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Beyond Deerstowe Bridge
A peculiar tale came to the journalist Benjamin about the people who lived beyond the bridge in Deerstowe. The woman he interviewed at length found his interest in her home to be more entertaining than anything at first. She figured that his interest in her company was overwhelmingly more his focus than any substantive story about her province. While this was partly true and the inspiration of his interest, there was something to this lady’s story that deserved telling. The all telling gut feeling told him that this was the type of case journalists dreamed of unearthing.
The series of questions that he asked her, none of which he had written down, were a necessary exercise of the craft. It was luck that she was in pursuit of the same profession. Their positions facing each other on opposite sides of a square table and his terse questions were part of a familiar exercise to her.
“Were you forced to adhere to any one particular religion or dogma?” his first serious question seemed to hardly phase her at all.
The woman rolled her eyes. “We weren’t ‘forced’ to practice. There was a church, just one, but it was like some of the other churches I went to in Estoria; fairly progressive. Not like the churches in the southern parts of our country where people’d kill and condemn you if you missed a single sermon. The church in my community wasn’t close to my home, so my family only went for major holidays – the way most people anywhere else do.”
“Did you have access to books or to a library?” he asked, moving right along.
Nodding, she answered, “There were books. Not a library, but every home had their own assortments. Mostly fictions. People read a lot. We were well educated.”
“But were there histories or newspapers?”
A soft spot was hit. Her demeanor throughout this had been light, playful, eager to talk about her home, but now it looked as though for the first time, something inside her had been touched. This was no longer the same game. “No newspapers.” The first newspaper that she had read on her way to New Bayard was the most exhilarating experience of her young life, at that time. That moment, reading the paper in a bouncing cart on route to the big city was what set the path for her journey to become a reporter. “The older generations had histories and they taught them to us. And I think that I can anticipate your next question.”
Benjamin smiled breaking his intense, and almost stern look of concentration, “You always think you’re a step ahead of me, Sam.”
“Yes, because I am,” she returned the smile with a wink.She shifted in her wooden chair then continued,, “The histories were accurate, as far as I could tell after having been formally educated. We knew about the deaths of the last Viramont governors, the revolution, our nation’s subsequent prime ministers, the election process, but, I will admit the histories did stop.”
“The older generations stopped talking?”
“No. They were always willing to talk,” she defended. The person to whom she had always been closest was her grandmother, her dad’s mom, so any hint of a slide at the older generations was interpreted by Sam as a grave offense. “But at a certain point in history there was a rift of some sort. A disconnect from present and continuous time. Technological advances, trains, elevators - granted our houses and buildings were only two stories, we didn’t have use for elevators - electric light, these things we did not have, and we certainly did not know about them. Going into New Bayard for the first time was an enormous shock for me. I adapted by trial of fire. It was overwhelming to have a room lit up by something other than a large amount of candles. It was a comfort that my dormitory in college was not electric.”
In their rather remote outpost for their current assignment, Benjamin had noticed that Sam had the easiest time adjusting for one so young in the field. This was her first truly desolate location to cover, and the first really dangerous one at that; he had hoped that being the experienced field guy, he would be able to comfort her when she came to him in fear or frustration. Alas, much to his disappointment, she was the most resilient of them all. Her unrelenting drive to get the job done against all odds was one of the details about her that impressed him the most. She was one of the bravest and most analytical women that Benjamin had ever met, but the withdrawal and lackadaisical perspective she had on her town was one of the greatest mysteries that he had yet confronted.
The intense look of attention that Benjamin gave to his interviewee was one that she had seen him give to his past subjects a thousand times. His sharp blue eyes had a compressing feel that made many of his subjects melt to his every whim and question from the intimidation. True, his gaze had made her melt before, but she found his stare to be focused and welcoming. He was listening. No one had ever displayed such interest in her hometown before, or in her the way that he did.
“Would you say that the town was limited on advancements?” Benjamin continued.
“Aside from the technological advancements? Do you mean ‘primitive’?” she asked, sounding offended, but she was smiling again. The feel of this being a game had resurfaced. “It wasn’t New Bayard by any means, but our livelihoods were mostly agricultural. We were, they are mostly farmers. The technological luxuries were not missed or even wanted; there was no reason. Life was simple, but great.”She paused and leaned back in her chair. Laughing, she asked, “Why do you look so serious? You’ve always been a good listener, Ben, but this is a bit much for the story of a small agricultural community. It’s really not that interesting. That’s why I left.”
The catatonic interest that she was demonstrating made Ben wonder if there was something to this that Sam knew about and that she was hiding. Could her approach of disregard be a mask? ‘No,’ he quickly deduced, ‘She’s shared everything with me. She genuinely doesn’t regard this as having any potential.’ “Sam, I’m not asking these questions to harass you or simply to occupy the time while we wait for our next guest, but to find out the truth about from where you came.”
“The truth?”she asked incredulously, “Ben, you act as though I’m the only one who’s ever left a small community like Penbrooke, I mean, c’mon! I know I’m not the only one.”
“To have escaped?”
“To have left,” she sharply corrected. The seriousness that consumed her would remain throughout the duration of their interviews. The lady swallowed hard and tapped her short nails on the table top. He really was doing an investigation. It was not like Benjamin to waste time, especially on something like this. A question then came to her mind: “How much is known about Penbrooke?” People from the country, like the two of them, were no strangers to people engorging the truth. Perhaps Penbrooke was just another victim of country-folk gossip. Maybe this would prove to be her opportunity to correct a falsified image of her home.
In situations like this, Benjamin always considered his words with great caution so as to obviate any unintended disastrous misstep. But, being blunt always helped. “Nothing. Nothing is known about the people beyond that bridge. I grew up, as you well know, in Deerstowe. My family’s ranch had been there for four generations, and no one ever, in my family or in town, ever mentioned the people of Penbrooke.”
All her life she had assumed that people from Penbrooke came and went from the area as they pleased, even though no one in her family ever had. Maybe, generally, people did not. She had left for school at sixteen - her head had always been focused on seeing the world and analyzing all that it had to offer, even before she picked up that first newspaper. Her personal fantastical distractions had blinded her to the very interesting and mysterious tale of her own neighbors and ancestors. It was a mystery to her why there was such silence surrounding her small paradise, but maybe this would be a good way to find ration to Ben's uncharacteristic moment of dramatics.
Ben almost asked why none of this had ever struck her as odd, but reason stopped him. She was the product of this place where global normalcy seemed disconnected. This was indeed a subject to be pursued, but he would have to tread carefully to ask the correct questions.
“Shall I go back to the beginning, then?” having interviewed dozens of people with her own pen and pad, she knew the drill. If anything, this would be a good exercise to be on the other side.
“As far back as you can remember,” Ben confirmed.
With a sigh, Sam closed her eyes and travelled back to the lands beyond the Deerstowe bridge.
~*~*~
Your humble writer,
S. Faxon
