A pleasant trill of girlish laughter sounds through the room as Beth listens to some nothing thing Daryl's saying to her. On the floor, leaning against a wall across the space from him, her face lightens and brightens as she laughs and smiles. Miles of travel and strife fade from her face in this giggle, and in this moment, save from the dirt and the shorn hair, she could be just as she was before all of this. So pretty, and light of heart. Rarely purposefully funny, Daryl has an offbeat humor all his own, and she delights in appreciating it, and watching those thin lines at his eyes crease as he watches her smiling at him. Simon too chuckles, and their exchange of hapless nothings continues, passing the time. Everything cannot be as dark as the threat of death and terror.
"I wonder," Beth smiles sanguinely, "how many other people are laughing right now."
Daryl shrugs, his eyes quietly focused on her not the rest of the world, his rough fingers fidgeting where they hang over his raised knees. "Must be some," Simon reflects. "It can't be only us."
Installed in a bedroom of a small apartment lofted above a garage, the three of them take respite from the road and the drudgery. Wrapped snuggly in blankets and quilts, propped against what pillows and cushions they could find, they eat a meal of fruit cocktail, green beans, soda crackers, and the last of the dried fish they'd been traveling with. The town had been there waiting for them, down the road less than two hours more. The sky had still been grey when they at last reached it. Finding the small store of cans and dried goods hadn't taken them much time or much exertion, the walkers they'd crossed had been old and had moved slowly, they went down with little fight. The early acquisition of the modest stockpile left them encouraged and prompted an earlier evening than they'd anticipated. Having surveyed a small radius, they'd selected the garage apartment, took the necessary precautions, then secured themselves for the night. Fueled by the comfort and fortune of their find and four walls and blankets, they forsook prudence and tempted fate, going so far as to disregard all that would compel them to ration, and even set light a fire in an old stockpot they'd uncovered. They could have – probably should have – saved the two small cans of mixed fruit, and possibly also one of the two cans of beans. They might have made the fish last one meal longer, but when the margin of indulgence is measured by a few stale crackers, diced pears and peaches a year expired, and dry strips of smoked and salted creek trout, self-restraint sometimes presents as futile. Hunger is their travel companion, one who'll never be fully shaken off; keeping three cans in stock surely would not have made any lasting difference. They have managed hunger in the past and have no alternative but to navigate it in the days and years to come; one night's modest splurge cannot shift the course of this at all. Rationality might dictate the timely consumption of canned goods – there will come a day when shelf life dates do indeed bear warning, but truly it was not pragmatism that prompted their meager show of decadence, they wanted merely to feel free, unbound to fear and doubt. Freedom is such a very different thing with the world stripped down so bare. The unnaturally red cherry half Simon pops between his lips, to savor some time before the eventual slow deliberate chews and inevitable swallowing, is tantamount these days to a riotous insurgency. Delights of any size are difficult to come by, this night's pleasures take the shape of two pilfered 8.5 oz. cans.
Despite their heady excess they do not eat well, they haven't since their leaving camp. Camp, where there was fresh fish and game, harvested vegetation and a modestly kept larder. Meals there were close to balanced, and provided a variety of textures and flavors, with something close to fresh bread or grain cooked somewhat regularly, and even the poorer food stuffs could be enhanced by grease fat, seasoning and effort. All of that is gone. Meals now are thrown together on the fly, typically absent of any variation in color or nutritional value, nonetheless they are thankful for what they have. Some day there will be no relying on food from the old life, some day there will be none left. The best rationers could not make it last, and so many survivors out there are living for the now, scavenging and feeding for the present. And undeniably, the sweet pears, as they dissolve in these three traveler's mouths, rich and grainy and thick, do encourage momentary heedlessness.
Impetuous they three may be as they sit and eat from cans warmed over an open fire, but all caution was not cast to the wayside. The room in which they dine is scrupulously situated. The windows have been blacked out with bedding, there are three doors to get through before the one behind which they sit. Beyond their door and in the street below sound alarms are strung, and outside their western window is a hoisted fire escape that will take them to the roof but hosts no threat of anyone below gaining access. This is the safest they've been in months, and the security has gone to their heads as once a warm whiskey would have. Hazy with contentment, their minds and faces flush and burn and in that state the world softens by slight degrees and the night seems not as dark, their company not as small, their outlook not as grim, as they all do seem when on the open road.
On the floor, leaning against the bed frame, Daryl sits, craving a cigarette, and watching the other two. When it does not seem as though any one of them is in the mood for conversation, or leastways has anything in the moment novel enough to venture, Daryl reaches back into his pack and pulls out what he's been carrying with him since the surrender of the camp. The thing is wrinkled and warped, thick and tattered, yellowing and bent back and threatening to tear. His fingers scan through the stiffened pages and Daryl breaks open the book to where he'd last left off. On the road there's little opportunity for such activities, doing as he does now for Beth as well as himself, but someway he'd made it to the twenty-fifth page where he then could go no further, but in this room, with this company, he takes up James' book, and reads.
His voice is hoarse and heavy as he does, but he reads with some fluency and feeling, such that it might not have been expected from him, and his companions never miss what words had come before. "'He kept me with him all th' time, an' I never got a chance to run off. We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the key under his head nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every little while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me.'" Daryl's thick finger turns the page. "'The widow she found out where I was by and by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me; but pap drove him off with the gun, and it warn't long after that till I was used to being where I was, and liked it—all but the cowhide part.'" Simon beside Beth rests his head against her shoulder and listens. Whether to the story and to Daryl Dixon's voice, or to the voices of the shadows of past nights when other words were read cannot be known, but then this book carries with it specters. Within the weathered pages and the rumble of Daryl's voice, shades of the past linger and take form. "'But by and by pap got too handy with his hick'ry, and I couldn't stand it. I 's all over welts. He got to going away so much, too, and lockin' me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days. It was dreadful lonesome.'"
Stiff voiced Daryl continues on for some time, following the boy's story through pages and a chapter. "'Tramp—tramp—tramp; that's the dead; tramp—tramp—tramp; they're coming after me; but I won't go. Oh, they're here! don't touch me—don't! hands off—they're cold; let go. Oh, let a poor devil alone!'" Beth and Simon are captivated as they listen. The small fire spits and smokes.
There may be others in the world in similar scenes – gathered around fires in respite and in solace, united by experience and bonded by trust and familiarity – they hope sincerely that there are. But if this exact scene plays nowhere else than here, it has had renditions in the past. Other stories were read, other voices exercised in recreation and catharsis. Two such voices have been silenced, Simon Beth and Daryl pray others are still out there, finding their own means of diversion, their own routes to salvation.
Probably doesn't need to be said, but the book is Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (Hope the reading chapters haven't seemed too on the nose.) As always I love hearing from you - what works, what doesn't; what you're excited or worried about. [I can't spill on a lot things though (mostly the 'will they or won't they' of the Rick, Maggie, & co. question) because if Beth and Daryl don't know something, we don't get to either, well, I guess I do... I truly hope I'm not frustrating or losing readers because of this. I so value you and the participation through feedback from those readers who take the time to comment! I realize this story is a little meandering and quiet, with A LOT of description of walking and food, but the back half of season 4, and S5, ep 10 "Them" have been some (though not exclusively) of my favorites eps, loving the way they explore the world and how it affects our people and how they then choose to live their lives in reaction.] You guys are the best, thank you for reading, hearing from you makes my week! xx