Bless Me On My Way - English Edition by dublinertinte (each kindness read aloud txt) 📖

with the leaky roof, the overgrown garden, the dense forest and the sounds during night and day. Bessinger could not understand why he stayed there and hide himself, why he had no interests to return to civilization.
With difficulties he emerged from his thoughts, his head throbbed and for a moment he smelled freshly whipped trees, hot metal and smoldering cables, the penetrating odor of his crash into the forest of the Ciudad.
He rose from the bench, relieved his aching leg and stared at the private who stood stiffly in front of him, a little small guy, whose face seemed to consist only of big eyes. Only when the private moved, he saw Rachel, a Rachel with a shaved head, a face that had learned to be inflexible and rigid and no longer allowed emotions. She whispered something Jack could not understand, because his head still throbbed, and she knew immediately that he did not understand her and finally she dropped the trained discipline and was Rachel again. She called his name, embraced him and pressed him to herself, gently at first, then more firmly with every breath. She was trembling all over, but she did not cry. Jack put his arms around her, lifted his head and looked at Bessinger with patients. She was still standing next to the switchboard of the room, arms crossed over her chest, her face a pure expression of her disapproval.
“One hour”, she said and left the room.
Roger waited at the door outside, took a step aside and looked through the recessed window. For some reasons he had a bad feeling and wanted to monitor Jack and Rachel, but Bessinger hissed at him: “What are you doing? Go away from the door.”
“I don’t trust the peace in there.”
“He wants an hour with her and probably he’s asking me to send her home. That’s what he will tell her.”
“This is what you think he’s up to.”
“And what do you think what he’s up to?”
“Don’t know. You never know when it comes to Jack.”
Bessinger went back to headquarters, but she could not concentrate on her work. She had sent Roger on an inspection round, but she knew that he would find himself on the door of the sound box, as soon as he thought she was busy. She was not angry with him, but at the first opportunity she would give him a few unpleasant tasks. Rogers bad feelings had jumped on her and would not let go.
What the heck

, she thought, nothing will happen. It’s impossible that Jack finds a way to get Rachel from the station.

First, Rachel did say nothing, just clutching at Jack and it took ages until she let him go, stared at him and began to whisper. She whispered in her dialect that she was on the station because she had followed him and had wanted to save him. She was trained to become a private just to be near him. She told him about the things she still did not understand and that she was told by the others that privates do not cry.
“No tears”, she whispered, “they said I would detune the instruments. They do tantrum and scream, but they do not cry. Sometimes they laugh, but then it sounds like crying without tears. I don’t understand.”
“Rachel”, said Jack and the sound of her name in the sound box was hollow and false.
You should have stayed in the forest, to live and survive there, even if only for a few weeks or months. That would have been better than a prolonged life as a private or hyena.

But he could not tell her this.
“You’re a tough little thing, but you don’t know what you get into. I don’t want you unhappy.”
“If I’m close to you it’s enough.”
“It’s not.”
She stared at him, but she was still clueless. Jack had to shift his weight, because he had to relieve his leg. He made a half turn to the site and saw in the corner of his eye Rogers face behind the window. Their eyes met for a second and he disappeared.
“Your father told me that you’ve always been a tough thing, even as a little girl. He didn’t know where you derived this will.”
“I had it from him.”
“Do you remember when he dragged me along?”
Rachel closed her eyes and smiled. Jack knew that she would respond in this way by these evoked memories and stabbed. She did not even know what had happened, she winced, drew the breath in and was heavy in his grip. Slowly she went to the ground.

Roger had known it at the moment as he saw Jacks face and the movement of his right hand. He had seen the knife in his fingers. It took only a heartbeat and he knew what would happen and yet he could do nothing. He was too slow. He shouted at Jack not to do, but the sound box was soundproof in both directions, and he could not open the door fast enough. Stumbling he ran into the room, fell next to Jack and Rachel on his knees and froze. Her face was pale and silent, her eyes half open, with one eye still showing the last assault of her comrades. Her head was badly shaven, her body lying still in the uniform. Jack sat beside her, holding her left hand, felt her fingers, her back of her hand, her palm.
“You’ve killed her”, said Roger. Jack did not even look, incessantly touching her hand and murmured: “She was already dead when you have brought her to the station. How could you have done this to her?”
Roger had neither an apology nor an explanation which Jack could have accepted.
“Give me the knife”, said Roger, “before it brings even more misery.”
“She didn’t know what happened and she could not estimate that this life would kill her. So slowly that she would not even notice. We all have been dead for decades, Roger. Only the habits keep our bones upright and because we have forgotten that there is something else. I could not do it. Eventually, she would have hated me and herself too. Now”, he let her hand go and laid it gently beside him on the floor, “she’s at home.”
“You know what’s coming up to you now.”

Rachel never really disappeared from his thoughts, there were brief moments when he could hear or smell her, he meant to see her in the corner of his eye and when he turned his head she was gone. He was made responsible for her death, but the leadership of the trading company and the military cartel had other problems and the decision of his fate was passed down to Bessinger.
The Tusk attacked several transport ships and no one was interested in that a pilot had killed a private. This happened frequently during the basic trainings. No one learned swimming by sitting beside the pool and sticking the big toe into the water – and simply some just drowned.
Jack took up his job again, flew missions and seemed to be back to his usual self. It was the thought of Rachel which let him go on, knowing that she would not share his own fate. She had been born as a forest dweller and had been through a tough time as a private, but her mind had not suffered. She had returned to the forest of the Ciudad, to her father and mother, in the part of the forest, where the spirits lived and where the mining company would never find them. Jack believed firmly in it, because it was the only thing he still could believe in.
Rachel’s father had told him a lot about this spirit area, while he had nothing else to do than to wait for his broken leg to be healed. In the beginning he could not understand this strange dialect, he had dismissed the idea of superstition and only listened because there was nothing else to do. The ghost forest was a place of transition for the spirits of the dead. Rachel’s father had said that everyone was waiting for the departed spirit of his family and eventually they would go together to the next level. To which level? The Ciudad never knew, because from this level they did not receive any news.

Jack thought of the voice he had heard in the spirit forest.
She will not let you down.

Long afterwards, back on the station, he fulfilled the prediction of the spirit voice, and Jack knew he had completed, what the voice had not told.
Don’t let her down.

He had not killed her, he had sent her home.

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Publication Date: 08-02-2010

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