Hooman Saga Book One - Mind Timing Chapter 6 & 7
SO FAR: Mari discovers her timeline stifled her understanding of human relationships. In studying for her upcoming challenge, she is introduced to the intoxicating side of them - with Peter.
VI
AT FIRST LIGHT, I FOUND myself alone in my own bed, a smile on my lips.
Touching them, I remembered what I had experienced and learned that night. Which made my smile broaden. Parts of me were feeling differently this morning. Not sore or abused, but rather - "sensual" I think the term is.
Flipping off the single sheet, I rose and made my way to the bathroom and used its namesake. Filling the tub with hot water, just warm enough to be soothing and relax, I found a cake of organic olive oil soap and a cotton washcloth to carefully clean myself. This sensation of a bath was so different. Again, "sensual" came to mind.
The growling of my stomach reminded me that with all that exercise requires refilling with food. So I rose, toweled off (yet another remarkable sensation) and left the tub to drain as I went to select something to wear.
In minutes, I was into a workout outfit that perhaps was a bit revealing to my curves, but I was in need of burning off those pancakes from yesterday and toning up in general. Unless this house had a workout room, there was probably room here on the floor for most of the exercises I needed.
But first, I went to see what proteins I could find in the kitchen.
Peter was already there, and the smells from his cooking were incredible. My stomach rumbled in appreciation when my nose and salivary glands went into operation.
As I reached the counter, Peter pushed a plate toward me, and set a tall glass of milk beside it. A fork and cloth napkin were already there, with two mahogany colored high chairs present.
"It's four range-free pullet eggs with natural cottage cheese in an omelet. Oh, I added some buckwheat and milk to it for some real weight. That's whole milk, not pasteurized or homogenized. They call it 'raw' for some reason. I thought you would want some substantial breakfast before you exercised. Oh, yes, we do have an exercise room, big enough for sparring with a weight machine to the side," Peter said.
Then he put his own plate and tall glass on the counter, turned off the range, and came around to sit beside me. He was also dressed for exercise in a sleeveless T and bike shorts. My outfit was modest compared to the lines his showed. I forced my eyes away from his well-defined arms back to my breakfast.
"Are these jellies or jams, and what is in them?" I asked, pointing to the small jars in front of the plates.
"I like the Amish-made jellies. They use turbinado sugar, and locally picked fruit. In front of you are blackberry and gooseberry jelly and wild plum jam," he answered. "Try a little of each. Their tastes are distinctive."
Once I started sampling each one with a fresh bit of buckwheat omelet, I was delighted with each mouthful, almost moaning with the new tastes, as my mouth was too full to talk. Mixing two of them together produced even more combinations of taste. And finally I used the last bit of omelet to clean the plate of any residual jelly and jam. The whole milk rinsed it all down nicely and gave me a contented feeling, as well as a definite reason to exercise this morning.
Peter had been watching me and his smile hardly quit as he was chewing. He finished about the time I sat back in my high chair, patting my tummy in contentment. He dabbed his lips with his cloth napkin and then gathered the plates and utensils, scooting them to the side and back of the counter.
"You go ahead. I'll clean up. It's that white door to your right, next to the fireplace. I'll be in soon." He rose and went around to the kitchen side of the counter. I heard water running and his humming a song as I left for the exercise room.
After all, there was nothing else for me to see or do since he was on that side of the counter. And I did need to work all that off, to get my mind clear for more studies...
VII
AFTER A THOROUGH ROUND of exercising (and thankfully he was in the corner on the exercise bike all the time, so I could simply face away to concentrate on kicks, punches, and tumbling) we met again at the table after we had both showered and dressed for studies.
I was in an off-white blouse, buttoned to the neck and long-sleeved, tucked into dark-gray, almost black slacks. Black comfortable pumps completed a business-like approach. He already had spread out some material, with a stack of more gray folders on the table to study. He was wearing a light blue, loose cotton faux turtle neck sweater, also in long sleeves but pushed up on from his forearms, black jeans and some moc-toed loafers over black socks. Both of us were comfortable, and ready for study.
He had made a place for me across a corner of the table, so we could have enough space to study and converse, without the distraction of proximity.
My pile of material was short, but I could see that he was simply reviewing, so that large stack to his left would soon be added to the pile on my left, between us.
I pulled up one of the dining chairs and began my studies.
- - - -
HOURS LATER, WE'D COMPLETED the reading. A pot of green tea had filled and refilled a pair of stout coffee cups repeatedly as we worked our way through it. An empty plate held only the crumbs of sinfully rich toll-house cookies with butterscotch chips. (Ensuring that I would be visiting the exercise room tomorrow and probably every day as long as Peter's cooking kept feeding me this way.)
"You have questions," Peter said. His mild, but direct style had grown on me. He was still reading me like an open book, but was careful to leave my sentence endings alone.
I began, "Let me state the obvious first. The core problem is religion. Or rather lack of it. Except for the bi-coastal megalopolises, no one is believing what passes for 'news' and both newspapers and news media are losing reader/viewership across the boards. They are going broke. Social media is failing and proving to be unworkable, even depressing. With the Internet becoming widespread, people no longer need or want to have centralized news broadcast to them."
"Correct," Peter said.
"Then why do we need to do anything? It's already collapsing and will wind up with small pockets of area with high crime and rampant sexual diseases, plus higher taxes and lower jobs as job creators leave for rural areas with lower cost of living, which includes taxes," I said.
"True again," Peter said. "The trick is to preserve the genetic pool when the cities ultimately discover fusion-powered flight and take off for the stars. The one thing we need to watch out for is the release of incurable diseases from these cities to remote 'treatment' facilities on their peripheries. And that solution is to raise the health of 'Flyover Country' peoples who will become isolated for a time when the cities do leave. And you've been tasting the preventatives for this, natural and low-processed foods, locally grown and distributed, needing no preservatives for long shelf-life and long transportation."
"The real solution is to encourage their 'clinging to guns and religion', which have kept them safe and prosperous up until the last decade or so," Peter said.
"Well, that might be, but what are you and I supposed to do about this?" I asked.
Peter opened up one last folder and slid it over to me. I began to read, and understand the simplicity of it...
A new serial begins this series
Book One of the Hooman Saga is an anthology compiled from earlier short stories which tell how their dystopiac world started before, well, everything in Hooman Saga Book Two.
An alternate future-history. This first story starts in about 2018 in this Earth’s time-line.
Delivered here as a new series of serials. From this point forward. For nearly 350 print pages.
For now, set your calendar to keep track of these new adventures. Every Saturday.
Table of Contents
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