Part III: Bar Talk
“I guess I can make an exception,” she says.
“Great!” Alex smiles a wide happy grin. “I'm looking for someone.”
“Is that so? Ain’t we all.” She says crossing her arms and raising an eyebrows. “True love and all that, hu?”
“Looking for someone by the name Wren. Hear they work here. Brother Comfort? Sound familiar?” Alex pulls out a stool and sits. He cracks his neck to one one side and sets the black hat down. “The Doc said Wren owns this place.”
“What’s your business with Wren?” Her eyes narrow on Alex. “She doesn’t like uninvited guests. Specially outsiders.”
“I have a map.”
“Woopti-do.” She said tossing the rag over her shoulder and collecting the scattered coins on the counter. “You must not be lost. You want a beer, or a whiskey, or to get lost?”
“Water is fine. Just here for information.”
“Neither are free.”
“Very well.” Alex sets a few more coins down.
The tall perspiring glass of water arrives. Alex reaches with long thin fingers that methodically wrap around the glass. He brings it to his scabbed dry lips. He gulps the entire glass in a long, dribbling swallow, then sets it down, and wipes his chin with the back of his sleeve. “Will you let Wren know I need help finding something?”
The front door swings open introducing bright daylight into the room. A tall silhouetted man steps in. The door closes soft behind him and the daylight is once more cut off in this dark cocoon tavern. The new patron’s waits a few moments, giving his eyes time to adjust to the room’s mood.
“How’s it going Wren?” His deep voice shouts from across the room. “Opening early today? Everything alright?”
“Oh, Doing just fine Sheriff,” says the woman. “How about yourself?
“Can’t complain. And if I did, no one would listen. Wife, kids, ex-wife, all that… you know.” He walks in, large strides that carry him quick across the room. His boots clink on the hardwood floor. Keys giggle at his side next to the revolver. He hikes up his pants a little, and takes off his hat. A big bloom of hair fluffs out. “One day it’s this, the next day it’s that. You know how it goes Wren. Never a dull moment in Kasia. Ha! Still diggin' holes for my damn fence.”
The Sheriff pulls out the stool next to Alex, sets down his hat, and extending a knuckled fist across the table to Wren. Wren reciprocates the fist bump with soft clean hands. “An Ale for you Sheriff?”
“It isn’t even midday yet.”
She shrugs her shoulders raising both eyebrows with a look of ‘who gives’.
“Why not.” The Sheriff says resting his elbows and tapping callused hands on the tabletop. Alex notices the orange-red dirt stuck under of few of his fingernails.
“I see you’re up and walking now stranger.” Says the Sheriff.
Alex clears his throat. A small cough sneaks out. “The Doctor said I was well enough to be about.” He tries washing the itch at the back of his throat with the glass of water Wren has refilled.
“So you’re Wren?”
She smiles an unfriendly smile and nods.
A moment of silence hangs between the three individuals.
“What brings you to Kasia?” The Sheriff asks with piercing blue eyes. “We’re not big on tourism.” He takes a sip of the
beverage Wren has placed before him. “You get lost?”
Alex brushes dust off his thin legs. “I'm an archeologist.” He says reaching out an open hand. “I'm trying to find an ancient item. “The name is Alex, Alex Shuffle. I like to think of myself as an independent entrepreneur type.”
Smiling, the Sheriff reaches his hand to shake Alex’s.
“I'm Bents, Sheriff Bents. They all call me Sheriff, except The Wife.” His eyes roll sideways with a half grin. “She has all sorts of names for me. None I will repeat.”
Alex smiles and lets go of the Sheriff’s hand.
“That’s an interesting occupation,” says the Sheriff sipping his beer. “I was worried you might be a danger to us. Kasia doesn’t get visitors. Doesn’t want them. Hell, hardly even know what’s out there… What’s left out there, or what might be growing out there. Didn’t think anything existed. No one has ever scouted beyond the Wasteland, out into and past the Deadzone.” He takes a sip of his beer, foam sticking to his mustache. “Everyone said it impossible. Well, look at you? Alive and breathing… Sort of.”
Alex grinned with the corners of his eyes and coughed. “Oh there is plenty out there Sheriff.”
Sheriff Bents scratches the bristles on his chin and looks down the barrel of a long pointed index finger. “As long as you ain’t intending to cause any trouble, we won’t have any.”
Alex looks over his shoulder, up the barrel of that finger, and smiles.
“We’re a quiet town, with good people,” continues the Sheriff, “we live simple lives and run a tight ship. Everyone does their part. It’s the way we survive out here. We like it that way, and we want to keep it that way.” He retracts his finger and wraps it around his pint with the rest of his digits.
“Don’t you worry, Sheriff,” Alex says, sitting upright and cracking the bones in his back. “I'm here to find one old thing, and then I'll be on my way.” He folds his fingers together and smiles at Wren. “Or maybe I’ll stay. Never know. It’s a long way back through Hell where I came from. Maybe Kasia will grow on me.” Alex takes a sip of water. “Especially, that is, if Wren helps me.”
“Help you with what?” She asks.
“Help me find what I’m looking for. Like I said, I’m an archaeologist. I specialize in ancient artifacts predating the 22st century, anything from Old World, before history was lost. I like to think of myself as the guy going around putting the pieces back together. Like a detective. An archaeological detective. I put the puzzle pieces back together to see where the world went wrong.”
“I'll tell ya where the world went wrong.” said the Sheriff stomping an open hand on the counter. “The bloody moment they created those damn things. The robots or whatever they called them. Thinking machines? My Father told me strange stories of the walking thinking machines. They should have known. What did they expect would happen? Seriously! You can't instill human values in a machine that has no human capability or empathy. Especially if they re-program themselves.” He finishes his glass of beer. “Put another one on my tab Wren.” He says sliding the glass across the counter. “And look at us now. Stuck in this bubble, a time capsule, where no electronics function. Don't you think we all know it? Most of us too afraid to talk about it. Too afraid what’s out there to even fathom venturing out. Most of us want to believe we’re being protected. Safe from the world you come from. But deep down, we all know the truth. We're more like pets. To what goal I haven't a clue. Robots don't need reason. Any case, that’s not what killed off almost the planet anyways. We did that.” The Sheriff sets his beer on the counter. “Maybe the past needs to be buried, in order for us to move on.”
“Then I would be out of a job,” said Alex.
“Couldn't help ya there bud.”
“The whole era of man saturated in justified injustice would be lost!”
“Is that such a bad thing?” Asks the Sheriff.
“It is important to learn from our mistakes.” Alex squints an eye toward the Sheriff. “Humans are trained to turn wheels like hamsters, seeking approval from authorities that have their own interests in mind. Someone writes down a dream one day, and a thousand years from now people will read it and believe that’s what really happened. Who gets to decide what’s important to remember? The past is a blur of lies and murder.” Said Alex. “There is a immense quality of sadness in time. History is a sea of blood. It is the details that define us. That’s why I am important. I sift through the sands. I sort out what is real and is disposable. What is truth, and what is forgettable. You may not know this, but that world out there Sheriff,” Alex points to the front door, “that wasteland, the dead zone...beyond the borders of Kasia, that’s a thousands of years of death: poison, garbage, plastics, rivers of toxins, a landscape of nothing, treeless, lifeless, dead. A century of human invention! And it is never going away. Was it necessary? Yes, we had to die to realize ourselves.”
“Sounds like we have it pretty good here in Kasia then,” says the Sheriff.
“A pocket of paradise.” Alex replies.