Wisdom of the elders
This wasn’t how I thought the world would end.
I had always imagined that the world would end with a bang, not a whimper. Nuclear conflagration, perhaps, or space aliens would turn out to be real, and obliterate the planet. If I imagined disease, then it was influenza run amok, or extra-strong Ebola or cholera or something. In my wildest dreams I hadn’t imagined anything like the rash disease, and the terrible monsters it produced.
I certainly didn’t think that I would survive the end of the world, to see what would grow from the ashes.
~~~~
That I survived at all was a matter of chance. First, my shift placed me on the ferry bound for Rønne when they cancelled all further trips. Second, an obnoxious passenger started making a fuss, and Piotr begged me to handle it. The upset passenger was quite the piece of work, a big man with an ego to match, full of self-importance, demanding that the ferry be turned back for his urgent business meeting. I fobbed him off with humour, which he didn’t appreciate. Then Piotr came to get me to deal with the man again, because his blubbering was bumming everyone out. Turns out he’d got himself fired, and was beating himself up for being fat. I could relate to getting fired, and felt a tinge guilty for thinking of him as ‘the fat loud guy’, so I sat down across the counter from him to try to cheer him up.
He eventually stopped the pathetic moaning, then insulted me. Success! I’d snapped him out of his funk. He introduced himself as Michael, and his cat, who he was blaming for the whole mess, as Magnus. He had been taking Magnus to stay at his sister’s farm for a few days, and was now facing an unknown period of feeling obliged to muck out barns in return for a place to stay. We chatted for the remainder of the crossing, until the chime sounded and they announced that the boat would be docking shortly. After the usual reminder to passengers not to leave any personal belongings behind, they instructed staff to assemble at the bursar’s office after all the passengers had disembarked.
“Well, I’d better go make sure the rest of the staff don’t try to take all the tips for themselves,” I said, sliding off the stool. Michael looked startled, a little panicked. He suddenly reached across the bar and put his hand on my forearm, gently pinning it.
“Come with me!” he blurted. I stood there frozen, with my mouth open. He blundered on. “You said they’ll make you stay on board – that’s inhumane! There’s tons of room at the farm, you’d have a nice room to yourself and there’s always plenty to eat, Mathilde will make you help out but you can’t be any more useless than I am, I’ll try to keep her from making you clean the barn…” he trailed off, a blush rising from his collar. “That’s probably not a great selling job, is it? But please, you can’t stay here…” waving his hand vaguely at the rapidly emptying benches behind him.
I couldn’t help but smile. “Okay. But I’d better go by the bursar’s office and make sure they aren’t handing out free hotel chits or something. I’ll meet you by the main terminal entrance.”
At the bursar’s office, they were not handing out chits. People were phoning family – “I’m stuck on the boat until the borders re-open… yeah, they’ll feed us, don’t worry…” I went to the lockers in the crew area and grabbed my coat and small overnight bag.
“Signe! Where do you think you’re going?” It was the cafeteria manager.
“I’m staying on someone’s farm.”
Her eyes widened. “You? On a farm? Please. Besides, you have to stay here and help with food service for the rest of the crew.”
“No I don’t. I quit.” I turned and stomped off, milling crew-members splitting like the Red Sea at the sight of my scowl. Sometimes it helps to have a bit of a reputation.
“Signe! Get back here! You can’t just quit! Signe!” This was an interesting change from being fired. I followed the last of the passengers off the boat, and found Michael waiting by the doors. We walked along the line of waiting vehicles to a slightly muddy older model Land Rover. He opened the front passenger door and poked his head in.
“Marianne! I’ve got a guest. This is Signe.” He stood, and gestured into the car. “Signe, this is my sister Marianne. Hop in! I’ll take the back seat.” Marianne was staring curiously, clearly desperate to grill her brother, but managed a smile and a welcome.
It was a good thing it was a large farm-house, almost the entire family was there. Mathilde had been deeded the farm because, in their parents’ words, she was “the only one of you who has settled down and produced any grandchildren.” However, Kirsten and Morten still lived there. There was a partly separate wing, which Mathilde, husband Per, and children Mete and Marcus occupied. Marianne and Michael got their old bedrooms, and I was put in a small guest room.
It quickly became obvious that this was not going to be a short stay. One by one, services that we had taken for granted, like phone, power, and radio, vanished. There was some hoarding, but mostly people pulled together. Shore patrols were organized to keep boats, and later sea beasts, at bay. We adjusted to a strange new normal.
I had never been on a farm, let alone lived on one. Michael was right, Mathilde certainly put me to work, although he kept his word and convinced her not to assign me barn-cleaning duty. We all had to adjust to everyone else’s near-constant company. It was a long, hard winter, but we survived and eventually spring came.
One warm morning I was outside digging in the vegetable garden with Kirsten. When we had turned all the soil and cleaned up any weeds and debris, she took the wheelbarrow and said to me, “Grab those shovels and come with me. I’d like to show you something.”
We walked briskly along the cow path, past several fields, and then turned into a greening hay field. In the middle was a disused barn with large, open doors. Kirsten made a beeline to it, turning impatiently at the door as I caught up. I must have looked as quizzical as I felt.
“This used to be pasture, and this was the field barn. Cows could come in and shelter when they liked, and there was always a little hay in case they needed it in early spring or fall.”
What I had taken to be open doors were simply doorless openings. The lower level had an earth floor trampled by generations of cows sheltering from the weather. We stepped inside, pausing a moment to let our eyes adjust. Some piles of ancient hay still lay in the loft above us. Kirsten walked deeper into the barn, poking the ground with her toe here and there.
“Ah, here we are.” She knelt and motioned for me to join her. There was an air of reverence about her manner, as though she was about to reveal a great secret of the universe.
I knelt beside her, wondering what wisdom she was about to impart. She dug her fingers into the soil floor. A rich smell rose, and I realised that the dirt floor was paved with a thick layer of very well-aged cow manure. Kirsten lifted out a handful of it, dry and crumbling, and let it fall in fragments, golden in a shaft of sun that shone through a gap in the boards.
“This…” she said, “this is good shit.”
