The Hollow

Opa Irin

He stepped inside, and everything was dusty. She wasn't there. He didn't think anyone had been there for months, perhaps even since he had left.

"Is the darkseer in there?" Ahden shouted from the street.

"Come on in. Nobody's home," he told them, deflated, and sat heavily on a chair. "Nobody but me."

"You said they'd be in here," Omega said as she entered. The others followed, and started poking around the place.

"Aye, they were," affirmed Nom, "but not right now. Don't worry, I know where they went. We have time, and we're safe here. You might as well boil some water, cook some food." He pointed at the fireplace. "There's a well out back, and an outhouse, if you're into such luxuries."

The three youths looked at one another, then raced out the back door. Omuti sat with Nom at the table.

"This is your house," she said, "isn't it?"

"Yes," he admitted.

"You look like you just saw a friend die."

"In a sense."

"Hmm," she said. "In a place, in a time, you did." She pulled out her metal rods. They were each about six inches long, maybe an inch around, with rounded points, and a spinnable metal ring attached to the middle. "Opa irin, they are called."

"Sounds fancy," Nom said.

She laughed and said, "Means, iron rod." She aligned them parallel on the table, rings pointing away from one another, then pushed one rod so they were staggered.

"One of these is your life line," she said, "the other is your friend's. They are there, on the table for the cosmos to see. One opa irin, your friend, stretches from here in time, to here. Where it ends, you, the other opa irin, are there beside it to witness. From that viewpoint, your friend ceases to exist. But what do you and I see, with our cosmic eyes?"

"Both opa irin," Nom said.

"Just so. They continue to exist in their space and time. Now, in this Hollow place," she turned the opa irin over so that each ring touched the other rod, "we deviate from our straight route, birth to death. A path may open, for better or worse, allowing us to reconnect with what we thought was lost to us, but is, was, and will always be there."

Nom touched his fingertip to the table next to his life rod, leaving the tiniest impression in the dust. His eyes watered as he said, "That is my daughter."

"She is there. The cosmos sees her, and she will always be there."

Nom sniffled, wiped his nose and rubbed his eyes. He heard the youths coming back inside. "But what if the cosmos needs its weapons to fight, or has to set the table?" he joked.

Omuti swiped the opa irin off the table, lightly tapped them to her temple and pointed them briefly at Nom. She grinned and said, "That too, has an answer."

Nom made way for the cooking, and quietly went upstairs. The dresser had been cleared, the make-up put away, the room tidied. He noticed the Omnos pamphlet on top of the books, but he let it be. He sat at the dresser and looked at the wall mirror. His skin was weathered, scarred and burned, darkened and dirty, encrusted with salt and sand. He smoothed his bushy beard with his hands. His hair had grown out too. He reached into a drawer, and found a bar of shaving soap. He poured some water from his canteen into the chamber basin and lathered the soap into his hair. With a few moments of searching he found a straight razor and stropped it. He reached around back of his head, grabbed a long lock of hair, and looked in the mirror again. His hair wasn't as nice or thick as when he was young, and certainly not as dark, but it looked distinguished. It looked like him, now. He put the razor back in a drawer, then washed the lather out of his hair and off his face. He went into the storage room, looked around for a bit, and found an old cloak. It was not fashionable, but rugged, seemingly indestructible after he'd worn it on so many jobs. He pulled off the tattered robes he got in Endo, put on the cloak, and went back downstairs.