Compasssmith v. Computer Programmer

The Compasssmith wakes to hammering. He looks north. Across the field he sees two men at work on the caretakers' hideous shack. The two men are dressed in overalls. They wear tool belts. Pepple sits in a low adirondack chair nearby, reading. The morning is crisp and clear and bright.

Their work is the plank-by-plank creation of a new shack using all the materials of the previous shack.

Whereas the old shack was of a redundant, asymetrical, hideous nature, the new shack already has signs of being less a shack than a hut or cabin thanks to precise lays, a raised foundation, and the economic use of supplies; it seems smaller, better.

The field around them is light green with rows of budding corn. In the far distance the Farmer drives his tractor, tilling the corn against weeds.

Altogether, it's a fine bucolic scene.

The Computer Programmer is shy even by the standards of computer programmers. She's dressed in drab clothes, in a plain sweatshirt, and an unflattering ankle-length flower print skirt that makes her already narrow hips seem infinitely narrow, nearly one-dimensional. It seems less a skirt, in other words, than a tube of fabric pinched atop between invisible thumb and forefinger, and from out of the bottom the nervous shuffle of sneakers. She wears her hair over her face.

Each question the Compasssmith poses is met with the same answer.

CS: Did it take you long to get here?
CP: I don't know.
CS: Is the city still shut down, and the towns?
CP: I - I don't know.
CS: Were there more deaths? More riots?
CP: I just don't know.

So they stand. They wait. Finally, that evening, when the workers leave, and

They raise their guns, their guns go off.