Chapter Text
It is sweltering out here.
The sun is beating down with a vengeance, humid air stirring up from rains the night before every time too light a breeze filtered through the area. The harder, faster winds bring a distant sort of coolness―it is not enough to dry the sweat from his brow, or keep him from sweating even more, but it is a reprieve nonetheless. A welcome change, no matter how brief.
Pausing, the man swipes at the moisture on his brow with the back of his arm.
It does not help.
It does little but spread the moisture around, but there is the briefest moment of a breeze that cools the droplets and brings a little bit of relief. He clings to that brief relief, then returns to his task, hefting the ancient-looking shovel up over his shoulder and swinging it down. The hard, dry earth cracks and is swept easily away to reveal the soft, dark earth beneath it.
He’s not sure how the ground is so dry when it rained just last night.
He chooses not to question it.
He keeps at it, breaking the dry earth down into powder and sweeping it away until the full expanse of his so-called garden is free of any of the sandy-looking soil. The powder has absorbed back into the fertile soil beneath it, soft and ready to be seeded.
He finishes in the late afternoon and it’s still sweltering and he resents and rejoices in all the hard work in equal measures. He resents the sweat and the fact that his clothes are soaked and dirty, and they are all he has right now. He resents that it took so long, that it’s still so hot. But he is glad to have had something to do, that he spent so long having a worthy distraction from the static in his head. That he’d been able to focus on something with enough intent to push the bad feelings and the memories out of his head―it was a blessing he’d gladly take.
He can’t bring himself to go inside, go to bed, just yet.
He has not reached the bone-deep exhaustion it will take for him to sleep peacefully, and there is still so much left he can do. So much he can distract himself with until he is too tired to think.
He does not know how he got here; he does not care to ask of the universe why now it has given him this out. He doesn’t know and he doesn’t care, and he will gladly take this excuse to get away from all the bad memories. To get away from reminders. He is here and he has only the clothes on his back and this house and garden and shovel and watering can. And that is a good thing that he will not allow himself to ruin. To look too deeply into.
As the sun sinks lower in the sky, starts to dip below the horizon, he seeds the garden he has spent all day making ready for this exact task. He walks in slow strides, shakes the bag with gentle motions, realizes with a start that some of the strangely animate piñatas have taken residence in the dirt. What are these ones called? He knows they have a name―they are treated as regular living creatures. All the different types have names.
But he does not know what these worm-like piñatas are called, and so he simply calls them worms.
He makes his way around them rather than bothering either of them, watching his step carefully to avoid stepping on them. There are two. They are bright orange with red and green patterns, and hard to miss even in the dying light of late afternoon.
He decides he’ll have to find a way to research them. He cannot call them worms forever. That is not what they are.
(Later, when he searches the house, he will find a book, and the book will call these piñatas Whirlms. But that is later.)
He leaves the dirt that they inhabit be, for now, and seeds the area around them and thinks maybe he’ll seed where they were when he gets up in the morning. Or maybe he’ll leave it, as they seem fond of the dirt. He will find out later, when he knows more, when he is less focused on the task of seeding, sowing grass in the barren expanse that will become a garden. What little he knows is from the woman, Leafos, and he knows that many piñatas will prefer the grass over the dirt, and he’d like to have the grass, himself, anyway. Grass is prettier than blank, empty dirt.
He hums quietly as he finishes up, and it is dark, and he is tired.
He treks quietly into the house, and strips off his clothes and throws them in the sink, and he runs water over them and scrubs them with a bar of soap he found in the bathroom. It will have to do. He hangs them to dry in front of the house, and hopes that no one saw him and that no one will steal the only clothes he has.
He takes a shower and has to scrub himself with the same bar of soap, and he drips dry in the tub.
It is very late, and he is tired.
He folds himself into a ball in the small bed and swaddles himself in the scratchy blankets and it is cooler now that the sun is down and he is glad.
The last thing he remembers before waking up out in the dry, barren field late yesterday afternoon is laying in yet another hotel wishing things could be different. Wishing that he could finally have a break, a reprieve. Ever since Jay had dredged all of the bad shit back up he’s not known a moment’s peace of mind. And then he woke up in the cracked, dry dirt, with Leafos.
She had smiled and explained things to him and sent him inside to sleep, but he didn’t know how he got here. He didn’t ask.
There’s no point asking, not really. He won’t question it too deeply.
He sleeps.
He sleeps and he does not think about the circumstances that dropped him here.