Baroness Samedi (Weekend freewrite)

marie-jay (61)in #weekendfreewrite • 5 years ago

‘Come on people! Look alive! Didn't any of you do what I asked of you last night?’
Intended or not, the joke was lost on the sorry bunch shuffling on shaky legs, quite indifferent to the Lady’s scowl or their fate in general. Only the old man in blue overalls let out a guffaw, probably meant to be laughter. The misshapen sound grated on her ears, but when she looked at the man with his long grandfatherly beard, the Lady’s anger melted. ‘It’ll have to do’.
She surveyed the small crowd she’d managed to assemble on such short notice, checking for any glaring defect, the smaller ones - like an unnaturally pale skin or the occasional limp limb - she’d learned to ignore. Not that she didn’t take pride in her work and she enjoy creating beautiful specimens, but she was running out of time and anyway they never seemed to notice. The smell, however, that would attract some unwanted attention. She’d asked them to bathe the night before, something they were perfectly able to do, if only they had the brains to remember her words. A few squirts of cheap cologne will do the trick. They only needed to be presentable for a couple of hours, once the reinsertion process is over, the stench won’t be her problem anymore.
‘Time for your medicine, my lovelies’, she announced in a cheery voice and produced a bottle of the amber-colored sweet liquid she’d been feeding them for the past six days. One more dose would be enough to put some liveliness into them.
One by one, the creatures approached and opened their mouths to receive a spoonful of the Lady’s special treat.
There were only few women in the group, the men might end up fighting for them, but the client would not listen. ‘I hope they know what they’re doing!’
As soon as they were done with the medicine, the woman ordered them in a line and had them march towards the outskirts of the town, like a group of kids coming back from a field trip. Only without singing, as the best they could do was mumble a few words.
‘Hurry up, we need to get to your new homes’. Actually, their old homes, but she didn’t say that as the notion might prove to confusing to her new batch of replacements.

‘Here is a woman living her passion every day. Why was it always impossible for you to see reason and take advice from people who know what their doing’, asked Leia, totally pissed at her stubborn husband.
‘Come on, who takes advice from Baroness Samedi?’, a petulant voice countered.
‘Don’t call her that, you know she hates it and besides it’s not eve true’.
‘Oh, so now you’re telling me she doesn’t revive people to use them as stand-ins’.
Leia, who had been friends with the Lady for decades, glared at her husband.
‘That’s part of the deal. If she is to save people and help those like us populate their planets, she has to replace those who leave with something. Otherwise, it might arouse suspicions and her work on Earth would become dangerous.’
Ayla, the Lady, was well-known in that part of the galaxy, where dozens of Earth-like planets were flourishing. After the exodus, they’d been lucky to find a new place to live. Theirs was a new colony and Leia enjoyed the thrill of building everything from scratch.
Ayla had never been like her. She wouldn’t stay put, she was a wanderer and she was fascinated with Earth, the place that, long ago, their kind had called home. She endured the boring trips to Earth, for she had made it her mission to bring as many souls as possible to the new worlds. It took approximately six months for the new arrivals to forget their old ways and be ready to mingle with the natives. The trick was to bring them in small groups if they were to be fully integrated in their new environment. And Ayla had promised she’d bring in more women, to compensate for her husband’s mistake.
She found Ayla at the house where the new-comers were beginning to settle in. They were her charges and she always liked to spend a few days with them, to see how they were adjusting. Leia knew her friend could never have enough of watching the bewildered young men and women take in the magnitude of the change in their fortunes. And she had a really good eye - those she picked for relocation never regretted their old lives.

The old man was sitting on the grass, by the lake, lost in admiration. He was still in the blue overalls, but he looked nothing like the man she’d picked up on a dusty side-road.
‘When you were a child you used to live in a place like this, didn’t you?’, Ayla asked in a soft voice, as if she were sorry to interrupt his reverie. The man nodded and she saw his eyes welling up.
‘All my life I thought I’d go back some day. That was my dream, spend my last years fishing and drink my beer on the porch, listening to the oldies station.’
She knew his story, she’d seen his whole life the brief moment they shook hands that day. Yet, she let him speak, he needed to get it off his chest if he was to find his peace.
‘But my boy sold the old place, said they needed the money and anyway I’d be more comfortable in a home, you know, with folks my age. I hate it there, the people, the nurses, the food everything so I ran away. Then I met you’.
Something was still bothering him.
‘I want to thank you for… this. My legs aren’t what they used to be, but I’ll work hard this land, I promise…I have to repay you for all the trouble’.
‘No need for that. You were not …part of the order, so to speak. You can stay here and fish all you want, it is my gift to you’.

‘So, how’s business on Earth? They don’t suspect anything, I hope, with the zombies, I mean’, Leia said when the two of them were alone, drinking real Earth coffee in the kitchen.
‘No, everything’s fine. They’ve stopped paying attention to each other long ago. Most don’t even notice the replacement looks a bit different or doesn’t talk much. It’s very sad…’
‘At least, it makes things easier for you’.
Ayla shook her head.
‘Actually, it’s becoming harder and harder to find people who could adapt to living in the real world again’.