The first of February’s Railman posts. I’m aware there should have been one on Friday and this should have been it. Oh well.
Feel free to leave a comment, criticism or suggestion.
- Alistair
The morning’s work was underway. The first of the cargo carriers had arrived bringing the crates and grain; the dockers grappled the heavy goods with their gauntlets, using them to lift many times their own weight, and the crane driver began transferring the grain to the silo. Braddock stood on the platform beside the carrier talking to the driver, a short man stripped to the waist for the rising heat of the morning. His torso was deeply tanned from years of riding on top the carrier, with a generous belly hanging over his work belt. Driving was a well paid (and well fed) but dangerous profession; pirates were known to be rife on the rails. It was the only time Ryan ever saw someone who was so large. Village life was spartan for the most part, coin and feed being hoarded to ensure the village’s survival though dark days. And the last few years had been very dark. To see someone of a ‘comfortable’ shape was still a curiosity.
Ryan missed the spectacle; he was still fast asleep on the bench in the chapel. Heterozygous was resting beside him sipping quietly from an old chipped mug filled with coffee. Normally he wouldn’t risk it. Anyone could pass by the chapel entrance and smell the bitter, earthy aroma but he was beyond caring. He knew the heavy penalties for hoarding rare goods but coffee was sacred to him and a risk he was willing to take. Casually he looked up and saw Alice in the crane’s cab looking down at him. He guessed she was smiling. Alice waved and he raised his mug as a greeting. She was the only person, other than Ryan, who was aware of Heterozygous’ secret coffee habit. The Reverend didn’t mind; they could both keep a secret and were good company. He couldn’t ask for more than that.
Beside him Ryan stirred. Heterozygous guessed the reasons why. Ryan was a Reader. Sure, everyone in the village could read and a few enjoyed it more than most but Ryan wasn’t just a reader, he was a Reader. He would pour over his studies, such as they were in a backwater like Pascoe Glyn, and would sneak back into the classroom after hours and take to his books time and time again until the light was too low to make out the text. The Elders did nothing to encourage his enthusiasm; if he was a Reader then that was his calling. There was little they would do to dissuade him. And the village’s two remaining Readers seemed ancient to Ryan and they didn’t have the eyesight for it like they used to. It was important to have someone who knew the way of things. While the Elders maintained the veneer of omniscience, and a thin veneer at that, they relied on the Readers to keep then right on matters of Law, History and anything else that might come under the expertise of the Reader.
Ryan was left to his own devices and Heterozygous did what he could to get the Ministry to send anything that would help broaden Ryan’s perspective.
Reverend Heterozygous stood and stretched. The morning was advancing and soon it would be time for the Eleven Ceremony traditionally held at noon, rather than eleven o’clock which would have made more sense to Heterozygous, but it would be a while before anyone arrived. He still had time to think, enjoy his coffee and take in the morning. Heterozygous was in charge of the village’s spiritual health. Most settlements over a certain size had a minister sent to them and Pascoe Glyn, although small, was no exception. The previous minister, so Heterozygous had heard, was of the Fire and Brimstone school but his own technique was more relaxed, much more liberal. Perhaps, he thought, that was why attendance had dwindled to practically nothing.
He heard a groan and looked down at blue eyes gazing hungrily up at the coffee mug. Ryan was awake.
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