Harve N Pockets

[joegoda]

Pockets pushed through the crowd, and into the town. There appeared to be just about every one in the kingdom, pushing for position to see what was going on. It would be a fine performance, he knew. He had watched Capitani drill the girls in their roles, and the girls had admirably memorized the short story written by Bren.

He knew he should be there, in case there was interpretation needed between the actors and the Bangalarian soldiers, but he had other things to do. He hoped that Harve would be able to take over the chore. He hoped Bags would be able to understand part of what he had laid out, as bizarre as it sounded. He knew, that if it all went as he had seen it, the conflict would be short, and quite possibly non-existent.

He knew that if he had showed his face, he would possibly be killed outright, and that would only make matters worse. It would certainly put a kink in his lifestyle.

Away from the gate, he ran through town, stopping briefly at every shop, building, house, and farm. He felt a bit like a thief, but he wasn't stealing anything, he wasn't breaking into any home. He was just stopping by, looking at their water pump, and moving on.

He traveled swiftly, whistling a bit as he went. It was a clear night, the moon shining through fluffily clouds, the air was crisp. If he listened, he could hear the sounds of the performance and the response from the Bangalarians. He smiled to himself.

He came to the large round building between the Keep and the Barracks. It was the Cistern where he and Grizelda had visited the day before. There was a door, about fifteen feet above ground, and he climbed the stairs up to it.

From above, the Cistern was a large round building, about thirty feet in diameter, twenty feet tall, and made entirely of stone. It was built years ago, as the water table started to drop, to hold the supply for the entire kingdom. At its peak, completely full, Pockets calculated it might have held close to one thousand thirty four gallons. That was a lot of water.

The top of the Cistern was covered completely with a tarp, stretched from rim to rim, and held down with strong rope. All day, before the performance, Pockets had been inside with Grizelda helping him, reinforcing the rope with some of the red cord he had taken from Bangala.

"Okay." Grizelda asked. "How much of this cord did you take? I know there's a big ball for the show, and here we are with almost as much of the same stuff. This is a lot of cord, Pockets."

Pockets nodded and said, quite innocently, "When this is all done, I'll explain how a quantum singularity works, Griz. Let's just say that when I found a piece, I placed it in a pocket. It’s a very special pocket that I've rarely used before."

"From there, the singularity did a bit of magic and the cord stretched incredibly long and thin. While there, it picked up bits and pieces of itself from other places and grew and grew. I knew this would happen because I once put an apple in that pocket and what came out was pie are squared times twelve to the ratio...."

Grizelda stopped him by holding her hand up. "Enough. Just say magic and let's get on with this."

Pockets smiled, because it was easier to dazzle than to explain. "Okay Griz. What ever you say. It got longer because I have a magic pocket."

"Good." It only took a few hours to thread the cord through the existing eyelets of the tarp, and secure them to the existing bolts on the outside of building. Grizelda fed the line to Pockets, while he scampered around the rim of the building. When they were done, Grizelda dusted off her hands as Pockets climbed down. "Now, if you don't have any need of me, I'll be off to the Social Club. I want to make sure the girls are behaving. Besides, I get a front row seat."

"Okay Griz. You make sure to rest tonight, all right? I expect you'll be pretty busy tomorrow. We're going to have guests."

Grizelda stood with hands on hips and looked the little man in the eye. "When are you going to tell me what this is all about, Pockets? What do you have up your sleeve?"

Pockets though for a moment and decided to tell her. "Griz, this soil, this sand we are on is very ... um... permeable. The water table is just between three and four feet down. What I'm going to do is an experiment. You know how I've talked bout bringing the forest back?"

Grizelda nodded.

"Well, it's not going to be done without water. Even though this place has been in a drought situation for decades, the water table has been stable because the bedrock keeps it there. Does any of this make sense?"

"Yes, Pockets." Grizelda sighed. "I'm a country girl, but I'm not stupid. I've also been around you long enough to learn a few things."

"This is my question." she continued. "This cistern is not quite empty, but pert near plumb. We spent part of this afternoon tossing horse apples into it, hundreds, I imagine. Where they came from, I can only imagine." She looked with one eye squinty at Pockets, then said "Never mind. I don't want to know. In fact, it's probably the same place your cord came from. A magic pocket."

Pockets just smiled.

"The rest of the time," she went on, "we spent reinforcing the top of this thing. Care to explain why?"

Pockets asked "You know the old saw, 'What goes up must come down?"

Griz nodded.

"Did ya ever hear the one that said 'If it can't go up, it has to go down'?

Griz shook her head.

"Well, it exists, believe me. And I'm depending on it." Pockets looked the building over. "You go on, Griz. I can tell you're tired."

Grizelda kissed the top of his balding sweaty head and started back towards the Social Club.

Pockets stopped her with "Do me a favor, Griz?"

Grizelda stopped and waited.

"You know that tea you made for me that one time I was pretty beat up? The one where you had to stay and brew it and watch it almost all night?"

Grizelda looked thoughtful and then said "The EverLight? That tea?"

Pockets said "I guess. It's the one that seemed to heal me double quick. Anyway, could you whip up a batch? We're gonna need it tonight, I think."

Grizelda gazed at Pockets, and asked, "One of your feelings?"

Pockets nodded, said "Yeah." in a quiet voice. "Not for me, though."

Grizelda nodded, said "I guess it'll be all right if I miss tonight's performance. I'll be watching it during rehearsal anyway."

"Thanks, Griz." Pockets said. Then he ran and gave her a hug. "You'll always be my only love, you know."

"Yeah, yeah." she said. "At least until you find the one." She waved and headed down the trail to the road that would take her away.

Pockets watched her for a while as she disappeared into the distance. "Yeah... right. The 'one'." He sighed. "Never happen."

That had been hours ago, and now he stood at the door of the cistern, opened it and stepped inside. It was pitch black, but that was all right. He knew the way. The felt his way down the stair case until his feet squished into the few inches of water that remained on the bottom.

He got his bearings and wandered to the middle of the large circular building. When his toes touched something small that thunked into the darkness, he stopped. He reached into one of his pockets and pulled his fire starter out. He struck it a couple of times and a tiny flame emerged.

There, in front of him was the pile of horse apples. It had grown taller than he was. He scrutinized it and nodded. "Should be enough." He looked up, where high above him the tarp snapped and thrummed in the wind. "Might be more than enough." He pulled a length of red cord from his pocket, stuck one end of it into the pile and wandered out the way he had come.

He stood just outside the door of the Cistern and gauged the wind. He listened back towards where he knew the gate was and heard nothing. "Hmm," he though. "I reckon the performance is over. I hope that Bags and whatsis name is having their little palaver."

He sat down on the steps and yawned, mightily. "Lords, I'm tired!" he cried. Nobody answered him but the night birds. He looked up at the sky and let himself relax just a bit. His body answered by showing its exhaustion, pulling him into the steps and he found himself nodding awake, chin on chest.

"Whoa! No time for this!" he said, standing and rubbing his arms. He jumped up and down to get the circulation going. "Come on, Bags! Give me a sign". How long he had dozed, he didn't know. Perhaps it had been just a few minutes, perhaps as much as an hour or two.

He squinted toward the gates, looking for the light shining from the torches. It was fairly dim, so he had to assume that the party was over, and if everything went according to what he had seen, everyone should be either inside the wall, or very close to it.

He licked one finger, raised it and tested the wind. He nodded to himself, reached into his pocket again for his fire starter, and sparked a flame. He said "Welp, here goes nothing."

The one end of the red cord he had been holding sputtered and flamed as he dropped it. The burning cord started up the steps and Pockets ran for his life away from the Cistern.

"You know…" he said, "If I miscalculated..." the rest of his words disappeared in a blast that shook the ground. It had to, as the explosion inside of the Cistern tried to go up, but was held back by the tarp, which in turn was held by the super strong cord. Since it couldn't go up, it had to go down, and pushed its force into the ground, causing it to rumble.

The Cistern, strong as it was, was not as strong as the blast, and shook and ground and shot dust around from its various cracks and chinks. The door, not hardly as strong as stone, shot from its hinges and flew across the field, catching up with Pockets and striking him in the back.

He thought, just before he lost consciousness, "Yep. Just a little miscalculation". And of course, as always happens when one loses consciousness, all went dark.