Fork and Spoon
Brigit's Flame, January week 4, "Utopia: searching for meaning". Continuation of my Utensilopia, part 4 of 4. Fiction, about 1860 words, no warnings.
Sorry it’s been so long since I last wrote, Diary. So much has happened that I didn’t have time. I know, I know, excuses … but here’s at least the beginning of it all.
About three weeks after the Forking event, weeks full of me arguing with myself about it, I finally decided and found time to sneak off to the location on the card Klutz Kacoa gave me. It wasn’t to his family’s main home, but rather, to their safety shelter. Only the richest of the top classes can afford a safety shelter that isn’t beneath their own house, if they’re lucky enough to have a shelter of their own. My family has to rely on the community shelter, and going there during that one tornado was more than enough for me. But I digress. (That’s a word I picked up from Kacoa.)
I felt so strange going to that shelter. It was a ways outside of town, through the forest. It takes a while to get to, but almost no one travels the trails that lead to it, so at least I don’t have to try very hard to not be seen going there. I went right after dinner, and when I arrived, Kacoa was there, looking out and waiting for me.
“I hoped you would come,” he said when I approached. He was dressed in clothing that could be mistaken for that of a Spoon’s garb, and I wondered where he got it. Later he told me he borrowed it from one of the Spoons that serves his family. I made sure that he returned it, and have since given him some of my brother’s old clothing which I patched and fitted for him. They haven’t missed it yet.
“I don’t understand why you wanted me to come. And how did you know I’d come today?” I asked him, keeping a safe distance between us. It was strange meeting alone like this, especially since Spoons and Forks of our ranks rarely socialize together outside of Forking events (and even at those, you can’t really call it socializing).
“I didn’t.” He smiled, and his face seemed to light up even in the fading light. “I’ve been coming out here every evening, hoping you would show up.”
I barely managed to bite back my initial response, which was something along the lines of “Are you crazy on top of being a klutz?” - I couldn’t quite call him lazy, since he had made this hike everyday - though my actual response wasn’t much better: “How can you have all this free time to spend out here?”
Kacoa gave me a half shrug and took a step closer. “Father thinks I’m coming out here to study where no one can disturb me,” he indicated a bag with books spilling out of it on the bench by the front door behind him. “So what if the real reason I’ve been studying out here is because I was waiting for you?”
I felt rooted to the spot like a potato. He had been waiting for me? Every day, for three weeks? “Why would you do a thing like that?” I glanced down at the utensil case at his side. He was a Dessert Fork, I was a Serving Spoon! That’s like a cat making friends with a mouse. It just doesn’t happen. Or so I thought then.
“Because I’d hoped you would come to see me,” he said with another smile. I have to admit, he has a very nice smile. Probably the nicest one I’ve ever seen on a Fork’s face in my direction.
“Why would you hope that? All this,” I stepped back a bit and waved my hand to take in our secluded surroundings, “isn’t necessary to apologize to me for stepping on me and falling on me.” Harsh, I know, but I still didn’t believe it then that he would actually want to see me.
I could see that I had hurt him, but it was too late to take back the words.
He took another step forward, but tripped and fell forward into me before I could react. I barely managed to stay upright as it was.
“I’m so sorry!” he said as he righted himself. “You’re not hurt, are you?” (Only later did he tell me that he ‘tripped’ on purpose.)
I shook my head. “How do you manage to get around without killing yourself?”
Klutz Kacoa pulled up his pants leg and showed me the bandages and wrappings all over his leg. “All the bandages help,” he said with a laugh. I couldn’t help grinning myself.
Somehow, I’m still not sure how exactly, he got me to stay longer, and we sat and talked on the bench until it was dark. He walked me almost all the way home - as far as he could without raising any suspicions, at least, though I think he followed me from a distance until I walked into my parent’s home anyways.
We met up as often as we could after that. Actually, I snuck out to meet him whenever I could. It got easier after harvest time, once winter set in and I didn’t need to be around quite as much for the farm duties. And he supplied me with kerosene, so that I didn’t drain our family’s kerosene supply when I went out in the dark with the lamp to meet him. I told my parents that I was going to friend’s houses to study and hang out, and they bought it. Sometimes one or another of my brothers would look at me funny, like they knew I was up to something, but they never said anything or tried to follow me. We’ve spent the better part of a year this way, and it all seemed to be going well. That is, until yesterday.
It was the first time I had been able to make it out in a couple of weeks, and I was worried that he might have stopped showing up. I was just uncertain enough to think that way, before. He had managed to at least get a couple of notes to me, but I hadn’t even managed to get anything back to him. Thankfully, when I came up to the safety shelter, he was there, tending the garden. We had taken to fixing up the place and the open spaces around it, and it was looking almost lived in by this time. He was actually less clumsy when he was doing stuff around the building and garden than normal.
I snuck up behind him, and seeing that he was just pulling weeds (no trowels or garden fork to poke him), jumped on him. Instead of collapsing into a pile like I was expecting, he stiffened underneath me. I slipped off of him and came up to sit beside him. He barely looked at me, and continued pulling weeds mechanically.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, concern welling up inside of me like boiling water bubbles.
Kacoa pulled a few more weeds a little more energetically than necessary, then placed them down gently and sighed.
“My father wants me to marry that Dessert Fork from his Forking ceremony. He said he has it all arranged with her family already.”
I sat there for a moment, stunned. “He can’t do that … I mean, you’ve only met her once, and you stepped on her toes then ….”
Kacoa gave a tiny bitter laugh. I can barely even call it a laugh; it was more a bitter sound than anything else. “Doesn’t matter. Marrying her would secure both of our family’s fortunes for the next two generations at least, and she even agreed. If I’d’ve known this was going to happen, I would’ve stepped on her toes harder back then.”
“Surely you can change your father’s mind?” As soon as I said it, I knew it was a stupid thing to say. His father never changed his mind unless it suited the interests of the family’s prosperity. Even then, it couldn’t be someone else’s idea.
“You know that would never work.” Kacoa turned to look at me and took my hands in his.
His hands had gotten so much rougher than when we first met, and the calluses and dirt on them no longer looked so out of place. I looked up from our hands to see his sky-blue gaze searching my face.
“I’ve been thinking about it ever since he told me, and no matter which angle I look at it from, I only see one way to avoid it.” He squeezed my hands in his, and his gaze flickered briefly to the woods over my shoulder.
“Kacoa, you’re scaring me,” I said, not even able to muster a nervous laugh into my words.
“Apel, will you come away with me? We can find a new place, and make a life of our own. Together.” He looked me straight in the eyes as he spoke, and I could see the pain he was in, but also the hope.
I must have looked frightened or something, because he gave my hands a reassuring squeeze.
“You don’t have to decide right this moment. But he wants the wedding to be under the harvest moon, so we don’t have much time.” He smiled, and I saw a glimmer of the happiness I usually saw in it when I was with him. “I’ll start gathering things for us. I have some money saved up too, so we won’t have to start with nothing. Please, Apel, won’t you come with me?”
I sat there for a long moment, just searching his face. I could see the worry creased in his forehead, worry that I might say no - it would make more sense for him to marry a fellow Dessert Fork than a lowly Serving Spoon, after all. I could also see the fear that he usually hid so well - the fear that his father would continue to take and control more and more of his life, even after forcing him to marry someone he hardly even knew. But I could also see where the dimple in his cheek was, the one that I so loved seeing form on his face when he smiled, the one that I knew he only showed to me. And I could see the light and life in his eyes as they shifted from sky blue to ocean blue and back with the clouds passing by overhead.
There was only one answer I could give him then and now, after all.
“Yes.”
He kissed me then, and I kissed him back. We made our plans before parting.
Even after I got home last night, even after seeing my family today, even after thinking about it more, my answer is still yes, and I’ve been busy fulfilling my part of the plans today. So this is also my last diary entry under my parent’s roof, as we decided to leave tomorrow. After tomorrow, well, I don’t know how much or how often I will be able to write, but this will become my story about us. Kacoa and Apel. Fork and Spoon. Together.
Sorry it’s been so long since I last wrote, Diary. So much has happened that I didn’t have time. I know, I know, excuses … but here’s at least the beginning of it all.
About three weeks after the Forking event, weeks full of me arguing with myself about it, I finally decided and found time to sneak off to the location on the card Klutz Kacoa gave me. It wasn’t to his family’s main home, but rather, to their safety shelter. Only the richest of the top classes can afford a safety shelter that isn’t beneath their own house, if they’re lucky enough to have a shelter of their own. My family has to rely on the community shelter, and going there during that one tornado was more than enough for me. But I digress. (That’s a word I picked up from Kacoa.)
I felt so strange going to that shelter. It was a ways outside of town, through the forest. It takes a while to get to, but almost no one travels the trails that lead to it, so at least I don’t have to try very hard to not be seen going there. I went right after dinner, and when I arrived, Kacoa was there, looking out and waiting for me.
“I hoped you would come,” he said when I approached. He was dressed in clothing that could be mistaken for that of a Spoon’s garb, and I wondered where he got it. Later he told me he borrowed it from one of the Spoons that serves his family. I made sure that he returned it, and have since given him some of my brother’s old clothing which I patched and fitted for him. They haven’t missed it yet.
“I don’t understand why you wanted me to come. And how did you know I’d come today?” I asked him, keeping a safe distance between us. It was strange meeting alone like this, especially since Spoons and Forks of our ranks rarely socialize together outside of Forking events (and even at those, you can’t really call it socializing).
“I didn’t.” He smiled, and his face seemed to light up even in the fading light. “I’ve been coming out here every evening, hoping you would show up.”
I barely managed to bite back my initial response, which was something along the lines of “Are you crazy on top of being a klutz?” - I couldn’t quite call him lazy, since he had made this hike everyday - though my actual response wasn’t much better: “How can you have all this free time to spend out here?”
Kacoa gave me a half shrug and took a step closer. “Father thinks I’m coming out here to study where no one can disturb me,” he indicated a bag with books spilling out of it on the bench by the front door behind him. “So what if the real reason I’ve been studying out here is because I was waiting for you?”
I felt rooted to the spot like a potato. He had been waiting for me? Every day, for three weeks? “Why would you do a thing like that?” I glanced down at the utensil case at his side. He was a Dessert Fork, I was a Serving Spoon! That’s like a cat making friends with a mouse. It just doesn’t happen. Or so I thought then.
“Because I’d hoped you would come to see me,” he said with another smile. I have to admit, he has a very nice smile. Probably the nicest one I’ve ever seen on a Fork’s face in my direction.
“Why would you hope that? All this,” I stepped back a bit and waved my hand to take in our secluded surroundings, “isn’t necessary to apologize to me for stepping on me and falling on me.” Harsh, I know, but I still didn’t believe it then that he would actually want to see me.
I could see that I had hurt him, but it was too late to take back the words.
He took another step forward, but tripped and fell forward into me before I could react. I barely managed to stay upright as it was.
“I’m so sorry!” he said as he righted himself. “You’re not hurt, are you?” (Only later did he tell me that he ‘tripped’ on purpose.)
I shook my head. “How do you manage to get around without killing yourself?”
Klutz Kacoa pulled up his pants leg and showed me the bandages and wrappings all over his leg. “All the bandages help,” he said with a laugh. I couldn’t help grinning myself.
Somehow, I’m still not sure how exactly, he got me to stay longer, and we sat and talked on the bench until it was dark. He walked me almost all the way home - as far as he could without raising any suspicions, at least, though I think he followed me from a distance until I walked into my parent’s home anyways.
We met up as often as we could after that. Actually, I snuck out to meet him whenever I could. It got easier after harvest time, once winter set in and I didn’t need to be around quite as much for the farm duties. And he supplied me with kerosene, so that I didn’t drain our family’s kerosene supply when I went out in the dark with the lamp to meet him. I told my parents that I was going to friend’s houses to study and hang out, and they bought it. Sometimes one or another of my brothers would look at me funny, like they knew I was up to something, but they never said anything or tried to follow me. We’ve spent the better part of a year this way, and it all seemed to be going well. That is, until yesterday.
It was the first time I had been able to make it out in a couple of weeks, and I was worried that he might have stopped showing up. I was just uncertain enough to think that way, before. He had managed to at least get a couple of notes to me, but I hadn’t even managed to get anything back to him. Thankfully, when I came up to the safety shelter, he was there, tending the garden. We had taken to fixing up the place and the open spaces around it, and it was looking almost lived in by this time. He was actually less clumsy when he was doing stuff around the building and garden than normal.
I snuck up behind him, and seeing that he was just pulling weeds (no trowels or garden fork to poke him), jumped on him. Instead of collapsing into a pile like I was expecting, he stiffened underneath me. I slipped off of him and came up to sit beside him. He barely looked at me, and continued pulling weeds mechanically.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, concern welling up inside of me like boiling water bubbles.
Kacoa pulled a few more weeds a little more energetically than necessary, then placed them down gently and sighed.
“My father wants me to marry that Dessert Fork from his Forking ceremony. He said he has it all arranged with her family already.”
I sat there for a moment, stunned. “He can’t do that … I mean, you’ve only met her once, and you stepped on her toes then ….”
Kacoa gave a tiny bitter laugh. I can barely even call it a laugh; it was more a bitter sound than anything else. “Doesn’t matter. Marrying her would secure both of our family’s fortunes for the next two generations at least, and she even agreed. If I’d’ve known this was going to happen, I would’ve stepped on her toes harder back then.”
“Surely you can change your father’s mind?” As soon as I said it, I knew it was a stupid thing to say. His father never changed his mind unless it suited the interests of the family’s prosperity. Even then, it couldn’t be someone else’s idea.
“You know that would never work.” Kacoa turned to look at me and took my hands in his.
His hands had gotten so much rougher than when we first met, and the calluses and dirt on them no longer looked so out of place. I looked up from our hands to see his sky-blue gaze searching my face.
“I’ve been thinking about it ever since he told me, and no matter which angle I look at it from, I only see one way to avoid it.” He squeezed my hands in his, and his gaze flickered briefly to the woods over my shoulder.
“Kacoa, you’re scaring me,” I said, not even able to muster a nervous laugh into my words.
“Apel, will you come away with me? We can find a new place, and make a life of our own. Together.” He looked me straight in the eyes as he spoke, and I could see the pain he was in, but also the hope.
I must have looked frightened or something, because he gave my hands a reassuring squeeze.
“You don’t have to decide right this moment. But he wants the wedding to be under the harvest moon, so we don’t have much time.” He smiled, and I saw a glimmer of the happiness I usually saw in it when I was with him. “I’ll start gathering things for us. I have some money saved up too, so we won’t have to start with nothing. Please, Apel, won’t you come with me?”
I sat there for a long moment, just searching his face. I could see the worry creased in his forehead, worry that I might say no - it would make more sense for him to marry a fellow Dessert Fork than a lowly Serving Spoon, after all. I could also see the fear that he usually hid so well - the fear that his father would continue to take and control more and more of his life, even after forcing him to marry someone he hardly even knew. But I could also see where the dimple in his cheek was, the one that I so loved seeing form on his face when he smiled, the one that I knew he only showed to me. And I could see the light and life in his eyes as they shifted from sky blue to ocean blue and back with the clouds passing by overhead.
There was only one answer I could give him then and now, after all.
“Yes.”
He kissed me then, and I kissed him back. We made our plans before parting.
Even after I got home last night, even after seeing my family today, even after thinking about it more, my answer is still yes, and I’ve been busy fulfilling my part of the plans today. So this is also my last diary entry under my parent’s roof, as we decided to leave tomorrow. After tomorrow, well, I don’t know how much or how often I will be able to write, but this will become my story about us. Kacoa and Apel. Fork and Spoon. Together.