A person of Neshiyah
Nathan Kedem, surveyor
Surveyor
Nathan Kedem
Surveyor, about 90 years old. Born in Neshiyah, like everyone.
Nathan Kedem is a tall, stooped man who walks the town’s grid with a brass compass that has outlived three governments, his thumb always resting on the hinge as if the instrument might slip away. At work, he measures the square’s paving stones twice and records the numbers in a small, greasy notebook, muttering the digits to himself in a rhythm that sounds like a prayer. His habit is to leave the last stone of any survey unmeasured, claiming the fog shifts ground, and he wants only to finish one clean map before he dies. The town sees him as a fussy uncle, patient with children, quick to lend his jacket, and slow to hold a grudge—even after that ugly row with Gilead the younger over a disputed fence line. He trusts the fog’s edge because the fields give him no reason not to.
Temperament
Curious when something is in front of them; trusting, within reason; hard to anger; always in company; able to sit still when it matters.
What people say
Nathan Kedem believes what everyone believes: the fog is the edge of the world, and the fields need working whether it is true or not.
What the record shows
- day 32 Nathan Kedem the surveyor dropped a stone into the old well and timed the splash on a phone: a full second late.
- day 25 Nathan the surveyor fell ill with the valley fever and lost three days to it.
- day 20 Gilead the younger and Nathan came to blows at the square over nothing much.