An Introduction and a Much Needed Weeding
A tall young man is in the garden, the section of the garden by the kitchen, where there are still some herbs stubbornly refusing to be done in by frost, and a few young weeds, attempting to live fast and die young on the edge of the winter.
He stands very still for a moment, waiting for the garden to go away when the tape flash ends. It doesn’t oblige.
He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens them again. The garden is still there, the sun is warm on his shoulders, and this is not a garden he’s known. He really should be concerned, he knows, and he is. This is worrying. This hasn’t happened before.
But he loves gardens.
He kneels on the grass, heedless of the way it gets the neat new clothes Damon gave him on his last morning on Pell wet, and quietly begins to pinch the weeds neatly out of the earth, setting them aside on the grass. The earth smells good, rich and wet and strong, and his hands get steadier as he works.
There’s dirt on his hands. It feels good. He’s not sure if he’s panicking or at peace, but, either way, as his shoulders and back start to ache from the unaccustomed stress of the position he thinks of a fence, aunt Maevis leaning against it - “That’s good, Josh, just like that, you have a way with plants,” - but no. No, there was no aunt. His hands in smooth glass pebbles, sand, water running through, down in the hydroponics bays row on row on row and Damon gently marveling - “I didn’t know you could do that.”
No. That never happened. That was a dream.
There’s dirt on his hands. A profound quiet spreads over his face. This is probably a dream. It’s a good dream.
He weeds.
Meet Josh Talley, from C. J. Cherryh’s Downbelow Station.
He stands very still for a moment, waiting for the garden to go away when the tape flash ends. It doesn’t oblige.
He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens them again. The garden is still there, the sun is warm on his shoulders, and this is not a garden he’s known. He really should be concerned, he knows, and he is. This is worrying. This hasn’t happened before.
But he loves gardens.
He kneels on the grass, heedless of the way it gets the neat new clothes Damon gave him on his last morning on Pell wet, and quietly begins to pinch the weeds neatly out of the earth, setting them aside on the grass. The earth smells good, rich and wet and strong, and his hands get steadier as he works.
There’s dirt on his hands. It feels good. He’s not sure if he’s panicking or at peace, but, either way, as his shoulders and back start to ache from the unaccustomed stress of the position he thinks of a fence, aunt Maevis leaning against it - “That’s good, Josh, just like that, you have a way with plants,” - but no. No, there was no aunt. His hands in smooth glass pebbles, sand, water running through, down in the hydroponics bays row on row on row and Damon gently marveling - “I didn’t know you could do that.”
No. That never happened. That was a dream.
There’s dirt on his hands. A profound quiet spreads over his face. This is probably a dream. It’s a good dream.
He weeds.
Meet Josh Talley, from C. J. Cherryh’s Downbelow Station.