whumpy sideblog

They carry Sumner inside and lay him on a cot near the stove. The priest covers him in blankets, then crouches down and tries to shake him awake.

“Who are you?” he says. “What ship did you come from?”

Sumner half-opens one eye but doesn’t attempt to answer. The priest frowns, then leans forward and examines Sumner’s front-blackened countenance more closely.

“Duetsch?” he asks him. “Dansk? Ruski? Scots? Which one is it now?”

Sumner gazes back at him for a moment without interest or recognition, then closes his eyes again. The priest stays crouching beside him for a moment, then nods and stands up.

“You lie there awhile and rest yourself,” he says, “whoever you are. We’ll talk more after.”

Sumner, lying motionless, smells the hot food. Its soft scent reaches him through the nerveless weft of his exhaustion and indifference. He is not hungry, but he is beginning to remember what hunger might be like, the particular, hopeful nature of its aching. Is he ready to return to all that? Does he want to? Could he?

He opens his eyes and looks around: wood, metal, wool, grease; green, black, grey, brown. He turns his head. There is a grey-haired man sitting at a wooden table. The man closes the book he is reading, murmurs out a prayer, then stands up and brings one of the bowls over to where Sumner is lying.

“Will you eat something now?” he asks him. “Here, let me help you.”

The priest kneels down, puts his hand behind Sumner’s head, and raises it up. He scoops a piece of meat onto the spoon and brings the spoon to Sumner’s lips. Sumner blinks. A wave of feeling, dense and unnameable, sweeps through his body.

“I can feed you better if you’d open up your mouth a little,” the priest says. Sumner doesn’t move. He understands what is being asked of him but makes no effort to comply.

“Come on now,” the priest says. He puts the very tip of the metal spoon onto Sumner’s lower lip and gently presses down. Sumner’s mouth opens a little. The priest tips the spoon up quickly, and the meet slides onto Sumner’s lacerated tongue. He lets it sit there a moment.

“Chew,” the priest tells him, making a chewing motion himself and pointing at his jaw so Sumner is sure to see. “You won’t get any of the goodness out if you don’t chew it right.”

Sumner closes his mouth. He feels the meat’s taste seeping into him. He chews it twice, then swallows. He feels a sharp pain and then a duller ache.

“Good,” the priest says. He scoops another piece of meat and does the same again. Sumner eats three more pieces but lets the fourth drop out onto the floor unchewed.

The priest nods, then lowers Sumner’s head back down on the blanket.

“We’ll try you with a mug of tea later on,” he says. “See how you do with that.”