I did not like mining bauxite. The mining was no different from any other mining. But each chunk of bauxite ore gathered, and each aluminum ingot made from it, brought us one step closer to making Husband's airplane.

I did not want him to fall down and crash. I did not want to fall down and crash with him. Yet I had taken a bus with him, and dined on barbecue and "cheese dip" with him, and camped with him, all to make it more possible for that to happen.

I had claimed to be tired, and it was true. We had not slept enough, and not well on the hard ground near the quarry, so we rested and relaxed and did not try to smelt until yesterday, when there was no reason not to.

We had gathered stones along with the bauxite that can perhaps be used for jewelry, but that is not our current project. We had stored them in ammo boxes, but did not want to keep them with us, so we dumped them into a drawer in the workshop for when we are ready. They are now a new thing for Deputy Frank to find if he searches the workshop again.

We made aluminum. The recipe was simple: five pounds of bauxite made a one-pound aluminum ingot. We wrote both blacksmith and armorer recipes, so that Husband could use fire shards while I used ice shards. We made hundreds of ingots.

When we were done, Husband got busy with the ultralight blueprints, figuring out how many ingots would make how many bars to be how many components for the skeleton. After a while he said he would mow the Hartman lawn before dinner. I said I had some thinking of my own to do, which was true.

I went to the Pit. Sam brought me Coke.

"So, I hear ya got yer bauxite."

"Yes. We have started smelting aluminum."

"How's that goin' for ya?"

I brought an aluminum ingot from inventory and set it on the bar. Sam picked it up and studied it as he turned it over in his fingers. "Huh. An' this is what yer usin' for the ultralight frame? Y'all are really makin' one, then...?"

"It would seem so."

He grinned as he handed the ingot back. "Bet Steve's heart's just warmed all to hell by yer enthusiasm."

I shrugged. "If it is not built yet, it cannot crash and burn yet. But perhaps that will never happen."

"Get built or crash an' burn?"

I made myself smile.

"Hey, at least ya got somethin' the two o' you can do together. Y'all go off an' do yer own thing too much, ya might forget about each other. I've seen it happen."

"I think living in this world together is our adventure."

"Heh. Not a bad way o' lookin' at it." Sam looked thoughtful. "Ya know...if Steve was twice as old as he is, I'd think he was havin' a midlife crisis..."

"What is a midlife crisis?"

"That's a thing that happens to some men -- maybe some women too, I dunno -- when they get to about middle-age an' think they ain't gonna live as long any more an' there's stuff they've never done, so they get an itch to start doin' 'em. 'Course, the classic thing is gettin' a red sports car an' a hot blonde an' drivin' off somewhere..."

"A hot blonde what?"

"It is my understandin' that in these modern times it is not politically correct for me to speculate in that matter."

Googling "hot blonde" later mostly showed me images of women, though there was also a type of tree, a type of coffee, and something called a CBD. Since Sam was talking about middle-aged men, I assumed he meant a woman, though perhaps he meant the CBD.

"The ultralight is not a sports car," I said. "Am I a hot blonde?"

Sam smiled. "I prob'ly shouldn't answer that where yer husband might hear. Anyway, it's not like Steve's middle-aged or anything...unless it's a combat thing."

"You mean being on deployment?"

"Yeah. After all, people out in the field -- no offense -- tend to die kinda early. So...I dunno, never served myself, you'd have to tell me...maybe it's like that? He gets done with his tour, he ain't riskin' his life any more, he's back home an' with you...new life, new wife..."

I found myself saying, "New adventure."

"New adventure. Sure."

"New adventures are important to us, yes." I finished my Coke and stood. "I suppose I will help my husband with his."

I have learned I can use my laptop as an orchestrion. There is much music in youtube, including long videos of music with a theme. We would use a playlist with our house orchestrion in Eorzea, playing a few pieces of music over and over. Though in the room we made into a sort of gallery of things we found, Husband often selected ambient wind chimes for music. I went from the bar to the workshop, set up my laptop, and found a long video of wind chimes to play while I thought.

Husband is not a middle-aged man. If his theories are correct, the man I live with in this world is but a few moons old. Yet he remembers being a middle-aged man. Perhaps he sometimes thinks like one.

It seems a middle-aged man thinks of new things to do. "New life, new wife, new adventure." Perhaps there is a middle-aged man, whom Husband remembers being, that once thought of having a new adventure, and who was once very fond of a game he played.

Rifts happened in Eorzea, through which people and voidsent traveled. I do not know where the rifts came from. Perhaps it was studied in Sharlayan, but I cannot ask a Sharlayan scholar about it. There are many things I would ask a Sharlayan scholar about in this world if I could.

But Husband thinks, and I think I remember some people in Eorzea thinking, that aether can take on form from will. If everything is a manifestation of aether, would rifts also be? And can they be formed as an act of will? Teleportation to and between aetherytes was an act of will (and an expending of gil) that navigated an aetherial stream. If everything in both worlds is aether, is a rift simply navigating a stream between them?

What if a middle-aged man, having a midlife crisis and craving adventure, and enamoured of a computer game and a character he created in it, wished strongly enough for it that he formed a rift without meaning to, and manifested a copy of himself on the other side of it? It seems unlikely, but Husband insists on not using the word "impossible."

And what of a much younger man who remembers being that middle-aged man? A man who, as Sam said, was a "combat veteran," who had just gotten done saving the world by defeating an entire hostile race in the depths of the Tempest, and who perhaps wondered what he would do next? Could he open a rift as well, without meaning to, looking for the next "new life, new wife, new adventure"?

Is being in this world, in this life, with his wife, the adventure he sought? When we appeared in the woods near town, he did not seem to have expected to be in Earth, and certainly not in Oklahoma. Perhaps it being unexpected was part of the adventure.

Husband came in as I was thinking. He stopped and smiled as he listened to the wind chimes. "Youtube or program?"

"Youtube. Am I a hot blonde, Husband?"

"The hottest. Why, did someone call you one?"

"Sam mentioned hot blondes when I was talking with him."

"Really? His wife's a brunette. Wonder if he's having a midlife crisis." He approached and gently stroked my hair with his fingertips. "Do I need to prejudicially explain to him that this hot blonde is taken?"

"I think he knows."

I will help Husband build his airplane. I agree we need to travel. I think we need to travel far to the east, to the place he remembers as his home. Perhaps he will like seeing it again.

And I think I want to meet Original Him.