Excerpt: Touched (working title)

The city once glittered with lights at night, and in the day glittered in the sun. Smiles were as bright as that same sun, and laughter, and embraces of lovers and friends were all round. How quickly things change.

The gray of winter now settled on the city. The towers spires that had survived the bombs stood stark and solemn. Some windows were still cracked, held together by boards, some glass shards were panes had been. Boxes were flowers once grew were now utilised for vegetables or containers for grain and seeds, which most were being used for in this dull season. Men peered down with caution and suspicion, women kept their children away from the windows, or scowled at attempts by passing workers to call out to them.

On the street, eyes moved furtively, avoiding gazes. Bodies hunched over, walked briskly, hands in pockets, clasping children towards them. The occasional smiles and friendly conversations were brief, only held with old friends. Those who remembered the moving films had cause to try and forget them. So many tales of noble sacrifice, poor girls who would give up their bit of bread to someone in a far worse situation then they. Since the war, the world had turned selfish, people didn’t think of others before them because after all, they had to keep on surviving themselves. Who could begrudge them that?

As he moved through the streets, darting softly between the people so to go quickly but without attracting attention, Ethan wondered if perhaps soon he too would become like that; hard and focused entirely on survival. Around him, that was what most people did. Survive. They’d work, use the money to buy food to feed themselves and loved ones, go home to sleep, on some evenings there was alcohol to entertain themselves, and if the Governing Ones were feeling in the mood to offer some propaganda disguised as entertainment, then they would get that in the form of live theatre or news reels that flashed on the walls of local Governing House. People didn’t reach out to help others much any more.

Then again, Ethan thought, as someone brushed past him, causing his tool case to rattle, Johnry often said that self-centredness was hardly new, and at times like these, it was harder to fault people. Ethan bristled at such remarks, for he felt that they gave excuse to behaviour that those in the Tenement didn’t would never abide. Johnry did assure him that it was not excusing them from what should be a duty, but rather, an understanding. Ethan failed to see the real difference between the two concepts.

Another few turns, and he was on a quiet street just behind the Governing House. Almost at his destination. The street number, which he’d committed to memory that morning, appeared on his right, and he knocked on the door. A women with a premature streak of gray in her hair opened it. It looked as if she’d come out of the war not too badly in the material sense (she was, after all, the owner of the house), but that it had taken its toll on her in other ways.

“Plumber. I’m here for yer pipes,” Ethan said.

“Do come in,” she said, not even registering surprise. As he passed her, Ethan wondered if perhaps the Tenement should offer acting classes as well as everything else they did. Most people looked relieved to see the plumber, though some, especially those who held a strange views about those in the Trades, looked a little startled, as if he were about to bite.

Once the door closed, she grabbed his arm and dragged him in to the sitting room. She wasn’t alone; two young women, both over age but unlikely to be married, sat there, and a cup of the brown bean was sitting on the table in front of an empty space. The woman ushered him to that spot, and made him sit. It occurred to him that was the best chair they had.

“Do you have it?” she asked, hands together, almost in prayer.

Ethan opened the bottom part of his tool box, and pulled out a brown envelop. He handed it to her. She grasped it, and sat on a spindly looking chair. The two young women quickly stood and peered over her shoulder.

Ethan eyed the cup of brown bean, but didn’t touch it, even though he knew it was for him. One of the girls, the shorter of the two, looked up suddenly at him, and said he could take it. He smiled gratefully, and she smiled back, before casting her eyes shyly to the floor. Ignoring the gesture, Ethan reached for the cup, and took a long sip of the hot bean, sweet and warm.

On the chair, the woman gasped, and released a sob. Ethan didn’t look at the three women directly, but as he quietly sipped and relished the drink, out of the corner of his eye he saw the women fall into a huddled embrace, and he heard the mother say quietly,

“At least one of them may return.”