Chad rejoiced to be out and about walking down the Alameda. He recalled being a young man and perusing the book store down on the left, past the seedy hotel. The open air church revival at the empty grocery store did not so much as garner an attentive glance. He had been instructed to avoid religious factions in his search ofr an empath. An unaligned person was required, a woman he had been told.
‘Of course, as the world ends and the masters set seal upon the doors of their stony under ark, what latter day Noah wants to spend the nights with anything other than a empathetic woman?’
A sense of joy flushed his cheeks beanth his glasses, glasses that were so much more than glasses had been as a boy.
The boy, Benny, within, just that moment cringed and the end Time detective, the ark’s own before the door closes wrangler, felt his deeper inner self revolt against the mission, ‘Look at that poor man, a Public Sector Officer, like you!’
Chad saw there, stumbling away in tears from the church revival, a Post Officer Major, walking in a weaving cadence down the right lane of The Alameda, down the Beautiful Way. It had been some time since the late July sun had shown so wan and weak upon this traditionally sunkissed way. The sun was not cleared by mist below and cloud above, to view this sad progress of a broken man, his hands clutching at his chest dispatch pack as he sobbed and walked.
He had been instructed to avoid Public Sector contact, to avoid politicing and civics, to merely and only find the kindest pair of female eyes at the end of the line.
Pupper #1 whined as the robitic canine sensed a possible departure from mission.
‘Treat him like a dog.’
“Pupper One, this fellow officer is headed in our self same direction. Let us protect him.”
Although there was no threat in sight, or even likely to arise, this was the cue Pupper #1 needed. Out went his tail like a rudder of relentless purpose. The dog bot sprung int the left hand lane, where no cars or truck had driven for some time, and looked both ways, it knowing it was in a mechanical road way and charged with the company of a pedestrian.
‘I wanted to see the book store,’ whined benny within.
‘Perhaps,’ thought Chad, SHE will want a book, a romance perhaps, to carry back with her onboard the night train?’
The bat drones upon his shoulders looked both ways, making certain he was not smitten by some vehicle that still held a charge. Down at the intersection, Chad did see a few abandoned cars, one truck, looted, its back doors torn open in the early morning gloom, trash, empty boxes, and abody attended by pecking gulls, sullenly strewn there.
“Pupper One, the man is stumbling towards the emdian, please, corral him.”
The dog bot bounded off with curly blue hair bouncing as Chad found that his emchanical legs had him bounding as fast, faster than his football feet hadever taken him as the lead tightend in Black Diamond, Washington— ‘No, it was Enumclaw… no, Ravensdale… no Maple Valley…’
Chad was dizzy, sick with vertigo, he should have been weaving, or already fallen like all of those people who had dropped like flies in September when the insulin ran out. Visions of dying diabetics all around in Ben Lomond, of his felow retirees nearly all dead for lack of insulin, even as U.S. Public Sector Agents Clancy and Doss callously stepped around the allen who Chad had been trying to comfort with pollows, and sugar cubes… wove, and strove and finally dove into distant memory as Chad was revived on his feet.
Down to his right, over his bat winged gargoyle shoulder, Chad looked into the crying eyes of a fellow Public Sector Officer. Pupper #1 whined at his feet, sniffing the boots of the Post Officer Major. The back of the dog bot’s head, where the mighty brain was housed behind an ambient panel, glowed red, blue, yellow and green ina pattern that Chad knew meant something but which he could not recognize or decipher.
A human had to take over.
“Post Officer, Major. Conductor Chad, U.S. Public Sector Relief. May I offer help?”
The man sniffled, stiffened, then saluted, as if recalling some unfinished business, “Conductor, glad to see Amtrak still cares.”
“We do, Sir,” answered Chad, feeling sick with deception within. “Are you well?”
“Well enough, thank you. May I offer some assistance?”
“Yes, yes Sir,” warmed Chad to the well-meaning and obviosuly kind man, who, itseemed would gain greatly within for the gift of a purpose. “I am seeking a person, a woman, one still self-assigning to a job, I have been rejoined to ask, a caring, empathetic woman who is not religiously or politically, and certainly not criminally, aligned. Do you know such a person, Officer?”
The Post Officer glanced to the right, at a cafe, a single table under a dew glistening umbrella unneeded, but cheery in the gloom. The instantly glowing man said, “I was going for coffee, myself. Martitta has a propane dutch oven she brews coffee on. The locals, all except the Church Revival, who do not take coffee, supply the propane: tweakers, rippers [1], and open campers contribute coffee and fuel and she dispenses it, has rigged up a rain water distillery—it’s all we have left. There is no more food, gone already.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Brian, please… ?” he asked, extending his hand, which Chad took with a smile.
“Chad. Pleased to meet you Brian. Liked to have met under better circumstance.”
Brian did not let go of his hand, seeming to need some real human contact. Sensing this, Chad seemed to grow inside, took that hand like the therapist, that nice Iranian man, had taken his upon a wrecked time, and confidently asserted, “Pupper One, lead the way, to the cafe.”
And the terrible, mechanical canine, whined, pointed its steel nose and blue curly haired tail in line with the cafe, and walked in a stately mimcry of some unthinkably ancient divinity.
“He knows what a cafe is?”
“Yes, Brian, he is as smart as they come.” and felta dread rise within, an idea that held a terrible power but barely in the reigns that chance—and the great diabetes die-off—had set in his unready hands.
