From Part II

Within 20 minutes he’d reached his son’s bungalow. His daughter-in-law greeted him. Much taller than him, she bent down to kiss him on the forehead, welcomed him home and led him to his grandchildren. Outside, the ion shutters silently descended to cover the tall windows; inside heavy crushed velvet curtains swept closed. A siren sounded a brief alert to anyone still outdoors. Halbmann’s son popped in to bid goodnight to his father and children, and with his wife, they departed to the transporter lounge. They’d be back by the morning.

As usual when left alone with their grandfather, the two boys wanted to view his old things. His ‘holies of holies’, artifacts from long, long ago. He had them in a small hardwood trunk, usually kept in a locked safe in the spare room in which he slept when he stayed with them. He pulled out his trunk and opened it, reverently pulling from it various objects. That night, he wanted to show them a silver metal cigarette lighter that he'd always had. In front of the boys, he felt uncomfortable with the notion of ‘cigarette’, he didn't quite know for certain what it was, but felt vaguely that it was a bad thing and it didn’t feel right to explain this to his grandchildren, so he just called it a ‘lighter’. Halbmann didn’t want to demonstrate it that evening, but promised at that some undefined time in the future, he would indeed make a small fire come out of it.

The other artifact that fascinated the children was a 35mm camera. Also made of metal but painted black, with dials on top and a large glass lens in front, it would make a clicking sound when you pressed a button after pulling a lever across, a mirror would flip up, which you could see if you took the lens off. Halbmann wasn’t quite sure how it worked but told the boys that it was used for ‘taking pictures’ a long, long time ago. Neither could he say exactly when it was made, but indeed a long time ago, and very far away. The boys, not allowed to touch, gazed in prolonged wonder at these two metallic objects.

His lack of definite answers to the boys’ incessant and well-aimed questions made him think: “I’m just an old fraud. I’m only a mere two generations nearer than they are to where we are all ‘from’.”

‘From’. That tiny point of light briefly visible in the summer sky between sundown and sunup.

Halbmann knew he had only a few dozen years to live. Then he’d die, once again to be reborn. Halbmann’s soul felt weary.

This time last year:
A month until Lent starts

This time two years ago:
World's largest airliners over Poland

This time three years ago:
More pre-Lenten thoughts