The Ozark Howler and the Search for the Snawfus

Chapter 4 - The Cabin

She held up her left hand, with her fingers curled around as if she were holding a small object in them. She tried to straighten them, then shook her head at the futility of the gesture. The hand was wrapped in bandages, and they would not release their grip.

There was a pain underneath the protection, throbbing.

Eleanor was in a bed in a dark place, a small room of some kind, with light coming in through a window, an open door, and through cracks between the siding, which was the only material between her and the outside. 

As her eyes adjusted to this light, she realized that there was a man in the room with her, sitting in a chair by the door. He could have been young, but there was something about him that made it not seem that way. He might have been an old man, too, though that didn't seem right either. He was wearing a flannel shirt of gray squares, framed in blue. 

The man watched her quietly as she took him in.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"The sun is five fingers high, but going down fast" the man replied.

"Yes, but what time is it?"

"It's been a slow spring, but I think summer will arrive soon, and more than make up for it."

"I asked you what time it is."

"I told you."

"Stop talking in circles."

"What kind of shape would you like me to talk in? Would triangles do?"

"I'd like you to just get straight to the point."

"No, that wouldn't do. The land is always curving around here. The only way to get straight to the point is to fall off a cliff. Besides, I think in circles. It's smoother that way."

"I just want to know how many minutes and hours have passed since the day began."

"I don't know that."

"Could you check, please?"

"No, I couldn't."

"Why not?"

"I never really learned to tell the time, I guess."

Eleanor found herself unable to say anything at all in response to this. She had the sudden impression that although she and the man in flannel were both speaking English, they were speaking some kind of dialects that were foreign to each other. Their words were all easy to understand, and yet somehow mutually impossible to comprehend. She spent several minutes in complete silence trying to figure out the puzzle of it, but came away without a single piece of explanation.

Something was missing.

"Where is my phone?"

"It's at home, I'd imagine."

"No, I had it with me." She raised her bandaged hand. "It did this."

"I see," said the man in flannel. "It was difficult to tell what that was, or what value it could be to you. I have it right here." 

He bent to the floor and picked up a small canvas backpack. From it, he pulled a warped black rectangle of melted glass mixed with metal and cracked computer chips.

"It had stopped burning by the time I arrived," he said. "There was still smoke though, from your hand."

Eleanor wondered what she would find underneath the bandages. What kind of treatment had they received?

"I don't think that this is a hospital," she said, pointing with her unharmed hand. 

"Nope."

"So, I was wondering..."

"I can see that."

She took a breath, stifled her social instincts, and said, "I'm not sure how to put this. I don't want to seem rude, but I have no idea where I am or how I got here. I don't know who you are, or what you intend to do with me. You seem very nice, but I would like an explanation, please."

The man in flannel nodded. He stood up, walked across the room, and opened an old wooden box, from which he took a rolled up cloth and a pipe - a pipe made for smoking, curving down to a large, round bowl.

Eleanor was unable to suppress a giggle. It seemed so out of place, she thought, for anyone to smoke a pipe, here in the 21st century. But then, she thought, maybe she was the one who was out of place.

He unrolled the cloth, took out some dried up leaves, and carefully pressed them into the bowl of the pipe. He lit a match from the kind that restaurants used to have at their tables, drew a breath through it, and exhaled. Blue smoke filled the room.

"This is my cabin, one of them anyway. This is my place."

He fell silent for a while, long enough to release a three more clouds from the pipe. 

"I heard you scream. You weren't hard to find. I carried you back here. That was last night."

He wasn't looking at her as he spoke, but into the farthest corner of the room. He seemed to keep his gaze on something there that Eleanor couldn't see. Again he pulled from the pipe, and again.

"You'll leave when you need to. I'm not keeping you here, but you'll stay as long as you need."

"Thank you," Eleanor thought. "That sounds nice." She didn't say it, though. She didn't say anything at all, but watched the man in flannel as he smoked his pipe, drawing comfort just from watching, like he was some kind of relaxing screensaver, but not on a screen.

Eventually, the pipe went out. The light in the room faded.

The man in flannel remained in his chair for a while, looking off into that same far corner. Eleanor remained in the bed watching the man in flannel in the same way she remembered having watched her grandfather long ago.

After a while, without saying a word, he stood up and walked out the door. She could see, for a moment the dull blue light of dusk coming through the darker columns of tall trees, and a path leading between them. 

Then, the door closed, and the view disappeared. Inside, she was warm. All was quiet. There was nothing left to see, and so, she closed her eyes.