fic: etherworld, maybe never

Maybe Never

In the cities, the widows get letters, or young met in uniform standing at their door with still hands and somber gazes. In the most distant villages, no one bothers with mail, and the roads are too twisted and sparse for travel.

The men stumble back home maybe three, four weeks after news of the war's end has reached their quiet hamlet, tucked securely against the wall of the valley like a child. The women appear at the windows, eyes frantic, their bodies tense. Some of them come out onto the street. It's Pareira who shatters the tight atmosphere: She screams, trips out the door. A year of suppressed worrying shows itself in incoherent words, and she reaches out, out, out. Her husband reaches back. His gaze is dead and he's limping, but something in his face changes when he sees her. They have a messy, loud reunion right there on the street.

Ydell watches from her door. The men drift apart, puppets pulled apart by strings that lead to homes. It takes ten, fifteen minutes for the street to empty, until only Pareira and her husband is left. She's having hysterics; so is he, but quietly, silent, like the war has ripped away his voice. They used to be so alike, Ydell muses, as she steps back and closes the door.

Ydell is not the only woman to receive no husband. She is, however, the only one to retreat quickly into her small home; the others stand, faces turned towards the street, expressions blank of all but dying hope.

Ydell closes the windows firmly, to shut out Pareira and her husband. There are candles, stacked neatly in the back, but she does not reach for them. Instead, she sits in one of the two chairs by the crooked table, and turns her face towards the door. Maybe tomorrow, Ydell thinks, diplomatically. And: Maybe next week, or next month, or next year. She is a patient woman.

Labels: _fiction, verse: etherworld