"Meester Air-reek!"
Eric looked up from the trench that he was digging inch by shallow inch in the hard ground. The sun was blazing down and rivers of sweat were running down his arms and back. It was a slow progress but he was happy with the amount of work that he had already accomplished in two hours. At this rate, he'll have the low wall he was building up in no time.
He took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow, then turned around to see a skinny boy running energetically towards him and calling his name.
"Meester Air-reek! Sir! Teh-le-phone!" The boy pulled up next to him with a wide smile, panting slightly, teeth flashing white against the ebony of his skin.
"Eeet's dat lah-dee, agin."
A grin broke across his sun-bronzed face. "Yeah? Recognized her voice huh, Masego?" Eric stood up, wiping his dirty hands on a tattered rag next to him. He shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked towards the concrete dwelling in the village that served as his office and housed his telecommunication equipment. "Better not keep her waiting then."
He put on the shirt that he had discarded nearby earlier and walked the short distance towards the outhouse. Entering the small space, he crossed the small room and picked up the hand set. "Jackie?"
"Eric! Oh my God, you won't believe what happened!"
A few thousand miles away, with the phone cord wrapped around her finger, Jackie heard Eric's deep chuckle resonate down the line. Deep? She wondered a little at the thought and realized that she hadn't heard him get all high-pitched and squeaky in quite a while actually.
"Tell me."
She squealed. "I did what you said, and I got accepted in UW's Communications program! I got in late, so I'll be starting in spring. But isn't it great?!"
"Hey that's great! I'm really happy for you. How're you gonna work it out?" Eric reached for the empty crate he stashed nearby and made himself comfortable against the rough wall.
"I'm gonna use Grandma Eleanor's money. It will go to pay for the first year of school at least. And after that, well, we'll see." She sighed. "I'm sure I'll figure something out... I always do," she said uncertainly and then was silent for a beat. "Oh whatever." Another beat. And the eternal optimist that was Jackie Burkhart refused to dwell on the prospect of an uncertain future. "UW, Eric!" she squealed again excitedly.
If someone had told Eric Forman a year ago that he would be sitting in an outhouse somewhere in the vast land of Africa grinning like a happy fool just because Jackie Burkhart was giddy with excitement at an accomplishment in her life, he would have burst an appendix from laughing. But here he was, atop the old crate he dug up from somewhere, just for the sole purpose of sitting on to talk to Jackie, who was at that moment, thousands of miles away.
Her voice floating through the handset washed over him and he closed his eyes. The sound of her voice in his ears was therapeutic, and he craved the proximity that it offered for it helped lift the black cloud that had filled him since that fateful night in Ethiopia.
She told him about the latest happenings back in Point Place. She hesitantly mentioned that Donna and Randy were still seeing each other, gave him little tidbits on Fez's latest candy obsession. And how Kelso came down with Brooke and Betsy for a visit last weekend.
She didn't mention Hyde and Sam and he didn't ask. He knew that she would talk to him about it if she needed to. For now, he was just glad that Hyde hadn't done anything to seriously cause her any further pain. He knew she still loved Hyde of course. But that didn't stop Eric one whit from feeling whatever it was that he felt for her. And it didn't matter anyway. He was here and she was there and eight thousand miles lay between them.
"How did everyone take the news?" he asked her, bringing her attention back to the subject.
"Well, actually, I haven't really said anything to anyone yet. It's the happiest I've been for a while, and you know, I don't quite want to share it with anyone just yet."
"You're sharing it with me," he teased.
"Yeah, but Eric, you're not just anybody. You're… special. And besides I wanted you to know first."
His heart warmed at her words. And a little bit of the ice in his soul melted. "You're special too, Jackie." He paused a moment, and continued more quietly, "To me."
She was quiet too, as she took in his words. Her voice was soft as she answered, "Who would've thought, huh? Us being special friends and all." She let out a musical laugh. "Nerd Boy and the Devil, friends." She expected another low chuckle from him and was puzzled when he was quiet for a while. "Eric? You there?"
"Yeah Jackie, I'm here."
She blew out a breath. "It's so great you know. After everything that's happened. I mean, I'm thankful for the job at the salon with Fez and all, but it really ate away at my self-esteem." A bitter chuckle. "You know, Steven just told me the other day that's pretty much all I'm good for. Being a hair sweeper," she choked a little and Eric could hear the tears in her voice.
"Jackie…," he said softly. "Hey, you know what. Life's dealt you a bad hand so far okay, and I'm proud that you haven't bent an inch." He stared at the ground below him for a moment, and pictured her in his mind. He chose his words carefully, "It's so much harder for a princess who's always lived in a castle to lose it all and rough it out in a village then, say, a village boy to gain a newly discovered daddy Midas complete with his very own record store." He smiled when he heard her laugh in the midst of her sniffles. "You know what I mean?"
"Yeah… I suppose I do."
"I think you're incredible. With everything that has happened, anyone would have thrown up their hands and given up. Yet, here you are. Giving life the finger. And off to UW in spring."
She burst out laughing. 'Yeah… Giving life the finger huh. Nope no, I'd give the hair sweeping job the finger, but… no… not life in itself. Life hasn't always been this bad. I mean, come on, I'm Jackie Burkhart, that's the biggest gift life could have given anyone and I'm it."
Eric laughed, and the sound of it warmed her insides.
"Yep. Looks like you're gonna have the last laugh."
"Looks that way doesn't it." She giggled. "Hey, Eric?"
"Yeah, Jackie?"
"Thanks," she said softly. "I don't know what I would have done without you. You've been a really, really good friend."
He was quiet for a while again at her use of the word. "Yeah, don't worry about it Jackie. I'm-"
"Yeah I know," she interrupted, and he could feel her smile on the other end of the line. "Here for me, right?"
They spoke for a few more minutes before she hung up.
Then he murmured, "Yeah, Jackie. Always."
"Jambo, Morathi," Eric greeted the old man. He gestured to the elaborately carved table that Morathi was working on. "How's it coming along?"
"Ah, eet is coming along well, Meester Air-reek. Dis Oak ees mag-nificent indeed. Ah thank you for eet. Mah grand-daughter will be vera happy to receive eet at her wed-ding." His eyes crinkled. "Not whittling today, eh?"
Eric shook his head no and made himself comfortable on one of the short stools across from Morathi. His gaze flowed over the intricate scene Morathi was sculpting into the oak that Eric had procured for him.
"It's beautiful," he said softly. "This is very fine work."
The old man let out a scratchy laugh, a result of years of pipe-smoking. "Not as fine as eet used ta be." He held up gnarled and arthritic hands. "These hands be old. Dey don't w-erk as well as dey used tah." He flashed Eric a cheeky grin and added, "But dey do what dey can."
Eric ran his hand along the complex pattern of seemingly unrelated images in the wood. "What're you doing here, Morathi?"
The old man reached into his pocket for a smoke. He came up with rolling paper and small tin box filled with tobacco. Eric watched as he rolled the cigarette and licked the edges to stick them together. He offered it to Eric as always, and Eric took it while he rolled another stick for himself. The sound of a match catching fire, and then a cloud of smoke as Eric took a deep pull and exhaled.
"Dis," Morathi said, as he waved his hand over the half-completed table, "ees mah
life. Ah carve mah stories into da wood, so mah grand-daughter can still hear me when I'm no long-er around." He pulled deep on the cigarette and blew a smoke circle in the air. "Ah've lee-ved a long life. A hard life. And ah seen many things. Eet be a shame not to live some of eet behind."
Eric took another drag and felt the smoke burn its way down. The stuff that the Africans smoked was strong. Unfiltered and rough, just like the land they lived in. He exhaled and thought about the events that led him to start the habit in the first place; troubling thoughts that had no business in this man's house.
Eric had gotten close to Morathi over the course of the past few weeks. He liked the old man immensely, and appreciated his wit and wisdom. Morathi had few friends, having outlived most of them even though he was only in his sixties. Life expectancy in the rural villages was low, and they had learnt to appreciate their time on earth as much as they could. The old man had a surprisingly good grasp of Eric's language, though he was close-lipped on where he came about such fluency, and Eric appreciated the quiet and peacefulness of the work that he did, and the fact that he did not seem to mind the time that Eric spent at his place at all.
The truth was, Morathi had sensed that all was not quite alright with the young foreigner, and that the burden that he was carrying was weighing him down. A man all alone in a strange place with no friends and family was indeed a difficult and lonely life to be living; but a man all alone with no one, and far from home, carrying the horrors of something no one should have to see, was no life to be living at all.
"Ah see you up in da dark of night, Meester Air-reek," Morathi said softly, a pipe hanging from the corner of his lips.
Eric looked up sharply.
Morathi's gnarled hands were slow and steady, whittling away at a table leg meticulously, never once looking up from his work.
"Ah have seen enough of dis world to know darkness when ah see it." He glanced up at Eric with old eyes. Eyes that missed nothing. "What shadows do yer run from, young man?" he asked quietly, looking at Eric closely.
In a blink of an eye, Eric's face went blank. Like a slate wiped clean. If Morathi had not been through the fires of hell himself he would not have understood it. But he had, and so he did, even anticipated it to some degree. It was such a mechanized reaction that Morathi guessed that Eric had been troubled for a while. It was a coping mechanism; Eric had forcefully distanced himself from whatever horrors he had endured. Compartmentalizing pain and torment till they were manageable and he could exercise some sort of control over them.
Eric met Morathi's eyes and his green gaze never wavered. "Nothing that has any business in this house, my friend."