S&S6

Village of Dust - November 28,1996

Eli, now an adult, found himself in the same place, by the ledge of the bell tower, where he had cautiously watched over the old priest, all throughout his childhood. Father Theodore used to spend hours on end up there, he remembered; sitting there, all by himself. In recent years, the old priest had gradually lost himself in a continuous state of watchfulness - sometimes not descending for days on end from his place atop the church’s steeple. He would always look out over the village, beyond the pine tree forest shrouded in mist, as if expecting something to emerge out of those enigmatic depths beyond, at any given moment….

Burdened by his own strain of heavy thoughts, Eli now began to better understand why Father Theo might have spent so many hours there, reflecting in the depths of such a profound solitude, there was a serene calmness up there, in the church tower. The tranquil beauty of the view from the window easily captivated one’s gaze, and it wasn’t difficult at all to lose yourself in its sombre embrace.

However, all the grandeur of the landscape he had beheld until then, the picturesque settings, surrounded by forests and tall hills - which usually granted him a feeling of utter isolation and, at the same time, a comfortable sense of safety - no longer brought him any solace on that cloudy autumn afternoon… For on the narrow path ahead, snaking its way between the trees on either side, the cart in which his wife and children rode, gradually moved further away from the village.

He stared helplessly ahead, as the struggling horse galloped away, pulling the cart further and further away from the safety of their land; from that sacred place, in the middle of nowhere, protected by time and obscured by oblivion.

He looked on helplessly, as his family eventually got lost in the obscurity between the tall hills and the forest, quickly heading towards such bizarre and unfamiliar sights - about which too few villagers could narrate from their own experiences - and boldly crossing the hidden boundaries between their village and the strange and unforgiving world that lay beyond it.

Earlier that morning……

Eli woke up earlier than usual. He jolted awake and looked around the room, soaking in sweat and drenched in cold fear. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand why - but his first instinct, as soon as his eyes popped open, was to go outside and immediately check on the animals.

He leapt out of bed, grabbed a wilted jacket that lay on the chair near the door, and stepped out. He was more concerned than ever about his animals, imaging them, in his drowsy confusion, under some inexplicable and distressing threat which only he believed could have prevented.

However, once he was outside, on the porch, he was greeted only by the haunting darkness and ominous silence of the autumn night. He was convinced, although he had no real frame of reference to compare it too, that there was no other place on earth where silence felt so alive and profound. At twenty - one years of age, he had never once ventured beyond the village boundaries. Thus, he could only imagine the noise and chaos of the outer world, as it had been described to him by the Elders, or by Father Theo, in their many cautionary tales of the outside.

It must have been four or maybe five in the morning when he stepped out on the porch. The sun hadn’t dared to show its rays yet, and the clouds imposingly dominated over everything in sight, covering the vast expanses of the sky completely. The darkness was spine - chilling, and the profound silence accompanying the frosty morning air seemed to slowly swallow the entire earth, before his very eyes.

He descended the wooden steps of the porch in a sleepy daze and hesitantly made his way to the back of the yard, where they kept the animals. Yet, upon arriving there, he found them all still deeply asleep, in a carefree state that did not match at all the presumed chaotic distress in which he had expected to encounter them, the pigs snored obliviously in their shelters, their enormous bellies moved beneath the hairs, expanding and contracting with their long, deep breaths, the birds dozed silently, perched on the edges of the wooden fence enclosing the animal area. Only a few bored hens clucked intermittently around the yard, foraging leisurely, almost listlessly, in a tall pile of manure which was gathered in the farther corner.

I must have lost my mind, he thought despondently, gazing around the slumbering yard - and realizing all the while that he could not have explained the dreadful sense of fear in which he had awakened.

Their gigantic rooster, which his eldest son had named George, was the only one to notice his presence there. The rooster began to flap his wings aggressively when he spotted Eli - he looked at him sideways, curiously, on standby, as was his habit, heralding the start of a new day and thus awakening everyone within its range.

But even George the rooster seemed to realize it was too early for such things … So he reconsidered his approach; and instead, he tucked his head into his massive, plumed chest, which slowly deflated as his eyelids lazily closed, and remained quiet for a while longer.

The calmness of the yard, the sky, and the chilly morning breeze eerily contrasted with the terrifying restlessness, the turmoil inside him, and the over whelming state of panic from which Eli had just awoken. He couldn’t comprehend anything he was seeing or experiencing anymore.

Most day, he felt like an intruder on that land. Like a toxic agent which merely polluted the innocent routine of the universe he stepped on; sometimes feeling as if he was truly staining and corrupting its expansive beauty with his mere invasive human presence.

Resigned to his most bitter of thoughts. Eli stepped away from the animals and began to wander absent minded through the garden, admiring, as if for the first time, every small detail of the yard, the cherry trees he and his father had planted one spring - he hadn’t expected them to grow so big in such a short time… Only a few years had passed since then, after all, and they were already tall and lusciously fruit - bearing.

He then realized the seedlings hadn’t been tended to for a long time. The tomatoes needed to be replanted, they weren’t thriving at all there, in the dark shade by the well….

He made his way to the back of the yard and suddenly, he found himself inside the stable. The horse startled abruptly when Eli stepped in, crashing noisily against the wooden walls, trying in its half - asleep state to get to its feet.

‘Shhh!’ - whispered the young man, gently caressing its muzzle with his large hand, softly scratching its broad forehead with the tips of his fingers.

‘Easy, boy, easy,’ he hushed, his gaze drifting absentmindedly around the barn, "Take it Easy…."

He then moved to the back, rummaged briefly through the haystack, and retrieved a wooden box - which held, among other personal trinkets, his dried stash of tobacco.

Micala, his wife, deeply disliked this habit, and Eli felt compelled to hide this occasional guilty pleasure from her, whenever possible. She couldn’t comprehend the concept of smoking. To her, it seemed a senseless pursuit, a foul - smelling waste of time that certainly wasn’t good for her husband’s health either - especially given that he would then cough incessantly for days after smoking just a few of those cigarettes.

She would always scold him when she caught him with a lit cigarette on the porch. Or when she warmly embraced him after a long day apart, only to realize with dismay that he reeked of that burnt and rotting grass stench. ‘What’s the point of it?’ she would often exclaim. ‘Why would a healthy man like yourself just sit there all day, inhaling that wretched smoke into his lungs? Just look at yourself … God forbid!’ she would shout angrily, pulling away from him and repeatedly crossing herself in an exaggerated manner.

But Eli wasn’t even a hardened smoker. And it wasn’t just because of his wife’s constant complaints - which he could have done without, but whose good intentions he could still appreciate - but because, truthfully, it really wasn’t good for him.

He smoked only occasionally, perhaps when he was at the mill or out in the fields, with the other men from the commune. He’d then take a puff or two, along with other curious non - smokers. And every time he tried to inhale more deeply, he’d erupt into a fit of violent, persistent coughing, eliciting the loud, egregious laughter of everyone around him.

He did like the taste of it, though. And that fleeting dizziness he felt with each puff, which seemed to slowly disconnect him, albeit briefly, from the monotonous reality surrounding him. For a few ephemeral moments, he felt detached from the same old, barren world he’d always known. Once the dizziness subsided and his coughing eased, he felt somewhat relieved. And with that relief, there was a strange yearning for continuity. Then, either he’d draw in more deeply and enthusiastically, leading to even more coughing, or he’d smoke too slowly, realizing all of a sudden that the cigarette was done, but the craving was still there… and stronger.

He always found those moments of evident spiritual weakness so frightening! He couldn’t grasp how something that seemed so harmless on the surface could so compellingly urge a man’s soul to indulge in something that clearly wasn’t right for him. There was a devilish temptation there, which he didn’t want to acknowledge, but which helped him distance himself from a habit that threatened to become uncontrollable.

However, Micala was the primary reason he gave up the habit for good. For a while, she tolerated his unorthodox tendencies, thinking that her young husband worked hard anyway and sometimes seemed to find no other Joy in anything else. For reasons she couldn’t understand, in this odd habit, of all things, Eli seemed to finally find the peace and comfort he so desperately yearned for.

Eventually though, he’d started to bring this habit home with him, more and more frequently. And at one point, Micala grew tired of the overpowering tobacco scent that would suddenly envelop her, as Eli collapsed into bed after an entire night spent smoking outside on the porch. Or, those increasingly more common mornings in rolling up his post - sleep cigarette to help out with the children in the house, or with the animals outside,

Confronted by her typical methods - which mostly involved a perpetual nagging and constant, nit-picking complaints (which Eli could not bear and would do anything to avoid) - the young man decided to give up the habit that was causing so much noise in their household all together.

He hadn’t smoked for a long time after his last heated argument with Micala -a scene which was probably witnessed by half of the village’s population. Disputes, of any kind, were rare in the Dusty Village. So, any raised voice or sputtered insult would always arouse the curiosity of the neighbours or other nosy passersby. They’d brazenly poke their heads over the fence to smirk at the free spectacle provided by the fiery young woman - already notorious through out the village for the vigor to any gesture or incident that she deemed inappropriate.

Despite all that however, his taste for cigarettes never left him. And now, staring at the abandoned bundle of stringy tobacco in the wooden box, his eyes suddenly misted over. His hands trembled with emotion. He felt a void expanding in his chest, and it seemed that only the impulse from the freshly ignited tobacco smoke could ever fill it up, making him whole again.

In that moment, he was incredibly grateful that he hadn’t thrown away the remaining tobacco. Several months had passed since he last smoked, but the desire and need never left him. He opened the box and tore a few leaves from the dried bundle. The texture… the scent.. It was just right! He had dried it all summer on the back fence of their yard. For months, those large tobacco leaves had soaked in the fresh morning dew, and the sun’s hearty afternoon rays had tinged their sides a beautiful golden hue. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to taste it before that argument with Micala.

It’s dried up well, he mused, staring melancholically at the tobacco crumbling effortlessly beneath his fingers. How little effort it took, he thought for a moment, to crush with such ease something that took so long to grow, to mature, to reach the age where it could finally fulfill its potential, the purpose for which it was brought on this earth in the first place!

The horse snorted softly, reminding him of its presence, but Eli paid it no mind. Exiting the shed, the cold air struck his face like the merciless slap of an ignorant parent, and the morning chill suddenly brought him closer to reality. It’s really cold, he thought, pulling his coat’s collar tighter around his neck.

He entered the house quietly, careful not to wake the rest of the family. From the highest corner of the terracotta stove, he took a large matchbox and cradled it gently against his chest before stepping back outside. He settled on the porch, coat draped over his shoulders ,and instinctively pulled a crumpled piece of newspaper from his pocket, smoothing it carefully between his fingers. He then began meticulously filling it with the finely shredded bits of tobacco, rolled it and gave it one more definitive lick, to seal the deal shut.

By the time he finally lit his cigarette, dawn was already breaking. Everything around him appeared in varying shades of blue now, from the darkest to the lightest hues - which now more closely resembled a rapidly intensifying white. George, the rooster, heralded the sunrise - gradually awakening the entire yard and his companions.

The smoke slid down his throat, thick and heavy, filling his chest with weariness and calm, as all of his surroundings were slowly coming back to life, pigs began to stir in their pens, the horse loudly jerked once again in its stall, birds started to flutter their wings in succession.

Even from inside the house, behind him, he began to hear the low cry of a newborn baby. It grew louder with each octave of incessant wailing…. Then he heard a sleepy voice, hoarse from slumber and unspoken irritation.

‘Go by Tica’s, on your way out, Eli - and get some milk. We’re nothing left to feed the little one.’

Eli turned toward her. He looked at her, dazed, through a cloud of smoke that enveloped him, shrouding his face in a veil of mystery and unanswerable questions. He then lowered his gaze to the ground, ashamed.

He took another long drag, one he almost didn’t want to release again, but then let it escape slowly out of him, through his nose and mouth, riding it on a silent sigh, excavated from the deepest depths of his restless soul.

He then looked ahead, the world before him was now fully illuminated. Everything was tinted golden. The sun blazed fiercely and felt unnaturally warm for that time of the year. He took another deep breath, full from his hand - rolled cigarette - then suddenly, he stood up, letting his coat fall off his shoulders, to the ground.

Without looking back or uttering another word, he headed towards the gate. Behind him, a young boy and a slightly younger girl had already rushed out of the house, pushing and jostling each other, giggling and laughing.

Micala watched her husband for a moment as he walked out through the gate, then instinctively began to rock the baby she held tightly against her chest.

The rooster crowed once more, as loudly as he could, and life in Eli’s little universe began anew.