3.
So. It has been nine days now. If I am going to write what he wanted me, I think I must start when I first saw him at a great distance, walking on the beach. I don't see too many people. Usually only if I walk the twenty kilometers into town... if you can call it a town. Mouthton. A few buildings and a dock at the second inlet - the mouth - to the great lagoon. Every few months I walk in, talk with the doctor and the townmaster... there is never any mail for me, hasn't been since the letter came five years ago telling me my father had died in Tao Pablo. But I already knew. The plants had told me. My vegetables heard it from the dune grasses, who had picked it up from the cat-tails on the edge of the great lagoon....
I... hadn't seen another human in two longer moons, since my last trip to Mouthton. So I was a little surprised when I first saw him... walking toward me on the beach. I was digging shellfish at low tide. Gradually the small figure in the distance came closer and closer. By the time he came near, my bucket was pretty much full and I had enough to keep for a few days in the brine tank outside my little house. I waved at him. Saw him smile. Stood watching as he came near.
A few inches taller than me. Black, wavy hair. Light brown skin, touched a little red from the suns. He carried a small pack on his back, but wore no hat. No hat. That's how I knew he really was a stranger. I felt for his thoughts, his feelings, but aside from curiosity, I got nothing. He was keeping his mind very quiet, below the level where I can hear.
"Hello," he said.
"Hello," I answered.
He glanced down at my bucket. "Looks like you've done pretty good for yourself here. What are they, mostly clams?"
"Yes."
"You ever do any fishing?" His curiosity blazed up inside him. It felt good to me, knowing what he cared about.
"Yes."
"I've got some hooks and line in my pack. I was fancying on trying my luck sometime today."
I nodded. "In the evening, when the tide comes back in, skools of littlefish will be up right where we are standing now, searching for tidbits in this same muddy sand where I dug these clams."
"Ah."
"And there will be bigger fish, too, looking to eat the littlefish."
"Ah, that sounds even better."
I looked him up and down again. It was true he had no hat, but he seemed like he could take care of himself. I decided to ask him. "Where are you from?"
He answered a better question first. "My name is Jorak. And I am from the city of Calinova."
"Oh? You've come a ways, then. Why?"
He frowned. I feared I was being too nosy. But then he relaxed. "I needed to get away. Come out into the wild lands. Decided to walk by the ocean."
I lifted my bucket in one hand, and reached for my tools with the other. But he took them, "Please, let me help you carry something."
I had to decide then if I wanted him to know where I live. After a moment of prayer, I felt something inside. Something odd. A warning, but not about him. I know now that it was about them. The ones who would come and get him. But at the time I thought he would be all right. And he was.
"Jorak?" I tentatively said his name.
He stood still, holding my clam stick and rake. "Yes."
"I am Rela. And I am heading to my home now, to put up these clams and rest for a few hours. If you like, you may come with me, and we can come back here to fish later, towards evening."
"When the tide comes up... Rela?"
I smiled. It had been a long time since anyone said my name. And he did it with such feeling. "Yes, when the tide comes up."
I turned and began to lead the way. He followed.
"I was wondering how I could get out of the sun for a while."
I spoke over my shoulder, "You really should wear a hat in the sun, Jorak." I decided that I liked the sound of his name on my tongue.
"I know. I had one until two days ago. Some little animals stole it from me at night while I slept."
I laughed, "Oh, the banjo-dogs! That would have been back before Mouthton, then, on the other side of the entrance channel."
"Yes."
"You walked all the way up the coast from Calinova?"
"Uh-huh."
"Why, you must have been walking for a longer moon, then!"
"Almost."
I smiled, almost frowned, to myself. The man must be crazy. First to leave the city, and second to walk all this way. But I only shook my head. Still, curiosity flashed through me. What could he have eaten all that way? Only fish?
"I have done a lot of fishing, let me tell you. And eaten some of the wild plants that grow behind the dunes."
I glanced over my shoulder, into his face... had he heard my thought? Was he one like me, who could...?
But he only smiled at my backwards look. That was when I felt his own feelings. He let them loose and I felt them. Relief to have found a place to rest for a while. And then excitement that maybe I was someone who could feel, like him... and I felt him sensing me back. And I knew that he knew that I knew that he knew that we were both empaths.
"Ah..." he whispered, just to make sure, "you are... empathic."
I nodded and grunted. It was easier living alone with this talent. But at least he had it too, so I knew he would understand. We could spend a few hours together and still respect each other's thoughts. Share what we wanted to share and keep private what we wanted to keep private.
"It's not easy being able to feel other people's strong feelings..." he said quietly, as our feet began to climb up the trail from the beach, into the dunes. "I have to hold myself back."
"Like you did when you first said hello to me."
"Yes. I... I don't like to intrude into other people."
"Is that why you left the city? To be alone?"
The sand trail crunched under our feet. I felt him answering me. It was like a wall crumbling suddenly between us. We were just walking along and then... the thoughts were flowing between us like the waves and the tides, washing in and then out.
Yes. I... well, I was in danger, too. I learned something that... it were better I did not tell anyone I knew. Something I couldn't even think about for fear one of the government watchers would hear me.
I won't ask, then.
Silence. Then: You like being alone.
Yes. I only see other people the few times I go into town... if you can call it a town. Not even big enough to be a village, really.
The place at the entrance to the lagoons... Mouthton?
Yes. I walk there every few months, talk to a few people, then leave.
None of them can... hear... like you and I?
The doctor can feel, but... not very clearly.
I thought they were... quiet. Only what... ten or fifteen people? Felt no real currents flowing between them.
Are there others like you... and me... free... back in the city?
A few. But we keep ourselves quiet. The government....
Then he froze. I turned, opened my mouth... "The doctor at mouthton told me the government of Calinova looks for people like us, to use in the services."
He nodded. Like I said, that is who I was afraid of. That they would feel me. And know what I found out.