The Pole Shift

Janet and Peter

"Let me put my clothes on Peter it's too cold. " Peter nodded slowly, he seemed to be confused, wanting to believe that Janet really did have feelings for him, even though she had openly called him crackers. His preoccupation with reciprocated love blinded him to facts and the old internal struggle was raging within.

                Janet rested her hip upon a smoothed basalt rock, she acted nonchalant. She put on a mixture of hers and Mnem's attire, all the time avoiding Peter's questioning, her manners seeming like the world revolved around her. In a pocket she pulled the unopened envelope marked 'Mnem'. Peter was trying to talk to her as she held a torch to the neat writing.

                "Do you really like me though? Will you tell the others when we get back, so they won't hate me?"

                "Sure. Here's a letter for Mnem. Shall we open it?" The distraction and the mention of the striking woman Peter  had devoted himself to not ten minutes earlier sent a surge of emotions through the man, like a king tide on a rough shore.

                "I don't know why I get like this." He said, putting his torch down so it shone up a tree.  Janet paused as she was opening the envelope under the glow of her own torch, for the first time Peter had addressed an issue. She felt sympathy only a female possesses .She said:

                "It is off putting to have your every move watched, and even more so to think you might take what is not yours." Peter had been staring up at the tree, leaves caught the light from the torch and reflected it back like hundreds of little moons. He stiffened, Janet had entered territory that he preferred to deny. Instead of getting angry he went with it.

                "What do you think it is? To make me feel that?" She thought for a while, as she opened the letter. It read:

                Mnem, insert the crystal in your ear lobe, Prophet will tell you what to do, always listen to Prophet and good luck.

                M

        Instead of answering Peter she read the letter aloud, rolling the small pea sized crystal between thumb and forefinger. This must have something do with the van, some kind of help Mnem was getting. Only, she thought, Mnem was kinda dumb, why would people help, just because she was dumb?Janet thought back to the way the woman had made her feel, it didn't matter that she didn't really get things, there was something about her, something that brought people together.

                "Have you got a small knife?"

                "What's that got to do with my feelings?"

                "I want you to help me pierce my ear, think of it as something I want you to do for me. Not something you want me to want you to do, if you know what I mean? I'll help you think better about girls, but you have to promise not to get angry when things don't work out. I'll teach you how. Maybe you never grew up Peter, probably because of your mother."  Peter looked at her, the tide of his emotions was ebbing, leaving treasures on a shore that he had never considered. Janet's words had peeled something away and he said:

                "Rest your head on my lap, where's the earring? " Janet passed him the crystal. "It tingles." He said, then he took a surgical razor from a pouch around his neck.

                "Put it in the lobe, make sure it stays. "

                "I'll make a stitch, this will hurt though."

                "Don't worry." Janet put her head on his upper thigh and presented her ear, with clever fingers Peter sliced the lobe nearly through, then forced in the crystal with grunts and squeals from Janet.

                "And now the stitch." He said gently. From the pouch he took a needle and thread. The survival tool kit was for precise work, they all dressed their own wounds. The stitch closed the cut, blood had spread all over Janet's cheek and onto Peters thigh. Peter said:

                "I'll disinfect..." There came and enormous bawl from twenty meters away, several torches honed in on the two.

                "Get away from her you dirt!" The men and boys charged the scene, Janet stood up to protest, then her ear tingled and a voice spoke in her ear.

                 "Unexpected user." There was a pause, as if the voice was thinking. "Janet Ratcliff, awaiting authorization."