THREE

 

 

After walking along the park for a ways, staying under the large oaks, I finally turned to Mary. “I love you. If you are willing, I would much like to start talking about how we solve this living situation we find ourselves in.”

“Why Mr. Buckey Pirate sir,” she said, smiling at me. “Are you asking me to live in sin with you?”

“I am, my fair lady,” I said, bowing slightly and pretending to tip my hat. “And a wonderful sin it will be.”

“Then how can I refuse such a sordid offer,” she said, smiling, “if we can figure out how to work out this confusion of two worlds.”

“I may have a few suggestions on the living aspects,” Fred said, his voice almost echoing under the large oaks. “Not in the matter of the sin aspect. However, if needed, I have watched many thousands of human couples in copulation over the centuries and I am sure that...”

“Fred,” I said, holding up my hand. “Thank you.”

Mary was blushing and laughing.

“Could we go to Mary’s cabin and the three of us have a discussion?” I asked.

Mary nodded. “Yes, please.”

A moment later we were standing inside Mary’s wonderful log cabin tucked into a stand of oaks in 1871 in a narrow valley outside of Boise, Idaho. The valley was called Whispering Valley for a reason I had not yet asked Mary about.

I really loved this place with its wonderful river-stone fireplace and large overstuffed furniture, including a couch that could lull anyone into a nap.

And Mary had a featherbed in her bedroom like nothing I could have ever imagined sleeping on. Why modern mattresses had gone to firm and hard was beyond me. Mary’s featherbed just almost wrapped around me and cradled me to sleep.

Of course, having Mary beside me didn’t hurt that feeling of contentment.

When we arrived, the large main room of the cabin smelled of fresh bread and light wood smoke, a combined smell that I knew I could never get tired of.

Mary made us both a cup of tea from the hot water she had left on the wood-burning stove before she left to visit me. I actually, in her time, had only left her about three hours before. But in my time I had attended a few classes, spent a night in my apartment studying, and taken one test.

We sat at her kitchen table, facing each other. I told her what I had done over the last day since I had left earlier this morning.

She nodded and said, “I can now, after this short excursion into your time, finally start to visualize some of what you talk about. I hope to learn much more about your time.”

“I hope you can live there with me as well, as I live here with you,” I said. “Fred, is that possible?”

“Very much so,” Fred said, his deep voice filling the kitchen and living area as it always did.

“I worry,” Mary said. “Are we not to become a burden on you with our constant requests to move back and forth through time?”

I nodded. I worried the same thing.

Fred chuckled. “I have lived for hundreds of thousands of years. My species, which will include me, will live for a hundred thousand years into the future. I will far outlive you both and will treasure our short time together and write limericks about you both for many to enjoy into the future.”

I laughed. “So that means you won’t mind?”

“It will find it no bother at all,” Fred said.

Mary looked at me and smiled. Then she said to Fred, “If I haven’t said this lately, I would like to say this again. Thank you for introducing me to this fine man.”

“You are more than welcome,” Fred said.

I could almost imagine Fred bowing to Mary. If an oak tree outside of a Disney cartoon could bow.

“So what is your suggestion?” I asked Fred.

“You must learn to think as a person unstuck in time,” Fred said. “I know humans have no sense of time and very little memory. So this thinking will be a strain, but I can help.”

Mary frowned. She had no idea what he was talking about either.

“Would you try that idea again with a few fewer insults to humanity and a few more concrete ideas?” I asked.

“Create your home here, in this valley, to live in at any point in time,” Fred said.

Suddenly I realized what Fred was driving at in his usual Fred fashion.

“Do you own this home?” I asked Mary.

She nodded. “And the one hundred and eighty acres around it as well going up the valley and on both sides of the valley. My husband’s father homesteaded it and passed it on to his son and I got the land and the home when he died.”

I could see in Mary’s eyes that she was starting to understand as well.

“You will need to plant a lot of oak trees all over this land in the coming years,” I said to her.

She smiled. “That will be my pleasure.”

“And mine as well,” Fred said.

“And I need to do some research on how to pass this land down in trust,” I said. “So that I will inherit it at the age of 25.”

“That sounds like a very logical solution,” Fred said.

I could hear in Fred’s voice the sound of almost pity at the poor stupid humans. And it dawned on me why.

“Of course, in my time,” I said, “Mary has already set up the trust and the land is about to transfer to my name. Is that correct?”

Fred chuckled. A condescending chuckle, but I’ll take it.

“Can we see what we will work so hard in this time to accomplish in a future time?” Mary asked.

“Of course,” Fred said.

A moment later they were standing near the remains of her old cabin, long since crumbled to a pile of rotted logs. I could see the stones of the fireplace to one side. Weeds covered the remains.

“Now that makes me sad,” Mary said.

“We can build brand new,” I said.

She nodded and turned to look around.

A forest of tall, strong oak seemed to spread over the landscape and down a shallow hill and around a stream.

As far as they could see under the canopy of oak, the land remained clear and empty.

“You left forty acres unplanted down on the lower side to sell off to get money to build a dream home here,” Fred said.

“Wow,” Mary said, looking around. “I planted all of these? This is wonderfully beautiful.”

“You both will plant these,” Fred said, his voice echoing again in the shady, cool area of the old oaks.

“How will I be able to move beyond the roots of leaves of an already planted tree?” I asked.

“Look to your right about ten steps,” Fred said.

We followed his instructions, but all we could see were acorns littering the ground.

I picked one up. “Is this what you are talking about?”

“It is,” Fred said. “You hold in your hand the essence of the beginning of life of my species.

I couldn’t believe what I was thinking.

“Are you telling me that if I carry around an acorn in Mary’s time, and she carries around one in my time, we can go anywhere?”

“Of course you can,” Fred said. “As long as you do not remove the acorn from your person outside of the influence of an oak tree’s branches or roots. If you do, you will just return to your own time where you left.”

I glanced at Mary who was looking shocked as well.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked.

“You did not ask,” Fred said. “It is one of the great failings of all humanity, actually, to not ask the right question at the right time. I have watched the results of that for far longer than I care to remember.”

“But you can remember thousands of couples copulating,” Mary asked, smiling at me.

“That is a very different matter,” Fred said. “And fodder for many a limerick, I might add.”

“I can only imagine,” I said.

“No need to imagine,” Fred said. “I would be glad to share as many limericks as you would like to hear about the copulation patterns of your species. For example:

“There was a young woman from Spain,

“Whose body seemed quite plain,…”

“Fred,” I said, interrupting him, “I promise to listen to your limericks but right now I think Mary and I need to get busy making sure this wonderful place comes to pass. We have a lot of work and planning to do.”

“I agree,” Fred said.

“And we need to get on with this planning to live in the sin offer I have been made,” Mary said, smiling at me.

I pretended to tip my hat. “That my lady, will be no work at all. Only pleasure.”

She kissed me and I kissed her back.

We stood there under the large oaks in the beautiful valley, holding and kissing each other until Fred said simply…

 

There was a young lady named Grace,

Who loved to be held in embrace.

She hugged and she tugged

But no lover remained

For her lips were on the side of her face.

 

I’m fairly certain Mary laughed first, even though we both knew that laughing at the oak tree’s limericks did nothing but encourage him.