It took but the breath of a moment for Steven to gather his scattered surprise. With a single fluid motion that seemed the sleight of a magician, he had gathered coat and books, leapt out of his chair and reached the door, leaving the bells to clang their mystification at the ways of men.
The heady damp of the the storm torn wind rushed down to greet him with a broken cry, coming up behind him and pushing him down the street. Steven gasped with the sudden chill, but ducked into his coat and leapt away down the dark road.
“Thomas, Thomas what has possessed you?”
Steven managed to just grab his friend’s shoulder. Thomas whirled round with uplifted eyebrows, his hat pulled down tight on his head, his coat pulled close round his crossed arms. He stopped, but did not speak, merely backing under the eaves of a nearby house to escape a drenching as the rain came suddenly back in a mad dash of storm.
Not a word did he speak in answer to Steven’s question, only stared, with shoulders and eyebrows and very mouth hunched tight.
“Forgive the foolishness of an old friend Thomas,” Steven held out his arms in a gesture of helplessness, “you know my crazy ways when it comes to ideas. I’m no different than I was when I was half my current height. You know that… Thomas, what is wrong with you?”
Thomas glanced up and abruptly sighed.
“I’m sorry Steven. You’re my old friend.” And Thomas’ shoulders settled themselves into their usual places. But his eyebrows did not, and his voice continued tense as he went on.
“But that’s just it. You are my old friend, but we’ve, I guess it’s that we’ve parted ways,” Thomas’ words stumbled out of his mouth, but Steven was quick to catch them.
“But what do you mean? We’re pretty much the same as we ever were; same families and personalities, both students, I know we have divergent interests, but we always have,”
“Yes, but you are changed Steven.” Thomas voice carried a sudden finality of opinion that told of long thought on the subject. “It’s Jonah. You are ridiculously fascinated by Jonah, you actually listen to him as if what he said was true,”
“Oh, so that’s it.”
And now Steven was as quiet as Thomas. They both looked down, Steven finally remembering to button his flapping coat as he stepped out of the rain and into the doorstep. It was a shallow, narrow bit of space that forced them to stand side-by-side so that neither could see the other’s face. The rain slanted by them over the streamlined road and splattered the edges of their boots. And then it died and a hush as sudden as the storm startled the both of them. But Thomas, for once spoke first.
“Steven, I mean no disrespect to you, because I know how enviously agile your brain is. But you are a fool to listen to Jonah, doctor of literature though he be. He’s preaching about things that not only we as people, but entire societies put behind them long ago. You shouldn’t quest after the past like that. Beauty and freedom and the soul, and all that jibberish about reclaiming them. Face up to it Steven; we live in a new age, a world of technology and productivity, it’s incredible.. You can’t go back to all those things now, or at least, you can’t in the real world. You are squandering your brain. And I hate to see you left behind dreaming and writing reams about who knows what while the rest of us learn how to work this. I hate it.”
It was the most Thomas had spoken all day and the effort seemed to exhaust him for he heaved a great sigh that broke the ramrod straightness of his stance. When he turned to Steven, shuffling awkwardly round with the cold stones scraping his shoulder, his face wore a look of near appeal that altered his features by its need. Steven saw it was a hint of astonishment, but he could not muster the words to comfort the pleading.
“Thomas, I understand. And that is all I will say right now.”
“But Steven, surely you see…”
“No, please Thomas. We won’t discuss this at present. I have just begun to think truely about what Johah. has said and I can’t represent it well yet in words. But it wakes a hunger in me.”
Thomas face wore such puzzlement that Steven almost laughed. And yet ached for his friend at the same time.
“Do you feel nothing when he speaks of the old ways and the old songs?”
“Yes,” said Thomas, and his shoulders almost imperceptibly straightened. “I feel irritation. As should you.”
The pleading and the quiet were gone now, in their place a buzzing, uncomfortable silence that hummed between them. There was no ending their time with agreement so Steven gave a nod, and for old time’s sake, a quick clap on Thomas shoulder and walked away.
Thomas almost turned, almost called after him, but when he did his friend was gone and no sight of him could be seen though Thomas craned his neck to glimpse the farthest shadows of the curving road. He straightened his coat, opened his umbrella and marched away, with the click, click, click of his shoes echoing behind him…
Jonas B. loved irregularity. Not the maverick kind that jutted out into the decencies of life and put the world at elbows, but the decent kind. The winsome grace of a changeful world that convinced one of the personality of the earth. The irregularity of weather, for example. No matter how hard they tried, no one had yet mastered the march of clouds and dance of wind. And when Jonas ambled home in the twilights of hot days spent in debate with his fellow thinkers, that sky was a comfort. It was an especial comfort on this evening, for he was tempted at times to think that what they said of him was true; that he was a dreamer whose ideals had ceased even to deserve the respect of rational minds. He knew of course, that he had been born into the wrong age. he supposed God had done that on purpose just to keep someone around to remind the modern world from whence it came.
Not that he remembered much of the world before mechanization. When the earth had stood on the cusp of all its change, he had been a child watching movies about a future with robot servants and flying machines. Back then the coming years had seemed a splendid blur of ease and pleasure, enabled by a perfected knowledge of science and technology. The reality was a simple regimentation. A sameness; of houses and clothes and ideas. The streets he walked were perfect in their precision, the houses exact in their modern lines. Not a bit of rubbish in the streets, even the fallen leaves had been instantly disposed of by the system built to sweep the cobbles every hour or so.
He had never thought that a clean world would bother him, but this one did. He wanted dust and the heady scent of fallen leaves and the jutting beauty of an untamed tree; the few, vivid images that haunted his memories of childhood. Such beauties were hard to come by in his world. And though he fought for them, and begged the men around him to consider what the loss of wild spaces and unfettered fields would be, he was unheeded. He was scorned.
And so he walked this evening with his eyes on the river of sky that ran between the tallest buildings. A storm and thunder sea of gold met his eyes and he felt the freshness of last rain on his face as he walked. Ah, the wind. And the scent of fallen sky and the hush of shattered clouds. So used was he to this journey home in the deserted hour of the evening that he did not look where he was going and so nearly walked straight through the young man who slunk out to greet him from the corner shadows…
