Drought Hawks

Chapter Five

"Your partners sound really wonderful. I'm curious about something though," said Reggie.

"About marriage or how this sort of arrangement works?" Rendur asked.

"No, I'm curious what you had for dinner. You left that out of the story."

Rendur laughed, and then told her that they had eaten salad and chicken. He watched as Reggie twisted up on corner of her mouth, suspecting there was much more to tell. It was going to be tricky leaving out the little details of modern advancement and backslides. It was obvious she was going to catch every tidbit he managed to let slip.

"Damn writers. It's honestly what we had for dinner," Rendur said. "We don't eat people these days or anything like that. I just can't tell you how it gets from farm to plate."

"Huh," she said, more curious than disappointed. "Is it common then, polyamory?"

"Quite," Rendur answered, obviously unwilling to say more.

"I can see the benefits, but I suppose you're not going to share the intimate details. I'm assuming of course, the dinner and announcement led some carnal enjoyments."

Rendur raised an eyebrow at her.

"What? We had sex in 2015. Sometimes we even had sex with multiple people. I was still rather into that. It's not like I had a chance to make it through menopause."

"Huh," he said.

"What? Wait. Is there no menopause now?"

"Well, there's. I..." Rendur devolved into genuine guffaws that were contagious. She had back from the dead two hundred years in the future and the most important thing they could talk about was sex? And then the laughter was swirling her thoughts into a relief of normalcy. If there was sorrow in returning from the dead, at least there was humor as well. And least the world still knew love in its messiest incarnations.

As the mild hysteria subsided, she tried to extrapolate the future from his story of one evening. She imagined this world was more like Star Trek: The Next Generation. They had food. They had money, apparently in a strict gold standard now. They had security. Maybe all of the world problems had been solved, all except of course, for the troublesome bit about being human.

When Rendur's laughter subsided as well and he wiped his eyes, he became much more subdued. If he was thinking back on the domestic scene he had described to her, then something about it that was bothering him. What would the bother be? His partners sounded delightful and they were starting a family. He scribbled with on the thin electronic pad in his lap for a couple of minutes in silence while Reggie wondered and then he turned his attention back to her.

"You lived alone and spent so much time alone most of your life." Rendur stated this kindly if not cautiously. "I want to know what that's like. Were you happy? You seemed happy."

Reggie examined his expression which was both sad and hopeful as if he were looking for an answer to a present problem from the past. She stared down at her hands, which looked like they had in her early thirties, strong and unmarked by the sun. The looked deceivingly corporeal and helpful, but they weren't and she wished she could give him a hug. "Are you happy?" she asked.

"Sometimes," he said without looking away from her.

"And sometimes I was happy too." She smiled at him, pausing to feel her own loss. It hurt. "It is just as easy to be lonely with your friends as in solitude. And it's just as hard to find peace surrounded by people you love as it is find it alone." She didn't have anything to say that hadn't been said thousands of years before by people much wiser than she was – than she had been.

They sat in silence for moment and Rendur seemed to be composing himself. She wondered if they had jumped some line that anthropologists weren't supposed to skip across. Or if maybe he had ventured past a personal rule onto shadowed paths. He looked someone who didn't just want a story, but needed one.

"I think I'll tell you about my last season with my hawks," she said, even though question of what had become of them made her ache. If anything it was the best to honor the animals that had gotten her through the last hard year of her life.

"Thank you," he said, and sounded grateful, but looked defeated.

"It was January after one of my worst years and this one didn't start well either," Reggie began.