Cairo

Chapter 11: Out of Control

The trio stood outside as the sun was just setting on the horizon. Cane leaned against the house, Aerie sat on a large rock, and Cairo paced back and forth in the dying patches of grass. The more he dragged his feet, the more dust and debris flew up into the air, causing both Aerie and Cane to cough. 

"The pie's probably done by now," Cane said, looking off into the distance. Just past the horizon, he thought he spotted a tree. 

"Probably," Cairo replied, though it sounded more like a thought than an actual reply. 

He continued to pace back and forth like something was just narrowly escaping his mind. Once in a blue moon, he would stop pacing to look at Aerie or Cane for a moment. The look on his face was always a surprised kind of look as if he forgot they were there the whole time watching him. His mind was somewhere else and Cane didn't know what to do. If Aerie knew, she wasn't making any move to indicate she did. Cairo finally stopped pacing and sat down on part of the rock that Aerie was sitting on. He still had almost the same confused look on his face as when he'd stopped previously, but there was something else glistening behind them that left Cane speechless. His mouth hung wide open while his heart dropped a mile per second into his stomach. His hands started to clam until he was forced to rub them against his shorts.j

"My mother," Cairo said wistfully, "she's sick. She... she's dying. Sometimes it's just hard for me to look at her when she's so cheerful. Like, if you look at her, she's not someone you would think 'Oh, she's going to die soon,' rather, she looks like a normal, overzealous woman who's got her whole life ahead of her. When I think of it like that, I get tense, I guess." 

"What about your father?" Cane asked.

"Dead," Aerie replied. "He died in the war ten years ago." 

Cairo jumped off the rock, shoving his hands into his pockets while his eyes wandered to the endlessly blue sky. "How do you put a time limit on someone's life?" 

The question hung in the air like dead weight. No one made any move to answer. Cane could barely wrap his mind around what it must feel like to watch your only family waste away. There was a difference in why Cane and Cairo were travelling, and for the first time he felt they were more closer than ever, yet further than they had ever been. He looked up to the sky that Cairo looked at as if it would reveal some kind of deep secret. There was no secret that was revealed, however. It was a vast and constantly moving. The blue pierced through everything it passed--even the clouds were a light blue shade. Everything seemed to reach to it, dream and wish to be a part of the sky, and yet it held no arrogance. It was just a sky that constantly moved, that always knew where it was going regardless of anything that happened around it.

"We need to get you that CDP," Cairo said suddenly, snapping Cane out of his transfixion. "We'll order it tonight and wait here for a few days until it comes. I'd order it on the road, but the person I usually get to deliver isn't here at the moment." 

"Uh, I really couldnt' ask you to do that." 

"Take what's given to you because there's going to be a time where nobody will give you anything. I learned that the hardest way, and now I'm telling you: accept it. Besides, me and Aerie have to wait for our monthly mission. It's mandatory unlike the paperwork I skip out on."

Cane leaned back against the house. There was a slight breeze that flew by, and in the little shade provided by the roof overhang, it was a blessing compared to the rest of the scorching heat. He pulled out a small notepad that was starting to fray at the sides from so much use.

"Monthly mission? You actually do work?" 

"Well, I'm just narrowly able to pass traveling around researching the Kleptos as work," Cario said. "If you ask about actual work, this is about the only work I do."