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The Weaver
© 1995 Jari Komppa
"Remember, always: You're unique.
Just like everyone else." -- Unknown
Preword:
This was my first try on a complete story in any language.
the main reason why I wrote it in English is that Finnish is simply
very hard language =)
There are many mistakes in the story flow etc, and I'm probably
going to rewrite this story at some point in the future..
Thanks to:
Toni Lönnberg for critisism and proofreading,
Tangerine Dream for brilliant music for
concentration, Teachers Pörhölä and Grönman for
ideas what to do in the summer, Hemmo the dog
for giving me a reason to go out for a walk,
and last but not least, for Mistril Starshine,
wherever you are.
Chapter 1: Waking up.
How to start? The sun is quite a typical, safe starting point
for any story. That morning the sun rose, as its habit happens to
be, casting some of its many rays through one window in a
two-story building. But this story is not about the sun, but
about a person who happened to lay in his bed that morning. It
happened to be friday, which doesn't matter much since it doesn't
change this story any way.
That day Tom slept late. It wasn't his fault that the batteries
of his clock had ran out that night, although if he would have
changed the batteries in time, it might have saved him from the
shock of being late from school first time in his life. That
shock was quite severe. He got up, glanced at the clock, figured
that it can't be that early, checked another clock, felt enormous
pressure of failing to wake up early enough for the first time in
his life, panicked, jumped up from his bed in a quick motion
which didn't give his blood cells enough time to figure out where
is down and where is up, blacked out and woke up four hours later
to find himself laying on the floor. The carpet felt wet under
his head and he had an enormous headache. If you plan to fall
down unconcusiously, remember to check where you leave your
legos.
Few weeks later, after visiting a doctor several times, he got
well and went to school as usual. But something had happened to
him; he acted differently, and thus he slowly drifted away from
his friends. He was simply a freak; nobody knew why, but people
usually liked being somewhere else when he was around.
He didn't understand it himself, and felt lonesome, but due to
his good and old-fashioned upbringing, he escaped the situtation
by turning his mind completely to his studies. Due to this, he
got quite good numbers from about everything, and used all his
free time studying, which scared the hell out of his parents, but
as time went on, people learned to adjust, and simply pushed all
weird thoughts out of their minds.
Three years later, when Tom was 15, the family was having a
holiday on an island in the inner country. Tom was fishing, but
his mind wasn't. He was so concentrated in his thoughts that the
poor fish that had eaten his worm had to struggle itself out of
the hook, badly harming itself. Tom saw something other people
did not. It had started the last night, his vision was changing,
slowly but steadily. He had read lots of books about human
development, about how eyes work, and so on, but he had never
read anything about the thing that was happening to him.
He thought about it, and came to the conclusion that either
the thing was so natural that nobody wanted to research it, or
then it was unique. Either way he didn't want to talk to anyone
about it; either it would be breaking of some tabu the human
society had developed through the years, or then it was something
unique. And Tom had seen enough B-class movies to be unique and
tell people about it.
He saw structures in everything; even the air around him was
filled with complex and very thin structure. The water, the
fishing rod.. everyting had complex structures, some of them were
floating around, some fixed, and it all fascinated him.
At dinner he didn't say a word to anyone, but then again, he
had been quite silent for over three years, so nobody made a
point of this. His big sister had made a point of his weirdness
two years ago or so, while having a fight with her parents, but
that was about the last time anyone even mentioned him anymore.
He had quickly become a living piece of furniture; always going
straight upstairs to his room every day, quickly and wordlessly
eating his food, and so on.
He went to the woods after eating, just walking around and
marvelling the beaty of creation, in his own way that nobody
could understand, since nobody really saw like he did. The
greatest artists of the world have learned to see things normal
people don't, but he saw everything perfectly.
It took him a month or so to learn to see well again, not
being blinded by the way he now saw.
Six months later, at about Christmastime he found out that
he could change the structures. It started slowly, moving one
molecule from one place to another, totally consciously, but by
the time school ended, he already had learned how to copy a small
stone. A mere pebble, but still something visible to the eye, and
totally solid. And a perfect copy. It took him a week to do, but
he was getting faster. He decided to call it weaving, not because
it was like weaving but since he liked the word.
His school grades suffered slightly of this new hobby, but his
parents didn't care; at least the kid was doing something else
for a change, whatever it was, and since his grades still where
way above average, they didn't even mention about it.
He, of course, kept his new hobby a secret.
Chapter 2: The highschool starts.
This time Tom woke up when the clock rang. It was his first
highschool day. He wasn't too anxious about it, but at least
there would be new people around to leave him alone. He got
dressed, went downstairs, ate his breakfast, took his backpack
and ran to the bus-stop where the bus was already waiting for
him.
The fact that the bus actually waited for him is just about
as strange thing as his strange ability, but since there are
limits on analyzing fiction, so we'll leave it to that.
He exited the bus at his new school, and glanced around. At
least it was bigger than the last one, he figured, and walked in.
The school was almost empty; all the older students started the
school a day later in order to minimize the hassle.
He took a table at random since there wasn't any empty ones.
"Hi! You new here too?"
"Yeah", Tom automaticly answered.
"I'm Nina", she said, offering her hand. It took Tom a while to
figure out what was going on, since he wasn't what you could call
a people person.
"Tom", he said, shaking her hand.
"Are you from around here?"
"Yeah"
"You're quite silent, aren't you?"
At this point Tom, or the first time, took the time to look at
her face. She was brown-haired, and her hair was cut so that it
didn't reach her shoulders. Her eyes were blue, and since Tom did
see quite differently from other people he could see all the
makeup she used, which wasn't a lot. After about ten seconds or
so she waved her hand in front of his face.
"Heelloo? Anybody home?"
"Oh, sorry, I was a bit lost in there. What was your name again?"
She giggled and told her name again as they reshook their hands.
They didn't get much further than that, since the bell rang and
they went to their first class, which mostly included filling
several forms. Nina was assigned to the same class as Tom.
Although she wasn't aware of it, that changed her life, since
people connected her to Tom in their minds, which meant that
people generally didn't talk to her much. They didn't actually
avoid her like they did him, but it meant that Nina was just
about forced to spend her time with Tom. At least all the time in
school.
Tom's parents started to notice him again when Nina had visited
him three times, which in itself tells a thing or two about human
mind.
They weren't in love, at first at least, but since Tom's
freakishness scared away most of Nina's school friends, they
spent a lot of time together, and became very close friends. And
so she was the first person to hear about his special ability.
The family went to the island the next summer, after the first
year of highschool, and Tom had asked Nina to come with them,
with permissions of all the parents involved.
"What do you mean, see differently?", Nina asked, as they were
walking around in the woods.
"It's hard to explain.. Try to explain a blind man what's
green."
"Well... I'd tell him grass is green.. or.."
"Well, he'd think that green is small and wet something to walk
on, then.", Tom said, grinning.
"Okay, so what do you see, then?"
"What I see isn't really wet and green, but it's.. I see how
everything is structured, built, you could say.."
"..Aw come on.."
"..but as I said it's hard to explain. Anyway, once I learned
to see this way.."
"..if we accept the fact that you do see differently.."
"..which I do", Tom paused.
"..Just go on with the story.."
"I learned that I could change things.."
Nina tilted her head. She had heard wild stories before, mostly
true ones as well, from Tom before. Tom had a bad habbit of
thinking that the person he was talking to knew about everything
he did (which was quite much considering that he had spent quite
many years poking his nose into several books), and thus Nina was
quite used to not understanding most of what Tom said.
"Anyway, I call it weaving, since it's much like that. Let me
show you..", and he dug the pebbles from his pocket.
"Two rocks. So?"
"They're exactly the same."
"So?"
"Well, I made the other one. I don't know which since they are
exactly the same."
"Aha."
"I.. expect that you don't tell anyone about this?"
Nina nodded, and thought that now she understood what was going
on - Tom very clearly just wanted them to have a secret to share.
She was ready to play that game so she let it be.
Later that night, they sat on the beach and watched the sun's
slow descent into the horizon.
Chapter 3: A date.
Later that summer Nina and Tom were spending an evening in
Tom's room. Nina was laying in bed, eating ice-cream while Tom
was sitting at his desk and searching something from within a
three-inch thick book.
"Tom.. I was wondering.."
"Hmm?", Tom answered, without turning his head from the book he
was going through.
"You remember Kate and Jack, Lisa and Ron.."
"Yeah.. from school..", Tom said, still not taking his eyes
from the book. Nina frowned.
"Have you noticed that we haven't been out on a date yet?"
"Um.. should we?", Tom said, and stopped reading. He turned to
look at Nina, who was grinning at him.
"Well, now that you mention it.."
Tom was a bit puzzled by this.
"Um.. wait a sec.. does next saturday sound okay? My folks
happen to visit some relatives about that time", said Tom,
leafing his calendar.
"..that is, if you don't insist really going out," he
continued, "which would be fine with me, just that it would be
nice to eat something in candlelight and listen to some good
music and.."
"You really have been reading too many books", she said,
grinning, and before Tom got anything from his mouth, she
continued, "but that would be brilliant. It's a date, then."
Rest of the week went rather quickly. Tom's parents knew that
Tom didn't like visiting their relatives, so they didn't even ask
him to come with them this year.
The saturday morning went extremely slowly. Tom had woken up
earlier than he had planned, shut off the alarm from his clock
and went to the shower. He spent at least half an hour in there,
ate breakfast, and dressed up.
He rechecked everything he had planned and prepared last
evening, and then he was standing before the mirror for the fifth
time, combing his hair. "This is stupid", he thought. "I know
Nina. I've talked with her many times. I could even draw an
identificable picture of her face out of my memory. Why am I
acting like I was standing in an anthive?"
After rechecking everything twice, watching the wall for
fifteen minutes, combing his hair two more times, the clock was
five to nine, which was the time they had agreed on, two days
ago.
The doorbell rang. There was nothing wrong with the doorbell,
but it sounded a lot louder than usual.
Tom scrambled to the door, then calmed himself and forced
himself to open the door calmly. Behind the door, as he had
expected, was Nina. But what he had not expect was how she
looked. She was wearing a long, flowery dress, her hair was
combed so that it looked like a piece of art, and her choise of
perfume was simply perfect.
She wasn't wearing any makeup since she knew that he didn't
like it.
If Nina wouldn't have said "Good evening" at that point, it's
highly probable that Tom wouldn't have remembered how to breath.
They had their dinner in candlelight, almost not speaking at
all. Tom, as stated before, wasn't such a people person and
seldom spoke if it wasn't necessary, but they were both a bit
stunned. Tom was admiring her hair, as it floated as she moved
her head.
"Close your eyes, give me your hand, darling..", the record
sang.
Since they had finished eating, Tom asked if she would like to
dance, and they did. Tom didn't know how to dance any dances, so
they just used their imagination.
"..I watch you when you are sleeping - you belong with me.."
If Tom's mind wouldn't have been otherwise occupied, he might
have started to wonder whether someone stole the air and changed
it to some other, heavier substance.
"..or am I only dreaming? Is this burning, an eternal flame?"
the record ended.
They hugged in silence, and for Tom's surprise, Nina was
crying.
"Is something wrong?", Tom whispered.
"Nothing, it's just.."
If Tom was puzzled by this point, the fact that Nina kissed him
didn't help it.
Later they went out for a walk, hand in hand. The sun had
already set, and the streets were empty.
"It's late.. You can stay at our place if you want.."
"Tom!"
He thought a bit.
"Yeah.. your parents might get weird ideas. How about if I walk
you home? Too bad that I get my driver's licence next week, or I
could have driven you home."
It was couple kilometers walk, but it still felt too short.
Walking back alone seemed to take a millenia.
When he got home, clock was already three in the morning. He
sat down in the kitchen and glanced around in thought. He felt
that the evening had went fine, but something had been missing,
although he couldn't point his finger at it.
He left the dishes on the table; he could worry about them in
the morning. He went upstairs and fell on his bed, staring at the
ceiling, and was a bit surprised to notice that a noice he had
been hearing for a while was the phone ringing downstairs. Only
the downstairs phone was connected if nobody was expecting a
call.
After two seconds, Tom was downstairs, answering the phone.
"Hi, this is Nina.. I forgot to tell you.."
"Oh, hi.. What?"
There was a pause.
"I love you."
Chapter 4: Back to school.
Before the school started, Tom and Nina had been out together
several times. This calmed Tom's parents even further, since it
wasn't normal in their knowledge that a teenager spent all his
free time studying and never went out. Not to talk about coming
home every night before the sunset, or keeping his room clean.
In school Tom and Nina were now considered as a normal pair and
people no longer avoided them as they had been doing the last
year. Their first public kiss had caused a bit of a talk in some
circles but that passed in a few days.
Their class had agreed on a week-long classtrip to Germany
later next spring, so the semester included lots of
money-gathering activities, such as selling ice-cream and candy
inside the school to other students. Rest of the needed money
came from a couple of sponsors.
Tom still got good grades out of just about everything,
although he now helped Nina with her studies, and still found
time to practise his special skill. He didn't talk about it to
anyone, even Nina, although he had already told her of his skill.
The skill was quite helpful few times. For instance when he
succeeded in locking his keys inside his car, he just made new
ones from his memory of the keys.
One evening after going to the movies, Nina and Tom walked to
the parking place, still laughing at some of the best jokes in
the film.
"Uh oh", said Tom, going through his pockets.
"Don't tell me, you've locked the keys in the car?"
"Um, I suppose that's the case here.."
Nina sighed and glanced around. She didn't see anyone who would
have any intentions to break into a car. Why weren't robbers
there when you needed them?
"Look, we could take a bus home, and you could come and get the
car tomorrow with a spare key?"
"Nah.. I don't think so", he said, picking up a rock from the
ground and weaving a new pair of keys from it with a rapid pulse
of light.
"Oh my God..", Nina said, since she hadn't really believed when
Tom had told her about this ability. Tom grinned and unlocked the
car.
"Which one would that be?"
When they were driving back to Nina's place, she suddenly
turned off the radio.
"I have to confess one thing. I didn't really believe you when
you told me... so I didn't think that it would be so.. important
not to tell anyone, so I told it to a group of pupils in one of
those chat groups in school, as an example how hilarious things
people sometimes did to make someone believe in them.. I.."
"Don't worry.. they probably didn't believe it either. If I
keep out of headlines for a few years, they probably forget about
it", Tom smiled, but although he was very glad that she had had
the strenght to tell him, he was a bit concerned about what she
had told him.
"But I hope that you won't do it again."
"Um.. can you.. make anything?"
"Well.. I can copy stuff, but I really can't make anything
new.. I have tried, yes, but everything I've tried to make has
collapsed down and turned back to whatever it was originally. I
can copy things, though.. "
"You mean you can make things out of thin air?"
"Thin air is a bit like making a house with a pile of sand, but
I suppose I could do that, if given lots of time. It's not as
easy as I probably made it look like, and it wears one down like
carrying a pile of bricks on one's head.", Tom said, while
parking the car near Nina's house.
"Well.. see you tomorrow", Nina said, and they kissed.
"Good night!"
Tom spent the Christmas with Nina's family, behaving as a
perfect gentleman. That scared Nina's parents a bit, but they
figured that things might be a lot worse. Nina gave Tom a tie
that had a picture of a loom in it, and Tom gave her his first
and up to now only creation. It looked like a normal, but nicely
decorated egg-shaped stone, and was light gray, but if you held
it in your hands and watched it for a while, you might make out
its fine structure, which looked a bit like if you were looking
down a spiderweb-filled tunnel that goes down into infinity.
That night Nina drove Tom home, and they talked about it, and
about a lot of other things. Before Tom got out of the car, he
had offered Nina a ring, which she accepted gladly.
Chapter 5: The trip to Germany.
After Christmas came the New Year's Eve, which Tom and Nina
celebrated together, walking around in the capital, admiring the
fireworks and wondering why so many people had to drink
themselves totally senseless.
The school started as usual, and life was back to normal for
the couple weeks that remained before their awaited trip.
Passports were ordered, permissions from parents were collected
(not to mention the pocket money), and soon everything was ready
for the trip.
The whole class stayed in a hotel in Berlin, and the first four
days included going through most of the museums they could find.
They did have enough free time for the essential shopping, which
they did a lot. Nina and Tom found a small restaurant a few
blocks away from the hotel and they had a late dinner there. The
owner, noticing that there was nobody else inside, was so
considerate to flip the card on the door so that it said closed
to anyone who would walk by, dimmed the lights and put some slow
music on. After this he went to the back room to do whatever he
did. Tom made a mental note to write down the address so they
could mail to the owner after the trip was over and thank him
again - with a Christmas card, perhaps.
Tom and Nina shared a whole room in the hotel. The room had
separate beds but that night they decided to sleep together. In
the morning a cleaning lady came into the room, waking them up,
and was quite shocked seeing the two of them in the same bed. An
unintresting and loud English/German conversation followed,
resulting the cleaner's swift exit from the room.
This of course had a negative effect in their mood that day,
which explains the fact that Tom went and corrected a tour
guide in a museum, causing a lenghty argument that ended after
the guide went and fetched a book from the museum library and
found out that he had been talking nonsense to the museum
visitors for the past three years.
They visited all kinds of shops. They bought records, some
clothes, and generally ran around in all kinds of shops. They
visited a jeweler's shop, admiring some of the items that were in
display. They visited a car shop and sat in a Porche while the
shopkeeper was otherwise occupied, and got thrown out as soon as
he noticed them.
Generally speaking they had fun.
On the next to the last day the whole class went to the
country, and spent the night in a farm. On the way back to the
city and to the airport they stopped to visit some caves.
The pupils wandered around, admiring some of the walls, until
the teacher yelled that they had to return to the bus now and
leave or they'd miss the plane. When the pupils rushed back to
the bus, Tom and Nina were a bit left behind. In the hurry, Tom
stumbled on something and fell into a crevice in the floor. Nina
hurriedly figured that the reasonable thing to do was to go and
seek help. Logically ignoring that thought she hurried to follow
him down into the cavern where the crevice was leading. She
thought about dropping down but she used the stairs instead.
At about this point the bus left the caves, and the teacher
kept a roll call to find out if anyone was missing. After finding
out who was missing, she had a problem to think about; if they
turned back to seek for them, they would probably miss the plane.
Then she thought about what would happen to her if she left any
of the students behind. She pondered about this for a while and
came to the conclusion that they were almost grown-ups and they
could use the phone to call a taxi or something. If everything
else failed, they could always find the embassy and get help. The
longer she pondered, the harder it came to her to tell the driver
to go back, so she never did.
Tom came to a few minutes later, to find that he was laying in
Nina's hands and his head hurt.
"Auch."
"You fell down a few meters on your head. I thought for a while
that you had kicked the big one."
"It seems that I wasn't so lucky.. Auch!.. uh.. how long ago
was that?"
"Five-fifteen minutes, I don't know.. the class left anyway."
"Ah great.."
"I suppose we have to find a phone or something.."
Nina helped Tom up, and they walked out of the cave.
They looked around. There were no buildings in sight. There was
a forest nearby, and they saw a farm several kilometers down the
road.
"Great.. I've always wanted to find myself stranded in the
middle of nowhere.." said Tom, sitting down.
"What's that smell?"
"What? Oh.. it seems we're near somesort of open sewer
system.", Tom said, shaking his head. "You don't happen to have
your driver's licence with you?"
"What? Oh, wait a sec.. yeah, I do.. what are you thinking?
Are you going to make a car out of thin air?"
"Not exactly, but something like that."
Tom concentrated and formed the image of the Porche they had
been sitting in two days ago in his mind, seeing it on the road
in his imagination. Then he started to throw the molecules from
the sewage into his image. It took him about half an hour but it
was finally ready, complete with keys and filled gas tank.
"I'm really not in a shape to drive", Tom concluded, "So I
suppose you'd better do that. Let's go straight to the airport,
all our luggage was in the bus anyway."
"I suppose this would be the moment where I can say for certain
that this car is a real piece of..", Nina said, opening the
driver's side door.
A couple minutes later a gauge waved abnormally in a water
purification facility, but was completely ignored by the worker
who was otherwise occupied in analyzing the latest issue of
Playboy.
The car started and they were on their way. After getting used
to the car, Nina turned the radio down.
"So.. can you copy.. anything?"
"Well, yes, probably, but I wouldn't bet on it. One thing I
can't do is to copy any living thing. I'll happily leave that to
God. I could copy a living thing, a person even, but I can't copy
its memory. If I'd see an accident and went and copied a person
that wouldn't survive, and then somehow made the other one to
disappear.. well, that would be a great thing if it worked, but
it doesn't. The body wouldn't remember anything - it wouldn't
even remember how to use its limbs. It would be just as good as
dead in a couple minutes. The only good thing for it would be
that it wouldn't remember how it felt to remember.."
Tom saw something in Nina's look and continued, "Anyway, even
if the memory would still exist, it wouldn't be the same person.
There is no such thing as immortality - at least not this way.
Let's say someone would build an immerse computer and would
transfer people's mind into it; the original person would cease
to exist and new, programmed mind would continue. It would think
that it had existed before, but it wouldn't be the same person.
In the same way, if you'd meet a copy of yourself that would
think that you are her.. well.. it wouldn't work."
An automatic traffic reconnaissance camera recorded the car,
and a totally bored office assistant wrote the number down,
checked it from a list of stolen vehicles and forgot about it,
since the car wasn't reported stolen.
They were quite silent during the rest of the trip, just
listening to the car radio as it played some soft music in a
language they didn't understand. They really couldn't have cared
less.
The flight was delayed as usual, so they made it in time. They
left the Porche in one of those 30-minute parking zones so
someone would find it quite soon. They caught up with their
class, and explained that they had hitched from the cave.
When they were flying back home, the airport police noticed the
car, and placed a parking ticket on the windshield. The car would
have been towed away a day later, but some kids got to it first.
They broke in it and drove away, ran over a dog, drove into the
woods, hit a tree, and ran away. The next day the car shop got an
intresting call.
"..What do you mean is it stolen? I'm actually watching the car
right now. Do you want me to go and touch it? There. It's here,
it's not a hallucination, and I don't have a clue how you can see
this car smashed up against some tree several kilometers away...
Okay, okay, go ahead, come and check it. Same to me..".
Two days later the kids were caught, but since no leads of how
the car had appeared were found, the case was closed. Even the
reporter who heard about the case forgot about it five minutes
later when he heard about a whale that had given birth to an
elephant.
Chapter 6: Last free summer.
As the summer began, Nina and Tom were planning lots of things;
they knew that this was their last really free summer together.
After this, Tom would have to go to the army, and Nina would
probably go and study in an university, so they wanted to make
the most of it.
It didn't work, since they couldn't think of anything
intelligent to do, so for the first weeks they just walked around
in parks, hand in hand, and talked about all sorts of things, and
were a bit worried about the time that was slipping through their
hands.
One afternoon they got it; they'd go for a long trip in the
woods. Preparations were made, and in a few days they were ready
to go. They took a bus to their planned starting point and
started walking.
They built a camp as the sun was descending. They were talking
most of the time, partly about the forest, partly about school,
partly about their parents. They didn't talk about each other,
knowing that they should part after the next semester. They built
a fire and made some food before going to sleep.
"I wonder.. what do your parents think about me?", Nina said
after they had gone into the tent.
"I really don't know.. they are glad I met someone, at least,
but I don't know anything specific", Tom said, turning his head
away as Nina pulled off her shirt.
"Well, my parents were worried at first when they saw you.. but
they calmed down after I told them some of the things you've been
telling me. They couldn't understand most of it, I gather, but I
guess they think you're okay.", Nina said to Tom's back. Tom
turned back to face her after he heard Nina's sleeping bag's
zipper.
Tom turned off the lamp that had lighted the tent.
"Tom?"
"Hmm?"
"Why are you so shy?"
"You know why."
"No, but really?"
"Ask a mass-murderer why he likes to kill people."
Nina sighed.
"Why do you always say something like that?"
"Because it's so. I don't know. I'm afraid of people. Some
people think that I hate people. It's not that. Books have never
really hurt me, but I'm afraid that people might."
There was a pause.
"I suppose you're right."
Next morning they woke up at about noon. They didn't have a
timetable, so they travelled as quickly as they wanted. After a
couple days' walk they arrived to their first destination; a
place where they could rent a rowboat so they could continue
their voyage down the river.
"What are you planning to do after highschool?" Nina asked as
tom was rowing. Tom frowned and lifted the paddles into the boat
and let it drift. Breaking the topic had to happen sooner or
later, so there was really no need to be evasive about it.
"Well.. I at least have to go to the army after midsummer, but
after that.. perhaps some university."
"Any specific topic there?"
"Nah."
The sky was almost cloudless, there was a slight wind, and the
river was flowing slowly.
"What about you?"
"Oh.. I don't know. I suppose I should also try to get into
some university but just like you, I don't have any specific
topic I'd be specifically intrested in."
They sighed at the same time and then laughed about it.
"It's possible that we're not seeing each other too much after
this year, you know..", Tom said.
"I wish it wasn't so"
"Me too."
They drifted silently for a couple minutes and then Tom
continued rowing. They didn't talk at all for the rest of the
day. Some dark clouds started to appear as the night approached.
Since it was getting dark they came ashore and built the tent
and started to look for firewood. It was raining lightly. The
forest was rather silent as they stood looking around.
"Nina..", Tom said, breaking the long silence.
"Yep?"
"Would you marry me?", Tom managed to say without letting his
voice crack. Nina slowly turned her back on him.
"I mean it..".
Still no answer. Tom looked at her, small drops of water
gathering in her hair. The silence felt heavier by the minute.
"Do you want me to beg?"
Another pause. Tom glanced down on the ground, sighed, and
shook his head.
"No.", Nina said, finally.
Suddenly Tom felt like a complete idiot. Why did he have to go
and say something like that? Could he again look at her and not
feel that way? It was a strange strike of luck (although not by
far the first in their story) that he hadn't been standing close
to a tree or else he would have started to bang his head on it.
"You don't have to beg. My answer is yes."
And so it ends - their last year at school went quite rapidly,
and they got married at Christmastime. Nina got into an
university and Tom followed her there after finishing his time in
the army.
What happened there might be another story..
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