MEMMORIA | ONC 2020

008: The Job

The sun felt like a giant torch above them, glimmering over the deserted path they had been following through long miles now.

Finally, a distant greenish point that had shown up at the edge of the horizon became clearer, appearing like a forest of tall trees and golden grass. It seemed to be an illusion, in the middle of the arid lands depicted outside of the Sulis shell, but when Aris stopped dryly her motion, Agatha knew they had arrived at their destination.

An alpine iron fence, full of rust, formed in front of their eyes. A large sign of "Stay Away" was hanging from it with dark letters, clearly indicating whoever lived there didn't welcome any visitors.

Not that were many visitors out there in the wastelands anyway...

They both climbed down from the motorcycle and Pippo walked towards the entrance, pressing a blue button that seemed to be part of some old communication system.

"Mrs Davis. This is Pippo." His manly voice seemed rougher in the silence. "I brought the girl."

He stepped back, and a few seconds later the giant fence opened up with the characteristic creak made by oxidized metal. Pippo climbed back to Aris, followed by Agatha, and they started to roll through a narrow brick path to the inside of the tiny paradise they were into.

The grass turned from barren gold to intense green, and the ivory tree trunks became even nearer one of the other. The smell of moistened soil and plants was overwhelming. It was a real forest and it was wider than it seemed. Way much wider.

"Stop!", Agatha stated clutching to Pippo's waist, who held Aris motion almost instantly, in less than a fraction of a second.

"What is it?", he asked.

"Can't you see it?", whispering her words, she pointed discretely to a four legs creature, white skin, bright red eyes framed in corn coloured lashes and braided antlers that raised above its head. "A deer."

"I didn't notice that the first day I came", Pippo said almost without breathing, since he didn't want to scare the animal and deers were known to have a great ear, and a minimum noise would make it run away, at least from their sight.

"I thought there were no deers anymore."

"Perhaps it isn't real", Pippo offered.

Agatha looked at it the best she could, trying to catch every detail of the beast, in order to record it on her mind like a picture. Its sparkling eyes seemed to get lost in hers, and the girl, almost for a second, could notice something on their red, something animals were not supposed to show: a glimpse of sadness.

"I think it is real, same as the forest."

Then the animal just turned its head to the left, like attracted by another noise on its side of the woods, and ran away.

Pippo went back to roll on the track without uttering a word and finally, a very weird building appeared in the horizon.

It was an old classic two levels structure, who knows how many centuries old, with white walls and glass windows covered by dust. Even though it looked touched by ages, the house didn't resemble all the brokenness it should. Its windows were intact and so was its paint, even though the white was yellowish at some parts where time didn't forgive.

Agatha followed her friend to the front porch, the small protruding brick roof held by Jonic pillars cast shadows over the wooden floor, suspended over concrete from the leafy ground. The house seemed to be stuck in time, as a memory of a complete deferent era of human existence.

Pippo pushed the front door like it was his house, displaying the dark living room to Agatha's eyes. It smelled like wetness and old, that natural scent tossed by the clock over abandoned things. The girl shivered as if going inside cold water, feeling how the strands of hair over her nape bristled with an electric impulse.