Aban's Accension

Chapter 12: The Seed Sower

She scans the rest of her kitchen and looks back at the table.

A loaf of bread is sitting on top of a round wooden plate on the tiny table. A bread knife lies next to it. Confusion screws up her face. Did she buy this and forget? No, it wasn’t there a moment ago. She knows it wasn't. Doesn’t she?

Aban rubs her eyes. The loaf is still sitting there. She stares at it long, without blinking, in case it goes poof. But it doesn’t. It continues to sit there. She rubs her eyes harder, then her face. She drags her hands down her cheeks, dragging down her lower eyelids. The loaf remains, though looking a little blurry. Aban drops her hands and steps slowly into her kitchen up to the table, up to where the loaf sits to look at it without expression. Lifting her head, she takes a few steps to the left, past the avocado-coloured fridge towards the dark faux-wood cabinets near the stove at the end. She randomly opens a cabinet door. Empty. She opens another, leaving the first door wide open. Empty. She yanks on the cabinet door near the fridge. A single plate lies there next to a single glass and a single mug. She grabs the plate, and leaving that cabinet door partially open as she had the other two, Aban grasps the knob of the drawer in front of her. Her eyes glaze over the honey-blond faux-wood counter as she struggles to open the humidity-soaked drawer. Mom’s kitchen works. She uses real wood. Mom's doors and drawers don’t stick, she grumbles as she grasps the knob harder and jerks it. The drawer screams out, and she stumbles backwards, almost dropping the plate. She automatically suppresses her frustration and steps back towards the counter to look in the drawer. It has one knife, one fork, one spoon, one teaspoon, a kind of small, flat knife, one pair of scissors, and a cutting knife. Everything is only in ones around here. Weird. She takes out the normal knife and carries the plate and knife to the table. Aban sets them down and looks around for the jam. It’s not in the cabinets; she frowns at the open doors. Mom would hate those. Why are they open? She shrugs, goes to close them, and then sees the pukey-coloured fridge. Maybe the jam is in there.

Aban grasps the fridge handle, but the door doesn’t open. She yanks at it, and she and the door fly to the left. Only her grasp on the handle keeps her upright. What kind of kitchen is this? Slower this time, but once again she automatically shoves her frustration down. She takes back her footing and pokes her head around the door.

A fresh litre of organic skim milk and a jar of jam await her. She grimaces at the skim, shuts the fridge door hard, and starts banging open and closed all the cabinet doors, all the stiff drawers, in search of the chicory Mom makes. Nothing. Only a jar of instant coffee and a box of Darjeeling tea. She returns to the fridge, takes out the jam, and heaving a sigh takes out the milk too.

Soon jam is on a slice of bread -- she’s too tired to look for a toaster -- and milk fills that single glass, and she’s eating. Finished, she dumps the plate and glass in the sink near the fridge, leaves the bread cut side to the air on the wooden plate, and leans over the table to look outside.

El is rising from his knees, easily, smoothly, without aid of hands or arms.

Spooky.

He’s been sitting on his knees all this time, yet he moves without stiffness. Mom and Dad can’t do that.

El disappears underneath her and reappears with a canvas bag slung over his left shoulder. He buries his hand in it and throws out something from it. She wonders what it is. She squints as he repeats the motion. It can’t be. It’s summer time, and the whole of Ontario’s in a drought. They won’t grow. There’s no water. Even Toronto has been put on water rationing, or so Mom said on Canada Day. Mom and Dad thought it was hilarious. Snooty Toronto having to live like the rest of Ontario.

He’s still at it though. He had begun from where he was sitting in the horizontal middle of the backyard, close to the small deck at the back door, and is now crossing from side to side moving to the back row of brown-tipped evergreens, throwing out seed from his satchel. His stupidity insults her.