A Glass of Wine by the Fire

The Last Human in the Milky Way — Chapter 26

One day it dawned on him that great changes had taken place in the neighbourhood and in the wider world. He decided to try to find out what had happened, packed equipment into his car and started driving.

Somewhere along the way, he sees a woman standing on the side of the road, and he stops next to her. They are two strangers who set out on a journey together to find out where the world is headed, a world where great changes have taken place that they are only guessing the consequences of.

26

“Did you have children with him?” he asked.

She did not answer. She seemed a little distant, was a little absent in a way. He hesitated. Did she sit and think of something? — Should he ask the question again?

“You,” he said, “do you want a little more?”

He took the bottle of wine and held it up to her. She lifted her glass towards him, and he emptied another half glass and took the rest for himself.

“Pretty good, that wine,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “Yeah. Good, that one.”

The answer seemed a bit in the middle of the tree.

“Are you such a wine connoisseur, you, perhaps?” he asked.

She shook her head, smiled pale.

“No — I’m not, no.”

They sat silent for a while while the flames cast shadows that played over their faces.

She sipped her wine glass, tasted.

He did the same after her, rolling back with his tongue so the wine came back in his palate.

“He must have thought he was,” she said abruptly.

“What?” he asked.

“He saw himself as a little superior to others.”

“Who?”

“No — he. The one I talked about a while ago.”

“Yes?”

“He kind of stood above everyone else. At least high above me.”

“He wanted to decide?”

“Yes, that too.”

She tasted, holding the wine glass up in front of her, up against the flames.

“He liked it — to serve an expensive wine, and then he said a lot of things about the wine — that it was so and so, a clearly rich bouquet, or he said that it was powerful, that it had a characteristic, long aftertaste, and such things.”

“Oh yes.” He nodded.

“So, he must have thought — no, he saw himself as a wine connoisseur,” she said. “He liked to present himself as that. One who knew things, one who knew things better than the rest of us.”

“Understand,” he said.

“He saw himself as one who stood above the rest of us.”

It was quiet. The crackle from the fire when the flames caught in new, dry wood, brittle twigs. They sat silent for a while. Each of them far away, deep down in their own things.

“Yes, yes,” he said, “that was the time before everything began to fall apart. The time when it was possible to get really good wines.”

He got up and walked over to the edge, where there was a clear view over the great plain. He suddenly felt a little restless, had to move a little.

He walked a little way along the edge to see if there was any light to be seen down there on the plain. He looked for light, especially light that moved.

Earlier in the day, a car had come up, a camper that had snailed up through the hairpin bends. Luckily it had stopped a few hundred meters further down, so they could have this place in peace, she and he.

When he came back and sat down by the fire again, there was almost only embers in the fire. He leaned forward and blew, trying to get it to grasp again.

“The one you’re talking about,” he asked, “was it one — was he the one you were married to? The one with the wine?”

She nodded.

“Yes,” she said, almost silently. “Yes, that was the way it was. I was married to him for many years.”

“Children with him too?”

She did not answer. He saw how she disappeared inward into herself. It was something — he struggled to get what it was. Something she did not want to go deeper into right now.

“Do you have more wine?” she asked.

“No,” he said, “sorry, I have no more of that.”

“It’s going well, that,” she said. “It goes well.”

“I’ve never had a wine cellar — I’m not like that — I’m not such a cultured person, you have to believe.”

This is chapter 26 of the novel The Last Human in the Milky Way. The novel is written and published ‘live’ chapter by chapter in ILLUMINATION Book Chapters.

The author welcomes input, questions and comments from readers. You can provide such feedback in the comments section below or by writing to [email protected].

To see all published chapters, go here.

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Chapter 27: A Large Floating Ice Floe