Jungo 1 (Patreon)

@Keevin Childers and @Matt Labanc posed a most intriguing idea in this month's suggestions. So, let's check in on Jungo after he returned to New Gerootec.

Note: Not saying this is canon. Could just be a what-if.

———

The soil was drier than I’d like but the warren hoe was sharp and bit easily through it. With no particular urgency, I worked at the row for a while, then carefully took a small, shuffling step backward, and worked at the row some more. I didn’t feel like bending over for the rocks I uncovered, so I just pushed them to the side. When it came time to plant, I’d toss them out of my garden.

As I worked, I heard someone exit the front door and walk my way. Without even turning, I recognized that it was my great-grandson, Mikaa. Though I couldn’t make it out, I could hear the music playing on his earphones. Ever since we got back, he’d been listening to music non-stop. Growing up, he liked hearing the songs I’d saved on my strand, but now that we’d gotten back to New Gerootec, there were hundreds of years of songs to catch up on.

“Hey Poppy?” he said, actually pausing the music for a moment. “Come inside for a bit.”

“I’m fine,” I told him. “My knee feels great.” A bit of an exaggeration, perhaps, but compared to how much it had hurt before the antibiotics, this was wonderful.

“I’m glad,” he said, “but still, could you come inside for a bit?”

I turned back to him. My eyes were completely shot, so he was just a blurry mess, but I knew he was a handsome cub—everyone had told me so. “Why?”

Mikaa sighed. “There’s someone I want you to talk to.”

“A shrink? I don’t need to talk to a shrink.”

“No, not a shrink.”

“Governor E’e?” I lowered my ears in anger. “I told you I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to talk to anyone!”

“No, not the governor,” he grumbled, sounding frustrated. “Please, Poppy? They’re coming over soon, and I like you to be a good host.”

“Mikaa, no, I’m busy.” I turned about and started working on my rows once more. My great-grandson didn’t leave. He just stood there behind me, waiting for me to turn about—stubborn, just like his mom.

After five minutes or so, I heard a car pull up, its tires crunching on gravel. I didn’t bother looking up. Whoever they were, they could go away and not come back. I didn’t need to hear anything they had to say.

“Hello, ma’am!” Mikaa called without moving a step. “Jungo’s almost done here. Just go on in and have a seat in the living room. We’ll be right there.”

“Okay, thanks!” called an older voice. I tried to place it but came up blank. Didn’t sound like anyone I’d met, though admittedly, I’d met far more people than I wanted to since I came home.

As I worked the row, I listened to her paws treading through the grass, up the wooden steps, and in the front door. Still, I worked on my row. Mikaa waited patiently behind me while I gritted my teeth in anger. I really hated being pushed around. I wouldn’t put up with it from anyone but Mikaa. But he was a good cub. He put up with me at my worst, and I found it impossible to stay angry at him.

Eventually, I turned and glared at him. He just reached out and put his paw on the hoe. “I’ll put that away, Poppy.” I held it a moment longer, making sure he knew how pissed I was, then let him take it from me. “Go inside and be a gracious host, okay?”

Without replying, I shuffled angrily inside. She was sitting on the couch, and she stood to touch my paw when I came in. Ugh. Ever since we’d made it back, everyone treated me like a hero, and I was sick of it. I was the least sort of heroic guy there ever was, and I just wanted to be left alone. “Sit, sit,” I told her with a wave of my paw, never giving her a chance to even greet me. I lied, “I’ve got a lot to do today, so I’ll need to keep this brief.”

I took a seat in my recliner and put up the leg support.

“This is the farm you grew up on,” she said. It wasn’t a question, and I’ll admit that I found that curious. Most of the people I end up forced to talk to don’t bother doing any research first.

“The land is, but not the house,” I said, gesturing a circle in the air. I’d found that if I took charge of these talks, they tended to go a whole lot faster. Then, I didn’t feel as bad when I made an excuse to leave. “My house burned down like fifty years ago, so the house is new. Well, not new, but new to me. When I came back, I bought it up. Pay was crap for being a cadet in the force, but even at that, a couple hundred years of back pay was enough to ensure I could die on my own land.”

“So, it wasn’t one of your siblings’ great-great-great—”

“Don’t think so, no,” I said. I got these sorts of questions a lot, so they were pretty easy to deflect. “Well, they might be distantly related to me, but then again everyone is related to everyone if you go back far enough. I never had much of an interest in genealogy, so I never bothered—”

“What about your neighbors?” she asked. “Do you recall who you grew up with?”

That actually caught me by surprise and completely derailed what I was going to say. I realized my muzzle was still open, so I closed it and recollected my thoughts. “Well,” I said at long last, “this was a very long time ago. Back then, the houses were much farther apart. I couldn’t even see any of my neighbors from here. Not like it is now with houses one up on top—”

“But you remember…” she said.

“Well, yeah,” I said, softer now. “Uh, well, to the north, there was a family that had triplets. Triplets! Can you believe it? Young couple. They were always tired. Nearest neighbor to the east… Dunno if you could even call them neighbors. Their house must have been seven kilometers from ours.”

“And to the south?” she asked. “There was a gal named Melici.”

My lips pulled together into a thin line and my ears pulled back. I didn’t know who this gal was or why she was ambushing me with these questions, but I was on the verge of throwing her out of my home.

“She left for school shortly after you joined the force,” she said. “Met a mate at school, graduated, moved to the city to start a career…”

I didn’t say anything. Melici had been my first girlfriend, maybe even my first love. It was hard to say since we hadn’t dated all that long, but yeah, I remembered her. I’d been tempted to research what became of her, but I hadn’t. This was over two hundred years ago. Even if she’d lived to a ripe old age, she’d be long dead by now. Reading the details would only bring me pain, so I decided to go on without them.

“He cheated on her,” she explained, “broke her heart. Completely devastated her.”

“I’m … sorry to hear that,” I whispered. “Why are—”

“So, she decided that her entire career had been a mistake and that she needed to start over.”

I blinked and sat up, lowering the leg support on my recliner.

“Do you remember, Jungo, the conversation you had with her right before you left the system?” she asked. “About jumping through time … never being able to…”

Her words trailed off, and I tried to speak but my throat had constricted tight. It took several tries just to manage, “Melici?”

“Hey Jungo,” she whispered back. “I’ve missed you.”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r58c92vffpqBJzA0vzvED0NKGTB61iIw5IxiF2Lb5xU/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?