Lest They Be Forgotten

Uphill or Down?

(Sometimes wanderers return home and try to fix things, much to their disappointment. While they have been away gathering wisdom, the old world has changed and their solutions do not work anymore. The old world in this story is anonymous; there are many such places where civil wars are being fought between two morally bankrupt factions, both intent on self-interest and not on the common good. The story was published in Abandoned Towers magazine in 2010)

 Uphill or Down?

The old man watched the four-wheel drive heading up the hill in a trail of dust, just like it had come to him in his dream. This was an off-schedule transport; not the one that brought weekly groceries to the monastery and then continued on to him; nor one of the farm vehicles belonging to the cloister.

The vehicle would arrive in ten minutes. It had to pass the Benedictine monastery at the peak overlooking the valley and wind down over two smaller hills to end at his residence.

Time to get ready. He pulled his sweater tighter around him and headed indoors, passing the roses, the hydrangea and the anthuriams; he would miss them the most. When he was not writing or healing, he had spent his days pruning, fertilizing, and watering; infusing love into the plants, a love that had outlived family and friends, and sent him home after the final goodbye to his dear wife Gwen at the hospice last year. Today, the flowers looked like they needed water, but he did not have time. Perhaps later, if this is a false alarm.

He entered the house. It had been an estate manor originally, converted to a guest house in the ‘70’s, then abandoned when the tourists stopped coming in the aftermath of the civil war. He had rented it cheap; the owner was relieved to have at least one long-stay guest paying in valued US dollars.

He walked through the cavernous entrance hall, past the wide mahogany staircase that led to the upstairs rooms, now closed and filling with dust. He entered the study to the left. Just this room, and his en-suite bedroom at the other end of the hall, was in use. A woman from the village used the outdoor kitchen when she came in three times a week to cook and clean for him.

The study, lined with bookcases, contained withered volumes of imperial war history; featuring personages from the now-defunct British, Dutch and Portuguese empires, captured in all their privilege, inscrutability and obnoxiousness. Their legacy of selfishness still flows in the veins of this country. He had read the fragile tomes on solitary evenings by the fireplace, looking for clues in the past that would explain the present. He kept the fire lit despite the tropical latitude, as nights in this mountain retreat were cold and clammy.

He switched on his laptop computer, the only sign of modernity around; even the telephone was a rotary device, more ornamental than functional; he rarely used the telephone. His lawyer and custodian of his estate sent him occasional e-mails from New York, until the Internet service cut off two weeks ago and no-one at the local service provider seemed to know to restore it.

Eight minutes to go. The vehicle had passed the monastery. It wasn’t stopping, but continuing towards the guest house. It went around the first bend and grew ominous with its temporary absence. He felt a sinking feeling in his stomach and his palms began to sweat. Even Christ sweated blood in the garden of Gethsemane. Then he saw another vehicle start up the hill, regurgitating the dust raised by the four-wheel drive. This vehicle had not been in his dream.

“You’ll incur everyone’s wrath,” Father Michael had told him two months ago. They had been having a quiet meal at the monastery on a rare evening when Fr. Michael had the free time to entertain. A newspaper was spread out before them.