Bill Heart Lea

A story of star-crossed love on an intergalactic scale

Today’s fiction submission comes to us from Michael Fowler, a humor and science fiction writer living in Ohio.

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Days before she became ill, Lea detected unpleasantness ahead. She was convinced–and this insight lingered throughout her illness–that her husband was deceiving her about the recent falling off in the quality of her household duties, particularly her skill over the wood-burning stove. Her mammalian stew had become inedible, he said, her aquatic chowder an abomination, her relaxant beverage at nighttime a form of drainage. Roger insisted that he take over the preparation of their dinner, or at least attend to its seasoning in the final minutes of stewing. 

Her housecleaning had also fallen off, according to Roger, and he began reorganizing the cupboards and scrubbing the wood floor and walls. It was as if he wanted to remove every trace of her as she suddenly and inexplicably deteriorated in functionality. Yet in the raising of their daughter, who with her husband had departed in a steed-drawn wagon six years ago, shortly after the Star Climbers had visited the Sed in their amazing soaring vehicle, he had hardly raised a finger. Since when had he become a Modern Man? 

Lea allowed him to commandeer her usual chores without complaint while she pondered what had gone wrong. It was around the same time, or shortly after, that her health went downhill. She found herself incapable of saying whether Roger’s cooking was superior to her own, or of so much as tasting it with her dulled senses. He would say, “Isn’t that an improvement?” and she would nod her head and do her best to choke the stuff down. 

She marveled that her husband, who had taken over her garden, would vanish into the nearby forest with digging implements. Nothing grew well in that dense shade but certain foul fungi and a variety of disgusting white berries. She wanted to ask him what he was doing back there, but she couldn’t find the breath. Growing more helpless, she began dropping her plate on the floor and spilling her hot bedtime drink on the table or in her chair. It looked as if Roger wanted to say something to her on these occasions, but after staring at her for a long moment, he silently cleaned up the mess. On her worst night, she couldn’t hold her utensils or lift her cup and went to bed without food or drink. 

She awoke midmorning the next day feeling no better. Her mind had shrunk into a dreamlike state that admitted few clear impressions. Over the last week, her appearance had also waned; Edna the Seamstress hardly recognized her when she came to call late in the afternoon. Once renowned for her crisp and spotless outer garments and decorative quartz and metal jewelry, Lea had turned into a plain and unwashed frump and had taken to living in her old robe as if it were a protective cocoon. 

Lea knew, as if in a lucid dream, why Edna was here; she had even accompanied the Seamstress, an old friend, on some of her official rounds in the past as an assistant. Lea herself had more than once stitched the required emblem on the cozy parka or comfy overcoat chosen as the final garment by the family of a voiceless and unvalued old one. When Edna, looking critically at her friend’s unclean robe, proffered instead a fine thick sweater that hung in her closet, Lea with what strength she could summon shook her head in denial and pointed at the robe; this would be her companion to the end. 

Edna then produced the necessary thread from her commodious raincoat pocket and began to sew a trim blue X into the robe’s right shoulder, the mandatory sign of Lea’s life transition. Lea could only sigh and accept it. 

Edna showed no surprise or alarm that someone as young as her friend, only eighty-three in Sed years, already needed to bear the mark of senility. Although Lea was well shy in years of a century-and-a-quarter, when old age normally pressed its definitive stamp on the villagers, and had only last spring taken part in the thaw dance and sung a solo at the communal bonfire in autumn, her time had clearly come. And besides, it was none of Edna’s concern. Lea’s dire condition had been pointed out by Roger, her husband, and later verified by the Council of Five Elders: Green, Peat, Rod, Birdie, and Jean, the three men and two women whose word was law and whose decisions were final.

Edna did not think there was anything unfair about the ratio of men to women on the Council, or if she did, she kept her opinion to herself. The imbalance had held for years, and Edna, like all the Sed, was a firm upholder of tradition. Yet when the Star Climbers had arrived those six years ago, she and Lea had watched raptly as an authoritative Star Climbing female, Doctor Melodie, warned them about men. Ignorant of their language, the resourceful visitor had done so by sketching a nude man on a small notepad and then drawing a blue X through the figure with a grim expression on her face. 

Doctor Melodie was not a skilled artist, but since unclothed Sed looked much like unclothed Star Climbers, her point was as clear as if spoken: “Watch men constantly and don’t let them win.” She had then handed the notepad and pen to Edna and a duplicate gift containing the same drawing to Lea. The Star Climbers were free with notepads, all of which had an orange star atop each page and a small pen attached by a string, and these were added to both women’s collections. Edna, though she remained silent, remembered all this now while gazing upon her helpless friend. She wondered if Lea recalled that day, or if her mind was too dim for such memories. The finished shape emblazoned on the robe, Edna bid farewell to Lea and to Roger.

Two hours before sunset, the Guide arrived. This was Virg the Suit, a local so nicknamed because he wore a Star Climber’s casual jacket. Virg was the same age as Lea and knew her well, as did nearly every villager, and he prided himself on the service he was there to offer her. Far from being abashed by the visiting Star Climbers, as many in the village had been due to their plainer lives, Virg had been emboldened in his part-time occupation as Guide when one of the Climbers, observing him leading an elderly man along the so-called Trail of Abandonment, nodded in approval. The oldster expired before they had reached the river, and the Climber, after watching Virg bury him, handed Virg, along with one of the prize notepads, a once-smart checkered jacket that another Climber had stowed in his friend’s personal baggage as a jest. 

All this built up Virg’s confidence and affirmed an occupation that some regarded as shady. Traditionally, it had been frowned upon for a Guide to be a non-relative, and it was left to a family member, usually a young male, to lead the no-longer-valued party up nearby Mount Cloud. The nod from one of the Star Climbers, however, had changed this, and Guides like Virg the Suit, of whom there were several in the village, were now the norm. The Sed no longer had the stomach to lead their family members on to their final fortune, but in their greater sensitivity left it to strangers, or as close to strangers as were available in such an isolated place. 

While this tradition had changed, other relevant edicts remained immutable, Star Climbers or no Star Climbers. The hopeless one was to be given a final meal of their choice, if desired, then conveyed upon a steed or steed-drawn-cart along twisting paths to the glacier atop Mount Cloud, and there abandoned without provisions or guidance at nightfall. In the event they managed to encounter anyone else in the wilderness, the blue X on their clothing signified that no assistance was to be offered, by order of the Council. 

In the history of the Sed no one had ever reported meeting a living X’d person after their abandonment, and none so stitched had ever made it back to the main village, or to the smaller village across the river. It was part of folklore that a body was at odd times discovered in the forest or at the base of the Mount, one whose tattered outer garment bore the blue X, but no one truly believed this. The forest was too dense, the beasts and other pitfalls too abundant. 

Besides Lea, there were two more disposable souls that day: the maniacal Foot and the morose Bee. Virg had already tied them securely to the saddles of two thin steeds, with the pair of animals roped in tandem to his already bored mount. As Edna and Roger watched, Virg heaved up the uncomplaining Lea to share the same saddle as Foot, and secured her tightly behind him, leaving the rotund Bee with an animal of her own. And then, with Foot cackling to find himself nestled in Lea’s yielding bosom, they were off at a slow pace.

The tortuous way included every possible hazard, and in half a mile along a narrow trail that would be invisible by night, they came to the river. Wide and with rapids in many sections, and lacking a bridge, it could only be forded in a single, hard-to-find spot. As they slowly crossed it, Virg tilted his head at the water and raised his eyebrows, as if in warning, or perhaps as an invitation to his passengers to take a dip at their earliest opportunity. 

On the opposite side of the river, they passed close by the smaller village that remained concealed by forest, but whose location was marked by a tall stone formation, like a huge upright ax in the air. Beyond that, their trail began to ascend, but not before they encountered the entrances to underground caves and hillside caverns that, as every Sed knew from childhood warnings and daring adolescent visits, were home to poisonous insects and vicious beasts, and led to impenetrable mazes if one strayed into them. 

As Virg gave these gaping mouths of stone his special look of warning or approval, Foot was already convulsed in laughter. Perhaps it was her annoyance at his inappropriate reaction that brought Lea somewhat out of her fog-like lethargy, and she found herself wanting to whisper in his ear to shut up, though what she desired most was to dismount the stinking animal whose back she found herself straddling and go to sleep. 

The temperature grew noticeably cooler and the air thinner and more difficult to breathe as they continued the ascent, and Lea managed to doze off against Foot despite his trembling body and constant chuckling. When she opened her eyes, they had arrived at the treeless top of Mount Cloud where the bluish glacier grew out of and flowed over the rock. Virg had brought them to the very edge of a precipice high above an immense valley, where she and Bee and Foot were sitting on separate boulders, gazing into the abyss. 

To the east she could see a ribbon-like section of the river they had crossed, shining against the dark green of the forest, and the lofty stone ax that pinpointed the smaller village. There too, on the eastern slope of Mount Cloud, lay the familiar plateau where the craft of the Star Climbers had touched down six years earlier, and where a large empty cylinder of discarded metal remained; if she squinted, she imagined she could see this chunk of debris. She noticed Virg, standing beside his steed, winking at the three of them as they took in these sights, signifying as usual the obvious peril involved in reaching them as well as their insidious attraction. Then, as the sun began to sink and the air at once grew cold, the Guide mounted up and slowly rode off, leading away the two other tired animals. 

Foot laughed uproariously at that, and Bee expelled the mouthful of dark nut juice she had been enjoying in a single thick spurt. The heavy woman then stood up and removed her thick parka, walked over and handed it to Lea, and toppled headfirst over the precipice. 

At this, Foot’s merriment only increased and Lea felt bodily struck, but in a moment she regained enough self-will to wonder what else Bea had brought along in the garment besides those horrid nuts. Lea herself carried her Star Chamber notepad and pen with her everywhere she went, and had done so for six years, as did many Sed. Not for the first time, but now with increased conviction, she felt she should record the events of her final hours as an historical note for her people. 

She reached into her robe for the pad of paper and noticed that Foot had also vanished. With effort she stood up, walked slowly to the rock where he had sat, and looked over. She saw neither his body nor Bee’s, but at the ledge found his overcoat dangling from a broken stone. She retrieved it and her hopes began to build that, with three outer garments to bundle up in, she could survive a frigid night in a sheltered spot. 

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After a chilling and dizzying descent, Lea reached the cylindrical relic without mishap. She was fortunate in that the intact structure gave off a heat of its own despite the dying sunlight, a gentle and comfortable warmth that, with the help of her three outer garments, would envelope her like a blanket. She saw that no wild animals had taken up residence for the night and, leaving a decent distance between herself and the birth control device that some young persons had recently left behind, the single blemish on the otherwise spotless circumference, she curled up along the curved metallic wall. 

Plucking with a fingernail at the blue thread in her robe until the stitches came out, and exhausted from her laborious trek down the mountain slope, she fell asleep as the darkness grew deep. She dreamt of Bill, the Star Climber who had made love to her not far from this spot six years ago, without Roger’s knowledge, and who had disappeared along with his starry crew shortly thereafter. The notepad she carried now was a gift from him, not from Doctor Melodie, and for her it held special significance. In it Bill had declared his love for her, writing first BILL (pointing to himself), then (pointing to his heart) HEART and finally LEA (pointing to her). Lea had understood, and made certain Roger never saw it. 

She awoke, not cold but damp and hungry and above all thirsty, and with a headache fiercer than any of her experience. She knew it was early morning by the presence of a thick fog made luminous by sunlight that extended from the glacial cap to this spot on the plateau. 

Remaining inside the protective cylinder, she sat up and combed through the pockets of her three coats to see what provisions she owned. In her robe she found Bill’s pad and pen, ten metal coins, and three baked wafers she did not remember stuffing there. No water; how could she have forgotten a flask of water? 

In Bee’s parka she found, along with two pockets full of those disgusting brown nuts that old folks chewed, a small sack holding three nut butter sandwiches, six ripe apples, four hard boiled eggs, four lengths of dried meat, and a quantity of honey fudge. Again, no water. 

From the ten pockets of Foot’s involute overcoat she uncovered a skin flask of beer, another of wine, two well-wrapped roasted meat sandwiches, a small opaque spyglass, an immobile compass, a dull collapsible knife, a folded map, and a flimsy pamphlet containing pictures of all-but-recognizable animals and not-quite-familiar landscapes, this last clearly a gift from the pedagogical Star Climbers. 

The strong drink wouldn’t do, but Lea soon found a dent in the outer wall of the cylinder that had collected fresh water during a nighttime rainfall. It was warm and brackish, but satisfying. After drinking, she sat and took a few bites of fudge.

As Lea ate, she felt her inner light grow brighter like the sunlight as it burned away the fog, and she decided that a hike of several hours back to the village through perfectly familiar surroundings would not be impossible. And after journaling in her notepad the events of her adventure so far, she felt that she must go back, if only to tell Roger that she no longer had the least doubt about what he had planned for her.  

Lea waited until the fog dissipated, and then began her descent down the eastern side of Mount Cloud from the plateau where she stood. She saw no one but a metal prospector and his pack animal on the lower face, and thinking to hire a ride into the village, she approached him. If she knew him, as she likely did, his identity remained obscure due to her still-hazy mind. In nearly inaudible tones, she offered him the metal coins she carried and the madman Foot’s flasks of drink in return for his assistance. 

The prospector, seeing that she was ill, and not failing to notice the blue Xes on the two garments she carried, realized at once that her life was in his hands. He immediately agreed to her request, and though it would be a poor day for his metal prospects aside from her coins, he insisted on walking beside his animal while Lea rode astride it the entire way to the village. 

As they ambled along, he polished off Foot’s beer and wine while giving Lea free access to his bright metal flask of fresh water. He relished the idea of forcing the Council to reinstate Lea to the community, it being the law that a member banished to the wild, upon finding his or her way back to the village, was to be spared for at least one more year. Such reinstatement had never occurred before, since no banished person had ever managed to return, but still it was the law that everyone knew. As an upright citizen of the village, the prospector would insist the Council uphold it, even if the members objected. Besides, he held a grudge against the Council for denying him leave to hack the Star Climber’s old vehicle into coins to trade, and instead declaring it a Civic Monument.   

The prospector soon noticed that Lea did not satisfy his idea of a proper invalid. Though something clearly ailed her, she was not as old as her abandonment might suggest, was not unattractive and might even be comely if she could be restored to usefulness. He gazed at her with fresh eyes, and since she had plucked it off and left it back inside the Star Climbers’ jettisoned machine, he saw her hand was free of a marriage band. 

By now too he had recognized her, if only as a village woman whose name he didn’t know, and recalled nothing in his past that might have made her his enemy. As a result, he began talking the most incredible nonsense about her joining him in his hut in the smaller village, which he preferred to the larger village for reasons that he did not trouble to make clear, though the smaller was favored by folk like him: prospectors, miners, smiths, and hunters. Still, both villages acknowledged the same Council of Elders and the same customs, and were regarded as one village parted by the river. 

Still unwell, Lea managed to doze through most of his speech, rocked by the smallish pack animal, and imagined she saw Bill, her sky-crossing lover, once again promising to return to her from afar. Looking into her eyes, he placed his two hands over his heart, cast the heart into the universe, and then brought it back into his waiting chest. Then he held up the five fingers of one hand along with the index finger of the other: six years hence.

By the time they arrived in Lea’s neighborhood, the prospector had her almost smiling with his humorous take on the Star Climbers. According to him they weren’t from the stars at all, but impostors who had catapulted themselves over the horizon from a land far to the north, in search of women and metal. And had Lea studied those pamphlets they handed out? Oh yes, she had, she might have told him. One illustrated, with pictures of avians, the principle of flight, and another, with diagrams of coins and houses, the theory of compound interest. He had never seen the like, and here he spat on the trail. 

Extracting a promise from Lea to meet again if circumstances warranted, the prospector dropped her off where she said she lived, a modest single-story dwelling with a good-sized yard and no neighbors too close by. He helped her to dismount and, when she waved off further assistance and began munching an apple, led his animal down the road toward the river crossing. 

Lea stood there, weak but alert, and saw no one about. Then Roger appeared at the front door with Clem of the rectangular beard, a useless person who filed animal teeth and bones into odd, unattractive shapes. The two men, apparently unaware of her nearby presence, embraced on the porch and kissed. After they broke off their hug, they went together around to the backyard and garden. 

Dropping her newly acquired coats and bitten fruit on the porch, Lea entered the house and sat heavily in her favorite chair, the armrests now smelling unpleasantly of a stranger. She walked into the kitchen and hefted the lengthy carving knife on the table; but no, that would only be revenge. She laid the knife down as the men appeared in the entryway. Roger invoked the name of the deity, while Clem stared open-mouthed as if he’d never seen a woman before; perhaps he hadn’t. 

“Why didn’t you tell me, Roger?” said Lea, struggling to make her voice clear. “I wouldn’t have stood in your way. You didn’t have to have me abandoned.” 

“Have you abandoned?” said Roger. “I didn’t….”

“What you brought in from the garden,” Lea interrupted. And while both men stood like posts she stumbled into the kitchen, crying, “Where is it, Roger? It’s here, I know it’s here.” She rummaged along the top shelf of the main cupboard and soon extracted a small box with a sliding lid made of bone. Opening it, she pinched a few of the odd, dried plants between her thumb and forefinger, then lifted the box to her nose and took a deep sniff. Satisfied, she held out the box for the men to see. 

“What are you going to do?” said Roger.

“I’m leaving,” Lea replied, dropping the box to the floor. “Goodbye, Roger. Clem, good to see you as always.”

But the sniff may not have been all harmless triumph, and in a moment her malaise reawakened. Lea stared past the two men and through the kitchen window into the side yard. An illumination like that around the glacier in the morning fog filled the yard, and from its midst stepped a glowing Bill, who beckoned to her with open arms. Inhaling deeply, she strode toward his light.

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