ALL NOVEL 31. Tasks
“Ah!” Aloe jolted out of her resting spot as something rubbed her chest. “What’s going... Oh, it’s just you, Fikali.”
“Hwo.” The sand dweller pledged guilty.
“Can you not scare like that whilst I’m sle-resting?” The human dusted her clothes off. There wasn’t much sand on the oasis, but there was dirt. And most than not, it was worse for cloth.
“Wuoo.” Fikali added.
“You know I can’t understand you, right?” Aloe straightened her hair as her head had become rather moist and clumped up together because of the heat.
The dweller responded by showing her an expression between a deadpan and a frown. Quite a masterful work for a monster. Then she pointed at her lead.
“Oh...” She muttered in realization. “Hmm...”
Should I allow her to roam free? Aloe pondered in the closeness of her mind. Fikali had shown an uncanny ability to understand human speech, so rambling around her didn’t feel like the best idea. What’s the chance she’s going to run away? She has food and water here, and she’s old... I’ll... I’ll try.
“Alright, I guess you need a breather.” Then she untied the lead from the date tree.
“Hroooo!” Fikali jumped excitedly and rushed for the dunes.
“Wait!” The dweller did not wait, prompting Aloe to follow her close behind. Fikali stopped once the ground was exchanged from dirt to sand and then started to roll around on the sand. “Oh thank the heavens, you just wanted to... I don’t know what you are doing. Are you playing? Is this how dwellers play?”
“Ruooooo!” Aloe didn’t catch the meaning of that grunt.
“Well, at least it looks like you are happy...”
Aloe stepped back into the shade of the trees at the oasis, but she kept an eye on the dweller. Rolling in the sand wasn’t enough for her, she dived inside and outside of the dunes as if they were measly water.
“Oh.” She added in genuine surprise. “I knew that dwellers did that but seeing it in person it’s... uncanny.”
With a sigh, Aloe sat in the shade of a random tree to think about her action plan. There were a lot of things she had to do, her only saving grace being that it still wasn’t noon. Besides bathing, which she wanted to leave for last, she had to irrigate all the plants, clean the greenhouse, clean the latrine, boil water, and began to infuse all plants. Though the latter would definitely be a multiple-day task.
“Am I forgetting something?” She toyed with her fingers as she observed Fikali dwelling around and soon after groaned loudly. “The pistachios, augh! I forgot to plant them!” Her suffering and stupidity were followed by a sigh. “Alright, let’s boil some water and plant the pistachios.”
Whilst the cauldron in the hearth was still occupied by the not-really-a-stew, Aloe hadn’t forgotten to bring the boiling kit with her. And unlike the cauldron in the hearth, this one was thinner and smaller, allowing for faster boiling and easier handling.
She carried the kit to the shore of the oasis, downed the cauldron in the oasis, and started the fire with a lighter. A straightforward process but she well knew she was going to forget to recover the water later.
Of course, she hadn’t forgotten to bring the pistachio bag with her, though to plant them she would need the hoe, watering can, and gloves that she had left in the greenhouse.
Searching for a suitable, unoccupied spot had become impossible. If there was a fertile place, something had already grown on top. Considering that pistachios were dry fruits, simple logic told her that they didn’t need much water, so she opted to leave them on the outside perimeter of the oasis.
“Pistachios grow in bushes, right?” She handled the nuts with doubt. “I don’t remember...”
After removing the Cure Grass bed by upheaving the hoe and pulling the gloves, Aloe cracked the nuts open and seeded them a few steps apart from each other. More than she needed for little plants, but she didn’t remember if pistachios were little plants. The dweller seemed to have smelled her favorite food because she made her appearance once Aloe started diving the nuts into the soil.
“Don’t you dare, Fikali.” Aloe threatened the monster. “Those pistachios are going to grow more pistachios, if you eat them now, you won’t have more pistachios.”
The dweller didn’t bother to respond, but she approached the mound where the first pistachio Aloe had planted was, her snout close to the dirt.
“I said no!” Aloe jumped out of her crouched position. Fikali, gruntlessly, continued smelling the dirt. “Bad dweller, bad!” And she splashed the dweller’s nose with water from the can.
“Wroooooooo!” Fikali run away and started rolling on the sand as if Aloe had exorcised demons out of her, or rather, just put new ones inside.
“Ehm...” She was at a loss for words. “Well, that will teach her to not get close to the seeds. Now I feel a bit bad...”
And with that, Aloe continued burrowing the pistachios on the ground. There were a lot of them, and she didn’t know how big they would grow. She vaguely remembered that pistachios came from bushes, but that’s it.
After half an hour of plowing, seeding, and watering, the pistachios were finally planted. Aloe removed her gloves and wiped the sweat out of her forehead with the back of her hand.
“The water, I can’t forget about that.” She rushed to the steaming cauldron to find boiling water and no losses from evaporation. “Nice, if I only was this punctual every other time.”
Aloe brought the amphora from the kitchenette to the oasis, not before having two glasses of water and emptying the amphora, and after that poured the hot water inside. Then refilled the cauldron by diving it again into the oasis.
“Three rounds will do.” She doubted she was going to drink more than that in a day, but it made sense to build a stockpile.
After stretching her arms and enjoying a bit of the sunlight, Aloe went back to business.
“I’m not done with you guys.” She crouched down to the mounds of dirt now populated by pistachios. “I haven’t recovered yet from using my vitality on the banana seeds, should I be using it on the pistachios?”
And the answer was surprisingly no.
“The pill idea was good, better than chewing grass for sure. Is there a way to make it work though? I need something sticky and edible to keep the powder bunched up...” A golden flash of genius struck her. “I got an idea!”
She was quite embarrassed to not even remember the idea she had just had yesterday, instead, she made it pass for a new one.
Two days of ventilation had made the greenhouse breathable; the air was a bit heavy and musty still, but she could now work inside without a mask. Though before rushing inside, Aloe grabbed a bowl from the kitchenette.
The glass panels were still absolutely dusty, they needed a thorough job more than just bashing the broom on them, but light entered and left the greenhouse and that was what mattered here.
Karaim had a pair of colossal pruning scissors, or they seemed colossal to Aloe’s small constitution. She almost needed to use a full hand for every handle. She had picked them up for a reason.
Carefully, Aloe knelt down on desert-like, cacti-filled parterre. Also known as the one which didn’t reek of death. Today she wasn’t interested in the Aloe Veritas, which had already regrown the leaf she had cut off after more than a week, or the other common cacti. No, she had come for the normal aloe vera.
Whilst not particularly beautiful, the aloe vera plant did have a striking green color, and no one could deny its multiple uses. Normally medicinal, sometimes culinary, but those weren’t the ones Aloe was thinking of now. Her idea was more primitive than that.
Setting the bowl below a leaf, Aloe cut down the aloe vera.
Aloe groaned as she felt the irony of the situation and went back to her job.
Sap began pouring out of the leaf like a serious hemorrhage, and in a way, it was true. From the aloe vera’s perspective, it was bleeding out. Ignoring this case of etymological fratricide, Aloe snapped the leaf clean out of the main plant and started squeezing it.
A normal pot-sized aloe vera wouldn’t have much sap inside, but the ones inside the greenhouse easily reached a meter of height, a stray leaf or two equaled Aloe in size.
The cut quickly drained out of sap, filling half of the bowl, but she knew there was more inside. Pressing the leaf against her body showed her that there was more liquid inside.
“Hmm, this won’t be enough,” Aloe said as she picked up the almost full bowl. “I think I’ll take the leaf to the house, somehow.”
The aloe veras (Verai? Verases? Plainly vera?) were far bigger than the Aloe Veritas, and whilst the latter plant may be hand-sized, the former were arm-sized.
With both hands occupied by the bowl and the leaf, Aloe opened the door with a light kick. She left the sap bowl on the desk and the leaf laying on the wall, with the cut section facing the ceiling.
As much as she wanted to get down to business, her bodily functions cried her out. Namely, her stomach and kidneys.
“Ugh, I should have left the stew heating beforehand.” With a groan, Aloe lit up the hearth to reheat from yesterday and then went to the latrine.
She needed full focus for what was to come.
