Thomas’ tongue was coy car on a busy junction, as the women kept talking. He had opened his mouth to answer at Tatum before she even had finished what she was planning to ask, but Beth came over them like a truck-driver with a full cargo full of great pine logs while being under the effects of steroids, amphetamine and alcohol. And then Tatum spoke. His mouth opened once more, but then they had already changed the subject. The mouth reeled back up and shut, with the slightest of sighs escaping from his nose.<br/>He was never of those people who screamed out their voice, or had to stand in the spotlight. He was one of those who did what had to be done, and never made a number about it. What not he had bragged a bit to the boys at the gas-station on those crispy mornings around the coffee-table. ‘We got it on schedule, after all, it was not a big thing. I just did what I was supposed to do, that’s it.’.<br/>Other guys yelled and barked and roared out their deeds and did-nots, but Thomas didn’t. The women walked over him with their quick balling of topics, and he didn’t mind.<br/><br/>Tatum was right, though, this wasn’t probably the best of forums to talk about cancelling awaited feasts, or to gossip about Wullie or from Wullie’s generally very punctuating opinions.<br/>She was actually being quite smart, Thomas noted as he was given more time to think.<i>Really </i>smart.<br/>Beth reacted just how Thomas had suspected that everyone would react. Everybody  had awaited the long expected feast: a little comfort for everyone, to mend out the pain, to heal, to nourish the people’s broken hearts and minds. Nothing did it better than a good warm bowl of moose-stew with, served together with few of the last rations of ale what they had left. An illusion of abundance to soothe the troubled minds.<br/>Stripping the feast away, which everybody probably knew was too costly for their rations, was a nasty smack of reality: the winter was coming, and they didn’t have too much food. They really didn’t.<br/>So Wullie was right, Thomas knew it. The feast was moronic as he had put it. Imbesillic moronic cocksucking-stupid shit only you canucks can come up with. If this’d be a real country.. Thomas could hear it even now, Wullie’s rant.<br/>But as Wullie was right and acted right to prevent this stupidity and waste of food, he’d be the one to be blamed from this.<br/>Diverting Beth out of topic of cancelling the feast gave Thomas just a bit more time to think, before everyone in this circle-jerk for Jesus would be in a total uproar.<br/><br/><i>“Thomas, you didn’t try to..”</i>.. stop him? Why didn’t you stop him?<br/><br/>Beth had successfully summoned a crowd around her to speak about Jeff or Doyle, or Patrick or Pierre, or Loise who got herself pregnant to Pierre or Patrick before she was seventeen.. all the folks seemed to have an educated opinion about it. Nevertheless, Beth’s babbling gave Thomas some time to think about an answer to the assumed question which Tatum had almost launched.<br/>She leant closer. The proximity of her cheek felt warm, like she was radiating heat in this cold room. He couldn’t see but the curve of her eyebrow, and a fuzzed view of her ear, piercings and her chestnut hair, but somehow it was "enough".<br/>This was all what was left from his carefully constructed thoughts. With one lean she did a real mess, didn’t she?<br/><br/>Thomas’ first answer was a prolonged sigh. “He’s my boss. Been for many years, and you know how thick he is. Why didn’t a grizzly stop him?”, was the second answer that followed the long sigh after a few seconds pause. It came out as a hushed whisper. “He just.. went, okay? I wasn’t given a word in it, you know how he’s like.<br/>It doesn’t make me feel happy either, that he just marches into the office and.. screams at the mayor. Tho..”, he couldn’t help not to draw a brief grin on his face.<br/>He leant closer to Tatum, so that his nose almost touched her ear. “.. it’s not the first time. Few years ago he did, and the mayor was a like a mouse, I tell you. He tried to hide under his table and Wullie banged the table with a thick feeder-cable.. something to do with a construction permission fuzz.<br/>We left before the sheriff came in.”, he had a low chuckle.<br/><br/>“He’ll be fine.”, he added after retreating from the close proximity of Tatum’s ear. “Everybody knows him.”