This is Part 13 of What Happened to Trunkin. If you missed the beginning, start here:
“Step aside,” Stuart muttered, waders sloshing through the shallows of Nethermoor Lake. “Do you believe him, Hen? Step aside…”
The stars were out, the moon hiding behind a cloud, while earthward in the butter yellow beam of Stuart’s torch, small, long-legged things flit and darted. In the darkness off to his right, Henwen nuzzled enthusiastically in a stand of rushes. She didn’t react, but Stuart knew she was listening.
“What do they expect me to do with myself?” The question was posed to the night as much as Henwen’s fleshy backside. “Perhaps if they’d told me back in medical school that I was to be replaced with a robot, I could have chosen a different specialty.”
Henwen grunted. Stuart chose to interpret this as commiseration.
“It’s too late for me to become anything other than I am. I may be younger than Dr. Whitehead, but I’m still far too old to just go starting over.” He swung his boot around in the water and watched the ripples. “Granted, there’s always GP, but it isn’t as though I’ll be the only one suddenly looking for work with a useless certification. Suppose there’s no need for more doctors? And if other specialties are impacted at the same time? Pathologists, dermatologists…” Stuart scratched his chin. “If we’re all put out of work at once, it’ll be a mad dash to stay out of the bread lines. It’ll be a bloody game of musical chairs, and somehow I just know I’m going to wind up arse on the carpet.”
Henwen burrowed farther into the brush in eager pursuit of something Stuart couldn’t see, invisible now but for a scaly fin.
“I know I carp about the job. The hours spent in the dark, staring at screens. But I enjoy helping people. If my father could see what was happening to the field, he’d… Henwen, are you listening?”
She snorted and thrashed her tail, propelling herself forward and sending a splattering of chill droplets onto Stuart’s face.
He wiped them away. “I suppose you’d like it if I was put out of a job. I bet you’re thinking I’d have you around more. But we can’t spend all our time foraging. Sometimes you have to go back to wherever it is you go to—and if I attempt to sustain myself on your discoveries, I’ll be mad as a hatter within the month. Then there’s the mortgage to consider. You don’t know the first thing about mortgages, I envy you that. Listen, what’re you after in there? Would you look at me? I feel like I’m talking with a shrubbery.”
From the rustling rushes a pair of birds took flight, warbling as they were driven from their nest. Henwen burbled, and bit by bit she reemerged, inching backwards with awkward flaps of her flippers. Her porcine head came last. Finally free of the binding brush, she glided off through the water, circling round behind to reappear at his side.
After a cursory scan of the lake and its surrounding trails for unwanted observers, Stuart knelt. “What’ve you found, then?” he asked, for she’d clearly unearthed something. She’d a nose for strange plants, did Henwen, and loved nothing more than hunting for them. Stuart could tell by the way she held herself, by the quiver in her dorsal fin and the swish of her tail, that whatever it was, she was proud of it.
Angling his light so as only to illuminate the very tip of her snout, so that from a distance she might be mistaken for a dog in one of those shark sweaters (or so he told himself), he watched her spread her jaws and let her prize float free.
Stuart sighed. “Hen…”
Floating just below the surface was a clump of mushrooms that Stuart didn’t need his torch to see. Their slender stems were no larger than his forefinger, their curving caps covered in long, threadlike scales that hung down like jellyfish legs. The whole lot was softly glowing, like cottage windows at Christmastime.
Stuart scooped them up and straightened. “Just what we need.”
The mushrooms lay flat and slimy in his palm, their tassels limp. He raised his arm to toss them back into the rushes where they’d not be found, as he’d done a thousand other times, but then…he paused.
The moment stretched. Sensing his queer mood, Henwen nuzzled at his knee, making soft animal sounds, and at last Stuart lowered his arm. He fished an empty jar from the tinkling satchel at his hip and filled it with lake water. As he plopped the mushrooms inside, they regained their full, natural shape, bobbing between lid and bottom and suffusing his cupped hand with warm light. The moon stole a peek from behind her cloud.
A feeling crept over Stuart. One he’d not felt in a very long time. It was a nervous sort of feeling, but there was excitement in it too.
Perhaps…
He’d not been to Sky in nearly a decade. Had no desire to visit, content with his life, such as it was. Naturally, thoughts of the otherworld crept into his head from time to time. Memories of the wild wood. Of beautiful Byrue. Of the white bluffs and Brunanburh. But his place was here, doing things that mattered. Helping people. Not indulging in…frivolous escapades, seeking after things he could scarcely articulate.
So he’d thought.
But perhaps…
Perhaps an adventure was just what he needed. If they were going to rob him of his meaning here, perhaps he should be looking for it somewhere else. The thought troubled as much as excited him. For all of its wonder and beauty, Sky was dangerous. It would be foolish to go alone, especially now, as tame as he’d become, his hard-won instincts dulled by safety and…takeout sausage rolls. But there was only person he could turn to in a time such as this, and he lived at the other end of a bridge long burnt.
It would be an imposition…
“That’s enough for tonight,” he mumbled, turning in the direction of their car. Henwen swam alongside him, graceful in her element, pinkish scales glinting as she danced in and out of his torchlight. Though there were few living who’d have recognized it, there was an air of smug satisfaction in her movements, a contented twinkling in her eye. Stuart was too preoccupied to notice. His mind was elsewhere, filled with thoughts of a life and a person he’d thought he’d left behind.
Thanks for reading.
If you’re enjoying the story, please take a moment to like, share, or leave a comment. In this algorithm-driven world, interaction is a great way to support your favorite creators.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.