Working and Playing

This has been a really difficult week.

I am learning so much about what it means to be a Machine Artist, but every time I think I understand, I find I cannot make anything work. I am thrashing about in my own ignorance.

Ennis has silently come and helped me twice now, with no sign of satisfaction on his scarred face. I always thank him politely, and he always puts down the tools and stalks away, as if I have offended him. I wish I could help him! And I wish I didn't feel so that I am the cause of his misery.

I know that it was the fire and the pain of his flesh that hurt him, along with the loss of his lovely creations, but still, the way he behaves toward me - it's as if he wants to do something to me, I can't think what. He appears as if he is unwilling, and helps me as if I am an ignorant fool, and then goes off as if he can't wait to get away. Why doesn't he just stay away, if that's how he feels!!!!!

My sister came back again with her new daughter. Everyone is fawning over the baby, which looks a bit like a side of beef, and my sister hardly has time to talk to me. No matter: I am always outside, in wind and in sun, trying to get my blessed machinery working. I told my father that I didn't think I had the right mind for this work, but he just smiled and patted my shoulder and said not to worry, I was ages ahead of where he had been at my age. I don't believe it at all!

This Thor's day we went to the Meadows for a picnic, my only break in the misery of my learning. My mother packed an enormous lunch into the back of the waggon and we all walked or rode the five miles to the great stone tables cut there from the living rock. We spread out cloths and dishes and sat, feasting, for hours in the gentle sunlight under the vines which cross from tree to tree, a natural arbor. Ennis sat across and a little down from me and did not look at me once, though he did speak with my father some. I could not help staring at him. It seems to me that his scars are fading, becoming less thick and red: or am I becoming used to him? I could not stop looking at his rolled up sleeves, and the marks on his forearms. They did not seem bad to me at all. Why is he so unhappy?