Steve was uncertain as to what he should make of the shift in circumstance. He was no longer clean, which was something of a bummer. The food was no longer edible, from a civilized perspective, but at least he’d done most of what he was going to do on that front. The schnauzer was now inside and demonstrably cleaner than it had been, method notwithstanding. All of that was fine, more or less, and Steve felt decently about his ability to cope with it over a long enough timeline. The thing that concerned him most- the part he was having real trouble wrapping his brain around and which had driven him to his little existential pre-flight checklist- was the presence of The Hermit, looming immediately behind the happy schnauzer, gun in hand and serious expression on a face Steve assumed had been surgically frozen in said. That was the alarming section of the program, and for a moment Steve considered raising an objection before dismissing the idea as more or less pointless. The Hermit would do what The Hermit would do, and then they would react.
“The fuck you think you’re doin’, coming in here like that,” Sheila shouted, mud sliding through her hair and down onto the floor. She shook it and Steve would have sworn, in another life and in another setting, that she did so in a way that surreptitiously caused mud to flick back at The Hermit.
“They’re coming.”
“So you knock on the fuckin’ door,” Sheila said, wiping her hands across her cheeks to collect the flecks of mud, which she definitely flung in The Hermit’s direction.
“It’s an emergency.”
“And now we’re standing here arguing about entry policies,” she replied. “Instead of-“ she looked at his hand- “Whatever the fuck it is you’re wanting us to do.”
“I was-“
“No. Out. Go out the way you came and come knock on the door.” The Hermit looked at Steve, who shrugged. He looked back at Sheila, who sat back down and picked up her fork.
“Hey,” Steve said, “that’s-“
“Shut it. Sit down. Out!” The Hermit, stunned, turned and walked back out the way he’d come. The schnauzer sat, happily lolling its tongue and looking back and forth at Sheila and Steve. It panted a little, bright eyes merry and expectant. “You get the fuck out too,” Sheila said, making direct eye contact and holding it. The schnauzer, after a progression of reactions in which its tongue rolled in, its mouth closed, and its eyes became less merry and then sad, followed The Hermit. Sheila pointed at Steve, then pointed at the chair, furiously stabbing the air. He sat. She picked a gob of mud from her hair and stared at the wall behind him, fuming but silent.
After about thirty seconds, a quiet knock reverberated through the house. Steve began to stand, but Sheila put up a warning finger- still not looking at him but firing daggers off into unknown space. He wanted no particular part of those and relaxed back into the seat of the chair. They waited, still in silence, and Steve was beginning to wonder if The Hermit had gone home when a single, angry knock boomed through the house and rattled the window above the sink. Sheila nodded once, stood, and walked out of sight. Steve heard the back door open.
“Rob,” he heard her say in a cheery voice. “How are you?! Come in, come in! What a pleasant surprise. We were actually just finishing dinner.”
Steve looked up. The Hermit and Sheila rounded the corner, the schnauzer padding slowly behind them and watching Sheila out of the corner of its eye. The Hermit looked like someone had slapped him with a particularly wet fish. Steve, fighting back a smirk, stood and offered his hand. The Hermit didn’t take it, and Steve recalled something about a pandemic in Victorian London that had wiped out some boxing club and so The Hermit didn’t shake hands and he nodded and sat back down, indicating a chair.
“Grab a seat,” Steve said. The Hermit did not. Sheila returned to her chair. The schnauzer sat, its tongue lolling again and relaxation retaking its body as it looked from Steve to The Hermit to Sheila to the mud-covered food on the table to Steve to the mud-covered food on the table to Steve to the-
“They’re coming.” Sheila nodded.
“All right.” The Hermit stared at her.
“We have to go.” Sheila blinked.
“Who is they?” The Hermit narrowed his eyes and took a step toward the table. The schnauzer slurped its tongue back up. Steve gulped. Sheila, nonplussed, took a napkin and wiped mud from her forehead. Checking the napkin and finding its payload unsatisfactory, she dipped it in her water glass and tried again. This time it seemed to pass inspection and she set it back down on the table. “Just, y’know. For actuarial purposes.”
Consider the situation. We think this line of questioning is reasonable yet pedantic, and the following question arises: at what level is the appropriate ratio reached? Surely there are some situations wherein no extraneous knowledge is necessary, and just as surely there are situations in which the context is so obscure as to be laughable. Here we lean, to The Hermit’s credit, towards the idea that there have been very few recent potential ‘they’s from which to have selected. It seems obvious to us. And yet, as we have seen: Sheila.
We, not being Sheila, do not have the most complete record of her considerations. It is important, therefore, to consider the question of imperfect information from the standpoint of an outsider. Truth be told, if there is even more than one ‘they’ we must consider, in an infinite universe, an infinite number of ‘they’s. Many- most- would require no reaction whatsoever from Sheila and would, at least plausibly, draw the maximum reaction from The Hermit. So in a vacuum, considered from a high enough level, a sincere question regarding the identity of ‘they’ is a fair one.
But really, we think Sheila is being a little bit ridiculous here and it’s probably justified on the grounds that The Hermit had very recently- seconds ago, in fact- broken into her house. We think that in obstruction terms, when used as a punitive reaction, Sheila’s questions are valid and we’d also argue that in time of danger the boundaries established by such things as walls and doors are more important to honor as a social convention, not less. If 2 percent of the population is dangerous, and 98 percent really isn’t, then the door seems to us to be onanistic on certain levels. Nice, honorable, and certainly a message, but not really a dealbreaker. With a flipped ratio it’s a wonder The Hermit hadn’t actually been stabbed even after Sheila recognized him, simply by virtue of having her blood up in a dangerous world. Normal is as normal is required to be.
The Hermit stared at Sheila, intent heavy in his dark eyes. Steve, mirroring the schnauzer, flicked from one to the other in a constant cycle that threatened to make him dizzy. He caught himself wondering how the schnauzer managed it, and whether or not dogs got dizzy. That would explain a lot. It would explain a lot for cats too. He stopped himself and tried to stare at one spot, in between the two, until one of them made a move worth observing. The standoff was driving him insane and his shoulder was starting to ache a little bit. He rolled it, which was a mistake, and fire shot through his body as the skin and nerves made each other’s acquaintance in a new way. Finally, The Hermit grunted, licked his lips, and turned to leave. Steve looked up. Sheila stood.
“Rob.” He stopped, and cocked his head. “The radio people?” The Hermit nodded. “Fuck.” The Hermit nodded. “What do we do?” The Hermit turned, facing the two of them and commanding a look even from the schnauzer, who had until then been mostly content to ricochet between accidental eye contact with Steve and being ignored by Sheila.
Steve noted with vague satisfaction that now, finally, Sheila seemed to match the levels of concern he felt and which seemed to be painted all over The Hermit’s otherwise and intentionally expressionless face. He wasn’t fucking around and Sheila- who must have known it all along based if nothing else on the simple fact that The Hermit was there, in their house, rather than at his own, staring off across the ocean and trying to fix some trash from the old days while fighting the voices in his head- seemed finally to have allowed herself acknowledgement of it. It was very Abnormal Sheila, and in the deepest sections of his brain it gave him confidence that they might survive because of it. The Hermit turned away.
“We run,” he said, and headed for the door.
