Day 23
Ugh, I can't wait for this week to end, too. If only I could go to bed now! Hah, bed before 11!
"So," Robert said, "you get all of your food from the kitchens?"
Arthur and Jackie exchanged looks. Would it be rude to start taking notes whenever someone told them something new? Probably, yes. That was a pity. They were learning entirely too many words to remember.
Roger waved about his carrot idly. "You don't know what I mean when I say kitchens, do you?"
Arthur shook his head bashfully. "I'm afraid not," Jackie answered.
"It's alright," Roger conceded. "I'm starting to get used to the fact that you two are going to need an explanation for every single thing that I need to say."
"It's not very bad, is it?" Arthur asked.
"It's horrible and glaringly obvious," Roger said harshly. "Or at least, it would be, if you were from the outside," he continued cheerfully. "It's still charming. Especially since you're a bit on the old and senile side, and she's cute and girly when she wants to know something."
Jackie blushed. She hadn't been doing anything nearly that cruel and calculating on this trip. She had tried to be a bit more genuine, but she must have overshot by a fair bit.
"So, as a senile old man," Arthur started with a smile, "Can I ask you to tell me what the kitchens are?"
"It's where they prepare the food," Roger said. "The cooks clean it, cut it up into little pieces, cook some of it, and arrange it on nice plates."
"Hmm, yes, I suppose those must be the kitchens," Arthur said, thinking about the patterns that the creatures followed in entering the room. "We call them the food planes, actually."
"I'm a bit amazed by one thing in particular though," Roger said. "Going to the kitchens so often must put you in fairly close contact with the humans. I'm surprised that you all continuously get away with intruding in there and stealing scraps of food."
It was Arthur's turn to blush. Rather than embarrassment, however, he was suffering from a serious case of modestly. "Oh, it's not all that impressive. We get by because we time our visits to avoid the humans. When they're not there, we are. But when they're in there, we're nowhere near."
"And you collect enough food to get by? You don't need to make very frequent trips?" Roger prompted.
"We go as many as three to four times during the day, but we collect enough food to support the entire colony. And it is fairly decent-sized. They're always very eager to get," he paused, unwilling to use farmers in the wrong meaning in front of an outsiders, "new people to go out and collect."
"Wait a moment," Roger said slowly. "Do you mean during the day? As in, during the day?"
Arthur cocked his head to one side and scrunched up his eyes a bit in confusion.
Jackie caught on to his meaning, however. "As in, not during the night," she confirmed.
Roger scratched his head with a foot as he pondered that. "Well, that's not so weird. After all, these mice do around during the day a little bit. That doesn't mean that night isn't the natural time of day for you to out and about."
"It lets us follow their meal schedule," Arthur said reasonably.
"And the area around our colony is fairly well isolated. The risk of running into a human, even during the day, is rather low," Jackie added.
"Hmm! Well, don't you have all the perks?" Roger asked, sounding a little bit impressed. "Is there any more of your colony running around here?"
Jackie gasped. "Oh, I forgot about them!"
"I'm sure they're alright," Arthur said reasonably, turning back to Roger. "We're traveling with two more people, but we've left them back there," he pointed, "for a while so they could talk about something."
"Let's say 'hello' to them, then! I'd rather like to meet the rest of your group. I'm sure that they're very interesting creatures," Roger stood up again, apparently waiting for Arthur and Jackie to lead the way.
"Why not?" Jackie said with a shrug. Anyway, she had been watching the way that Roger moved and would be able to fight him if the need arose. They were still safe.
"Yes, alright, but we should move swiftly," Arthur said. "We've left them alone for quite a while now."
"I daresay that they've talked through all of their problems by now," Jackie said.
"They might have even started to worry about us," Arthur added, leading the way back to Robert and Dan. He was confident that Jackie had his back.
After a reasonable amount of time had passed, Dan thought that it was time to try talking to Robert. Companionable silence was good and comforting and healing, yes, but he sensed that Robert wanted to talk. And they only had a limited amount of time in which to speak.
Rob had calmed long ago and was no longer huddled into Dan. He was, however, still looking into the distance with a small, pathetic frown on his face. He had sat up to pull out of Dan's hold, and Dan had not complained about that. He had simply made himself more comfortable and waited.
Now it was time to take action. But how to start? Dan wasn't exactly skilled in talking to people. He never had been, even before prison. Still, he had taken this upon himself and he had to do something. Anything!
"Why do you feel so alone?" Dan asked gently.
"Don't you feel alone?" he asked, confused.
"I would think that you, of all people, would understand what it was like to feel alone. Prison isn't exactly what I would call a group activity," Rob said, with just a hint of his old humor.
"I'm getting rather old," Dan said dismissively. "I find my own company to be more than interesting enough to get me through the day. Being locked in a cell didn't shake me too deep."
"Do you have anyone at the colony anymore?" Rob asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Is there anyone waiting for you to come back? Or someone hoping and waiting that you might get released from prison?" Rob asked, turning his head to look at Dan's reaction and gauge his answer.
Dan smiled sadly and propped his shin up with one hand. "It's been a very long time, you know. Longer than you've been alive! No one knows where I can right now. According to everyone I once knew, I'm still in prison."
Rob sensed that there was more to the answer. "But?" he prompted.
"I do have someone to come home to," he said calmly. "I'm married, you know."
"Really? Wow!" Rob breathed. "Who would have thought that you were a family man?"
"I even have two daughters," Dan said. "My wife still comes to visit me once in a while; she tells me what's been going on at home. It's hard for her, though. She doesn't like seeing me locked up and she dares not hope that I might get out one day soon."
"Imagine her face if you came home after this mission!" Rob said.
"I do," Dan said, looking into the distance. "I've been imagining her face ever since I started this mission. Oh, but what are the chances that I'll be going home after this?"
"But you still hope!" Rob said in amazement. "I wish I had that."
Dan shook his head a bit, focusing again on the task at hand. They were supposed to talk about Rob's problems, not his own. "I'm sure that you're not completely alone."
"I'm not just exaggerating," Rob insisted.
"You strike me as the kind of guy who has lots of friends though," Dan pressed on.
"Oh, sure. Plenty of friends to have fun with. But I don't have anyone to miss," Rob said.
"Why do you think that?"
"It's simple really," Rob said. "I'm going to be away from home for as many as two months on this mission. That's a fairly long time. It's enough time to get noticed. But there was no one I wanted to tell. There was no one who needed to know where I was so that they wouldn't worry when they didn't see me."
"You might be surprised by who misses you the most," Dan said, sure that he was just trivializing certain friendships because he felt a bit insecure.
"Oh, they're good people, don't get me wrong. But when they don't see me, they'll just assume that I've moved on to bigger and better things and won't spare any time to think about me."
"You'll know that for sure when you get back and only then," Dan insisted. "Long absences do make us forget about the things we enjoy the most when we can't have them."
"I know that right now, there's no one that I miss," Rob said, looking at the ground now.
"What about your parents? I'm sure that they miss you," Dan said.
Rob's lips quivered a bit, but he moved forward with the conversation. "They died, long ago. There's no one for me to go home to."
"So you feel like you're away from the protection of the colony, is that it?" Dan prompted, hoping to keep Robert's spirits up.
"Not only that, but this trip is making me question what protection our colony gives us. It only seems to isolate us from the rest of the very large world," he said bitterly.
"Familiar lies shouldn't make you feel exposed to the world. In the colony, we do have a certain amount of protection, and it keeps us happy."
"Happy!" Rob snorted. "I know that you mean that it prevents us from causing you too much trouble."
"You have the rest of us," Dan continued a bit weakly. "We're going through the same things as you are."
"I barely know any of you," Rob said dismissively, looking up again.
His eyes widened as he saw what was approaching them. Arthur and Jackie were accompanied by a large furry creature that was hopping in their direction.
"Then again, what's life without its little surprises?"
"So," Robert said, "you get all of your food from the kitchens?"
Arthur and Jackie exchanged looks. Would it be rude to start taking notes whenever someone told them something new? Probably, yes. That was a pity. They were learning entirely too many words to remember.
Roger waved about his carrot idly. "You don't know what I mean when I say kitchens, do you?"
Arthur shook his head bashfully. "I'm afraid not," Jackie answered.
"It's alright," Roger conceded. "I'm starting to get used to the fact that you two are going to need an explanation for every single thing that I need to say."
"It's not very bad, is it?" Arthur asked.
"It's horrible and glaringly obvious," Roger said harshly. "Or at least, it would be, if you were from the outside," he continued cheerfully. "It's still charming. Especially since you're a bit on the old and senile side, and she's cute and girly when she wants to know something."
Jackie blushed. She hadn't been doing anything nearly that cruel and calculating on this trip. She had tried to be a bit more genuine, but she must have overshot by a fair bit.
"So, as a senile old man," Arthur started with a smile, "Can I ask you to tell me what the kitchens are?"
"It's where they prepare the food," Roger said. "The cooks clean it, cut it up into little pieces, cook some of it, and arrange it on nice plates."
"Hmm, yes, I suppose those must be the kitchens," Arthur said, thinking about the patterns that the creatures followed in entering the room. "We call them the food planes, actually."
"I'm a bit amazed by one thing in particular though," Roger said. "Going to the kitchens so often must put you in fairly close contact with the humans. I'm surprised that you all continuously get away with intruding in there and stealing scraps of food."
It was Arthur's turn to blush. Rather than embarrassment, however, he was suffering from a serious case of modestly. "Oh, it's not all that impressive. We get by because we time our visits to avoid the humans. When they're not there, we are. But when they're in there, we're nowhere near."
"And you collect enough food to get by? You don't need to make very frequent trips?" Roger prompted.
"We go as many as three to four times during the day, but we collect enough food to support the entire colony. And it is fairly decent-sized. They're always very eager to get," he paused, unwilling to use farmers in the wrong meaning in front of an outsiders, "new people to go out and collect."
"Wait a moment," Roger said slowly. "Do you mean during the day? As in, during the day?"
Arthur cocked his head to one side and scrunched up his eyes a bit in confusion.
Jackie caught on to his meaning, however. "As in, not during the night," she confirmed.
Roger scratched his head with a foot as he pondered that. "Well, that's not so weird. After all, these mice do around during the day a little bit. That doesn't mean that night isn't the natural time of day for you to out and about."
"It lets us follow their meal schedule," Arthur said reasonably.
"And the area around our colony is fairly well isolated. The risk of running into a human, even during the day, is rather low," Jackie added.
"Hmm! Well, don't you have all the perks?" Roger asked, sounding a little bit impressed. "Is there any more of your colony running around here?"
Jackie gasped. "Oh, I forgot about them!"
"I'm sure they're alright," Arthur said reasonably, turning back to Roger. "We're traveling with two more people, but we've left them back there," he pointed, "for a while so they could talk about something."
"Let's say 'hello' to them, then! I'd rather like to meet the rest of your group. I'm sure that they're very interesting creatures," Roger stood up again, apparently waiting for Arthur and Jackie to lead the way.
"Why not?" Jackie said with a shrug. Anyway, she had been watching the way that Roger moved and would be able to fight him if the need arose. They were still safe.
"Yes, alright, but we should move swiftly," Arthur said. "We've left them alone for quite a while now."
"I daresay that they've talked through all of their problems by now," Jackie said.
"They might have even started to worry about us," Arthur added, leading the way back to Robert and Dan. He was confident that Jackie had his back.
After a reasonable amount of time had passed, Dan thought that it was time to try talking to Robert. Companionable silence was good and comforting and healing, yes, but he sensed that Robert wanted to talk. And they only had a limited amount of time in which to speak.
Rob had calmed long ago and was no longer huddled into Dan. He was, however, still looking into the distance with a small, pathetic frown on his face. He had sat up to pull out of Dan's hold, and Dan had not complained about that. He had simply made himself more comfortable and waited.
Now it was time to take action. But how to start? Dan wasn't exactly skilled in talking to people. He never had been, even before prison. Still, he had taken this upon himself and he had to do something. Anything!
"Why do you feel so alone?" Dan asked gently.
"Don't you feel alone?" he asked, confused.
"I would think that you, of all people, would understand what it was like to feel alone. Prison isn't exactly what I would call a group activity," Rob said, with just a hint of his old humor.
"I'm getting rather old," Dan said dismissively. "I find my own company to be more than interesting enough to get me through the day. Being locked in a cell didn't shake me too deep."
"Do you have anyone at the colony anymore?" Rob asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Is there anyone waiting for you to come back? Or someone hoping and waiting that you might get released from prison?" Rob asked, turning his head to look at Dan's reaction and gauge his answer.
Dan smiled sadly and propped his shin up with one hand. "It's been a very long time, you know. Longer than you've been alive! No one knows where I can right now. According to everyone I once knew, I'm still in prison."
Rob sensed that there was more to the answer. "But?" he prompted.
"I do have someone to come home to," he said calmly. "I'm married, you know."
"Really? Wow!" Rob breathed. "Who would have thought that you were a family man?"
"I even have two daughters," Dan said. "My wife still comes to visit me once in a while; she tells me what's been going on at home. It's hard for her, though. She doesn't like seeing me locked up and she dares not hope that I might get out one day soon."
"Imagine her face if you came home after this mission!" Rob said.
"I do," Dan said, looking into the distance. "I've been imagining her face ever since I started this mission. Oh, but what are the chances that I'll be going home after this?"
"But you still hope!" Rob said in amazement. "I wish I had that."
Dan shook his head a bit, focusing again on the task at hand. They were supposed to talk about Rob's problems, not his own. "I'm sure that you're not completely alone."
"I'm not just exaggerating," Rob insisted.
"You strike me as the kind of guy who has lots of friends though," Dan pressed on.
"Oh, sure. Plenty of friends to have fun with. But I don't have anyone to miss," Rob said.
"Why do you think that?"
"It's simple really," Rob said. "I'm going to be away from home for as many as two months on this mission. That's a fairly long time. It's enough time to get noticed. But there was no one I wanted to tell. There was no one who needed to know where I was so that they wouldn't worry when they didn't see me."
"You might be surprised by who misses you the most," Dan said, sure that he was just trivializing certain friendships because he felt a bit insecure.
"Oh, they're good people, don't get me wrong. But when they don't see me, they'll just assume that I've moved on to bigger and better things and won't spare any time to think about me."
"You'll know that for sure when you get back and only then," Dan insisted. "Long absences do make us forget about the things we enjoy the most when we can't have them."
"I know that right now, there's no one that I miss," Rob said, looking at the ground now.
"What about your parents? I'm sure that they miss you," Dan said.
Rob's lips quivered a bit, but he moved forward with the conversation. "They died, long ago. There's no one for me to go home to."
"So you feel like you're away from the protection of the colony, is that it?" Dan prompted, hoping to keep Robert's spirits up.
"Not only that, but this trip is making me question what protection our colony gives us. It only seems to isolate us from the rest of the very large world," he said bitterly.
"Familiar lies shouldn't make you feel exposed to the world. In the colony, we do have a certain amount of protection, and it keeps us happy."
"Happy!" Rob snorted. "I know that you mean that it prevents us from causing you too much trouble."
"You have the rest of us," Dan continued a bit weakly. "We're going through the same things as you are."
"I barely know any of you," Rob said dismissively, looking up again.
His eyes widened as he saw what was approaching them. Arthur and Jackie were accompanied by a large furry creature that was hopping in their direction.
"Then again, what's life without its little surprises?"