Tiernay's Feet: Part One

Tiernay and Geppetto

Tiernay’s hangover had a hangover so he drank twice as much to kill them both.  The whiskey got the two to fight with each other, making a terrible racket, but at least they weren’t angry directly at him anymore.

He threw off the covers and remembered why he had been drinking so much.  Both of his feet were gone.

Tiernay pushed the bottle away and grabbed the tin can with the string hooked up beside his bed.

Operator -  Good afternoon, how can I help you?

Tienay -  Yeah, uh… Geppetto.  Connect me to Geppetto.

Operator -  Just a moment sir.

Tiernay rubbed his face while waiting for all the clicks coming through the string on the can to stop until he heard the lively voice of his friend Geppetto.

Geppetto -  Hello.  Geppetto here!

Tiernay -  Yeah, uh, Tiernay over here.  Probably.  A piece of him.

Geppetto -  Tiernay!  How good to hear your voice!  Haven’t seen you since my cousin’s wedding!

Only Geppetto would mention that horrible event to Tiernay without hushed tones of empathetic embarrassment or blatant unconcealed condemnation.  Tiernay, having been the one to throw up on the wedding cake, felt doubly embarrassed and ashamed to make up for it.

Tiernay -  Yeah, well, busy and all that you know, no rest for the wicked or something.

An image popped into his head from the previous night.  Standing out in the rain on slick cobblestones looking like unkept teeth, he had been looking into a pair of eyes looking decidedly at and decidedly through him.

The Deranged Man -  I’m still waiting for my apology.

Tiernay had just been about to say, ‘you and me both’ when it struck him that there was something more going on in the deranged man’s eyes and that to agree with him was like making a deal with something more real and permanent than the passing moment let on.

Geppetto -  Tiernay?

Tiernay -  Sorry, I was somewhere else just then.  Listen, do you have any spruce or pine or oak lying around?  You know, wood, whatever.  I just kinda need some help.  Could you come over with your tools?

Geppetto -  Sure!  Always happy to help!  Be there in a jiffy!

Tiernay should have hated Geppetto.  He was going to get around to hating him but Tiernay liked Geppetto so much that he never could.  He threw a little more whiskey on top of his hangovers to quell their dissent and sat up and waited for his friend.

The deranged man had had the hair of a man who has long since given up on living under roofs.  He had been barking like a dog at the fat rain drops when Tiernay had been walking by.  Tiernay had to look, wanted to see someone worse off than him.  He hadn’t expected to be so successful.  Tiernay was afraid that by looking in the man’s eyes, he had let in some kind of ghost, had given the deranged man a portal into Tiernay’s life.

Tiernay -  I’ve got enough ghosts.

The walls nodded in agreement.

Geppetto

Geppetto was improbably nice to the extent that Tiernay tended to look over Geppetto’s shoulders while speaking with him to make sure the world didn’t notice it’s mistake in letting Geppetto live and hit him with an errant asteroid or allow him to stabbed by a maniacal assassin.

Geppetto -  Ah, I get it!  You need me to make you feet!  Sure, no problem.

Tiernay was happy that Geppetto said it so that he wouldn’t have to admit it.  Geppetto ignored the glaring poverty and dishevelment and stepped into Tiernay’s shack.  He put down his various hammers, saws, and files on the floor in front of him and set down the bundle of wood blocks he had slung over his back.

Geppetto -  So, feet or shoes?

Tiernay -  Huh?

Geppetto -  Should I make your new ‘feet’ look like feet or shoes?  If they look like shoes you can wear them around as is, but if you have ‘feet’ feet you might want to put on regular shoes over top of them to look right.

Tiernay -  Right.  Okay.  Shoes.  Make them shoes.  Have you done this before?

Geppetto -  No, first time.

Geppetto was new to the town.  He was a young man from some place not so close, not so far away, looking for a bigger life.  Tiernay was surprised that Geppetto could think this town was a bigger life but never argued the point.  Tiernay would hate for Geppetto to actually be wrong.  Tiernay wanted to see the world the way the young wood worker did, even if he felt sure it was deluded.

Geppetto’s hands moved instinctively for the most part, with Geppetto only stopping every now and then to consciously take a closer look at what he was doing.

Tiernay -  You’re damn good at that Gep.

Geppetto -  Really?

Tiernay -  Damn straight.  Don’t know why you stick around this place.  I bet you could get onto one of those star freighters and see the galaxy.

Geppetto -  You think so?  Maybe, but I think there is more than enough down here.  I’ve heard trees don’t really grow right on those ships, they don’t know which way to go.  I like living in a place with an up.

Tiernay held back mentioning that they were also living in a place with a down.

Geppetto -  Besides, you are living down here and I’d miss you.

Tiernay -  I’d miss you too.

Tiernay put off hating himself for telling the truth.

Geppetto -  Well, here you are!  Two new feet.  These are better than I expected.  You’ll look all put together.

Tiernay attached the remarkably smart looking wooden feet.  Geppetto had attached braces of leather that fit over his lower legs that worked surprisingly well.  Tiernay stood up, wobbly at first, but was able to walk in front of an old dusty mirror.  Tiernay squinted until he felt the image was vaguely handsome and reassuring.  Tiernay tried to believe Geppetto was telling the truth.

Cleopatra and Ophelia

Cleopatra -  I miss my palace.  Have you ever lived in a palace?

Ophelia -  I think I might have.  My head’s still quite fuzzy.  Can’t remember a lot.

Cleopatra -  Live in a palace.  It’s highly underrated.

Cleopatra and Ophelia set down their heavy bags for a moment and wiped the sweat away.  Luckily the road was sloping down into the town but unluckily once they got there, they had no idea what to do and will have lost the only thing they had, a direction.

Cleopatra -  Palaces have cakes.  I don’t know why exactly, they look like places of great import, and they are, but the best things they have are cakes.  It makes all the silliness make a bit more sense.  Palaces are full of silly people pretending to be serious but at least the cakes are honest.

Ophelia -  But aren’t palaces grand and profound?

Cleopatra -  Should be.  Can be.  Maybe they are.  It’s easy to discount a place that is as close as family.  It’s easier maybe to praise the silly and disparage the profound.  Maybe I’m just hungry.  Do we have enough for something to eat?

Ophelia -  Well, I do have these coins.  What they add up to is a beyond me.  Perhaps they’ll do.

Cleopatra -  If they don’t do then we’ll have to do something.  Doesn’t bother me, I’ve never minded getting my hands dirty.  I mean, our hands are already dirty, time to dig into the earth.  And this is an earthy place.  What does that sign say?

Ophelia -  Curious.  It just says The Town.  Is that a name or just a description?

Cleopatra -  Both.  And looking at it from here I am not sure it really lives up to its name or description.

The Town was a generation or two away from not being.  It wasn’t so much that the town had hit hard time; the people of the town had just stopped wanting to keep it going.  Each time anything was passed down, it was less.  Each business got smaller, each party got quieter, each road got rougher, each family got colder.  It was a twilight of a town.

Ophelia -  I think it looks like a fine place.  Just needs a little care and attention.

Cleopatra stopped herself from looking down on Ophelia.  Her heart too wanted this place to be something more.  She herself had been through so many changes she had to admit it was possible, even if highly improbable.

Cleopatra -  Well, let’s find out what possibilities it does have.  I’m hoping for cakes.

Cleopatra -  People here don’t seem to like you very much.  That’s some pretty impressive sneering.

Tiernay looked up to see a mother and her daughter 

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