4338.206 · July 25, 2018 AD
Pyramids and Pudding
Their ancestors built pyramids. Cathedrals. Entire civilisations from nothing but stone and determination. Paul and Jamie can't figure out how to pour concrete for a garden shed. The instructions only explain mixing, not preparation. The wheelbarrow keeps getting stuck. The cement clumps where it should be smooth and seeps where it should stay bounded. By the time Paul's stomach announces its grievances, Jamie's lagoon-born calm has curdled into something that looks a lot like despair.
Jamie returns from his walk carrying an unfamiliar serenity — the lagoon's gift, though neither of them names it aloud. For a moment, sitting beside each other in the dust, studying a picture of a shed with impossibly green grass, they almost feel like partners rather than prisoners. Then comes the question that ruins everything: do either of them actually know what they're doing?
The answer, it turns out, is no. Spectacularly, humiliatingly no.
Fifteen years of business taught Paul nothing about foundations. Nursing taught Jamie nothing about concrete. The instructions on the bag only explain mixing — the steps before mixing are apparently assumed knowledge, the kind of thing competent people don't need spelled out. They are not, it becomes clear, competent people. Not at this.
The wheelbarrow fights them. The dust swallows spilled water like a greedy mouth. The cement clumps into lumpy grey raisins and seeps beyond its boundaries like something trying to escape. By the time they step back to assess their work, the foundation looks less like progress and more like a monument to everything they don't know. Jamie's calm doesn't survive the assessment. Neither does Paul's optimism.
