Chapter 5

Burt

I woke up at the first sign of sunlight. I suppose it was around 5:30 or 6:00 but I had no way to tell for sure. One of the things that didn't make the change, as far as I knew, was clocks. I noticed when I was getting undressed for bed that my watch was missing. Everything in our home had been electric or battery powered and neither of those sources of power were available. I know that clocks were made centuries before either of them were used so it was possible that there was someone in the area who could figure out how to make a wind up clock or an old fashioned pocket watch.

That started me wondering what I'd use a timepiece for. I had no appointments to make, no TV shows to force me to sit down on a couch at a specific time. I imagine a timer of some sort would be useful for cooking, but people had gotten along fine without them since the discovery of fire. Heck, my mother never used a timer or a measuring spoon. Her eyes and her nose were good enough for her and nobody ever complained about her cooking.

To tell the truth, my watch was more for verifying the time than anything else. Pretty much the only thing I'd used it for was meals, and I looked at it when I got the feeling it was getting close to eatin' time. I used the position of the sun and my body's built in clock more than my watch. Besides, there was a big ole bell on the porch that the women used when meals were ready in this new old world.

I realized I didn't even know what day it was. Was there even a reason to give them names? How about months and the numbering of the days within them. With no mortgage, utility, cable or credit card bills to pay by a certain date or be penalized, their need and usefulness seemed debatable. It seemed second nature but the time, effort and money we'd expended to keep track of various dates had been staggering. I didn't even want to start thinking about years.

I felt surprisingly well rested, especially considering the limited amount of actual sleep we had. Maria and I had definitely put our new bodies through their paces as soon as we turned in. It was like we were on our honeymoon again. Actually, my body was a lot more resilient than when I was a kid and we were first married.

I probably had four hours sleep and felt like I could go all day. With the cancer, I'd been lucky to stay awake for four hours out of 24. Hard to believe that was only a couple of months ago. Two months by my time, who knows how long it actually was.

The bed was as comfortable as any I'd ever slept on. The mattress and the oversized pillows were stuffed with feathers and our cover was a hand sewn quilt that was both soft and warm. Even at 39 years old, I felt warm and cuddly when I pulled that thing up over me. Having my wife snuggled up against me just added to that feeling.

I was very happy that we had real toilets instead of having to use a chamber pot or take a hike out back somewhere to a cold and smelly outhouse. There was room in the tub for the two of us and we'd taken advantage of it before we went to bed. We had hot and cold running water although I had no idea how that was achieved. I didn't want to use up all the hot water and force others to wait hours or days for more to heat up. Both of us bathing together didn't save any time but it sure was fun.

That's another thing that had been missing from our lives before the change: fun. Everything was so damned important that we didn't take time out to enjoy what we'd built, much less each other. Our attitudes had changed, along with the planet. Well, some had changed after the cave. Before, I never would have hugged Bev or Grace in the nude. Hell, none of us would be caught dead in front of the others without a stitch of clothes on. Now, it was no big deal. The feeling of the other person's skin on me was great. There were no thoughts of seduction, molestation or sex of any kind. Nothing communicates like a good, solid hug and we were just glad to share that communication with each other.

Val and Bev were just disappearing down the stairs as we came out of our room and we followed them down into the kitchen. Grace and her troops were already sitting at the table with coffee and glasses of milk. The kitchen smelled of fresh brewed coffee, bacon and eggs, hash browns, milk gravy and of course homemade rolls warming in the oven.

The food was all fantastic. It was food the way God or Mother Nature or whoever was in charge these days had intended it. It wasn't chock full of growth hormones, it hadn't been engineered to make something bigger or prettier or more sell-able plus our re-energized taste buds and olfactory glands hadn't been worn down by a constant barrage of chemicals in the food and the water and the air.

We caught up on what each of us had seen so far. Val and Bev talked of their ride and Grace and the kids informed us of all the things they'd discovered on their place. Tina and Vicky had decided they wanted to get in on the training of all the horses they had. There was plenty of help to do it already; they just thought it would be fun to train horses.

"That brings something up that I think we should all take a look at," I said. "Both places have enough help to let us sit around on our asses and do nothing if we want to. I don't think that's wise. I think we should all find things to keep up busy."

"Well, I've got my gardens," Maria said. It's going to take a few days just to figure out just what we've got growing. This world is different from the one we came from. That coffee we're drinking was made from beans that were grown out back. There's no way you could grow coffee in the old Montana. There are a lot of fruits and vegetables growing here that couldn't before. And it seems like just about everything grows year 'round. We don't have to harvest a crop and try to come up with a way to preserve it so we can eat it till the next crop comes in."

"I'm going to have to get involved with my garden, too," Grace answered. "I was amazed at how much they've got growing on my place. There are a lot more animals and Kyle and I are going to have to find out what we've got and do some planning for the future."

"Aw, Mom, I've already got something to do. I have to get a bunch of women pregnant."

That earned him slugs from his mother, my daughter and his sister.

"We've already had one mating with a norm," Bev said.

Everyone turned to look at her.

"Alfie had his way with a border collie while we were out yesterday. His owner couldn't thank us enough. I was surprised to see an old fashioned shepherd, complete with a staff with a hook on the end of it and everything. He's convinced he's going to have a litter of super sheepdogs."

"He may just," I said. "A lot of dogs had the life bred out of them in the old world. Inserting some prime blood into the canine population couldn't hurt, that's for sure.