Olan Thorensen - Cast Under an Alien Sun

“Ah . . . yes, thank you,” he answered. Yozef’s mood shifted to concern. Carnigan was a prodigious drinker, but usually a few beers put him into as openly a good mood as he was likely to get.

He kept a watchful eye on Carnigan, until the woman returned with a third stein for their table. He then sipped. Sipped again. Again. Then jumped in.

“Carnigan,” he ventured, “is there some problem? You seem . . . troubled tonight.”

Carnigan was quiet at first, then took a smaller quaff from one of his steins.

“Sometimes our lives go in directions we never dreamed of. One thinks he knows his place in the world and what’s in the future . . . then everything changes, and everything he expected is gone.” Carnigan looked up from his beer at Yozef, a melancholy expression on his ruddy face. “Does that ever occur to you, Yozef?”

Yozef was thunderstruck by the question.

Carnigan saw the expression on Yozef’s face and slammed a giant fist on the table. “God’s curse on me, Yozef! If there’s anyone on Caedellium who’s been jerked from his life path, it must be you! My apologies for wallowing.”

“Nonsense, Carnigan,” reassured Yozef. “All of us have this feeling from time to time. Granted, some more than others, and I guess I’m one of those others. What about you, though? What is it?”

Yozef could see the hand holding the metal stein tighten, and he half held his breath, wondering if Carnigan was going to crush the vessel without realizing it. Then the hand relaxed, and the owner sat back against the wall. “It’s the day.”

“The day? Something happened today?”

“No. The date,” he whispered. “This date every year. It was on this date that my life changed. On this date, I realized I wasn’t a good person.”

“Could you tell me what happened?”

“No,” Carnigan replied in the soft tone, signaling it was time to end this discussion thread.

Yozef decided to try another tactic to maybe improve Carnigan’s mood. He’d let Carnigan rib him about the brief affair with Buna.

Whoops, Yozef thought. Wait a minute. Carnigan isn’t married. He lives in the abbey, and I’ve never seen or heard of him in relation to a woman. That’s unusual among the Caedelli, what with their attitudes toward sex and the shortage of men.

Granted, Carnigan wasn’t the most personable of men. Still—something involving women? Or a woman? Best to avoid the topic.

Yozef spent the next half hour rambling about progress on his various projects, news and rumors about the Narthani, the weather, and anything else he could think of, trawling for any topic that might bring up a spark of interest from Carnigan. He was about to give it up when he hit pay dirt.

“Filtin tells me he had another run-in with his mother-in-law. Or, as Filtin refers to her, ‘the old witch.’” Yozef’s attention spiked when he thought he saw a hint of Carnigan’s mouth turning up at the corner. The referenced older woman was notorious throughout Abersford for making caustic remarks at the slightest perceived provocation. However, Filtin insisted she needed no provocation, and it was her nature that anything coming out of her mouth was required to be nasty. Her looks were a good match to her personality. She had straggly gray hair, seldom washed, and had bad teeth. Her rheumy eyes reminded one alternately of a snake or a wolverine, and her breath could melt metal. All in all, a charming person. Anyone would have questioned the wisdom of Filtin not having serious reservations about marrying a daughter of this harridan, yet to the surprise of all, the daughter was nothing like the mother. Nerlin Fuller was, from all accounts, mild-mannered, was liked by all, adored Filtin, and was a conscientious mother. Filtin half-jokingly speculated one evening that Nerlin had the perfect model of whom not to be.

Encouraged by Carnigan’s reaction, Yozef attempted humor. “That reminds me of a joke about a woman, possibly someone like Filtin’s mother-in-law. It seems she was one of three old women who died and arrived in the afterlife at the same time. When they get there, God says, ‘We only have one rule here: don't step on the ducks!’

“The three women agree, though they don’t understand why ducks are so important, and they enter Heaven. Sure enough, there are ducks all over the place. It is virtually impossible not to step on a duck, and although they do their best to avoid them, the first woman accidentally steps on one.

“Well, along comes God with the most unpleasant man the first woman has ever seen. God chains them together and says, ‘Your punishment for stepping on a duck is to spend eternity chained to this man!’

“The next day, the second woman accidentally steps on a duck, and along comes God again with an extremely unpleasant-looking man. He chains them together with the same admonition as for the first woman.

“The third woman has watched all of this and is determined not to be chained for all eternity to an unpleasant man like the other two women, so she steps extraordinarily carefully wherever she goes. She manages to go months without stepping on any ducks. Then one day, God comes up to her with the most handsome man she has ever laid eyes on—tall, dark hair, and muscular. God chains them together without saying a word and walks away.

“The happy woman says to her dream man, ‘I wonder what I did to deserve being chained to you for all of eternity?’

“‘I don't know about you,’ the man says, ‘but I stepped on a duck!’”

There was no reaction for some seconds, then the first cracks appeared in granite, like an avalanche that started slowly and then accelerated as an irresistible force. Fortunately, unlike the first time Yozef had cribbed a joke from Earth and told it as a novel one on Anyar, Carnigan didn’t have a mouthful of beer. Yozef was spared an evening shower. And he was fortunate that he had moved his chair back slightly in anticipation at the first signs of motion and thus wasn’t bounced by the edge of the heavy table when both of Carnigan’s fists pounded the defenseless wood.

Other patrons stopped their own activities, as heads rotated toward the volcanic outburst. Then, recognizing Yozef, people spread the word that one of Yozef’s story sessions might be in the offering. The evening’s sparse distribution of patrons flowed around Yozef and Carnigan’s table, forming a U-shape against the wall.

If Carnigan at first noticed the gathering, he gave no sign until his laughter subsided. Then he looked around with his usual angry expression and sighed. “Can’t a man be left in peace with his dark moods anymore?”

“What are friends for, if not to save friends from themselves?” Yozef assured him. “Which reminds me of a story . . . ” and he was off and running with more plagiarized jokes from Earth, many of which fell on deaf ears, since the context was lost, but enough of which hit universal themes and references to maintain his reputation as a major wit.

The pub was nearly empty when the Yozef decided it was past time to head home. The problem with that intent was that once he stood, moving in a straight line proved troublesome. Still, considering the amount of strong beer he’d consumed, his brain idly wondered why he was even standing. Carnigan, evidently possessing an infinite capacity for beer, steadied Yozef and walked him the mile to his house.

It had been a good evening. As he dozed off in his bed, Yozef thought that everything considered, it wasn’t a bad life. He had friends. The affair with Bronwyn had ended, though with good memories and no real regrets. The affair with Buna had ended, which was the important fact. He was making a difference. He was well-known and respected, and he thought he had a plan to focus his life. All in all, it could be a lot worse.