms and shrugged.

“I don’t really think finding Destiny is possible, from all the stories I’ve heard Destiny seems pretty good at not being found.”

“I’ll help you.”

“What?” James stared at Jennifer in complete bewilderment. Jennifer returned his confusion with a confident smile.

“I’ll help you, call it payback for the food. I obviously can’t take ya back to my city, but I can at least help ya look, ya know another set of eyes could really help ya.” James shook his head as he considered her offer.

“What about you? What about your quest for Destiny?” Jennifer shook her head, “That was just a joke is all, I really just wanted to see the sights, gets cramped being walled in all the time. Besides, helping search for some guy’s brother sounds way more fun! And you seem to know your way around this area so maybe you can point out some of the sights as we go!” Jennifer shot all this out in rapid succession leaving James silent. She hoped he’d bought it, if his brother had really found Destiny than this might be her best chance. She could’ve just told him the truth, but he worried her, something about him made her hesitant...

“I suppose I could use another set of eyes…” He mused as he stared off into space. “Alright. I suppose you can come.” Jennifer grinned,

“Thank you! I mean… you’re welcome I guess, either way, you won’t regret this!” James sighed, an action he’d been doing a lot recently,

“Just make sure you don’t get in the way, okay? If you’re going to come with me just know that I’m not stopping for anything, I’m here to search not explore.” Jennifer nodded excitedly,

“Deal, so where to next?”

“The cave, you look exhausted and I’m exhausted from talking to you. We need to get some sleep.” Jennifer was confused, why would they sleep? Back in the city everyone, “slept,” as in they all got into their beds and just lied there with their eyes closed for a long time and then they got back up and went about their lives. Jennifer had never understood why and, when she asked, her father told her that’s it’s merely another part of their schedule, the part that occurs between home time and getting ready to go back to work. But the more Jennifer thought about lying down the more appealing the thought became and, once back in the cave next to the snappy light, the thought seemed just right. She removed her coat and tucked it under her head, closed her eyes and slept.

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The two trudged through the deep snow, James wore a long wool coat and a scarf of a deep blue color, Jennifer really could have used a scarf like that. The wind whipped each of them on the right cheek as they now walked perpendicular to the sun heading north, when Jennifer had mentioned that she was heading straight toward the sun in an effort to always remember which way she’d came James had stared in awestruck wonderment at her lack of forethought. After quite a long argument Jennifer finally gave in and admitted that it would probably be better to not walk directly into the wind and so they settled on going north. That conclusion was reached when James declared they’d be going south and Jennifer, hating any form of declaration not her own, declared they’d be going north. After an even longer argument in which James began to reveal a fair amount of gaps in his own directional abilities, James finally gave in and thus lead to the two beginning their long trek to the north. You might think all of this was pointless squabbling but to the south the pair would have been eaten by a very large beast with scales like iron and teeth the size of daggers and, to the west, they’d have reached a coastline plagued by earthquakes and once populated by the worst sort of people on the planet. So horrid were these people that some theorized that the earthquakes occurred solely because not even Adam itself could stand their existence. In fact, entire volume sets could be written on the absolute foul nature of those living on the western coast and one day they might be, but for now just know that, if the pair had gone west, they would have met an equally undesirable end.

Whenever the pair got hungry James would produce some more of the red squishy stuff from the bag he always kept slung over his shoulder, when Jennifer asked what the red squishy stuff was she instantly regretted it and refused to eat it ever again. But, after two more stops, she ate it begrudgingly. Having never seen a cow before Jennifer could only extrapolate its appearance from the only other animal she’d seen, a cat. So, when James described cows as big ugly cats Jennifer couldn’t help but see Cat’s face every time she took a bite.

“Are there any cows out here”? Jennifer asked after one of their meal stops. James considered this for a moment and then shrugged, “I doubt it, if there were they’ve probably all frozen to death.”

“How much more cow do we have left?” Jennifer asked, suddenly very concerned about the massive amount of food stops they’d been making.

“Not a lot, I packed enough for me, but that was assuming I’d only be out here a few weeks…”

“What’s a week?” Jennifer inquired, quite puzzled by how casually James used such a foreign word.

“You don’t know what a week is?” James asked with an air of disbelief and both eyebrows raised. Jennifer, her face bright red from embarrassment, attempted damage control,

“So what if I don’t?! Maybe we don’t have weeks where I come from!” She shouted. She swung her head away to avoid further eye contact.

“A week is seven days, you do know what a day is right?” Jennifer looked back at James and meekly shook her head. James, not wanting to pick a fight, hid his shock and suggested that they stop and rest for a while.

Sitting by the snappy light Jennifer listened as James attempted to explain what a day was. When he saw it wasn’t getting anywhere he asked Jennifer how she tells time; she stared back at him vacantly.

“You know… Time is that thing that changes things… It’s why you get hungry a while after you’ve eaten and why you get tired a while after you sleep.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve heard of Time before, but I’ve never really been tired before, or hungry… The first time I felt either of those things was after I left the city.” When Jennifer saw a look of equal confusion on James’ face she figured she’d better straighten this out now. So the two discussed Jennifer’s life back in the city, about how things never really changed and time didn’t seem to be a thing, how she was the only one that ever grew and no one else ever aged. James listened and did his best to explain all these things that, to him, were fundamental, but were all brand new to Jennifer. He explained why people eat food, what food even is. He went over sleep cycles and how, legend says, the sun used to disappear from time to time and then reappear later, which is how people came up with the notion of days in the first place. James talked about watches, devices people used to tell time without the sun’s help.

“My brother used to have this gold pocket watch that he took with him everywhere, I genuinely never saw him without it. He’d always ask people for the time and, when they couldn’t tell him he’d laugh and then whip out his trusty pocket watch and declare the current time… I used to hate it when he did that, now I sort of miss it…”

“I’m sorry about your brother, he really does sound nice. Anyone brave enough to take off on their own is a hero in my book. But I gotta ask, why didn’t ya follow him”? James raised his head and spoke without looking in Jennifer’s direction, but rather past her,

“I had a job to do… and so did he for that matter. As much as I’d like to forget about the people that depend on me I can’t, even for my own brother. Sometimes we all just have to suck it up and accept our destiny.”

“Bullshit.”

“What”?

“No one has to do anything, people choose to do stuff and when the stuff they do is bad they call it destiny. You chose to let your brother walk away, whether that was the right choice or the wrong choice I don’t know, but don’t go blaming it on Destiny.”

“How do you even know about Destiny? I spent my entire life reading and only found the vaguest references to him.” James was changing the subject and Jennifer against her baser instincts allowed it.

“There’s this really kind old man in my city back home, he told me all about him. I don’t know how he knew about it, I asked him once and he told me that old people just know stuff… WAIT!!” Jennifer shouted jumping to her feat she placed her hands over her head and paced in a circle. Alarmed James froze as his eyes took in Jennifer’s every movement.

“I know what an old guy is now! If time makes you older than that means that the old guy just has a lot more time than the rest of us! That makes so much sense now! But…” Jennifer scratched her head and then shivered a bit, “being old doesn’t do a lot for a person in the looks department… Hey James”? James, relieved at Jennifer’s realization snapped out of his alert trance and looked to Jennifer with an eyebrow raised,

“Yeah”?

“Now that time is happening to me now how many times until I lose my hair?” Jennifer asked genuinely concerned, “I really like my hair too… it’s all soft and it’s fun to play with.” Jennifer mumbled as she held a few strands of her hair between two fingers and raised them in front of her face. James burst out laughing, he genuinely couldn’t help himself. Jennifer stomped her foot and glared at him, “I’m serious! I don’t want to be bald!!” This of course made James laugh even harder, but Jennifer didn’t quit, “Tell me!! I have a right to know!” She walked over to James and began kicking him lightly as she continued voicing her concern. After a while of this James finally regained control of himself and, still giggling reassured her,

“Women don’t usually lose their hair, alright? Now would you stop kicking me? Besides, you have a long way to go before you become ‘old.’ I’d wager you’re around nineteen years old, so that means you have another forty to fifty years before you become, ‘old.’” Jennifer, slightly more reassured now, thought about the number nineteen.

“What’s a year?”

“Either a very long time or a very short time depending on who you ask.”

“I’m asking you.”

“365 days or 52 weeks.”

“You said days and weeks are pretty long?”

“Yeah.”

“So that means a year’s gotta be even longer.”

“That’s true.”

“So how can it be very short?”

“Depends on how many years you’ve had.”

“I don’t follow…”

“The more years you have the shorter they feel, at least that’s what my dad always taught me.” James shrugged, throwing more wood into the fire. Jennifer mulled this over for a bit and then began again,

“So you think I’ve had nineteen of these years?”

“Yep.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because you look like someone who's lived for nineteen years.”

“What would I look like if I’d only lived for five years?”

“Smaller.”

“So the more years you have the larger you are…? That doesn’t make any sense! You said the old guy had way more years than me and he was only a little bigger than me!” James rubbed his face with his hand and took a deep breath, this was not a conversation he ever imagined having.

“More years means a person is bigger up until about the sixteenth to twentieth year, at that point they are about as big as they’re ever going to be… at least height wise. After the twentieth year every year after just makes your skin wrinkle more, your hair thin and lose color, and your level of energy go down.”

“That sounds terrible!”

“Yeah most people would prefer not to age…”

“And you think I have nineteen years? So I probably won’t get any bigger…” Jennifer was quite disappointed by this revelation, there were some boys back home she would have liked to outgrow…

“Well yeah, but you’re a pretty normal height for a girl so I wouldn’t worry about it.” A comfortable silence fell over the two, neither one would admit it, but they were both enjoying this conversation immensely, James, though he didn’t broadcast it, loved explaining things and Jennifer had more than enough questions she really wanted answered.

“How many years do you have?” Jennifer asked, the thought having just occurred to her that everyone must have a number of years.

“It’s hard to say… Since the sun is no longer moving it’s kind of hard to keep track. If I were to guess I’d say I’m probably between 25 and 30 years old.” James said offhandedly, no one had ever asked his age before.

“So you have a fair amount more years then I do… You don’t look old though.” Though many would have meant this as a compliment Jennifer was merely making an observation.

“It takes more than ten years to get old, a lot more actually depending on who you ask.” The fire had dimmed and James quickly grabbed a few sticks from the pile he’d been collecting during their travels and threw them into the blaze.

“What’s that snapping light and why is it warm?”

The two kept talking for hours; about what the snappy light is, about cows and cats and other animals, about having to get new clothes and all sorts of other nonsensical things neither one of them ever thought they’d need to discuss with another person until, finally, neither one could stay awake any longer and so they called it a night, a reference Jennifer now understood.