Chaos

Chapter 5

One of the toughest jobs in the world is that of a carpenter’s apprentice. Or at least that is what Jeffrey Slinger firmly believed. Jeffrey, Jeff to his mates, worked as an assistant to a local carpenter in the small and mostly ignored town of Nashville. His earnings were never great, but enough to support him and his newly wed wife.

Geographically speaking, Nashville shared borders with the town of Canterbury. And the carpenter that Jeff worked for enjoyed the status of being the only skilled carpenter in both of these towns. As a consequence, Jeff had to work hard, real hard.

And that is why at midnight, a time when the only people not in their beds in Nashville were small time thieves and big time drunkards, Jeff found himself at the edge of the Nashville forest area, scrounging for good quality oaks.

His master had ordered him to collect a considerable amount of wood by the end of the day, and since he had wasted the day idling around with his mates, the only option left for him was to complete the task at this hour, or risk losing his job.

Jeff’s cart was almost full. He was now looking for that one last big old tree, after which he supposed he could go home, satisfied. Looking for it, he ventured a bit deeper into the forest.

The weather was worsening. The skies had never quite cleared all through the day. And now it seemed as if a storm was very close. Jeff wanted to get this over with pretty quickly. But he was a dedicated man. And he took his job very seriously. He knew he needed that one last swing before he could go back home, and he was not going to give up. He ventured deeper.

The winds were howling now. Jeff couldn’t recall when was the last time he had seen a storm like this. The trees were now making noises, as if protesting against the ferocity of the winds. Jeff himself now felt like if he stood there a few more minutes, he might be blown away.

His resolve began to weaken. He was about to turn away, when his eyes fell on one glorious specimen of an oak, standing as upright as if unaware of the commotion going on around it.

Jeff struggled to get to the tree, which was located in a clearing. The winds almost pushed him back, but he held on. And just when he was about to step into the clearing, all hell broke loose. The magnitude of the winds reached a fever pitch, and more. Jeff was swept back, his feet losing ground. He would have been thrown miles away from the clearing if not for the tree that stood immediately behind him and supported his weight. Anyhow, the force with which Jeff banged into the tree probably broke some of his ribs, and he lay there withering in pain.

As he squinted his eyes against the tearing wind, he could look at the oak tree he was planning to cut, and right in front of it, he thought he saw something like a miniature vortex of winds spinning so rapidly that it was impossible to see anything beyond them. Gradually, the vortex cleared, and from it, Jeff widened his eyes, emerged a woman.

The woman was beautiful. There was no doubt about it. She had long billowing hair which was pure white in color. Jeff thought he had never seen so exquisite a shade of the color.  She was wearing a blue jumpsuit.

Jeff wouldn’t have seen the man if not for the crackle of twigs. As he craned his neck to look in the other direction, he felt pain, and then shock. A man, dressed almost similarly, with jet black and closely cropped hair was advancing towards the woman.

The one feature about both of them that Jeff failed to acknowledge, maybe because of the shock and pain, was that the expressions on both of their faces was as unfazed as if they had no idea that they were right in the middle of a supposedly deadly storm.