578. For your life, 2
It was probably a little presumptuous of me to think the idea I tried to convey was understood by the slug.
At least it didn’t return to attack with the mice. But it didn’t return. It didn’t even come back to pick up further gifts I left for it either.
I saw less skeletal mice and rats around the neighbourhood from there on.
Now Nokarlık is able to help with simple tasks, until her curiosity for something shiny along her way gets the better of her.
So she helps me moving things around, until she vanishes, running after a thing or another.
This help is still somewhat sufficient to give me time to do some research and experiments along the tracks my sister laid before me.
She found the truth, the biological truth and unicity of life, and even told me what it was. It just wasn’t clearly making comprehensible sense to me.
Although I have enough time for that because we’re safe and with enough food ahead, it’s more of a hobby than a passion.
I do like playing with tools and glassware, trying out things, but I don’t have a clear objective to pursue this time. I’m far from being consumed by this possible pursuit of the philosopher’s stone.
I enjoy natural philosophy at my level of a curious animal, I’m not consumed by it.
So I’m fine leaving it all gathering dust and heading outside as well to look after my daughter when she’s been missing for a little while. Where have you wandered off again Nok?
~
I call out for her. I hear some noise in the distance. I walk faster to her.
A few dusty streets further. A pile of wrecked vehicles covered with moss and shrubs.
And a lonely Nokarlık stuck between collapsing elements and sobbing.
R - You’re a real cat Nok.
N - Nm!
She sobs heavy tears. I climb up there and check everything is fine with her. She’s not hurt, just stuck. I rub her cheeks dry and warmer until the sobs are replaced with giggles. It takes a little while but it’s fine.
I push and move some collapsed pieces of the pile of wreck. Some crumble and fall loudly further. She’s scared.
I grab her by the shoulders and try to pull, to help her out.
It doesn’t work. Her legs are still stuck. I hear weird noises and she seems in pain so we stop.
I check her legs. Something is off.
They’re not wounded but they grew, as if stretched longer as we pulled on them. I notice the skin being more tensed, and the ragged trousers now appearing far too short.
What?
It doesn’t appear broken nor too painful. She looks as surprised as I am, although she has more teary eyes again.
I crawl inside, and push with all my strength against the wrecks, in an uncomfortable position.
It moves. Her feet come out, shoes and socks abandoned behind. She crawls outside, loses balance and falls over the bumpy slide of this small hill full with sharp edges.
I slowly come out as I can hear her cry.
A warm hug. Her legs really have stretched longer. That’s weird.
Once she felt soothed, I made her stand in front of me. She realised too she was now a good head taller than me. I showed her her legs, holding her hand so she doesn’t lose balance.
R - Can you return to normal?
Nokarlık looked puzzled and tried. It worked rather fast. She shrunk back at an irregular pace.
She’s inspecting her body with renewed interest. I’m puzzled again.
I could see she tried then vehemently to grow taller again, but it didn’t seem to trigger, thankfully for me. I could see her frustration and it made me smile with amusement.
To make up for it, we went on an adventure together.
~
It’s something she often pesters me for, pulling my hand to bring me to another deep and forgotten corner of the city, where something pretty or unusual lies. Adventures. She wants to show me her discoveries, or if only for me to tag along as she looks for something unclear.
She resurrects childish merriments in me, so old and dusty, I thought they were gone.
A time when all the meaning and logics of the world and society were irrelevant. When what you knew of the world was limited to what you encountered on your walk. When everything is worth discovering.
Adult, I don’t linger in ruined buildings for countless reasons. Lack of resources, risks of collapse and hazards and so on. Even if there’s beauty to be seen, it’s not sufficient in itself any longer in places you know the abstract principles of.
But even the emptiest of rooms no adults today would linger in, a child could find something pretty to look at, and turn it around to look what’s under or behind.
She’s at an unlikely crossover of ages, where she can walk, run and help, but has the insatiable need to observe and play with everything and nothing.
She’s building her mind and knowledge with an endless profusion of stimulations.
She’s drooling with happiness and excitement. It doubles when mama is tagging along her adventures.
I can’t make her happier currently but by accompanying her in these random wanders. They may be pointless for adults, but are essential blocks and food to her.
I crawl after her in the hole of a wall leading into a partially collapsed building. We enter a muddy domain she discovered. She runs ahead. I notice marks I can understand here and there in these corridors.
She found something peculiar at the heart of this secluded domain.
My resurrected childish side is beginning to follow her fascination.
The shapes and structures, the colours. These walls are unusual.
There’s art in everything you look closely for a long time.
My adult thoughts check the short sword on my hip and the knife along my leg.
For along the traces surrounding us were human remains. Old enough so that all smells are long gone, but it still is a warning sign.
I catch up with her a little further in these dark corridors. The lights of an inner garden appear in the distance.
We walk toward the treasure room, holding hands.
~
