Nana Emma by Dennis Kohler

Nana Emma by Dennis Kohler

Nana Emma’s house was empty.

It was less than it had been.

It was, now, without her vibrant spirit.

She had been gone less than three weeks when the Commission on Public Good asked what was left of her family to clean out the contents.  They said a new apartment building, one that better utilized the space, would be erected in its place.

Two of Nana Emma’s three children had left Earth in the Second Diaspora, so the duty fell on the children of the oldest and least loved of her children, Zeke. Zeke had always believed that he knew more than her.  He believed in a unified human future. To Zeke, Nana Emma was part of the problem.

While she was alive, Emma had often commented on the fact that she had raised Zeke wrong. She said she was too young at 40 to have a child, which had a lot to do with it. She said the fact that his father was off exploring the universe might have contributed something as well.

She also said that the day Zeke came home and informed her of his intentions to run for political office had been one of the biggest blows a mother ever had to face. When it turned out he decided to build his career as a Grazer, it was too much. Nana Emma’s oldest boy was a Green Socialist. He was a man who would have connections. He was the future, and the future didn’t have room for a woman growing away from the world. She reminded herself that she would have to watch her tongue very carefully when he came to visit.

Nana Emma had never been particularly good at minding her tongue. Eventually her open disagreement with his political beliefs reduced both the frequency and duration of his visits. By the time Nana Emma turned 100, he had decided a card on May Day and her birthday would be their only contact.

In the end, it was a deal that suited them both fine. He had his place and his influence, and she had her posies.

There was some irony in the fact that 20 years later, the duty to clear out Nana Emma’s house fell on Zeke’s two children. They had grown into a man and a woman now old enough to start the application to have families of their own.

& & &

“I can’t believe a person would want to live like this, Ernie” the woman said to her older brother.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, look at the fixtures in this place. I didn’t think that people still used flammable gas to cook. It’s barbaric if you ask me. Didn’t she know the risks she was taking?”

“She was 120 years old. You couldn’t expect her to conform to the changing world completely,” Ernie said.

“No, but I would expect her to have some concept of progress, look at the size of, what is this? A microwave. I couldn’t cook a meal in it if I tried. She doesn’t even have a thermal induction cooker. I couldn’t make it without my TIC.”

“When was the last time you ate anything that didn’t come out of a community processor, Jenny?”

“I get your point, but come on Ernie, would you want to live like this?”

Ernie felt a bumping at his feet and walked over and poured some of the cat food that Nana Emma kept above the cooler into a bowl.

“Did you call dad about the pet license transfer?” he asked.

“I haven’t yet, you know he is still in The Eastern Prosperity Sphere. Besides, what makes you think he’s going to be receptive to helping?”

“Do you honestly think that Dad is going to let Fluffy here buy the farm?”

Jenny thought about it for a moment. “Yes. In a single word, yes, if the quotas for ownership transfers are used up, he will. If we know anything about our father, it is his undying need for equal outcomes in all things.”

“All things but influence,” Ernie said.

Jenny looked around even though she knew there were no microphones in a building this old.

& & &

They spent most of the morning organizing Nanna Emma’s possessions into two piles. One pile contained items of sentimental value that would be put in boxes until the two of them could make contact with their aunts. The second pile was what would be recycled or donated to the Committee on Public Decency’s collection center.

As each pile filled a box, they sealed it with tape and wrote a summary of the contents on the outside.

The ratio was four for donation to one for storage.

“I think I can manage a cup of tea,” Ernie shouted into the living room.

“Just don’t burn yourself.”

“I remember from the holos how to do it, I think.”

He twisted the front knob on the cooker and felt relief combine with joy as the flame sprang to life.

He filled Nana Emma’s tea pot and watched very closely as it came to a boil.

The shrill sound of the whistle brought Jenny into the room.

Ernie took two tea bags with no labels from a tin next to the cooker and placed one each in two cups.

They waited as the tea seeped then cautiously put the cups to their lips.

“Oh.” Jenny said with surprise. “This is good.”

Ernie agreed. “What it needs is some sweetener.”

Jenny nodded and opened the door to the cupboard. She could not see the standard white box with the baby blue cross in front, but it was no surprise to her. Nothing in Nanna Emma’s house was normal.

She took down a porcelain fish shaped container.  The word sugar was painted in light blue across its front.

“Quaint of her to keep her pellets in an old container like this,” she said. It made sense to her why Nanna Emma would want to keep some reminders of her youth around, especially if they were as beautiful as the fish.

She opened the lid and gasped. “Ernesto,” she pushed the bowl under his nose. “Is this what I think it is?”

He reached across and took a pinch of the substance.

“Be careful. If anyone finds out…”

“I just had my test, I am not due for another for three weeks.”

He put his fingers to his tongue. A slow smile came across his face.

“It is Jenny. This is real sugar.”

Her hands started to shake. Fearing a disaster, he took the bowl from her.

He took a heaping spoonful with the small engraved spoon and dumped it into his cup.

He walked into the dining room and sat down.

Jenny looked at the bowl and calculated. She took a guess at both how long it would take the contraband to clear her system and how long she knew it would take the bureaucracy to give her a not so random test. Once her own mathematics were finished, she reproduced his actions then joined him.

Jenny was the first to speak.

“Can you feel that?” she said, looking down into her half empty cup.

“If you mean a sense of excitement, then yes.”

“Do you think it’s the sugar?”

“I think that’s part of it.”

“You should know, you’re a doctor.”

“I do know, and I have a suspicion, but I don’t know if you want to hear it.”

“What?”

“I think this is real tea.”

“Of course it is real, I can see the leaves through the bag.”

“Not real grown, real unprocessed.”

“You mean with all the drugs still in it?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t be. Caffeine has been on the restricted substance list longer than sugar.”

“And yet, there’s the sugar.”

She looked at her cup with a new-found distrust, but when Ernie brought his cup up to his lips, she followed suit. It tasted too good to leave unfinished.

“How long do you think before I start losing my teeth or going insane?” Jenny asked.

“The reports you read these days are highly exaggerated.”

Ernie stood up and walked back to the kitchen.

One by one he took each of Nanna Emma’s containers out of the cabinets. Once on the counter top, he started his investigation.

Jenny joined him, but was afraid to touch anything.

By the time he was finished, he had counted at least a half dozen questionable substances.

“If the Ministry for Health Choice had ever got wind of this,” Jenny said, “Nanna Emma would have been in for some serious jail time.”

“I think for the sugar alone,” Ernesto said.

He turned and walked back into the side pantry. There was a substantial quantity of food present, but nothing that seemed illegal.

That was until he saw Fluffy scratching at one of the cabinets.

In the light dust of flour on the floor that had fallen as Nanna Emma had succumbed to her heart attack he could see a very faint arc. Nanna was dead before she found the time to clean it up.

The cabinet where Fluffy scratched had a hidden secret.

Once Ernesto discovered the secret, it was a simple matter to learn how to access it.

In a slight recess just below waist level there was an actuator made of hand sawed wood. When he pressed it, the cabinet popped out.

The light from the room illuminated a second cleverly hidden cabinet behind the first.

Even Ernesto, hardened from his time in the Health Services Emergency Division, gasped at what he saw.

There was a horde of illegal substances large enough to make an MHS officer’s entire career.

Ernesto, however, was not most concerned with the food, but with a different item that was there at eye level. If either of them had been caught with it, they would both be looking at a very long stretch in a labor camp.

He reached out and picked up the object.

It was a well-worn book that had a pattern of red and white checks.  Its cover looked like the cloth that Nanna Emma used to cover her table.

Ernesto slowly leafed through the book and looked at the pages. He could feel his mouth watering. Then, in a slow spiral, a single index card floated to the ground. He carefully dusted it off before reading what Nanna Emma had written.

As Ernesto composed himself, Fluffy stood up on her hind legs and knocked a small container off the lowest shelf.

Ernie read Nanna Emma’s handwritten label, Kitty Treats.

He opened it and the smell of meat filled the cramped space.

He tipped one of the morsels out and offered it to Fluffy who began to purr and chew.

“What is it?” Jenny asked from the kitchen.

As her brother entered the room, she could not take her eyes off the book.

She walked to the old-fashioned, voice only, telephone that hung on Nanna Emma’s wall.

“I’ve seen enough,” she said, “I am going to report this at once.”

“And how are you going to explain what they find when you get the mandatory business with government blood test?” Ernesto said.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” she said and slumped into one of the chairs.

“I have an idea,” Ernesto said.

Jenny felt her entire body flush when she interpreted his intention.

Ernie went back to the cupboard with book in hand and slowly pulled items from the shelves.

He returned with laden arms back to the kitchen and took a single large crockery bowl from the shelf.

“What are you doing!” Jenny yelled.

“Quiet Jen,” he said “Just go back to packing.”

“I’ll do no such thing!” she said then walked for the door.

Halfway there she realized that she had come with Ernie. Because of his work, he was entitled to personal transportation. If she wanted to get back home without his assistance, she was going to have to take the train. The train meant a mandatory business with government which would mean a red flag for caffeine.

She turned around and walked back to the kitchen.

“Ernie, please don’t do this.”

She remembered the indoctrination slides from the first party meetings in the public school.  Her blood ran cold, and she tried to avert her gaze.

& & &

“I almost didn’t find everything, but I found a false bottom container in the cooler that had real butter. When was the last time you saw real butter?”

“You mean not in the arrest holos? Never.”

She heard him open the front of the oven.

“Is there gas inside that thing?” she asked.

“There is gas in a line leading up to that thing, but it is combusted and never comes into contact with the food. It will be about 15 minutes now.”

“I still think it is barbaric,” she said. “What will be about 15 minutes?”

“You’ll find out.”

In less than a third of the time she began to smell something she had never smelled before.

Ernie closed all the windows.

“You can never be too safe,” he said.

“You can never be too safe,” she echoed without thinking.

They packed several more boxes until a buzzer, an offense to the peace, sounded from the kitchen.

Jenny jumped.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Pavlov’s bell if you ask me.”

That was a name she recognized.

“You might want to wait a bit before you eat one,” he said and placed a dish down in front of her.

“I’ll do no such thing,” she said, but when he put a round shaped object to his mouth, her curiosity won.

She mimicked his cooling breaths before placing the object into her mouth and experienced not the burn of his warning, but a feeling of euphoria.

“What are they?” she asked.

“Nanna Emma’s Favorite Cookies is what it said on the card.”

A single tear ran down her face.

“What has become of us?” she asked.

Even if he knew the answer, he found it difficult to talk with his mouth full.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Dennis Kohler 2024