The village had seen better days. Where once over fifty people had lived and worked only two remain. Hituk had flourished during the great age of desert trade. Various goods were transported during those times: spices, metals and machine parts. Unfortunately, when the southern ports of the continent lost their importance, so did the trade route near the village. More and more villagers left. Until, only the Golda family remained and if tragedy hadn’t struck five years ago there would’ve been three more people populating the village. As it stands, only Fryd Golda and his granddaughter Mina remained.
There was a loud clanging noise that woke Mina in the early hours of the morning. Grandpa is probably fixing the solar generator, she thought. The girl tried turning on the lamp next to her bed. No light. The ten-year-old let out a sigh and slumped back into her straw pillow. The smell soothed her and she fell into a light slumber.
“Mina! Wake up!” The voice of her grandfather carried through the small house.
“What?” whined the girl. She tried to open her eyes. Pale light fell through a hole in the wall.
“Just get your butt over here and help me!” Mina rolled her eyes and stumbled out of bed. She pulled a long vest over her t-shirt and trotted through the house.
“Would you mind coming over faster?!” hollered her grandfather.
Mina took a quick sip from a jug on the counter. He probably just needed some forgotten tool he couldn’t bother getting himself. She steered through the door in the kitchen which connected to the garage. Fryd looked at her incredulously while having both hands inside a motor of some kind.
“Took you long enough! Get the screwdriver and help me!” She took the tool from a work bench nearby and came to her grandfather’s aid.
They were done quickly and it became clear to Mina that her grandfather had only yelled for her to wake her up. She chose to not confront him about it. He’d just give her some other annoying task.
Mina looked at her grandfather who had already turned away to tinker some more on the motor. She shrugged and went back into the kitchen. After eating a quick breakfast, she went outside. The sun had begun to shine already and she walked quickly through the ruins of the village. Although a few houses were dilapidated many of the roofs were converted into solar panels. One of the houses down the road had a glass house attached. It is thanks to Fryd’s ingenuity that the village has become such an energy rich place. Despite this however, the last non-family villager had left long ago.
The house that the glass house was attached to, used to be Mina’s family home. After her parents died she had moved to her grandfather’s. It was Mina’s job to look after the vegetables growing there. As the irrigation network sometimes stops working it had become her duty to look if everything was alright. Mina opened the door and took a deep breath. She loved the smell of humid air.
Fryd was still working on the motor. Handling machines was in his blood. When he was younger he took over the garage from his father. It was around a time the village was still filled with life and the laughter of children could be heard in every corner. But that was a lifetime ago. He’d hoped to keep people in the village with his inventions but to no avail.
It was also the time when the old mines still had been in use. He shuddered at the thought of those old cave-like structures. The mines had become a forbidden area when he was a child. A beeping caught his attention and he went back to his work. He expected a customer in a few hours. A broken down sandbike or something similar. The owner had called the day before.
Everything had its place in the universe of Fryd’s garage. This week promised to be very productive but he’d have many outside appointments. He hated those. He didn’t like leaving Mina alone for the whole day. She was at the age when she would just sleep as long as she wanted and barely do any of her homework when unsupervised. Living so far out of civilization made it necessary for her to attend school via computer. There used to be a school in the nearby town but it had closed a few years before Mina was born.
There was a knock outside the garage door and Fryd went over. It’s rare to have customers this early. One look outside and he questioned himself why he even gave out appointments if customers still came over whenever they pleased. Walk-in traffic would be a different matter. But here he was, Brook the owner of the sandbike, almost 3 hours earlier.
Meanwhile Mina had finished looking over the vegetables and curled up in an armchair in her old house. She balanced an old tablet computer on her knobbly knees and browsed through the online library. Today the wi-fi was not as spotty as usual. She had begun to read a novel about a wizard boy a few days ago and was eager to continue. While looking for the scene she had stopped at, she wondered why most literature aimed for children was hundreds of years old. The only age appropriate stuff from this age were school books.
When her eyes started hurting from all the reading she stopped and returned to her grandfather’s place. Mina saw him outside of the garage, sitting on a bench and holding a few sandbike parts. So, the first customer for the day had come by. She looked over his shoulder and watched him work.
When she turned to go she noticed an odd formation of clouds on the horizon. It looked a bit like a storm. The moment she wanted to tell her grandfather about it she saw something fall from the sky. “Grandpa, something’s weird.”
“What is?” Fryd looked at his granddaughter, then followed her pointed finger. A small sand storm had formed. It didn’t look very strong and vanished as soon as it had appeared. “Just a sandstorm. Not that unusual for the season.” He resumed working on the bike.
Mina remained at his side. She was still looking towards the desert. “Grandpa! Look! Where did that pretty girl come from?” Fryd looked up from the oily machine and saw a young man walking towards them from afar. “A girl? Mina that’s definitely a boy!”
Now his granddaughter looked at him like he was a senile old fart. He knew that look. “It’s a girl! Can’t you see???” Fryd looked again and then he remembered something he’d seen a very long time ago. He lets go of the machine. “Mina, this person is neither girl nor boy.” She looked at him questioningly. “Even though they look like us. The being over there is an angel!”
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