by David Larson
“I hear you got to go to the lake,” she said smiling.
“Yeah, that,” Mike said as his face flushed crimson. “It would have been just awesome if Bob had given me a little heads-up about the attire first.”
“I’m sure it would have,” She said giggling just a little. “But then that wouldn’t have been Bob, would it.”
“No, I’m afraid it wouldn’t.”
“How did you like it?”
“It was great,” Mike said. “But it would have been better if you could have been there.”
Instantly he wished he could have reached out and stuffed the words right back into his mouth before they reached Tawny’s ears. He was terrified that she would think he had just said he wished he could have seen her naked.
“I wish I could have, too,” she said, clearly not taking it the way he was afraid of. “But duty called, as they say. I had a story that was pretty important that I had to get out.”
“What was it?” he asked.
“A hurricane was threatening one of the areas farther west of here,” she said. “I had to let people know where they could get information on people that needed homes to evacuate to, and what others could do to help.”
“I guess I never thought of natural disasters here,” Mike said. “Where do people evacuate to? Are there shelters, and who runs them?”
“No. We really don’t have a need for that. When people need to leave a region for something like a wild fire of hurricane, they simply are absorbed into communities that aren’t threatened. Some go to available housing that already exists, other live with people in the area. If they decide to stay, then they live with others until new homes can be constructed. It really is the only thing that makes sense here. You see the suffering of others and do what it takes to alleviate it.”
“I guess it is the only thing that makes sense,” he said, “and consequently, it’s the only way it could be here.”
“Consequently,” She said in agreement.
Mike struggled for something to say. He realized that he was doing a horrible job of keeping up his end of the conversation. He couldn’t help but surrender himself to the workings of those incredible lips. It was all that existed when she talked, and all other sensory things that were happening around him were muffled. Like he was hearing them under water.
Overhead a flute trilled, and Moon Dance ended. Mike was only partially aware that Brown Eyed Girl had taken its place. Playful notes danced off an acoustic guitar and floated around the room like the fireflies in the memorial garden. Chords started to chink along and walk up the fret board.
“Hey where did we go? Days when the rains came. Down in the hollow. Playin’ a new game…”
Van was singing, Mike was smiling, and Tawny was radiating.
It could have been more perfect but he really couldn’t even begin to imagine how.
“I’m so glad you were able to come over,” Mike said.
“So am I,” Tawny said as she spread the warmest of smiles all the way around the room.
They talked, and laughed. Mike was more comfortable, and able to allow himself to open up in ways that he never had before. She asked him if he was grasping everything he needed on Hale. He told her that nearly everything on Hale was something that had nagged his soul for as long as he could remember. He said that he had shared some of his feelings with others with when he was younger and had been met with ridicule, and sympathetic looks from people older than him. Most had explained that when he got older he would realize why things could never be the way he thought they should be.
“Did they tell you why?” Tawny asked.
“Sure,” Mike said. “They said that people would always be people. That as long as humans were on the planet there would be war and suffering. They said it was simply human nature.”
Overhead Van seamlessly slipped out of Brown Eyed Girl and rolled in the sweet low chords of It Stoned Me.
“Do you believe that now?” She asked.
“I don’t know,” He said. “Here it seems just like a way of life. Like there could be no other way to live. I guess that with enough time, and enough people dedicated to the cause, things might be able to be different. People are always looking for an angle though. Looking for some way to get over. That has to be absolutely done away with.”
“Can it be?”
“See,” he said leaning forward a little, “that’s the issue. Of course it can be. But generally, people don’t make great changes in their lives without first having some sort of terrific emotional experience. People don’t usually change without being hurt or threatened. And if that’s what forces the change, it really isn’t permanent. The real person still lives on just under the surface. I’m afraid this kind of change will take tremendous personal commitment. I’m just not sure that exists there.”
Overhead a single acoustic guitar strummed through a series of melancholy chords that floated beautifully across the room.
“We were born before the wind. Also younger than the sun…”
Tawny’s eyes bored a warm hole into Mike’s heart.
Mike shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
Van drew the two of them together magnetically with every single line of Into the Mystic.
“Would you like to dance?” Mike asked.
“I would love to,” Tawny almost whispered.
Their bodies melted together and swirled around the room in perfect harmony. Mike was so happy that he actually ached. They danced up on the notes of the guitar blending smoothly with the keyboard, and floated in the center of reality, like the soft pastel colors of life that Mike was able to be a part of, in the memorial garden. The décor of Mike’s home changed to an open space lined with gently flowing white linen. Twinkling lights blinked lightly on and off overhead.
And time stood still.
Mike looked deeply into Tawny’s eyes. What he saw there made him confident that she was feeling the same thing he was. He moved his lips closer to hers and his heart exploded as she came towards him, meeting his kiss. Those deep, beautiful lips touching his. Melting into one in the heat of the passion that they were both generating. He kissed her gently wanting to hold on to that initial touch for as long as he could. He was at the center of everything that he had ever lived for. Of every life event, everything that had hurt or helped him. Every late appointment, or long traffic light, or missed alarm clock, that had driven him ceaselessly to that one single moment in time that put him in the right place, at exactly the right time to be picked up by that ship. To deposit him on this amazingly beautiful planet, and to be kissing this woman that was the answer to the deepest of things he needed in his life. No. Not things he needed. Things that he craved. Things that without, he would certainly, simply, cease to exist.
They stopped moving to the music. Mike reached up and caressed Tawny’s face as their lips continued to explore the white-hot emotions they were generating.
Overhead the music slowed.
“To late to stop now,” Van warned as the music faded away.
Nineteen:
The sweetly soft voice of K D Lang filled the room with the summation of the post-coital feelings that hung between the intertwined naked bodies lying quietly together.
Hallelujah… Hallelujah…
Mike’s eyes filled with his unending love for the woman for whom he had waited his entire life. Rivulets of warm raw emotion spilled down his cheeks burning his skin. His index finger ran unconscious, and slow, tracing each rise and fall of the skin on Tawny’s perfect back. She whispered a low, satisfied moan and wiggled deeper into the crook of his arm. He knew this fraction of a second in this exquisite moment of time was the only thing he needed to live.
Tawny stroked the skin of his chest and it felt like she was massaging his heart back to life after it had been stuck in stasis for an eternity.
“It took you long enough,” she said quietly.
Of course the masculine human side of him took over immediately and assumed that
he had failed to meet her physical expectations, or lingered too long on a specific act or manipulation. Possibly even climax.
“I, ah,” Mike was horrified.
“I thought you weren’t interested in me at all,” she finally put his worst fears to rest.
“It was far from that,” Mike said in relief. “I couldn’t see you interested in me.”
“I’m pretty sure that there isn’t a woman on this planet that would feel like that,” Tawny said. “The thing that makes you the most dangerous is the thing that attracts women the most.”
“Dangerous?” Mike said. “I never thought of myself like that. What part of me seems dangerous?”
“Your passion. There isn’t anything that comes close to it here. It’s animalistic on one hand. Almost brutal when you compare it to the way we live our lives here. On the other it’s exciting and even intoxicating. It’s…well…dangerous.”
He had no idea what to say. He thought that the events of the last hour or so were the most beautiful minutes he could have ever have imagined. He and Tawny had come together as one being and shared each other in ways that he had never even considered with another woman. Now she was saying that he was brutal?
“I’m sorry if I was too rough,” Mike said.
“No,” she said as she placed a hand on the side of his face to turn it towards her. She kissed him softly. “You were far from that. It was amazing. It’s just the duality of the issues we’re trying to fix. Humans on Earth aren’t separated from the basis of animal instinct by much. You’re so close to animals, in fact, that articulation and thumbs are about the only things that separate you.”
Mike looked devastated.
“Don’t look like that Mike,” She said as she gave him the softest of kisses. “You are a wonderful man, and a very giving lover. It’s just…different than what happens here.”
“You’re an amazing woman Tawny,” Mike said. “I’ve thought that from the very first time I met you. Right here and right now is the only place I want to be.”
The last words out of Mike’s mouth gave Tawny pause. Maybe this connection was a bad thing. She had been attracted to him from the beginning as well. Could it be possible that an actual physical relationship between humans on Earth and their ancestral counterparts on Hale could be that destructive? Could it be, that this one act could put an instant and final end to the mission trying to normalize the inhabitants of another world that Haleians were responsible for? The idea that she may be the catalyst for a devastating multi world incident made her shudder just a little. It was so horrible a notion that she buried it far back in the deepest reaches of her subconscious, locked the vault, and melted down the key.
“Do you think you could get away tomorrow?” Tawny asked as she put the negative feeling out of her mind for good.
“Anything you want,” Mike said.
“Great,” she said. “I have one last thing to show you here.
“I can’t wait,” he said as he kissed the top of her head.
This seemed to Tawny to be the most innocent of suggestions. It seemed the perfect idea to push the darkness of her thoughts completely into the basement of her mind. It seemed the perfect vehicle to use, to bring their relationship back to the even keel that it had been on before they had connected in the deepest of ways.
But, as Bob might have said…
The best-laid mice have plans.
Twenty:
Tawny was only mildly concerned as she and Mike rode to the destination of their next and possibly final visit to part of the life-style of Hale. Mike had his arm loosely around her shoulders, and it felt good. She had never experienced this kind of closeness with another person before. Normally after two people had connected in such a way in her society, they simply went on with life as it had been before the act had happened. People in this world loved each other completely and unconditionally every single day. It was the adhesive that held the fabric of society together.
She was only slightly aware that his arm around her wasn’t simply a display of affection with humans. Someplace deep inside, she recognized that this seemingly innocuous act was, to the people on Earth, a gesture of protection, and a symbol of ownership. It sent a signal to all others that this woman belonged to this man and everyone had better respect that.
Tawny basked in the good feeling feelings her connection to Mike gave, and decided that she’d deal with any issues that may spring up from it when they presented themselves. She should have known a bridge can’t be crossed when it’s already on fire.
“We’re here,” Tawny said lightly as the door on the tram whooshed open.
“Outstanding,” Mike said. “I can’t wait.”
The building they were standing in front of wasn’t really much different than any of the other large buildings Mike had seen on Hale up till then. All of the architecture was functional, and most of the aesthetic value was supplied by organic life.
“So where are we?” Mike asked.
“This is the children’s center,” she said. “I think this will fill in all the spaces to help you understand how we live here.”
Tawny took him by the hand and led him into the foyer of the building. Once again Mike was surprised at the lack of security here. Mike and Tawny were able to simply walk through the doors, into the building, and have complete and unrestricted access to any and all of the areas in the school.
“This would never happen on earth,” Mike said.
“How do you mean?” T awny asked.
“I know the way people’s minds work here, and I completely realize that there’s not a danger of anything happening to these kids,” he said. “But still, after all of the tragedies in so many of the school rooms on Earth recently…”
“That’s pretty much why we decided to save this for last,” she said. “If you saw this without first having a basic understanding of how things work here you might come away with a different opinion.”
Tawny took Mike down one of the many corridors that ran off the main foyer. Children of all different ages and several adults milled about in the hallway.
“Are they between classes right now?” Mike asked.
“No,” she said. “Why do you ask that?”
“There just seems to be a lot of people outside the class room right now.”
“School doesn’t work the same way here that it does on earth,” she said. “In fact, there is nothing about this place that would translate for you, or your society. Classes aren’t structured the way they are on earth. People attend the ones they need and not the ones they don’t. Naturally there’s a testing regimen. But that’s pretty fluid as well.”
“How does anyone learn anything is a system like that?” He asked.
“Pretty well I think; said the woman with the interstellar spaceship, to the guy with a chip in his head.” She smiled at him.
“Touché,”
“I understand that kids start school as young as three,” Mike said.
“That’s not exactly accurate, in the truest sense,” she told him. “At the age of three children come here to live. The parents visit regularly, but not simply to see how their child is progressing in relation to the others. Everyone in this community takes responsibility for the building of a productive citizen in society. Children are able to form a sense of community. Naturally, when kids first get here they have literacy requirements to meet. They have to learn to read and write. Of course, basic math is part of that. After they complete the rudimentary classes they can explore areas that they’re naturally drawn too.”
“How long does that take?” Mike asked. “How long do kids usually stay here?”
“The answer to that is different based on the individual,” Tawny explained. “No one learns or absorbs at the same rate. Once a child is ready to move on, they’re encouraged to explore interests that keep their mind active. On one hand, quite a lot of time is wasted in the system that you’re used to. Students that excel above their class are only allowed
to advance ahead to a specific point. They also waste a lot of time learning things that aren’t important to whatever place they may take in society.”
“And on the other hand?” Mike asked.
“On the other, some students are moved along too fast to be successful. They become frustrated and eventually give up. Here everyone advances at whatever rate it takes to be successful.”
“Naturally we have people that are trained to recognize areas that children are drawn to that will help them become productive members of the community. Some children may be drawn to sciences, others to mechanical interests. The path they take is governed by them. They come out of the other end of this system well-rounded, happy people, that are able to advance the world around them, as far as it can possibly go.”
“What about the ones that are lazy, or simply don’t care about learning.”
“That situation really never exists,” she said. “The only reason it does on Earth is because children feel left out, uncared for, or inferior. In this system those feelings can never be fostered.”
“How long do kids stay here then?” Mike asked.
“For as long as they want to,” she said. “Some may advance to a specific point in, say, the heath care field. They may feel that they have gone as far as they want to and decide they want to be a nurse, or technician. Others may want to continue on to be doctors or surgeons. The most important thing to remember is that any level of training in any field is considered to be just as important as the others. The brain surgeon is considered just as important as the phlebotomist.”
They walked through a set of double doors at the end of the hallway and into a typically magical garden. In one place children of different ages sat under a tree and listened to a lecture about botany. In another a group of kids were working in what appeared to be a small garden plot.
“Most of the classes that are held out here have to do with plant life,” Tawny said. “Most of the others, like engineering, math, and things like that are in different classrooms inside. Almost all of the medical classes are in the section that is also the community hospital.”