THE MESH CYLINDER

Collection completed. Use ended. Charge maintained. The notification faded from Valdo's arm before he reached the yard. Where the reservoir had waited, there remained two deep marks and a rectangle of less hot earth. The rental company had taken the container, kept the debt for inconclusive mapping and would deduct a part of every delivery he managed to make for another vehicle owner. Nael was crouched in front of the pequi seedling. The saúvas had cut the last whole leaf and were starting to gnaw the green skin of the stem. He crushed the ones that climbed, one by one, but the line re-formed along the buried cabling. Valdo came in without asking leave. He carried a pair of thermal pliers borrowed at the depot and a strip of metal mesh wound round his forearm. You'll kill the root, said Nael. If you leave it like that, they'll kill it first. Ilva moved the empty bowl away. Valdo measured with two fingers the distance between the stem and the ants' trail. The mesh came from a discarded ventilation box, fine enough to stop a saúva and wide enough to form a cylinder around the hole. The metal kept a stiff fold. He would need to open it without breaking the wires. Nael held the seedling by the base. The skin of the stem gave a little under his fingers. Lighter, said Valdo. You know about small plants. Valdo set the pliers against the first fold. The tool recognised the hand registered by the depot and released heat for forty seconds. He pulled the metal slowly. The mesh snapped, went back to its old position, snapped again. On the third attempt, it opened into a straight strip. Behind his house, parsley and chives had grown for years in four narrow beds. Valdo cut spring onions at nightfall, when the earth lost heat, and sold the bunches in the morning. After the predictive band shut off the pump, the first bed dried up in six days, the second in four. In the last, he pulled out the roots before the camera classified the plot as unproductive cultivation. He made the cylinder from the mesh and overlapped the ends. The join had to face outwards, away from the stem. As he tightened the first wire, the pliers slipped. The heated tip found the burnt forefinger, broke the old blister and lifted a white skin. Valdo held his breath. Ilva fetched the medical film that remained near the stove. He refused with a shake of his head and pressed his finger against his shirt. A dark drop fell on the mesh. Nael wiped the metal with the broken twig, without looking at him. Tomorrow's delivery will deduct that too, said Nael. If there's a delivery. And the route. Valdo fitted the second wire. The tool demanded new authentication because the heat had been interrupted. He brought his face close, waited for the reading and lost another fifty seconds of the loan. At the depot, every minute away from the workbench would be docked from the next job. The company knew how to charge for an idle tool with the same precision it used to ignore an incomplete path. I won't give up the house, said Nael. Valdo squeezed the join until the wires fused. Then don't. It was the first time the debt between the two of them changed its matter. They dug a circular trench around the seedling. Valdo used the closed tip of the pliers to break the crust without reaching the root. The earth resisted in plates. Under the first, a thin surveillance cable appeared. Under the second, a layer of yellow gravel, brought in when the datacenter ducts crossed the old pitch. Nael pointed with his finger to where the root should be. Valdo swerved two centimetres. The mesh went in halfway. He pressed one side, then the opposite, correcting the tilt each time. Ilva knelt by the edge and removed three stones with her fingertips. One of them pinned the mesh against the cable. She tried to free it, but the stone turned and pushed the cylinder inwards. Nael steadied the stem while Valdo pulled the mesh. A wire broke near the base. Valdo bent the broken end outwards and Ilva covered the exposed cable with the earth they had dug out. The mesh sat a finger lower on that side. When he finished, the cylinder protected the hole without touching the stem. The saúvas arrived through the cable's crack, climbed the mesh and looked for a way through at the hot join. One found it. Valdo opened the seam again. The blood was already making the handle of the pliers slick. He removed the faulty wire, twisted another through the inside of the mesh and fused the two ends. The loan expired during the last squeeze. The tool cooled between his fingers and sent the depot the charge for retention. Nael let go of the seedling. Tomorrow I'll show you as far as the broken stake, he said. After it, you turn back. Valdo wrapped the film round his forefinger. He did not ask about the buried house. He gathered the pliers and left through the yard, carrying on his body three charges and a route that would end where the other man had decided. Around the pequi, the saúvas covered the mesh until the metal looked black. In the centre, the leafless stem stayed green under the last light.