Fianchetto: Cold Comfort 2042

 2042: Cold Comfort

[Another excerpt from FIANCHETTO, in this case a flashback to Victor's childhood at Fysikós Farm. Photos added for the blog page.]

Cold. It was so cold. Victor tried to burrow deeper into the futon beneath him, but the wooden floor wouldn't yield. He pulled layers of blankets and the zipped-open sleeping bag tighter around him, but the cold seeped in remorselessly, invading his space like water leaking into a sinking ship. To make matters worse, his bladder was achingly full. He tried to ignore it, but he couldn't. There was nothing to do but get up.

The Hall was a vale of shadows, populated by mounds of children sleeping under piles of bedding. It was January, and there had not been any real sunshine for five days. The solar cells couldn't cope with the gloom, so the batteries ran down and the electric heaters died after forty hours' steady use. During the day, the adults would run an alcohol-fired heater (wood burning was forbidden, as it was too polluting), but Frances said it wasn't safe to sleep with the stove going. When the sun went down--and it went down early in winter--the precious heat quickly bled from the Hall. The children of Fysikós Farm dealt with the cold by dragging their futons off their bunks and piling them on the floor in one great heap. Then they all crawled in, heaping every spare cover they had on top of them. All their body heat was trapped inside the mound, so they could sleep in some kind of comfort.

Unfortunately, Victor's place was at the edge of pile, so one side was always exposed to cold air and lacked a second body for warmth. The kids took turns sleeping on the outside, and tonight happened to be his turn.

The only light in the hall came from two feeble LED nightlights, one at each extremity of the room. Victor got on his knees, wrapping a scratchy army surplus blanket around him. All he wore was a pair of warm-up pants and a too-large sweatshirt. He slipped on a pair of felt moccasins. They were ice-cold, but at least he didn't have to go barefoot to the latrine.

There had been a chamberpot in a small closet at the far end of the Hall, but three nights ago the kids whose chore it was to empty it before lights' out forgot, so the contents froze during the night. The pot cracked, ruining it and making a mess. Frances refused to replace it right away. She said doing without the pot would teach them all the importance of doing their appointed tasks when required. What this meant for Victor was he had to cross the length of the Farm yard to the main latrine in the middle of the night with the temperature well below freezing.

He padded to the door and opened it. The night was still and the sky was as clear as glass. Through the tall pines and naked branches of the cluster of oaks around Frances' cabin he could see uncountable stars. The moon was not up. Breath plumed from his face and quickly vanished in the dry, frigid air.

Victor surveyed the shadowed expanse of the Farm yard down to the communal showers and latrine. He had no idea what time it was, but every window was dark and nothing was stirring. Because the Farm was off the grid, there were no power company utility lights to brighten the grounds. With a sigh he started down the hill to the latrine. At least his eyes were accustomed to the dark. Even so, he had to feel his way along, sliding his slippered feet over the carpet of pine straw. Now and then he bumped into a tree root, but he managed not to trip.

The men's latrine, sited at right angles to the bath house, stood tall and black in the darkness. He raised the wooden latch and let the narrow door swing open. In warm weather he had to watch out for spiders, and paper wasps nesting under the roof eaves. Last summer, one of the grownups, Carlos, got bitten by a spider while using the latrine. A big hole rotted in his leg. Another time Victor had watched old Boris deal with an infestation of wasps. There were four big nests hanging under the edge of the galvanized tin roof.

Frances wouldn't allow anyone to use poisons on pests, so Boris showed up with a garden rake and a can of white gas, the fuel they used in Coleman lanterns. He wrapped a length of rag around the tines, soaked it in white gas, and lit it. Holding the rake up, he burned off the paper wasps' nests one by one. When no nests were left, Victor assumed that was that, but Boris winked and told him to wait and watch.

Wasps who had been out foraging homed in on their lost nests. Because white gas flames were invisible, they flew right into Boris's torch. Victor saw wasp after wasp take light and plummet to the ground, burned. When no more insects appeared, Boris lowered the rake and stamped out the flames.

"Sometimes you can't see the fire," he said. "That don't mean it ain't there."

Staring into the black hole of the open latrine door, Victor wondered what might be lurking inside. If he hadn't been so cold, he might've relieved himself against a handy tree. It was too chilly for that, and Frances took a dim view of anyone flouting the Farm's hygiene rules. He stepped up into the shadowed shed.

It was the three holer, with carved flip-up seats. Thin wooden partitions divided the seats. Victor went to the center hole. Shivering, he managed to urinate, but it was hard when his hands were so cold and he was shaking so much.

Finished, he shoved his hands into his armpits, put his head down, and hurried back to the Hall. Along the way he heard a soft crash in the brush off to his left. He skidded to a stop, getting tangled in the blanket and nearly falling over.

There were coyotes in Chatham County. Everybody knew that. People said cougars had also made a comeback, moving into rural ranges depopulated by the human exodus to the cities. They'd lost chickens in the spring, and one of the Farm dog's pups had vanished just before Labor Day. An eleven year-old wandering alone in the dark was perfect prey.

Victor stood stock still, straining to see or hear whatever was going on around him. Beyond a few meters, the night was a black wall he couldn't penetrate. All was quiet. The silence was not reassuring.

Maybe it was a pine cone falling he heard. Lots of pines in the yard, after all . . . looking back frequently, Victor hurried hard back to the Hall. He heard nothing else and reached the steps in record time. His hands and feet ached, they were so cold. What did frostbite feel like? He imagined frostbitten fingers or toes would be numb, not throbbing like his were.

Compared to the crystalline darkness outside, the air inside the Hall was humid with children's breath and softly lit by the faint night lights. Kids squirmed and rasped under heaps of bedding, but no one woke. Victor tip-toed to his spot at the edge of the sleeping scrum.

For the first time he noticed a mound of bedding separated from the rest. Maybe a meter from the main heap lay a single comma-shaped hill of gray blankets, under which peeped the bright colors of a Star Wars sleeping bag. Though he saw no face, he knew who was sleeping there. The girl was always on her own. The others did not like her, even though she'd recently stopped bullying and fighting anyone who crossed her.

Victor went to the edge of the curled heap, slipped off his moccasins, and knelt. He lifted the edge of the blankets. His movement, or the inrush of cold air provoked a violent start from the sleeping girl.

"What?" she said hoarsely. "Whozzit?"

"It's me, Victor."

"Whaddya want?"

"Can I sleep with you?"

She pushed herself up on her hands. He saw a blur of sandy hair and the pale circle of her face.

"What? Why?"

"I went to the 'trine. I'm cold."

She stared at him for what seemed like a long time. His shivering resumed, and grew violent enough he toppled forward, almost landing on his face.

"Get in," she hissed, "before you freeze to death." He crawled under the blankets she held up for him.

"Shit, your skin's like ice! Keep your feet and hands to yourself!" Trembling, he promised he would.

Her sleeping bag was deliciously warm. Victor drew himself up in a ball, tucking his feet behind him and returning his hands to his armpits. She dropped the blankets over him.

"You musta had to piss real bad," she muttered.

"Uh-huh."

Silence. Then softly, "Why get in with me?"

"You're alone."

"You feel sorry for me?" she replied, voice rising.

"No. I want to be here."

More silence. "Keep your hands to yourself," she repeated.

Victor didn't understand why she said that. His hands ached, but he'd never put his frigid fingers or toes on anyone to warm them up. Of course, she was fourteen, and had changed from a scruffy tomboy into a teenager. Victor had noticed other girls her age were into this 'don't touch me' phase. He didn't understand why they acted that way. The Hall wasn't a touchy place. And yet, even as these thoughts circled his head, he found himself wanting to be closer to her, as close as she would allow.

He wormed forward, still keeping his feet and hands back. His knees bumped hers.

"Be still," she murmured, trying to go back to sleep.

With bedding up to his eyes, Victor could just see her forehead and tossled hair. Her warm breath played on his face. He wanted to go to sleep too, but he found rest elusive. Lying there, he studied the small part of her face he could see.

She opened her eyes. He expected an angry question along the lines of 'Whaddya lookin' at?' but she said nothing, gazing steadily back at him instead.

The tingling in his fingers and toes faded. Victor took his hand from his armpits and flexed his fingers, feeling the blood flow again. To his surprise, she reached out and took his hands in hers, closing them together and rubbing the backs lightly.

"Not so cold now."

"No."

"When you're warm enough, you can go back to the others."

Victor shook his head. He'd stay.

They went to sleep like this, facing each other, her hands clasped over his. When he woke to a bright, crisp morning, his back was to her, and her arm was close around his chest.