From Part II

[Part I here]

Within 20 minutes he’d reached his son’s bungalow. His daughter-in-law greeted him. She was much taller than he was, she bent down to kiss him on the forehead, welcomed him home and led him to where his grandchildren were eagerly waiting for him. Outside, the ion shutters silently descended to cover the windows from ceiling to floor; inside heavy crushed velvet curtains swooshed together, the room illuminated by subtle uplighting. On the sidewalk outside, a siren sounded a brief alert to anyone still outdoors. Halbmann’s son popped in to bid goodnight to his father and children, and together with his wife, they departed to the transporter lounge. They’d be back by the morning.

As usual when left alone with their grandfather, the two boys wanted to view his old things. His ‘holies of holies’, artifacts from long, long ago. He had them several of them along with him in his rucksack. They were normally kept in a small hardwood trunk kept in the attic of his house; he'd always bring some of his objects along when he came to visit his grandsons who were fascinated by them. 

He opened his rucksack, and reverently pulled out from it various objects one by one. That night, he wanted to show them a silver metal cigarette lighter that he'd always had. It had been in his family for generations. In front of the boys, he felt uncomfortable with the notion of ‘cigarette’, he didn't quite know for certain what it was, but felt vaguely that it was a bad thing and it didn’t feel comfortable to try to explain this notion to his grandchildren, so he just called the object a ‘lighter’. Halbmann didn’t want to demonstrate it that evening, but promised at that some undefined time in the future, he would indeed make a small fire come out of it as his thumb rotated a small knurled wheel on the side.

The other artifact that fascinated the children was a 35mm camera. Again, in the family for longer than he could trace back. Four, five generations? Also made of metal but painted black, with dials on top and a large glass lens in front surrounded by numbers, it would make a clicking sound when you pressed a button after pulling a lever across, a mirror would flip up, which you could see if you took the lens off. Halbmann wasn’t quite sure how it worked but told the boys that it was used for ‘taking pictures’ a long time ago. Neither could he say exactly when it was made, before his own grandfather was even born, maybe before that even; and indeed very far away. The boys, not allowed to touch, gazed in prolonged wonder at these two metallic objects.

His lack of definite answers to the boys’ incessant and well-aimed questions made him think: “I’m just an old fraud. I’m only a mere two generations nearer than they are to where we are all ‘from’.”

‘From’. That tiny point of light briefly visible in the summer sky between sundown and sun-up, for those who know where to look.

Halbmann knew he had only a few dozen years to live. Then he’d die, once again to be reborn. Halbmann’s soul felt the joyous weight of the journey. 

This time last year:
A month until Lent starts

This time two years ago:
World's largest airliners over Poland

This time three years ago:
More pre-Lenten thoughts