The Wall

The Wall (book excerpt) by Barry Tomkins

PublishAmerica May 2002 ISBN 1-59129-327-8

Garth, Cambria: June, 2315

"Is it done? Is it done? Can I look?"

"No don't come in, don't come in, you must be patient woman."

"Don't call me woman."

"What should I call you, then, woman?"

"I do have a name you know."

"You are a woman, aren't you?"

"So are a few million other human beings more or less."

"So that includes you."

"In a big group."

"I didn't say you weren't a special woman but you are a woman."

"I give up. Why isn't it finished yet?"

"Unless it's just right."

"The kettle's just boiled. Do you want a cup of tea?"

"That would be lovely. I'm parched."

"Come on out then, or cover it up, and I'll bring it in."

"I'll be right out woman."

"Tch."

"Tch to you too, woman."

There was no winning that, but she didn't want to anyway, and went into the kitchen and steeped tea in the porcelain pot with green dragons. From the dresser Ivor'd made himself with pine salvaged from abandoned houses, she picked a couple of her good heavy white-star-blazoned bronzed clay mugs and stuck them on a wooden tray made from river's driftwood he'd split and polished, put on it a piece of cake on a saucer, then carried it all out to the little white table on the slate flags between the kitchen door and Ivor's studio, where his door was now closed tight, for a secret, as usual, until he was ready.

Morgan set the tray down with a nice sharp rattling noise and she sat where she could see the clematis by the kitchen door, and the old dead tree stump Ivor had carved at the top into a round world of people all wrapping arms around the center of their earth.

"Hugging the tree. Or is it the earth?"

"They both need a good hug. Me too."

"Give us a hug then."

At the unveiling of that previously secret work of carving she had squealed like a little girl to see the small people flat against the trunk with arms spread and heads turned to the side, sleeping-style, but with eyes open as she saw when she put her head close up and stared into the little faces.

"Eyes open dreaming," she had called it, and he grinned.

She watched Ivor sleeping the night after that to see if it was right, and it was, and after that she watched him often, sleeping eyes open dreaming, eyes racing to follow some hidden story.

On the stump the fists were half-curled softly, the elbows and knees flexed to match the curve of the wood, bodies naked to the world.

After a while he came out and sat down heavily, grinning as usual. His blue overalls were covered with tiny wood chips, his whole body smelled of wood and the tang of metal, the steel chisels of his trade, like a hard ringing blue note behind the white pines and red oaks and tan maples and black ebonies of his body.

Fine curls, minute twisted shavings, had landed in his bushy black eyebrows and beard. Morgan reached forward and disentangled one, a perfect corkscrew sprouting from his mustache.