For Whom the Sun Sings

by W. A. Fulkerson

  As an afterthought, the instructor called out over his shoulder that lessons would be cancelled for the rest of the day.

  Andrius didn’t know what to do with himself. He had never heard of lessons being cancelled before. Even when he was in ninth-year lessons and his instructor had come down with brain fever they did not miss a single day. A replacement was simply sent. From earliest childhood until the Age of Attainment, afternoons were for lessons. Then after reaching the Age of Attainment, afternoons were for village work. An afternoon was never free.

  Most of the children took to it well, delightfully shuffling away to play games among themselves or to gossip and make up stories about the stranger. Andrius didn’t want to leave. He thought it only fair that he, as the man’s discoverer, should at least get to stay and find out what happened to him.

  He didn’t bring this up, of course, lest someone tell him no. Instead, he surreptitiously eased the shutter windows open and monitored the proceedings inside. He reminded himself several times that he would have to keep from talking to himself. Once he nearly reminded himself aloud, so he ceased reminding himself and tried as best as he could to simply keep from thought altogether.

  Zydra, Stephinius’s wife, wasted no time in wetting a cloth to clean the man’s skin. Stephinius busied himself with attempting to wake the man up and get him to drink some water, while the instructor tried to figure out how to remove the upper portion of the man’s clothes.

  They were strange clothes. They were similar to his own, in some ways, but nothing alike at the same time. The patterns . . .

  There was a sudden movement of shutters in front of Andrius’s face, and he yelped in surprise, falling to his backside. Zydra, not noticing Andrius, had absentmindedly swatted the shutters closed, and in such a way he was discovered. He was sent away again, explicitly this time and with a surfeit of threats of punishment. In such a wake, Andrius scampered off, just as four men came down the road.

  It was the Prophet. Valdas himself and his three Regents were coming his way. Andrius gasped and froze. Then he feared the worst, that the Prophet might have heard his name when Milda caught him spying at Gimdymo Namai the other day.

  Quickly, Andrius moved off of the road and faced away into the wilderness, pretending to mind his own business and hoping that they wouldn’t stop. He could hear them already. The Regents’ voices were harsh and deep, but the Prophet’s was smooth as butter and sweet as honey.

  “It isn’t anything good. I’ll tell you that much.”

  “We shall determine that if he wakes.”

  “There is only one action we can take, Valdas.”

  “I will be the judge of that, Aras.”

  They continued speaking with one another, taking no notice of the boy on the side of the road. They entered into the house that Andrius had just left, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  The relief renewed a spring in his step, and though still worried over the fate of the stranger, he wasn’t about to let a free afternoon go to waste.

  He ran off to retrieve the pattern he was working on as his offering. He still had a lot of work to do on it, and the stranger’s odd clothes had inspired him.

  Besides, it would be nice to work while the sun was singing. He paused for a moment to joy in the melody of it, to close his eyes and feel the warmth upon his face.

  And then he was off again.

  It was only a few moments until he realized that all of his things were back at the spreading tree where he did his lessons. He was really thirsty, and his pitcher was there.

  He changed directions and set off at a run again. He gathered his belongings and took a breath, and then he was jogging again. The water sloshed around in his wooden pitcher with every step he took and he wondered what would become of the strange man.

  The sun’s song was such a thing of beauty to Andrius. It sounded different depending on the time of day. In the first moments of dawn it was soft and simple, and then it crescendoed into a dramatic, fiery symphony. Every hour, every second, the song shifted, and no two days did the sun ever sing in exactly the same way.

  It was a shame no one else heard it. Andrius took a drink of water then readjusted his offering under his arm. He wasn’t certain if it was totally finished yet, but he had gotten to work on it quite a bit yesterday after the instructor had cancelled classes.

  It was due today, at any rate. Remembrance was only two days away.

  He knew no one would like his offering, but he liked it. It was better than his other attempts. It was difficult to be in poor spirits, anyway. Daiva had been in a yelling mood all morning, and his father’s single, weak attempt at containing her was rolled over. It was nice to just be out of the house, even if he was heading to lessons.

  A striking butterfly flitted by, but Andrius didn’t pay it much attention. He was considering his offering. Maybe it would get picked this year.

  No, it wouldn’t get picked.

  But suppose it did?

  He had reached Fifth Stone when Milda emerged from her house and joined Andrius on the road. He debated with himself, but he decided to walk next to her.

  “Hi, Milda.”

  “Andrius,” she replied meekly.

  It was quiet for a while. The water in Andrius’s pitcher slapped against the sides as he walked.

  “So?” he said after they reached Second Stone. He wasn’t sure how to act. “Aren’t you going to make fun of me or something?”

  “Why would I make fun of you?”

  Andrius was nonplussed. He squinted.

  “You always do.”

  “I do not! You’re just a friendless, creepy jerk, so I have to—”

  Andrius sighed and sped up to avoid the girl’s abuse. She stopped midsentence, then stumbled to catch up with him.

  “Andrius, wait!”

  He kept walking.

  “Andrius . . .” she whined. Andrius turned his head around, and he frowned. It wouldn’t be hard to run away from her, but somehow he couldn’t get up the resolve. His stomach was tied in knots. He hated arguing with Milda.

  “Andrius,” she shouted, louder than necessary. “I’m sorry, okay? Slow down.”

  Andrius stopped and let out a sigh. “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t mean it. I wanted to say I was sorry for tattling on you the other day. Okay?”

  Andrius furrowed his brow. He rested his eyes on her as she stopped, and he took a sip from his pitcher.

  “Why?”

  Milda scratched her head. “What do you mean, why? So you aren’t mad at me anymore and we can talk again.”

  Andrius opened his mouth then closed it again. He wasn’t sure what to say. Nothing like this had happened to him before. It was confusing.

  “Why?” he asked again.

  Milda huffed and stomped her foot. “Piles of snow, Andrius! Is ‘why’ the only word you know?”

  “Well, no. It isn’t.”

  “Okay?”

  Milda was acting very strangely. She waited for an answer while Andrius leaned away, keeping a skeptical eye on her.

  “Okay,” he said at length. He was not perfectly certain what it was exactly that he had agreed to, but Milda looked satisfied. She smiled, then began walking again, tapping her cane the way she always did.

  “So do you have your offering ready?” she asked politely. Andrius fell into step with her. They were almost to First Stone.

  “Yes. Do you?”

  “Of course I have mine, Andrius. What is yours? A poem or a speech? I know it isn’t a song.”

  “It’s a pattern.”

  “Again?”

  Andrius nodded. “It’s better this year.”

  “Andrius, you always do the weirdest things for offering.” She held up a pacifying hand. “I’m not trying to be mean, but they are. Nobody really gets them.”

  Andrius knew she was right. He held his offering out in front of his face. He liked it.

  “Well I don’t get everybody,” he said under his breath.<
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  “The year you made that pitcher was okay. Not good enough to get picked, of course, but respectable. You carved all of those cool designs into it.”

  Andrius felt the weight of the water pitcher in his hand. He was proud of the work he had done to make it. He had only been eight.

  “You should do something like that again,” Milda offered.

  There was a lull in the conversation as they grew closer to Gimdymo Namai, then began to angle around it to where Brick Road began. Andrius strained his ears, but there was no delivery happening today. The shutters were closed anyway.

  “I’m reciting a poem I wrote,” Milda declared.

  “You aren’t singing?” Andrius asked, surprised.

  Milda laughed. “Not when Berena has a better song. I want to get picked again, so I’m doing poetry this year.”

  Andrius hadn’t thought of that. “So you think a poem has a better chance?”

  Milda grinned. “Well, think about it. If—”

  “Milda! Listen!”

  Milda stopped dead in her tracks. They were nearly to the beginning of Brick Road, and the building didn’t hide him anymore: on a modest stump that served as a temporary seat, sat the stranger from beyond the barrier.

  His eyes were closed and his head tilted back. He breathed in the cool afternoon air steadily in through his nose, then out through his mouth.

  “It’s him,” Andrius whispered.

  Milda crouched down instinctively and whispered back.

  “Who is he?”

  Before Andrius could answer, the man opened his eyes and lazily swiveled his head in their direction.

  “What are you two gawking at?”

  Andrius’s heart seized in his chest and Milda gasped. He considered running, but Milda had grasped his hand tightly and he wasn’t sure what to think about that. In short order, it was too late.

  “What, are you gawkers and deaf? I asked what you two were marveling at in my general direction.”

  The strange man wasn’t smiling, but there was a certain reassurance to his bearing. Andrius averted his eyes.

  Milda put a hand on her hip and answered defiantly. “We were gawking at you.” She then leaned in and whispered to Andrius, “What does ‘gawking’ mean?”

  Andrius shrugged. He didn’t know.

  The stranger chuckled, surprising them both.

  “I’m only having some fun with you. Come here if you want to talk. I could use some information anyway. You do have some information, don’t you?”

  Andrius shrugged again. Milda frowned but did not speak.

  “What, can’t you look at me? What are your names?”

  “What does ‘look’ mean?” Milda asked Andrius. He didn’t answer her; he spoke directly to the man.

  “I’m Andrius. What does ‘look’ mean?”

  “My name is Milda,” she interjected.

  The stranger tilted his head back and his eyes rolled along with the motion. Andrius was still facing the ground. He only perceived the stranger out of the corner of his eye.

  “It means turn your head and face me. Don’t you speak Lithuanian? It was starting to seem like everyone in this place does.”

  “Of course we speak Lithuanian,” Milda replied matter-of-factly. She let go of Andrius’s hand and crossed her arms. “What else would we speak?”

  “Well,” the stranger returned, “being as we are in Lower Tatras, I thought maybe you spoke Slovakian or Russian maybe. Your town is very strange, but I will say that it was pleasant to wake up hearing my mother tongue. It was weird, though.” The stranger stretched his legs out in front of him, yawned, and wiped his face. “Little boy—Andrius, was it? Why won’t you look at me? It’s rude.”

  Slowly Andrius lifted his eyes and rested them on the stranger. His clothes were ripped in a few places, and he had a raggedy beard, but he still looked like he was in the prime of his life. Twenty-eight, maybe. But none of this was what captured Andrius’s attention.

  “There, that’s better,” the stranger said, studying Andrius closely. “Thank you.”

  “What happened to you?” Milda asked. Andrius was still mesmerized. It was the strangest thing that he looked upon.

  “Heat exhaustion, I think. Stupid, I know. I had plenty of supplies, but I got lost and spent an extra two days wandering around. All of the trails are overgrown. No one appreciates nature anymore. Did you know that a couple hundred years ago backpacking was a pretty common pastime? Outdoorsmanship, they called it. Now I couldn’t even pull a partner away from his elon screen long enough to come on a weekend trip.” He shook his head. “Well, it was supposed to be a weekend trip. Longer now, I guess.”

  Andrius was still examining and puzzling over this singularity in front of him, and Milda was quiet for several moments before responding.

  “What?”

  “What do you mean, what?”

  Milda huffed and patted Andrius on the back.

  “He’s confusing, Andrius. I’m going to lessons. Bye.”

  “Goodbye, Milda.” The stranger waved. He watched her go for a moment, and then he looked back at Andrius and frowned. “What’s the matter with you, kid? You look like you’re staring at a zombie or something. An alien, maybe.”

  Andrius shook his head and tried to look away from it, but he couldn’t. It was so bizarre, so fascinating.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Eh, don’t worry about it. I’m sure I’ve done my share of rude staring too. Who knew there was a village all the way out here. You guys been here long?”

  Andrius set his pitcher on the ground. “What do you mean? We’ve been here since the Fallout and the end of the Hausen War.”

  The stranger raised his eyebrows. “Really? Wow. It’s been a while then.” He held out his hand. “The name’s Daniel.”

  Andrius looked at the extended hand, then squinted up at Daniel.

  “You shake it,” the man said at length.

  Confused but wanting to be polite, Andrius took Daniel’s hand between both of his and shook it up and down and back and forth.

  Daniel laughed.

  “That’s one way to do it, I guess. How old are you, kid?”

  “Eleven.” Andrius was still transfixed by that one thing. He continued to stare.

  “Eleven.” He stuck his lip out and nodded. “Eleven’s a good age. Lots of climbing trees and running around, I bet.”

  “Your eyes are beautiful,” Andrius stated in awe, suddenly, unable to contain it anymore. They were so deep and the patterns inside . . . They were like the sky and the sun all at once.

  Daniel raised an eyebrow, then laughed again.

  “Yeah, thanks. My baby blues. I get that a lot, actually. Just usually, you know, from women. Not so much from eleven-year-old boys. Man to man here, it’s kind of a weird thing for you to say.”

  “Oh.”

  Andrius looked down as Viktoras wandered by suddenly. He kicked over Andrius’s pitcher, spilling water everywhere.

  “Oops,” Viktoras said, continuing on.

  “Hey!” Andrius yelled, but that was all he could muster. He picked up his much lighter water pitcher and set about dusting it off.

  “Eh, I wouldn’t sweat it. It was an accident,” Daniel commented as Andrius fumed.

  “You don’t know Viktoras.”

  “No, I guess I don’t. But anyway, that Milda—is she your little gal pal?”

  Andrius felt the blood rush to his cheeks. “No!” he replied a little too vehemently.

  “Uh-huh. Right. Well anyway, I don’t know why you’re freaking out about my eyes when yours look, like, exactly the same. I bet everybody tells you—well, maybe not.”

  Daniel seemed troubled for a moment. A strange feeling of pride welled up in Andrius’s chest.

  “You mean . . . my eyes are like yours? My eyes have patterns and . . . and . . . I don’t know. They’re like yours?”

  “Are you serious? It’s like a mirror image.”

  “A what?”


  They stared at each other, confused. Daniel turned his hand over, gesturing.

  “Haven’t you ever seen your own face before?”

  Andrius laughed.

  Daniel persisted. “You’re telling me that you’ve never looked at your own face?”

  “How could I face my own face? That’s funny.”

  Some more students passed on their way to lessons, but none of them acknowledged him.

  Daniel seemed as if he was debating with himself whether or not he ought to continue the discussion. He pointed down at Andrius’s offering.

  “What is that?”

  “Oh, it’s my offering.”

  “Your what?”

  “My offering.”

  “Oh.”

  Andrius picked it up, halted, then looked at Daniel guardedly. “Did you want to check it out?”

  “Sure.”

  He gingerly handed it over, and Daniel ran his eyes over it. He stared for a while, then nodded. “This is actually really good. How old are you? Eleven?”

  Andrius nodded excitedly. “You like it?”

  Daniel had not taken his eyes off of the offering. He was transfixed. “I really do, actually. I’m impressed.”

  “No one else likes it.”

  “For obvious reasons.”

  Andrius’s heart sank. Daniel didn’t notice his reaction. He handed the offering back.

  “Well,” Andrius began, “I’m going to be late for lessons.”

  “Yeah,” Daniel replied. “I’m just waiting out here while they talk about me in there. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

  Andrius wrinkled his brow. He didn’t know what was going on, exactly, but he didn’t have time to talk any longer. It was inexcusable to be late for lessons.

  “Okay. Bye.”

  “Say, Andrius,” Daniel stopped him. Andrius looked over his shoulder, then came back a couple of steps. “Why doesn’t anybody get . . . fixed around here? You know what I mean?”

  Andrius stared blankly. Daniel sighed, then tried again.

  “You know what I mean. Look, I work at a hospital. I don’t do anything fancy, I’m just in residency. And yes, you can be in residency when you’re thirty. But they do a lot of specialty surgeries, and we could fix all these people if they came down from here—down the mountain to Brezno. So why don’t they? Do they know that it’s an option?”