lost little lamb . zori

V A S C O

I’d be the first to admit that I don’t know if I’d ever gone to the old library on my own. There’d been the times when I’d taken Raquel, Sofia, or Emmanuel when some of the books hadn’t yellowed their pages, or the tiles through the children’s section hadn’t been scuffed beyond recognition. Yani liked to spend afternoons in the stacks, her fondness for worlds to add to her imagination reminded me how much she’d gotten from me, and with the set of books in her hands, from Emma.

But today had been a personal trip, inspired by the visit to Iris Gate, that there was a benefit to all the knowledge collected and bound on the spines of these tomes.

Maybe it was the niggling in my stomach, staring down treatise on philosophy and government as a farmer’s son had any right to pick them up. Part of my conditioning from youth remained. As bold as I’d been taught to be, rising above the simple and plain fieldhand was a funny daydream. Especially when you’d children to tend to, long hours with blistered hands and a hot sun overhead. It was easier to stick to the lessons you could learn from one another than what might’ve been sitting collecting dust.

And by the time you stood in front of them, you imagined if the books could, they’d laugh at you for suggesting you’d ever understand.

Doubt was poison enough for most. For me, I knew for what we faced – whether here in eleven, or the changes I’d wanted for all of us – meant I needed to understand what wise people who’d come before could offer.

I greeted the afternoon sun with a smile, tote bag slung over my shoulder as I stepped out onto the street. Here and there I gave wave, five years on as mayor offering little anonymity in eleven. I stopped to chatter about what the harvest looked like; here or there about when the silos would all be rebuilt from the fires, or if the food pantry had been restocked for the week. I took my time with everyone I met not because I thought of myself as some great fixer or wise man.

It’s that the greatest thing we can do is to offer ourselves to one another, without condition or prejudice.

You’d be amazed at the things you could learn when you stopped to truly listen to the person standing beside you.

I’d spotted her from the end of the block, first staring at the shutters of one of the homes, and then glancing as though she’d forgotten where she was. It was the sort of look of someone that’d been uprooted and placed in a bed that wasn’t their own. She took a seat on the ground, head against the bouquet in her hands.

“Miss,” I gave a wave on approach, and jostled the tote on my shoulder, “Excuse me?”

There was something about her eyes that looked too familiar by half. Where had I seen her before? There weren’t too many fair skinned women in this part of eleven, at least, not folks that rubbed elbows with us on the Izar farms.

I was staring, wasn’t I?

“You turned around, or just taking a break for yourself?”