Eden

Fourteen

We keep walking, and Lexi keeps talking, and I just keep on staying quiet.

The ground is warm under my feet, and still mostly dirt, although the occasional small stones are painfully hard when I stand on them. Lexi is wincing occasionally too, as if she is having the same problem. We pick our way along the road, hopping where the ground is especially stony, and as we walk, I look around, keeping an eye on the fields.

I'm watching out for people, a little wary of meeting anyone. Mostly because we still don't really know where we are, or how people here treat strangers. To be honest, though, I'm not really worried yet, or even actually thinking much other people being dangerous. I haven't really thought about danger very much, now that Lexi isn't trying to hit me. I'm just being careful, that's all. Careful, just because.

I'm just a bit jumpy, I suppose. Unsettled because of everything that's happened.

Anyway, as I look around, I start to see people. And people is something new.

At first, back when we started walking, there was no-one near us at all, just the bare, empty hillsides and the nothing particular-ness behind us. As we get closer to the city, though, we start seeing people off in the distance, in the fields. Not near us, and not near the road, which I'm quite glad of. It gives us time to get used to them.

The people we see are a long way away, and seem to be working in the fields. I watch, trying to see what they're doing. Weeding, it seems like. Or pruning trees. Or perhaps harvesting food from the fields and orchards. I look at some nearby trees as we walk past, trees that are right beside the road, and realize, now I'm looking closer, that they're olives. There's at least one other kind of tree further off, too. Apples, perhaps, I think. It's a round fruit, anyway, and about the right size.

I keep watching the people, as we walk. I think that I'm glad other people around. I'm almost certain I am. I'm also happier that they're off in the distance, though, and not right beside us, trying to talk.

I watch them as we walk, partly because I'm wary of them, and partly trying to see better what they're doing. I'm not sure, though, and I don't actually work it out then, but later I find out that as well as weeding and picking fruit, the farm workers here have to pollinate flowers by hand, because there aren't any insects to do it for them, so that was probably what was confusing me.

Oh, yes, just to mention that. There aren't any insects here. I've half-noticed that already, because I half-expect bugs on a warm day, and I almost want to just wave my hand around from habit because I'm standing outside, to swoosh at flies even when there aren't any. But, well, there aren't any. Not here. So I don't.

And yes, that does start seeming odd.

There aren't any flies, because there aren't any bugs, none at all, which I eventually realize. And am very glad of later, by the way, since that means no fleas and lice. But right then it seems a little odd.

I look at those odd fields, with people doing odd things, and I notice that there aren't any flies, and also, looking around, I also realize there aren't any machines or animals either. Just people, working in the fields and orchards, doing everything by hand.

That seems unusual, too.

I'm really starting to wonder what this place is. Not that I expect somewhere you wake up dead to be anything particular, but this all seems even stranger than I'd expect, that's all.