The Thinker

An Uncanny Evening - Part 1

September 1980

It was a splendid winter’s morning in Kerak Hill. It was around 7 o’clock. The sun threw its initial rays towards the clouds surrounding Kerak Hill. The snowstorm had just seized that had wreaked havoc throughout the night but the buildings of Kerak Hill were built to withstand even the strongest of storms. The schools were closed as it was Sunday. Snow only took momentary breaks in the town while showering throughout the year. Kerak Hill was enveloped by snow 24/7 especially during the melancholic months of winter. Life began early in Kerak Hill. The offices and schools very at full capacity by 7 o’clock.

There were a couple of schools situated on either ends of the Town. The shops and residencies were merged throughout the Town. The periphery was more inclined towards the rural side, with small wooden houses holding a couple of rooms that occupied mostly the northern border of Kerak Hill.

The population of Kerak Hill was somewhere around a hundred thousand with majority being children and women. Living in the rural region were mainly farmers that earned their labor by working in the vegetable farms situated at about a kilometer from the Town. The women were mostly housewives as there wasn’t much work for them except a couple of them that had occupied the profession of teaching the elementary kids. The men worked mostly in the city of Zatlev that was located around 20 kilometers from Kerak Hill where they traveled to through worn out cars that hadn’t been to the mechanic in ages as there were none in the Town.

Life in Kerak Hill was rather slow as there wasn’t much to do to relax and lighten up the mood. There was a sole park for the kids with a couple of slides and a single swing. Most of the trees, if not all, remained dry throughout the year. There weren’t any theaters, colleges, lavish homes or restaurants in Kerak Hill. The shops only provided basic life necessities like food and clothing. The shelves were mostly empty. The Town was poorly managed as it was decided by the Rostek government to deconstruct the town and build a weapons armory instead and displace the residents to the City of Zatlev. The people of Kerak Hill were left counting their days in the bleak winter.

Arthur resided in one of the rural cottages on the far northern border of the Town, at the junction of the Town and the farms. He lived with his wife Laurane, twelve-year-old son Michael and an infant daughter Jessica. They also had a dog, Snuff.

Arthur’s house had a small wooden door as the entrance. It had a single room and a rather confined lounge. There were a couple of windows in the house, one beside the entrance door and one right on the front wall of the sole room. There was a single wooden stove in the room that kept the room warm and also which Laurane used to cook food. There was a small wooden cupboard in the room that Arthur had built himself which held the clothes, shoes and other necessities like leftover food items that they wouldn’t throw away as they tried to ration as much as possible. There was also a confined underground shelter beneath Arthur’s house that he had dug himself, where the family would temporarily reside during intense blizzards as their wooden house couldn’t take the full impact of a storm without falling apart.

As the farm was just beside Arthur’s house, the most befitting and convenient profession for him was as a farmer. He made just enough to fill the belly of his family. Arthur wanted Michael to study but couldn’t as his pockets weren’t deep enough to afford the school fee so he just taught him farming skills as it was all that he knew. Laurane stayed back home and took care of Jessica and the house. Occasionally Arthur visited the Town to buy some garments and other groceries. Arthur couldn’t afford readymade clothes, so he just bought some fabric and Laurane knitted them into wearables. Arthur often took Michael with him to the Town as there wasn’t much for him to do back home except roaming in the farms and playing fetch with Snuff.

When the sun went down, the whole family squeezed into that tiny room, shut the door, covered the small openings with old clothes and surrounded the wooden stove. The family slept on the floor while wearing as much clothing as possible because they didn’t have anything else to cover themselves with. Michael slept close to Arthur while Laurane held Jessica in her arms while sleeping to save her little soul from being perished.

Sometimes Arthur sat down between the plantations after a hard labor and stared at the sun set beyond the mountains. He thought about life, how hard it was, about how he was trying so hard but couldn’t provide the life that his beloved wife and his lovely children deserved, wanting to drown with the sun, and wept tears of agony.