Remnant Population

It took most of that day to get the story of Cara and Kostan the way she wanted it. She knew how to tell stories; she knew the shape such a story should have. But to put the words down with her hands, to see them come up on the screen, that was much harder. She kept going back to explain: Kostan’s mother had never liked Cara. His father had. His brother had been involved with Linda. Everything connected, everything had to be in the story, and things she could have conveyed with a wink, a tilt of the head, a shift in voice now looked clumsy and even unbelievable set down in book-words. When she quit, it was already dark. She had spent thirty-two days alone on the planet without noticing it, and today she had not done any of the maintenance. Her back ached; her hips hurt so much it took her a long time to stand. How did those people who worked at desks all day do it? She would not make that mistake again. She went home through a night that felt much darker, though when she looked up she could see the stars clearly. No storms tonight; the air felt mild and moist all around her body. Her foot landed on a slimetrail, and she grunted. She hated slipping and sliding, and besides it would make her foot itch. In her own house, she showered, scrubbing at the foot, bracing herself on the wall so she wouldn’t fall. She was aware that she had not worried about that before. All through supper, she could feel that she was holding something away, not letting herself think something. She scraped the plate, washed the dishes, and closed the shutters. Though it was almost too warm inside, she wanted to feel closed-in.

In bed, in the dark, she relaxed her hold on her thoughts, and let them wander. Thirty-two days. A great fear stood like a mountain on the edge of her mind. Was it coming nearer? No — the odd thing was she had already climbed over it, without even realizing the size or shape of it. This had happened before, with other fears. When she and Caitano first made love… when she and Humberto married… when the first baby forced its way out of her… each time, afterwards, she had been aware of a great fear not so much faced as ignored, passed without notice, without recognition. Here, too. I was afraid. She remembered that one silent scream, forced back down her throat as if she had swallowed a child half-birthed. Now, in memory, she would have explored that mountain of her fear, but could not remember it. It stood there, vague and ominous, forever unknowable, at the end of her sight. It was better so. Don’t brood over things, her mother had always said. Don’t waste time on the past; its already gone, paper on the wind. She had meant the bad times; she also preached the value of remembering all the good.

Ofelia stretched wide on the bed in the darkness, and considered what she was feeling right now. Her left hip hurt more than the right, and her shoulders felt stiff — she would like to have had someone knead them for her. But was she afraid? No, not any more. The machines worked. The animals had not all died, and even if they did she would have food enough for years and years. She was not lonely either, not as most people meant it. She had not yet tired of the freedom from the demands others made on her. Yet the next morning, in the garden, she felt tears on her face. Why? She could not tell. The garden itself soothed her. The tomatoes, ripening day by day; one might be ready to eat this very afternoon. The green bean pods, the tall corn with its rich smell that always reminded her of Caitano’s body. It was not that she wanted anyone to talk to her, but she would have liked someone to listen… and that thought brought her back to the machine at the center, with its log so full of data and so empty of stories. It was too hard to put the stories down in full. It would take the rest of her life, and she would not have finished. She put clues to herself: Eva’s bad headaches. Rosara’s sister’s birthday when the pitcher broke. How she had felt when the second flood destroyed the last of their boats, and no one could venture to the far side of the river, even in the dry season.

From these clues, she could fill in the whole story — the real story — later. She did not write every day; she wrote when she wanted to, when the memories itched worse than a slimerod trail, when she had to see them outside herself to be sure they had an end. Other days, she put only the official sort of entry, noting the readings from the machine gauges, the temperature, the rainfall, the harvest notes. She sat on the doorstep, eating another ripe tomato. This year, she would have far more than she could eat.