With Both Hands

“Do I know you?”

“Could be you do, yes…”

Southeasterly and slow, a billowing of clouds loomed over there, those Northern mountains of which shade and security imperiously begat the town of Niruidhin; a crown of crag and mineral carapace. Upward, a long and mild incline had once been set upon the lordly range’s chest for sake of travel and trade; a road slow to meet the rise. A quarter journey, and one may find a way station, downtrodden though firmly afoot, with a small, oaken inn, and benches made of moon-worn granite. They faced the horizon, the flat of the road there crossing the view, a thin line of dirt between withering strips of grass. The land onward South was a rippling of green—hills gently waving toward a skyline of eminent gold. Few feet were between the far edge of the carriageway and the edge of the mountain. Therefrom, a ravenous descent; an unbroken fall down into the underdwelling waters of a lake well-acquainted with ends met by the hurried, hapless, and hopeless.

The benches were of width enough for three sat side by side, though on this windswept and weathering early eve, each of two passengers-in-wait took to separate benches. Each bench, in a row of three, was mounted on a shallow mound of soil, lending rise for a wonderfully holistic observance of the far below homes and shops of the town, their windows an irregular pattern of flickering wicks and subtlety. The elder traveler, who had arrived on a carriage in scheduled descent, took the middle rise for his seat. Resting on the seat beside him was a rather thick leather folio. He wore a coat made for hail, and the inelegance of time had built him up such that, with bone, muscle, and woolen layers in sum, the tempered old man expressed a notable thickness of his own. As the elder watched the carriage depart, a younger pedestrian completed his journey-thus-far up the mountain, and gratefully took rest on the first bench on his way.

The younger man, younger perhaps by twenty odd years or so, was less heavily clad, though still bore on his shoulders a suit for cold and dreary weather. They matched in headwear: a dull tanned thing, with a brim two fingers past the ear, and a soft indentation in the top.

“Maybe it’s the hats,” the Younger gripped the lapels low on his jacket, tightening the fabric against his back. He sat at the edge of his bench, bent back some, while surveying the still clear southern skies. He kept a grip of the front of his jacket with a thumb and forefinger, and slid his free hand into one of his coat pockets. Muttering below hearing, he retrieved a palm-width pocket watch, its lightly worn silver polished brightly enough to catch a few stray sunbeams, and fly them right vigorously across the elder man’s squinting eyes.

“Maybe it’s the hats…” the Elder pulled the corner of his brim, “could be your timekeeper there struck an’ blinded you.” The younger opened the watch, turning down the assailing light. The elder let the ring of his hat flick limply free, and rested his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

“Not sure what you mean there,” the Younger tapped on glass with his dull fingernail. His coat’s top buttons, then fastened, pressed a gentle choke around his neck. He pulled with two fingers at his collar, and slouched forward with a hiss in a sigh. He clasped the watch face shut, and tapped a thumb anxious and slow atop his pocket piece.

“Well,” the Elder shrugged down comfortably into his seat, “either or. Nothin’ or somethin’, it always is.”

“Well, naturally, I suppose…”

The Younger returned his watch to the pocket at his side, but pulled in its place a small piece of folded paper. He opened the creases with both hands in his lap, and he kept them there on his legs as he turned his eyes across and down the page. He read halfway before a thought turned his head to the elder.

“You a traveling salesman, maybe?” the Younger then squinted himself, leaning ever so toward the elder. The elder kept a southward face, but the question drew his eye.

“I suppose I was, in a way, and some time ago.” The Elder freed a hand and took his chin into his palm. “Long time ago, ‘fore I went an’ moved over the mountain North. I’m a free man now, though, for a good two decades. Still, I suppose you can see I’m a traveler.”

“Not a salesman, though?”

“Not a salesman.”

The Younger took inspiration from his neighbor, and tucked his hands comfortably into his pockets. The letter remained, bent though unfolded, upward facing and bobbing along with the younger’s jittering leg. The Elder kept his gaze subtly on the younger a moment, before returning to his view the far sky of gold, as it quietly adopted a deeper hue in the retreat of the sun. The silence carried on long as it took the younger to read over his burden twice over.

“That leg’ll kill you, keep it runnin’ on like that.” the Elder turned to look on the younger.

“If luck will have me,” the Younger’s hand whipped from his pocket and took up his letter in a loose pinch. ”’Luck or the ledge,’ eh?”

“I suppose…”

The minutes there drifted, the younger shifting nervously between fiddling with his watch and retracing the writing on his paper.

“At least the weather suits the view,” the Elder returned his attention towards the horizon.

“Ha!” the Younger straightened up, and turned to properly face the elder. “Says you, maybe. You know what this is?” He was folding his note, then held it up tightly between his fingers.

“Don’t know how I would.”

“The end of my whole bloody life, is what it is,” shoving the folded parchment back into his pocket, the Younger finally pulled out an empty hand, save for a generally-accusing pointed finger. He waved it about as he carried on the outburst.

“Final nail, I’m sayin’ to you,” his wagging carried with his speech a pathetically dramatic rhythm. “You couldn’t assume the truth of it, but it’s all downhill from here to there, to as far as a man can see.”

“Ah,” the Elder huffed sympathetically, “lost your gal, then.”

“No.”

“Ah,” the Elder kindly nodded, “got lost in a gal, then. Given the ol’ shy notice of expectancy, is it?”

“Also not sure wha—oh!” the Younger popped in his seat. “No, nothing like that either. There is no woman involved here!”

“Ah,” the Elder shrugged understandably, “gal turned you down from the start. Heart’s a daring captain, if not a poor pilot.”

“You didn’t hear me.”

“Well,” the Elder brought out his hands and rubbed them together gently before waving one arm out before him, “if it isn’t ado with love, then, what else has you taken up the mountain with those storm clouds coming over the peaks the way they are? Draft? There a war down here I missed tell of?”

“Well, no,” the Younger twisted to face the horizon, and slid back on the bench upon the rest. “I suppose nothing like that, either.”

“Well,” the Elder clapped loudly cupping his hands, to the start of the younger, “what else could there be then, besides love or fear or certain doom, that could have you up the path afoot with no possessions but a suit, a slip and a silverpiece?”

“Oh, forget it,” the Younger waved off the elder. “Don’t think I don’t hear the tone in that voice of yours. I’m not overreacting, this letter’s a message of the worst of it. Can’t remember what it was for things to be hard, is what they say with some people your age.”

“Ha! They’d be as bright as you to say it, too!”

“Oh—” the Younger thought to turn and argue, then thought twice. “Forget it.”

Minutes more passed, afloat on a strengthening wind…

“Well,” the Elder stirred the air.

“Well,” the Younger stirred as well.

At long last, a carriage was heard approaching the waystation, though to the Younger’s surprise, it was a descending carriage just as the one he saw upon reaching the benches.

“Strange, I could have sworn the cars take turns going up and down the road here,” the Younger watched as the carriage came up to park on the path, and he heard the driver in the front call for those ‘going down’. He was doubly surprised to see the Elder man rise as if to board.

“Seems they go where they need to go,” the Elder stood and straightened his coat, then retrieved his folio from where he had sat beside.

“Wait a minute, old man,” the Younger stood as well, in surprise and curious demand. “You’re going down? You came off the last car I passed earlier, didn’t you? You’ve just been sitting here waiting… to keep going down?”

“As it happens,” the Elder shrugged as freely as one can, “long way, going down where you’re headed. Best to take it slow, when slow’s the best way to take it.” He adjusted his coat once more before raising a foot onto the carriage step. As he entered the car, he called back over the bulk of his shoulder:

“Care to join me, then?”