Mother Roughcoat and Aunt Far Away, page 1
October 1, 2013 Volume 3 No 12
Mother Roughcoat and Aunt Far Away
by Patricia Russo
Mother Roughcoat lived in a one-room shack in the center of the city. She wasn’t, and never had been, anybody’s mother, but because she was older than the municipal hall, or looked it–in truth, she looked older than the Foundation Fountain, and that thing was crumbling to sand–people called her Mother out of an old-fashioned sort of politeness. The Roughcoat part came from her attire, a formidable piece of old tech that nobody really believed could possibly work anymore, a personal protection device of great gray and bristly ugliness that covered her from neck to knees. The chances of there being any poison left in those spines, or any charge remaining in the stun-spikes, was infinitesimal, but folks gave Mother Roughcoat her space. Just in case.
Aunt Far Away lived a considerable distance from town, out in the sticks in the back of the boonies, miles and leagues and long muddy stretches from where the streetcar route ended. Not that she ever took the streetcar. Aunt Far Away walked everywhere, slowly and steadily, with a rucksack on her back and a pouch tied around her middle. People could always tell when she was coming, because Aunt Far Away liked to sing. Loudly. The fact that her singing sounded very much like cracked shrieks stitched together by gasps never stopped her. Folks put up with the singing. She was family, or family to someone they knew. Over the years, Aunt Far Away had accumulated many, many brothers and sisters (of the chosen kin sort), and therefore many, many brothers-and-sisters-in-law, and consequently many, many nieces and nephews. And grandnieces and grandnephews. You had to be polite to your relatives, if you didn’t want people to think you were a total asshole. Folks also put up with the singing for another reason. Since Aunt Far Away walked everywhere, she saw many things and heard a lot of news, and once you got her to take her rucksack off, sit down, and have a cup of tea or three, she was always happy to kick off a story-telling session, and Aunt Far Away was a good storyteller. She always made sure that everybody was clear about when she was recounting something she had seen herself, and when she was passing along a tale, or anecdote, or bit of rumor or gossip, that she had been told. People looked forward to her visits.
Now all of this takes place after the gods who made nice things for the city had taken themselves off somewhere else, so there was a lot of grumbling and muttering and yearning for the old days. Mother Roughcoat, even though she never removed her personal security suit (people figured she slept in it, and as for washing, it was clear as soon as you got within a couple of meters that Mother Roughcoat didn’t), wouldn’t hold with such talk. The old days are gone, she said. The old stories don’t do anybody any good. People have to live in the here and now, and if they don’t like it, the least they could do was keep their mouths shut and not spread the misery around. Mother Roughcoat’s suit might not have had any juice in it any longer, but if she wanted to she could make the spines quiver and the spikes spring up (bioelectrics, that was, said folks in the know, or who claimed to be in the know, powered by a tiny charge drawn from her own skin), and when she did that, cheap trick or not, folks took to nodding fast and agreeing quick.
Aunt Far Away had nothing against a good grumble. She was a cheerful sort herself, but she never begrudged anyone else having a bit of a moan. She would sit and sip her tea (if there was any tea to be had), and listen. People did seem to feel better once they’d told their stories, and cried a little, and smashed an old framed photograph, or thrown a plate against a wall, or punched a dead com screen.
On most sunny and not too chilly days, when the sky was a tranquil hue and no uproar beyond the usual was going on (no new building fallen over, no blight suddenly appearing on the greenstuff in the roof gardens, no reports of decades-old roads dissolving into muck and crumbs of tar), Mother Roughcoat would sit outside her shack, on a three-legged stool, with her hands folded her in lap and a little smile on her star-burned face. Everybody knew that this was Mother Roughcoat’s way of signifying that she wanted company. Mother Roughcoat was a neighbor it was important to keep on the good side of, so folks would gather behind a shed or inside a courtyard and draw lots. Or play rock-paper-scissors. Or simply argue until someone gave in and sighed, “All right, all right, already. I’ll do it.” Everybody else would also sigh, in relief. “Brave fellow.” “Good woman.” “Better you than me.”
Aunt Far Away walked to the center of the city sometimes. Every pair of months or so, one of her meandering routes would circle around this and about that and cut through that other stretch, and end up in the middle. The people there were as eager for news as those in any other district or region, and they smiled more than most, so Aunt Far Away was always sorry when she had distressing information to impart.
That day, she found that she didn’t have the heart for singing.
It took folks a while to notice.
The center of the city was the most densely populated area. It was the place where the old gods who made nice things had bestowed many of their gifts: shade trees that bore fruit three seasons of the year, self-repairing bricks, kind bees, and a park that once provided endless hours of entertainment for both children and adults. Ever since the fountain had crumbled, the park wasn’t used very much, but it was still as green as ever, and that was something. The residents of the city’s central neighborhood counted their blessings.
Mother Roughcoat was an anomaly. How she had come to live there, nobody knew. And where that shack had come from, built of scraps of this and scrag-ends of that, with no windows and one door that had once obviously belonged to a garden shed, was a mystery. The walls were plywood and tarpaper, and the roof was planks tacked down haphazardly, covered with plastic sheeting tied down with twine. And the interior – reported the neighbors who had accepted Mother Roughcoat’s occasional offers of refreshment and conversation – was tacked all over with plastic as well. More intriguingly, the shack was crammed with wooden chests and metal caskets and boxes of all sorts. Mother Roughcoat was clearly rich. She might not have been born in this neighborhood, and she certainly had an abrasive personality, but nobody ever dared to treat her with anything other than respect, at least to her face.
Now, for years Aunt Far Away had tried to be friendly toward Mother Roughcoat, waving whenever she walked by her shack. Mother Roughcoat never waved back. In fact, Aunt Far Away was sure that the bristly-suited woman sitting in front of her lashed-together hut sneered at her every time she waved. Glowered. Scowled. Even, once, Aunt Far Away would swear, stuck out her tongue.
Mother Roughcoat’s attitude presented an obstacle, because today Aunt Far Away needed to speak to her urgently.
Even though Aunt Far Away did not sing as she made her way toward Mother Roughcoat’s shack, and didn’t walk with her usual jaunty air, eventually folks did spot her and begin to call out greetings. They expected her to smile; they expected her to shout back cheerfully, to toss out a teaser or two for the tales that were to come, to joke that there had better be plenty of tea on hand, and biscuits, too, if they wanted to hear her first-rate stuff. Aunt Far Away tried to smile, but she had never been very good at dissembling. People glanced at each other. Some began to follow her, slowly, keeping their distance, their faces anxious. Parents sent their children inside. Others, the bravest ones, or the most eager, called, “Is it bad news? Aunt Far Away, is it very bad?”
There were always some who were keen to hear the grimmest reports. Aunt Far Away found it hard not to chide them, particularly when they giggled. She did not think anybody would laugh this time. She did not bring rumors of a fresh bloodfeud between the six-fingered lot that had taken to what was left of the woods (or what was returning to woods) and their usual trading partners downstream, who were still doing their damnedest to levy tolls on anybody traveling on what they considered to be their section of the river. (She had heard such a rumor, complete with claims that a six-fingers had been drowned, and a child of the river country had had her eyes torn out in revenge, but that was not the tale Aunt Far Away meant to tell today.) She did not carry a story of huge and terrible worms chewing and writhing in the red clay far beneath the foundations of the city, growing larger and stronger and hungrier with each passing month, until the time came when they would rise to the surface and devour them all. Aunt Far Away had told that story to great effect at a housewarming party just the other week, taking care to ensure that everyone present, drunk or sober, was clear about the fact that it was only a tale, an invented entertainment. She was not going to be giving that tale today, either.
The people following Aunt Far Away began to guess where she was heading, and she heard a susurrus of curiosity and concern swell up behind her. She took a quick glance over her shoulder. Twenty or so folks were trailing her, still at a cautious distance. Twenty was a good number to sit and hear stories, to drink tea and laugh and exclaim, to relax and exchange news of their own. Twenty, she thought, might also be a good number to witness what she had come to tell Mother Roughcoat. She doubted the presence of an audience would make the bristly old creature behave herself, but sticks and stones, as the old saying went. The important thing was that witnesses would ensure that what passed between them could not be kept secret. There were times for secrets, but this was not one of them.
Though it was not a particularly fine day, the sky overcast and with more than a hint of wet in the air, Mother Roughcoat was sitting outside on her three-legged stool. The expression on her face was not welc
“About the gods that made nice things for the city?”
“No. About how she used to be rich and had lots of nice things for herself.”
Then, of course, somebody asked, as someone always did whenever the gods that made nice things were mentioned, if Aunt Far Away thought they would ever come back. No, she said, as she always did. New things would come, though. Why, look around yourselves, she said. Hadn’t dozens, hundreds, of new things already come into the world?
“But they aren’t nice things.”
“It’s all a matter of how you look at it. The sky sculptures the pigeons create in the spring, they’re very pretty, aren’t they? And what about this tea, right here? We never had this sort of tea before. I don’t think any of you are old enough to remember that when that little blue-leafed bush started growing, here, there, and everywhere, people didn’t know what to think. They were afraid it was a weed that would run wild, invade their gardens, choke their crops. They were even afraid it was poisonous. Oh yes, they were. And see?” Aunt Far Away took a sip from her cup. “Perfectly nice.”
She felt it was her duty to say those sorts of things, when people got depressed or angry about the old days being gone, especially young folks who had no knowledge of what the old days had really been like. A pernicious nostalgia was worse than religion, in Aunt Far Away’s opinion.
As Aunt Far Away approached, Mother Roughcoat’s expression, which had started as a scowl, deepened into a glare. All the spines and spikes and needles of her suit were twitching. She looked like a great angry porcupine, Aunt Far Away thought, if porcupines wore boots and smelled of decades of dirt and liquor. Aunt Far Away checked again to see how many folks were trailing her. Not so many as before, not twenty or so. Perhaps ten or twelve. Aunt Far Away hoped that no more would melt away.
“What do you want?”
It was good that Mother Roughcoat had spoken first. Aunt Far Away smiled, and inclined her head. She felt very little desire to smile, but the forms of friendliness were her own suit, her second skin between her and the world. “I bring news.”
“Go take it somewhere else.”
“It is grave news.”
“I don’t want any.”
Behind her, Aunt Far Away heard the murmurs rise again. Grave news, grave news.
“On Hinson Street, there is a tree,” Aunt Far Away said.
Mother Roughcoat’s suit bristled. She looked away, then said, mockingly, “Once upon a time, there were three little princesses who lived in a red house on a hill.”
“The tree cracked, and a bird flew out.”
Mother Roughcoat jerked her chin dismissively.
“The bird flew away, but the crack is still there. The tree is gone, but the crack is still there. The crack grows larger by the hour.”
“Aunt Far Away, Aunt Far Away!” The people who had followed her to Mother Roughcoat’s shack had not moved closer. They stayed a good ten meters back. Some of them, she saw, were holding hands. “Is that a true news?”
“Yes. I would say you may go to Hinson Street to see for yourselves, but I think it is best for everyone to keep away from there. The crack is very wide now, and stretches up to the clouds.”
“I suppose swarms of monsters are clambering through this crack, eating babies and slaughtering the chickens?”
“No monsters.” Aunt Far Away looked back at the people listening. “This I saw myself. This is not a tale I was told. There are no monsters coming through the crack.”
“Not yet,” Mother Roughcoat muttered.
“And you wonder why people find it such a chore to visit with you.”
“I don’t.” Mother Roughcoat’s lips twitched. “Wonder.”
“A bird flew out,” Aunt Far Away said. “It was a small bird, with gray feathers. It circled the crack where the tree had been, and circled it again. When it flew behind the crack, it disappeared from sight. Do you understand what I am saying?”
“Not a word.”
“It landed on my shoulder, and whispered in my ear.” Aunt Far Away turned, so that the people behind her could see her face. “The bird said that a great storm had shaken and quaked its world, a storm without rain or thunder or wind, and a thousand cracks had broken the earth and the sky, and now, in its world, there was almost no air left to breathe. To save themselves, the people had settled themselves into sleep, underground.”
“These people being birds.”
“Different worlds, different people.”
Mother Roughcoat snorted. “Different birds, too. This one didn’t go to sleep, eh? You’re telling us it went on a tour-of-ten-worlds instead.”
“Tour of ten worlds,” Aunt Far Away repeated, softly.
“It’s just an expression.”
“You remember.”
“Old stories. Nobody really believed them. Except the same fools who believed in gods that made nice things for the city.” Mother Roughcoat touched the collar of her suit. “It was only ever us, who made the nice things and the cruel things and the useful things and the silly things.”
“There are ten worlds,” Aunt Far Away said to those who were listening, who had not fled, and they nodded eagerly.
“There might be a hundred. There might be a thousand.” Mother Roughcoat stamped her foot, and all the spikes and spines of her suit leapt into warding mode. “Why are you bothering me with this nonsense? If you think I’ve got a load of cryogenic cylinders tucked away in the cellar, you’re more crack-minded than I imagined. I don’t even have a cellar.”
“The bird told me that its people had made the wrong decision by making themselves sleep. The cracks in its world have continued to grow. When they wake, if they wake, it will be to devastation.”
“Quite a chatty little bird.”
“It wanted someone to know, and to remember them, its world, its people. That’s why it flew through the crack. Our crack, the one on Hinson Street. That one was different, it said. It did not suck air from its world. The other cracks lead to nothing, it thinks. The space between the stars, perhaps. Not one of the ten worlds. It plunged into ours, hoping to find friends.”
The listeners had crept a bit closer. “Where is the little gray bird now?” a pinched-faced man asked.
“On my shoulder.”
Mother Roughcoat laughed.
The listeners did not.
“Is it still talking to you?” Mother Roughcoat asked.
“No. Not since I left Hinson Street.”
“May that be a lesson to you. Even imaginary friends will let you down.”
“The bird told me,” Aunt Far Away said, more loudly, “that the crack on Hinson Street may be just the first. It would take masses of people to seal it, and they would have to do that with their own bodies. If the crack is not closed, the air, and light, and life, from our world will seep into it, and though this might take ten seasons, or fifty, in time everything that is in our world will bleed into its, which will not help the people there at all, as none of their cracks has been closed, and so whatever trickles into it rushes out again almost at once.”
“There is no bird on your shoulder.”
“There is,” a thick-necked woman called out. “I can see it. It has a short blue beak, and skinny black toes.”
Mother Roughcoat looked at Aunt Far Away. “See what you’ve done. So, will you lead these fools to Hinson Street, gathering more and more along the way, and cheer them all on as they jump into this crack of yours?”
“It does have a blunt blue beak, and thin, well, toes isn’t the right word. Claws, isn’t it? And it is sitting on my shoulder, on the strap of my rucksack, to be precise, and it is exuding sadness the way a cradlewood tree sweats bitterness. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. And no, haven’t I told them all to stay away from Hinson Street?”
