#NaNoWriMo 2017: Day Twelve
High Dependency
The previous chapters can be found here: https://medium.com/high-dependency
Chapter Twelve
With a knock, EJ opened Slim’s door a crack and stuck his face in the gap. “The lorry’s here. Can you give me a hand?” he asked.
“Lorry? What lorry?” asked a sleepy Slim, still in bed.
“It’s a delivery of wood from the sawmill” EJ replied.
“What do you need?”
“I need some help unloading it off the truck”
“Doesn’t the delivery driver do that?”
“No he won’t help. Come on. Everybody else is busy”
“Aright, give me a few minutes to get dressed” said Slim begrudgingly.
EJ waited nervously Slim’s front door. After nearly 10 minutes he banged on the door. “Hang on! I’m coming” came a muffled cry from inside the house. “I need to roll a cigarette” said Slim, emerging from within.
“We can’t keep the driver waiting. He’s blocking the lane”
“OK chill, dude”
It was a calm mild day, but there were fine greyish-black flakes gently floating down from above, scattering over the fields behind the houses and gathering like snow in the unsown furrows.
“What’s this?” asked Slim.
“Laken’s incinerating some documents” replied EJ.
Glancing back at the houses, a column of pale grey smoke rose from Laken’s metal smokestack, peppering the sky with the fine filigree ash of burned paper. The two men looked at each other, but said nothing.
Approaching the blue flatbed truck, the driver leant against the cab talking on a mobile phone. “Ah there you are. I was just about to leave. I’ve got other deliveries to make and I’m getting a bollocking from the boss” he said.
“Sorry, mate” said EJ.
“Where’re we putting this stuff?” asked Slim.
“If we load it onto the trailer, then we can drive it down the track” replied EJ, walking towards the shed.
“I haven’t got time to hang about while you fanny around” said the irritated driver. “Just get it off the truck and you worry about moving it in your own time”
EJ jumped up onto the back of the truck and manoeuvred a large sheet of chipboard over the edge. Slim put his hands flat on the sheet letting it crash into the ground as EJ lost his grip on it.
“What are you doing?” EJ asked, his tone heavy with frustration.
“I was stopping it from toppling over on top of me”
“You need to help me lower these sheets to the ground. They’re heavy”
Slim let the sheet fall flat, directly next to the lorry. The corner had snapped off.
“Oh look the stuff’s getting damaged. Be careful with it” pleaded EJ.
“What’s all this for anyway?”
“It’s going to be the chapel”
They unloaded more of the large sheets, structural timbers, shiplap planks and decking boards. EJ signed to say that everything had been delivered and the driver left.
“Where’s this all going to go?” asked Slim, surveying the messy pile of wood that was blocking the entrance to the field.
“Can you drive?”
“Yeah I can drive”
“Can you get the trailer hitched and bring it here while I go and speak to Jan, please?”
“I can’t reverse a trailer” replied Slim.
EJ put his ear against Jan’s door before knocking.
“Who is it?” shouted Jan.
“It’s EJ. I wanted to talk about where we’re going to build the chapel” he replied through the closed door. Jan opened his front door a fraction and stepped out barefoot, while hurriedly pulling a T-shirt over his head. He closed the door behind him. EJ caught a glimpse of the shape of somebody in Jan’s bed.
“If you’re busy, we can just move the wood to the plot next door for now”
“Why don’t you move the wood to the courtyard by the outbuildings?” asked Jan.
“Well, I was thinking that we’ll probably build the chapel on the empty plot”
“That plot was always supposed to be for another house”
“Sure, but it makes sense to use it for the chapel now”
“But then we won’t have an empty plot for a house” said Jan, stubbornly. “We should build the chapel with the outbuildings”
“People are less likely to use it if it’s out there” complained EJ.
“I’m not going to use it anyway. I don’t really want it next door to my house either. All that choir singing stuff would get on my nerves. Put the wood in the courtyard and we’ll talk about this later. I’m getting cold” said Jan, before going back inside.
In stark contrast to the modernity of Arno’s plastic dome, the Firman’s house was inspired by Bronze Age roundhouses. The roof frame was built from Douglas fir, and the green roof was completely covered with vegetation planted in a growing medium, with a waterproof membrane underneath. The round cob walls were built from mud and straw from the fields.
Mrs. Firman was cooking dinner on the cast iron range stove.
“Something’s got to change, Mrs. F” said Mr. Firman. “We need some way of incentivising those who are too lazy to work”
“Let them do their thing, and we’ll do ours, dear”
“I’m worried about people like Thom; out there digging in all weather so he can put fresh fruit & veg in those idle buggers’ bellies”
“He doesn’t have to do it though, does he? He’s got a choice”
“I fear that this whole commune will collapse when the hard workers say they’ve had enough of carrying the slackers”
“That’s why we have our own veg patch: so we don’t get resentful”
“Yeah we never signed up for pooling the fruits of our labour, but I worry that there’s still an expectation placed on those who are more willing and able to work. Has anybody noticed that we’re not eating with everybody else?” asked Mr. Firman.
“No, they’re all too caught up in their own dramas at the moment” Mrs. Firman replied, spooning ladlefuls of soup into two bowls. “Did you know that Arno’s married?”
“I knew that she went by the name of Mrs. something-or-other, but I just assumed that she was divorced”
“It’s surprising how little we all know about each other’s past, given how closely we’ve all lived together” said Mrs. Firman, sitting down to eat her meal.
The next chapter can be found here: https://medium.com/high-dependency
