A top week here on Buber. We have had less than eight clouds in the sky. All the doors and windows have remained open, and guests order spirits and mixers in highballs with lots of ice. The Butter Mice cocktail highlighted here a few months ago marks a lot of receipts.
I planned to discuss the early days of the Haircut today but the weather is too lovely. I want to drink a beer in the sunshine, and not think about death.
Instead here is something about growing up.
I was the only child on the planet. A few rough customers from somewhere infected grimaced at a kid running round the bar, but no one caused any trouble. The customers often smiled at me, or ruffled my hair. Some glanced at my hook, and handed me a few coins. I never told them the truth.
I had my run of the fields around the bar, even after the Haircut, and picked a dozen different kinds of fruit all year round. Sketched parsnipheads and spacemen. By that point we worried more about the wasps than the undead. I let Grandma know where they were, and someone dealt with them.
There were days where I wanted another person my age. But then something crazy would happen that buried my loneliness. Like the time a ship released a crate full of parrots by accident, and for several days they filled the sky with colours and squawking. And with the universe simmering with trouble, Buber was a still point. I wouldn’t swap crops for friends.
Sometimes we parked the fern cart at the bottom of the mountain, and headed up. I say mountain; this is a hill that takes half an hour to climb, and anyone from five to seventy five can clamber up without too much trouble.
At the right time of year the clicking of the farmers and the rumble of arriving ships was less than a cricket’s buzz. Shooting starts ran between the rocks that make up the edge of the Scar, burning off before they ever reached us.
One evening a rocket flew towards this stony assault course, no doubt at the start of a long journey. The glow of the cockpit was a pinprick, but I am certain I spotted the outline of a moving head. They had chaos infinity times over ahead of them, and I was so glad to be a shadow on a rock, far away from the madness.
Damn, that did get a bit dark there towards the end. Don’t worry. Today we drink in a sunshine. Today is a good day.
