The Reincarnation

Donna’s cabin in the woods was quiet in the morning. Very quiet. David stirred before he woke, sending a mental signal to whoever, or whatever, it was that needed it. Conscious of the act now, he remained in bed, half asleep, for another twenty minutes before he fully woke.

They ate heartily at breakfast, still famished from their road trip.

“Where would you like to go?” Donna asked them, smiling. “It’s up to you. I know people just about everywhere.”

Laura answered her with a question, “David?”

David put down his fork, sat back in his chair, took a deep breath, and answered. “North. I want to stay in the north. I’m sure you both realize why. As long as it’s safe here in Canada, this area is the only one that I know as far as the climate goes. I don’t think I’ll ever want to cross the border into that...that...wasteland ever again.” He turned to Laura. “Now I know what you meant when you said how you had time to adjust to the changes the world has seen over the past twenty-five years. I’m still in shock from seeing it all at once. And your explanation on the way up here didn’t help – I don’t want to go back there.”

Donna answered him. “Well, don’t worry about being caught. There’s no way the Church can find you here. And to tell you the truth, there are only a few people I know who can still bear to live in the States. And most of them are in Vermont. Anyway, Canada is huge, and the weather is just great, as you can see.” She motioned with her hand out the window to the lake, the trees. “There are plenty of places for you to call home if you like. What do you want to do with your life?”

David thought for a moment before saying, “Live, for one.” Donna and Laura chuckled at this. David joined them before he continued answering. “I want to try to help the Movement, if they’ll have a refugee.”

Donna finished eating and leaned back in her chair. “To be honest, they’d welcome you with open arms. More than a few of them are trying to avoid contact with one or more parts of the Church. You’d be brethren. And with what you’ve told me about your work in the environment, you’d be a real benefit to the Movement. I prefer living at this outpost, but there are communities – some quite large.”

“Let’s get back to that.” Laura looked concerned. “How do we know the Church can’t find us here? I know what they’re capable of, believe me. We should be out of here by tomorrow at the latest. They’re bound to show up, if they’re not already staking us out. They won’t kill David, of course, but I don’t think they’ll have any problem taking you and me out.” She motioned to Donna, who sat up straight at the notion of being killed by the Church.

“I still don’t think the Church will show up here.” Donna relaxed again. “But we can prepare for them, if it makes you feel better.”

David felt sick at the prospect of the Lab coming to the cabin. “Prepare? How?”

“Well, we can always camp out somewhere close by just to be safe. Listen for their noisy cars to barrel in here. There’s an old quarry nearby that would be good. The bluffs there would block out the view from here – even if they walk through the woods and start searching. We could keep watch.” She paused. “But honestly guys, even though I understand what you’ve been through, I think you should give more credit to yourselves. I think you’ve covered your tracks pretty well.”

“Donna’s probably right, David,” Laura said, facing him. “By switching cars, I guess they’re not going to have much to go on.”

“Still, I have a strange feeling,” David looked at them. “Like I’m being watched somehow.”

“Here? At the cabin?” Donna asked.

“No, here,” he said, pointing to his chest. “Did the Lab implant a tracking device in my chest?” he asked Laura.

“What? Not that I know of. Why?”

“At night, and in the morning, my chest feels warm, like it’s sending signals or something.”

“Spooky,” Donna said. “Are you sure they didn’t do anything to him?” she asked Laura.

“No, I’m not sure. But I don’t think so. I’ve never even heard of anything like that. Maybe you watched too many science fiction movies when you were younger.”

Donna chuckled, and David joined her. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” he conceded, not wanting to worry them further. “But still, let’s agree to get out of the house first thing tomorrow morning. We can spend today getting ready. Agreed?”

Laura and Donna both shook their heads in unison at David’s suggestion.

They didn’t have much to pack, and spent the rest of the day by the lake. It was more than peaceful here to David. It made him feel like he hadn’t spent the last twenty-five years in a freezer. The lake reminded him of his youth. He had spent his time exploring forests and swamps, amazed at how much life they held, and the delicate balance of all of those lives together. He was reminded of something he had read once: “Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” The quote summed up his feelings not only about the intricate balance of nature, but about the scene that had unfolded before him south of the border. Man certainly messed up the web there, he thought. As if his mind wanted to confirm this thought, David pictured the world map he had seen on the wall of Donna’s cabin. The continents of his childhood looked like they had been afflicted with a wasting disease – the edges of them eaten away by a cancer. Whole island chains were gone. North America resembled a turtle. “Rising sea levels,” Donna had explained. “And that map is ten years old.”

David left the women on the beach and walked into the woods. He was only a few feet into the canopy when the smell hit him. It was raw, wild. The fecundity of the soil entered his nostrils and his mind. He couldn’t define the smell, but knew it was the one he had missed most. It was a complex smell – decaying leaves, moss, moisture – a perfectly balanced bouquet that always signified life to David. He now realized how precious that life, and the smell of it, was. Man had certainly tangled the web – torn it down altogether from what he could tell.

David looked at the trees, feeling their presence. To him, the woods were alive, not just with the animals, birds, and insects. Together with the trees, these other forms of life made up a whole organism that he felt a part of when he was in them.

David spied some hornets flying into a hole in the ground. It reminded him of when he was younger and had unknowingly sat down on a similar hole. The hornets stung his rear a dozen times as the ones returning to the nest crowded around him, their black and yellow bodies getting tangled in his hair, stinging his face, flying down his shirt. His friend’s father had come out with David after it rained and the leaves were moist, and poured gasoline down the hole and then lit it on fire. David had watched in shock as the hornets flew right into the flames, destroying themselves. They acted as if there was something deep inside them telling them what to do, instructing them; giving them orders they didn’t have the cognizance to override.

He remembered that he had felt sad then. Deeply sorrowful, like somehow he had spoiled everything. Like he had done something wrong – nothing really, was just in the wrong place at the wrong time – and had set something in motion without being conscious of it. Merely said some words, did some things that were rational at the time – and then those crumpled, burning bodies lay at his feet.

Carefully sidestepping the hornet’s nest, he walked through the woods to a clearing. Ahead of him was the old quarry Donna had mentioned. Walking up to it, he stared at the bluffs and the huge pit at their base; the green water below him no longer stinking of sulfur, but probably still somewhat acidic. The rock walls surrounding the lake were bare, sheer – so corroded and sterile they appeared incandescent in the strong sunlight. He imagined men working here, ripping minerals from the Earth with their machines. He had always thought of places like this as the beginnings of humanity’s sins. All of the gadgets throughout the ages came out of places like this, and after a short while, were eventually buried in similar man-made pits. This was their cradle, the landfill their grave.

Looking over the edge, he saw that the lake fifty feet below him was about fifty feet long and a hundred feet wide, a man-made liquid rectangle tinged with the patina of copper. Vertical walls rose from it on all sides.

He saw some caves among the bluffs that reminded him of exploring caves when he was young. He was always amazed at the snake-like tunnels they formed underground. How when one tunnel ended, another began in a new direction. Staring at the lake, he wondered how many tunnels it had flooded, and how many explorers of the caves ended up stopping when they ran into the horizontal barrier of the metallic water.

David wandered back to Laura and Donna and they all went inside for dinner.

After dinner, Donna finally showed David the laptop computer he had been staring at throughout his meal. Donna had put a small sticker on it that said “Time Vampire.” David had noticed a similar sticker, “Thought Vampire,” on her tiny television, dusty and unused in a corner. Sitting close to her, he noticed for the first time that she wore a watch, only it wasn’t really a watch. There were no numbers around the dial, and the face had no hands.

She brought up something she thought he would like. It was a program of all of the great paintings, analyzed and reconstructed digitally just as the artist had painted them. The viewer could watch every painting come on the screen brushstroke by brushstroke.

David was fascinated with the program, mostly by Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. “So that’s why she’s smiling,” he said before Donna clicked the machine off and had everyone agree to retire early so they could get a fresh start in the morning.

David lay next to Laura, the fire crackling in the fireplace. They could see the lake from the living room. The glow of the moon illuminated it, giving it a waxy sheen. The moon’s light was bouncing off the lake, filling the living room with a liquid white light.

“Laura?”

“Yes, Dave?” She turned to face him.

“Think we’ll be able to get away?”

“Sure,” she said, finally confident. “The Church operates by fear. It really doesn’t deal with crises all that well. I’m sure they’ll foul up somewhere along the line. Write you off as a loss.”

“We’re in this together?”

“Of course. What kind of question is that?”

“I think I’m just paranoid, is all. Thanks for your daring rescue.”

“Anytime,” she smiled.