Chapter 44: Isabella Recalls What Work Is For

Thurs, November 19, 2074 1:30 pm: Tellerman Farm- Middlebourne, Pleasantview



Winter flicked its gunmetal tongue through the November breeze, testing for any leftover signs of warmth. It bided its time in frost-covered piles of dead leaves, waiting for the moment when it would emerge on its belly, a silent thief of color and sentience. Isabella could see winter in her breath, feel winter moving past her cheeks. Were she to lay her palms flat on the ground, she would find the world frozen solid. This was land that should have been on the brink of death. But it was not.



Half an acre of grape vines were growing woody and wild on her husband's land, attended by less than a dozen workers. Buds were forming where the stems terminated though there would be no insects to pollinate them. New leaves unfolded towards the vanishing light of late autumn like so many hands outstretched to receive. This should not have been happening.



"I've never seen anything like it," J.L. marveled, surveying the land. Shadows spilled across the crop beds and elongated with each strong gust of wind, like flames would. Isabella fancied that they were attempting to escape the unnatural vines that cast them.

Behind her husband, the foreman approached smiling pleasantly, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets.



"So what do you think, Mr. Bennett? Will we have a small crop of wine grapes in January," Isabella asked.

"Well I don't know about that. One good snow should kill them off for sure. My worry is that we'll have to replant come spring." Isabella turned her gaze on her husband, alight with childish enthusiasm regardless of the foreman's concerns.





"I think we aught to try to cultivate these plants experimentally. Don't you, J.L.? The men could use the work and if the plants die, the government will reimburse us." J.L. pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger, seemingly lost in thought.




"Yeah, I... What's your opinion Mr. Bennett? You'd be the one doing all of the grunt work," J.L. asked. The foreman laughed.

"It's on your dime, Mr. Tellerman. But personally, I think that it'll be a waste," he said. J.L. placed his hands on his lower back and stretched.

"Let's do it. What the hell," he said.



If a single bud bloomed, Isabella could believe anything of the ground beneath her.

March 6, 2055 4:27 pm: Goth Manor- Rawling Hills, Pleasantview (Nineteen Years earlier)



This was all that Isabella would remember of her father- The gentle hum of machinery, the faint scent of fermented plants, liquids that bubbled and hissed, lights that glimmered and then stopped. Her father was an artist, a genius, a magician. Everything he touched was enchanted.



"What does it mean, Isabella, for a thing to be alive? Does it mean that it moves, changes, responds, multiplies? Or does it mean the thing is imbued with a certain force, theoretically perceptible but essentially intangible?"



Isabella shrugged placidly. She did not understand the question nor even the words that formed it. But she thought, perhaps, that if she was attentive enough, her father might allow her sweets before dinner.



"I spend a lot of time in this laboratory. Do you know why?"

"Mommy says it's 'cause you're working."

"That's absolutely correct. I'm working. But why do I work? Why does anything work? We work to promote and preserve life. There is no greater, lesser or other service than this."



"Daddy, what's service?"

"Service is something that we do for the sake of something else outside of ourselves. If a creature does not serve then it may as well not have existed at all."