Morgan Nyberg - Since Tomorrow

People held up whole bowls made of plastic and fractured bowls made of pottery, the white shell of a mechanical pencil, a brick scabbed with mortar. They held up bunches of Town carrots, pairs of scabby Town spuds, a plastic bowl of blackberries. Frost, lookit. It was a white light bulb. Frost stopped and took it and turned it in his hand. There was a half-melted bulge. He handed it back.

Frost saw a skagger. He was almost as tall as Frost. He had a neat brown beard, his hair was tied into a tail, and he wore a torn, sleeveless, buttonless tweed overcoat. The nose of his crossbow rested on the packed earth at his feet as he haggled with an emaciated man with shoulders like axe blades, who wore only a layered plastic kilt. The man was offering a bone-handled hunting knife and a compact disk. As the skagger examined the disc rainbow winks leapt from it. There were low gasps from those nearby. The skagger put the disk into a nylon backpack. He took the knife and put that in too. Then he handed the man a twist of clear plastic with grey powder inside.

As the man hustled toward the edge of the crowd, a woman shouted “That’s him. That’s the one stole my knife.” The man ran, shoving people aside, out into the rain. The skagger picked up his crossbow and looked toward Frost and mouthed through the noise “None for you” and looked away again and then stood there, waiting, smiling slightly.

In front of Frost people stepped away from King, but Frost checked behind himself often. This time when he turned, there was a new face among the followers, among those whispering, Frost, Frost, lookit. It was an old man, a man his age, wearing a wool kilt. Frost stopped, and King sat at his feet. “Do I know you?” said Frost. The man shook his head and just stood there.

He was barefoot. He was bald except for a fringe of white hair that stood out a foot from his head in filthy matted chunks. His mane of chest hair was also white, but his beard was soiled to the colour of the ground. He rested in a half-crouch, leaning on one knee. He had a lump on his side the size of a large potato. He was wearing glasses with burgundy rims and narrow lenses. He took them off and held them out to Frost.

Frost set down his bag of squash and took his own glasses off and handed them to the man. The man put on Frost’s glasses, and Frost put on the man’s glasses and looked around. He inhaled sharply and jerked back his head. He said “God, I can see. Everything is clear.” The plastic capes and skirts and pullovers were suddenly like sheets of moving light. Every face a live carving. The murky daylight now hard and crisp. He saw Wing at the far end of the crowd, his wisp of beard a twist of pure light, the eyes looking back at him, welcoming from even this far away. Frost closed one eye, opened it, closed the other one, opened it.

“Both eyes. Everything is clear in both eyes. I couldn’t see before and didn’t even know it.”

In an empty space not far from Wing there was a carrot on the ground, bright as a flame. Frost watched a rat heading toward it, dodging around feet. The rat sparkled with drops of rain. A woman was also charging for the carrot, reaching forward with a hand, taking long fast barefoot strides. There were colours in her wool poncho, half a dozen kinds of dirt grey. She had a long jagged mole on the back of her right calf. The rat beat her but was slowed in its escape by the weight of the prize. The woman stomped the rat. Then she picked up the carrot and the rat and clutched them both to her chest and walked away into the rain.

Frost turned back to the old man. He said “What do you want for the glasses? Do you want some squash? I’ll give you the whole bag. Look, I’ve got a lot.” But before he could open the bag to show him, the man shook his head. Frost said “Come and live at the farm. We’ll keep you warm and safe and fed.” The man stood there, bent, one hand braced on a knee, goggling back through the fog of scratches on Frost’s lenses. He gave an upward twitch of the chin and lifted his eyes to Frost’s hat.

Frost took his hat off and placed it on the man’s head. The man smiled. He had no teeth. Frost also smiled and said “Okay?” The man looked down at Frost’s shoes. “You want my shoes?” The man nodded. “My new shoes?” Frost stopped smiling. The man waited. Frost said to King “Stay” and dropped the leash. King lay down as Frost untied his shoes and stood there barefoot, holding the shoes out for the man to take.

The man’s eyes narrowed. A deep line of worry formed between his brows. Frost said “You don’t know how to tie them. Fine.” Frost knelt. The man put his free hand on Frost’s head for balance as Frost helped him slip one and then the other dirt-caked foot into the shoes. “Watch” said Frost as he slowly looped and tied the laces. Frost stood. The man looked down at the shoes and wiggled them around and looked up and smiled again. “Okay?” said Frost. The man reached and took a pinching grip of Frost’s poncho.

Frost stood staring soberly back at the man. Then he turned away and looked around for a minute through the narrow flawless lenses. Then he turned back and drew his sword and laid it on the ground. He untied the length of yellow twine around his waist and handed it to the man. He took off his poncho and helped the man put it on and tied the twine around the man’s waist.

Frost held out his hand to seal the transaction. The man looked down at Frost’s sword. Frost said “No way.” The man shrugged and shook Frost’s hand and turned and tossed Frost’s old glasses away. There were grunts and squeals and a rattling blast of plastic as people dove for the glasses. King stood up and barked but did not move. The old man hobbled out of the market.

Frost walked on in his rough sleeveless shirt and shapeless trousers, watching where he put his feet, holding the sword in one hand and King’s leash and the black bag in the other. He scanned the mob even more keenly now. The dark frames of the glasses made him look like a tall thin bird. Frost, stop, lookit. He was confronted by an old woman.

“Hello, Megan” he said.

“I never showed you this, Frost.” Megan had some weight on her, and some colour to her face. Her weathered skin and her white hair were clean. She had a long, well-made wool poncho and an animal skin hat and leather sandals and a sword. She handed Frost a folded square of paper, glossy and coloured. Megan took King’s leash and said “I like your specs.” She squatted beside King, who rolled over and had his tummy scratched.

Frost unfolded the paper. It was a sheet from a magazine, a full page colour photograph. It showed a sunny day. A young woman wearing a white blouse and shorts was sitting on mown grass. She had blond hair that hung loose over her shoulders. A young man in a red singlet and jeans lounged near the woman, leaning back on his elbows. Both of them appeared to be laughing. Above them spread the canopy of some deciduous tree with a thick trunk. Beyond the tree there was blue water and a section of beach with people in bathing suits. Beyond the beach rose tall buildings, with sunlight reflecting from some of the hundreds of glass windows. And far beyond the buildings, reaching high above them, there were mountains dark with a dense blanket of forest, and near the tops of the mountains there were patches of snow.

Megan rose and held out King’s leash to Frost. But Frost just stood there gaping at the picture as if he were in a trance. Megan dropped the leash and threw the bag of squash over a shoulder and gave Frost’s arm a squeeze and headed out into the rain.

As Frost approached, Wing called “I was lookin’ forward to seein’ your Guccis again. It gave me somethin to live for. Now I’m disappointed. But those glasses almost make up for it.”