Last edited by 97cweb at 2026-08-30 23:32:24.090269
After a supper consisting of some stewed vegetables, Thallion, Lena, and I just sit and talk about nothing specific. Lena says she has most of the field planted, thanks to my help, and Thallion says that the school year will wrap up tomorrow, so the kids can help the others plant.
“So, what will you be doing for the rest of the year?” I ask Thallion. “If everyone is busy with farming, what do you do?”
Thallion looks down and says “I was hoping to...get back in contact with the person that made the fly ball governors, but...”
“Thallion...” I interject. “I know it was you, I was charging your palms to stabilize your shakes just before you made that, and you were a shaking mess the next morning.”
“...true,” he admits. “But...still...now that that’s...all gone...I don’t know. Maybe I can get enough healing off of the old generator?”
“Eldrin still has it, but we tried that, it is a few hours for you to do anything more than write, let alone intricate work like that.”
Thallion goes silent, pensive.
“You could sort the notes we have?” Lena adds.
“Yes, but that is a few days at most. Then what?”
We bop ideas around for an hour, nothing really landing as something that he can do long term with poor dexterity. Writing will be a challenge enough.
Without any real conclusion, the sun sets, and I get ready for bed. Lena comes over and gives me a chaste kiss on the cheek.
“Bleah! You wash your face since plowing?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you still taste like salt.”
I get up, and wash myself again at the basin, longing for the days of running hot water. Another thing to add to the list.
I settle into my broken chair and drift off thinking of ways to make water flow. Pipes could work, but need a tall tower for pressure, and then everything needs to be well sealed. Could start with an aqueduct type thing, would only need an Archimedes screw at least to start...
I drift off, dreaming of pumps and steam.
Hours later, I bolt upright, screaming in pain. I jump up out of the chair, the floor groaning when I land, and try to grab my lower back.
Immediately Lena is with me in her nightgown. I barely notice as I fall to my knees, clutching my spine and trying to push on either side of it.
“What’s wrong?!” Lena shouts.
“Salt.”
“Salt?”
“Need...salt” I wheeze out between laboured breaths.
“No...salt’s bad for you.”
“Need. Salt” I crawl my way past Lena towards the kitchen. At this point, a sleepy Thallion comes out of his room.
“Salt?” He asks, standing but asleep.
“Ethan says he needs salt.”
“Salt?! That’s not good for you!” Thallion snaps awake. “Get back here!” He grabs me and tries to stop me from getting to the kitchen. I stumble but easily push his feeble attempts off of me. Lena tries to stop me too. In pain, I push them both away, and get to the bowl where the salt meat is stored overnight to leach out salt.
Glug Glug Glug
I drink down the entire bowl of saltwater that the meat was in, and with Lena wrapped around my waist and Thallion grabbing my ankle, drag myself over to the water jug. I fill the bowl again, and then get to the meat barrel. Scooping a few teaspoons off the top, I dump it into the bowl and after a few seconds, down it all again.
“Well...that’s it,” Thallion states. “We’ll see how alive you are in a few hours. That much salt should rust you out by then.”
“No!” Lena cries. She pushes on my stomach, then stands behind me and squeezes my middle hard, in what I can only describe as an adult trying to do the Heimlich manoeuvre but not able to squeeze the kid hard enough.
“I’m fine. Quit poking me.” I say calmly, still in pain, but the water in my stomach is at least seeming to let my body know something is on the way.
I head back to my chair, and sit down. “I just overexerted myself with the plow. All that salt you kept tasting, Lena, it came from within me. Sweating is how I keep cool, and how I was able to plow the entire field.”
Thallion looks at Lena. “He plowed the entire thing today? I thought you said you had help!”
“I did! He was the help!”
“Even pushing it, it should have still taken 3 days minimum to do it!”
“I know. But. He’s strong, and powerful, and untiring...” Lena’s voice fades as her mind and eyes drift off into something.
“Get your head back here! Don’t you see! He pushed himself too hard, and it nearly killed him!”
“No, it didn’t.” I interject into this brewing sibling fight, feeling a bit better, and the pain in my lower back subsides. “That’s fairly normal work. Just...I am not in the best shape. The time frame though, that is nothing. Put me in water, and I can swim better than I can walk. Wait, do you have any knowledge of what you did before agriculture?”
“Why? What does that have to do with anything? For someone almost dead, you ask too smart questions.”
“I’m fine, just...what did you do historically?”
“Eldrin would probably know more, but tree pouncing was the thing he described to me.”
“Tree...pouncing?”
“Tree pouncing. Climb a tree, and pounce on things below.”
“Tree pouncing. Tree pouncing!” I say a few times, as I get the image of Lena and Thallion up in trees, spears in hand, covered in furs, and lunging down to strike sabre-toothed cats. The image immediately has me in stitches, especially when I give Thallion a tiger stripe pattern.
I fall to the floor in laughter. Both of them look at me funny, and then Lena tries to hold me still.
“You’re not going anywhere if I can help it!” She says, trying to corral me.
“You...you’re Tiggers!”
“Entering delirium, do you have anything in your room to make him throw up?” Thallion asks.
“Top shelf, third bottle.”
“I’m fine! Just...Tiggers.” I am back to fits of laughter.
“What the hell is a Tigger? Don’t let your last words be that?” Lena screams, wrestling to keep me still.
Thallion comes out, and between the two of them and my exhaustion from sudden wakefulness from salt cramps and fits of laughter, they shove a spoonful of the stuff into my mouth.
“Say, this stuff’s pretty good! Fresh. Basil?”
“Fresh?! You should be heaving by now!”
“Needs pasta.”
“You definitely are losing it.”
“Noo!” Lena folds over my chest and cries. Thallion, unsure of what to do, goes and gets papers and starts writing what has happened.
“I feel fine. Better than I have in a while. Probably been short on salt for a few weeks then.”
“Weeks!” Lena looks up, shocked. “How much salt do you eat?!”
“About 10 grams minimum? Why?”
“You eat that much of it! You’ll bankrupt us!”
“Oh.”
“We reuse salt, let the water leave and use it to cure meats. It’s not food! And you just ate gut purger, and said it needs pasta?!”
“Look, I’m fine, but to unpack all that, we’ll talk in the morning.”
“Don’t go dying on me, you are staying right here, and I will be listening for your breathing. Any changes, and I am kicking you.”
“Fine.”
We all just stare at each other for a while, but eventually I fall back to sleep, with Thallion watching us both.
Come morning, I wake up, with Lena on my chest and an arm around her. I could get used to this. Someone to hold. It’s nice.
She snaps awake as I move my hand, turns towards my face, focuses her eyes and says, “you’re alive!” She then hugs me, pushing me back onto the floor.
Thallion is startled from the noise and wakes up like an old man in a rocking chair. “What’d I miss? Not what I wanted to see in the morning. Lena, he’s still here, you...don’t need to be that affectionate...in front...of me.”
Lena turns beet red and gets up.
“So, salt?”
“Salt.” I reply. “The only rock we eat directly. Seasoning, wound cleaning, preservative, possible reason we have economy as a thing. Super important for life. Where you have iron wires in you, I have squishy cells that use salt to send the messages.”
“But...you were losing them yesterday? Why dump your messages?”
“Salt is used for many things. It is also used in sweat for cooling. Unlike you tig- I mean, unlike you, we used to chase what we hunted until it collapsed from exhaustion. Hours, days. Some cultures were completely nomadic, moving with the herds of untamed animals, relying on continuous pursuit to hunt them down, or drive them off cliffs if there was one nearby.”
“What is that word you kept saying last night? Tiggers?”
“Tiggers?” I stare off into the distance for a bit, thinking about how to explain Tigger from Pooh, and pouncing. “That...is a long story. Just that...Tiggers pounce. Jagulars drop from trees too, so do drop bears. Your strategy is closer to them.”
“Well, it better be a flattering comparison?” Lena pouts.
“For you, tigger, yes,” I say, in my first ever attempt at flirting.
“Well...” Thallion interjects me trying to make eyes at Lena, “now that we know you need it, how will we get enough for you. That salt barrel is ancient, and with how much you said, we’ll go through that with you in about a year. We cannot afford that much.”
“Got any oceans nearby?”
“Big salt waters? No? Why do you even have a word for that?!”
I face-palm. Great, another challenge. Then I think about how places that do not have life stuff are usually dead. “How about some dead spots? Like lakes, mud where nothing seems to grow?”
Lena perks up. “Yes! There is a blue death lake to the north east, and some untouched mud to the southwest.”
“Well, I know what I am doing today. I need to find me some salt!”