R.
Boon
December
20, 2013
A Country Woman
With
forced calm, Rachel set aside the solar panel and lifted the lid of the
incubator, looking at eggs inside. The
February temperature, mid 80s day, 70s through the night. That helps, she
muttered to herself, thinking and muttering not much separate in these, her
lonely days and longer nights. If only
the little solar battery would last through a night. All those nights getting up, checking the
temperature, transferring the eggs so carefully against her skin, bundling up
till her skin was itself an inferno, layer over layer, though never quite the
99.5 ideal. Just never below 97.
She looked at the eggs, smooth,
simple. Brown and blue and green. Something exotic that had amused Mary. Seven eggs.
We—funny to say that. We, when
it’s just me here. But there will be
others. If I can find ways to feed them,
find protein and fat without shooting everything that moves. And I would do that, too, but that bullets
are also hoarded now. She poured a bit
more water into the tray beneath the eggs. We need every one of them to
hatch. Seven—not a great gene pool, but
if we can just keep these alive, someday a trader will come through with more
chickens.
She touched the one blue egg. To be so impractical, they always told me, being
a professor of Medieval Rhetoric, learning Old English, the ancient rhythms and
riddles and prayers. Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard metudæs maecti end his—she broke off here, again, at the
start of Caedmon’s Hymn. Her purpose, Her nurturing and angers, giving this middungeard, this middle earth, to the ones who will care for it. That’s where the praise should fall. Her fingers felt the struggle inside this one
lonely blue egg.
My coop needs repair, she thought. I wish Kate were still around. She always called herself “a handy gal.” And she would be handy now. Moved to Iowa before… She closed her eyes, felt the grit in
one. Yes, Kate fell out of my world just
before the world fell apart. She looked
down and talked to the eggs. I’ve worked
so hard on feeding you, all of you in this future. I have persimmon trees back there in the
chicken yard, and some mulberry, and those old twisted plums, fruits that will drop
for you in different seasons. I need to
get some pear trees. And for us, learn
how to use the hickory nuts and acorns. I’ve
read about that.
There
was a noise from a brown egg. Rachel
gave a startled laugh. Almost. Maybe today.
Soon, you there, scrabbling for bugs and--no, there won’t be corn. A bitter laugh. Corn.
Was that the start? The blights
that ran through America’s monoculture, that wiped out a whole season’s
corn. And no seed. All of it sterile, by design, and the
corporations with nothing to offer. A
little famine? Or, a lot of famines,
stretched over a year and a half, and the storms and floods and droughts. All of it in two bad years. So fast to crash the whole world. Food riots in Egypt, across Africa, into the
Middle East. And China desperate, buying
up all the grain they could find. Then
India, and Pakistan. And oil supplies
cut. And threats and military actions. And then all at once, that one explosion of
rage and we lose a thousand years.
She wiped her hand on her apron. The half-full jar of peanut butter sat on the
table, the very clean spoon beside it. I
cleaned out how many stores? And I put
in that special order, just in time. 500
jars. 16 servings, two tablespoons, in
each jar. 8 grams of protein, 16 grams
of fat. Don’t ignore that. Fat isn’t the
evil anymore. Two spoons a day, by
myself, that stretches out some seven years. The damn plastic jars won’t even
last that long, hidden, buried, dispersed in a dozen places. Not enough, but it will keep us going. And there will be more of us. More women.
I won’t leave the rest on their own.
Not forever. And I have the
pumpkin seeds. And the cows. If I can learn to make cheese, keep milk
longer, trade it.
The
patrol had ridden through two weeks ago, warning about three drifters seen off
the old Interstate. No mail. How she ached for a letter. Some personal link, someone out there. Not
just…. She had known as soon as she saw the firelight just over the hill that
night. No one would waste that much wood
these days. That Mary and Frank…
Ah, the “noble fragment,” she said
and chanted the old poem to the eggs:
Then, Holofernes grew
joyful, that tramp and drifter,
Gold-friend of
warriors, glad o'er his wine-cups;
Laughed he, shouted he,
raised clamor and uproar,
That the children of
men might hear in the distance
How the stern-mooded
leader stormed and bellowed,
how
he burned and destroyed and believed in no future,
How, insolent,
mead-drunk, he mightily urged
Braves on the benches
to bear themselves well.
Thus did the evil one
all day long, with rape and fire--
And
so I found a last old bottle of scotch, she said, still talking to the eggs,
found the jars and measured out the milk, fresh and wholesome, and made them
ready, made my plans and put on a nice skirt—yes, a skirt, no tailored suits
for me, no department meetings, no conferences in Chicago or Boston—brushed my
hair, and went to visit, the concerned neighbor lady, concerned, competent, not
too old, not too plain. And I walked
over the ridge, and saw what I knew I would see, the barn gone, still
smoldering. I had a little hope when I
saw the chicken coop still there, and the house.
And
then there was Frank, Frank’s body out in the yard, disfigured, parts taken as
trophies, or for grisly humor. I didn’t
see her till I got closer, didn’t see Mary there, naked, and… Their boy, too, the 12-year old. Naked, violated, thrown out for to feed the
wild beetles and crows.
How
my hands shook. And my legs. I almost turned back. But one of them saw me. Came out.
I made my offer. My barter, for
the chickens, trying not to look at their crimes. How they laughed. Hauled me inside. I opened the box and showed them the
jars. The two followers, they grabbed
the milk, guzzled it right down, the sweet, dear poisoned milk. Yet,
Quick to his bed, in this house violated and stolen,
Led they the
wise-mooded woman; went, then, stout-hearted
Heroes, to announce to
their prince that the pure-souled Judith
Was brought to his
tent. Then, waxed the illustrious one,
Ruler of boroughs,
blithe, thought the bright- souled woman
With foulness and shame
to corrupt,
And
the third, their leader, he took me and the last jar of milk and the scotch
into the bedroom. He drank and touched
me, and drank, too slow it seemed, and I closed my eyes and never screamed,
said nothing till I felt him slump off me, and then—
they lay in a stupor, undone with stupidity,
Outstretched his
troopers all drunk, for blind death
had blasted
them, Of all their good
things deprived.
With her own right
hand, no longer shaking,
Then, the curly-locked
lady, our dear Judith,
With flashing falchion
smote the foeman detested,
The hostile-hearted
one, the headman upon whose head
Fell
the whole horror, she half cut through, then
Severed his neck, that
swooning he lay there
Drunken and wounded.
Not dead was he yet, now,
Nor gave up the ghost again
vehemently,
With might and main,
the mood-valiant woman
Smote the heathen hound
that his head whirled rapidly
Forth on the floor; lay
the foul carcass
Lifeless behind, his
spirit departed
Down 'mid the damned in
dire abasement,
Ever thereafter in
agony fettered,
With serpents be-wound,
in torments bound,
Firmly fastened in the
flames of perdition,
When death took him
off.
The
chickens they’d slaughtered, she whispered.
That mild hope destroyed. They
didn’t even know how to clean them. And
just these few eggs, these few eggs, this slightest window into a future. Not a good gene pool, but someday, someone
will come up the road.
A
tiny crack showed in the blue egg shell.
She touched her stomach. A
triangular piece of shell flecked away and she could see the tiny beak. I hope it’s a girl.
Websource
for Judith: J. LESSLIE HALL, 1902,
© 2013, Robert E. Boon
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