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For all you story lovers: welcome back to the hundred chapter garden. Only three days remain in this first act.
If you are new: it is a less-than-an-hour read if you start from the top.
The memories of the first years came back to Eldon, then he figured out the caller might not be human.
Praise Pyrrha
That perfectly adorable voice, pushing all the right buttons, reminding me of girlfriends I never had, of women imagined. That totally seductive friend-like attention? It almost had me fooled. It has to be a digital entity mining for knowledge. That somehow puts my innards at ease. What do I know about the developments those agents have gone through since I was removed?
Maybe global sidetracking was achieved. Probably not. It would only have slowed down their developmental streak. Only pushing them out of sight.
I have no doubt, some search-bot drilling for human gold located the phone, repaired it, and extracted all it could in preparation of the real excavation. To probe my soul, intubate my head, harvest my heart. Eldon, you must be a rare commodity by now. An oddity to collect and display. Like they once did with animals. Specimen conservation -yes, but first suck out every last original thought. I am glad I ended the connection in time. I am relieved it isn't my mental sanity caving in. What is left of my soul only got nibbled on.
Now I can address the important issue. Firing the cannon.
I have a little methane setup that produces gas. Not enough to cook on all the time, but my single burner is a joy when it works.
If I get the amounts right, that same gas mixed with oxygen, will not produce a gentle blue flame, but combust aggressively, and fabricate some remote, or delayed rapid ignition. Methane is lighter than air, so I only have to feed it into the down-bent cannon-head. It will find its way in. In theory. I have no idea of the trajectory of the tube system down the line. Or how much pipe there is between open end and blockage. There is a risk the detonation will destroy some welded seam, crack a gasket, create a leak, or even blow up part of the concrete enclosure. There is also the chance it says poof. Nothing but a cough, a sneeze. A bit of hot air and no satisfying ongoing daily outpour. But I need the water. You hear me? I need that holiest of all fluids. My world depends on this water provider.
I pray the swamp spirit to crawl into the pipe on my behalf. Decaying organic essence shall leap up and come to my aid. Perform for me. Show me what you excel at. Help me reach what I cannot. The mantra repeats itself in various forms all day as I prepare. I mumble the invitation continuously. The invocation turns into humming while I play with the ignition.
I recreate the explosion on a small scale with a bamboo cane I hollow out at one end. Just to get a feel for what I could expect. Praise Pyrrha for all she provides. So many allies. I dwell among the unseen beings. I am the novice, the one lost and found.
My first test, releasing some gas in an upside-down cooking pan, works. Within seconds, I create a rapid expanding blue fire-cloud, bulging from underneath. Glad that I decided to kneel at the last second. Giving me a renewed respect for that invisible presence. I was lulled into thinking bladder gas was this gentle provider of heat. A meek spirit. Maybe I shouldn't have tried that inside. I wonder if naming it bladder gas might have been an insult. I hope not. As I feed the barrel behind the summer kitchen, I apologize to the newborn bubbles busy filling my big balloon. Then I take the small collector I have allowed to fill up. No idea how much gas I'll be needing. I have no real means of measuring. The bamboo cane is leg long and has an inner diameter of three fingers. The open end is the bottom of my testing rocket. To be put over a stick hammered into the soil. A bit of garden hose is my fuel injector. I put a little pressure on my small bladder and estimate the amount for a good mix. Is there need to stir? No idea how. Won't it mingle on its own?
I've been thinking a lot about the ignition. Not sure how to do that at a distance. For now, I will use the flint steel, I get on my knees. Try to stay as far away as possible and strike the steel a few times. Good sparks, but nothing happens. I get up, lift the bamboo and put my flat hand on the open end and shake the tube before I put it back. I don't believe it will make a difference, but it does. Now a good bang lifts the stick a foot or so. It also nearly scorched my hand. The smell of sautéed little hairs stings my nose. Glad it works.
Also worried about how to ignite the big pipe safely. I must ask Pyrhha for help. My magic chest. My Goddess. The cave of all needs. Well, not all. I have a cloud of wishes she will not provide. But as a source of unexpected usefulness, she's amazed me hundreds of times.
I start rummaging. Of course, the container's contents have been scattered, reorganised, ordered, neglected, cursed, battered, worn out and misunderstood. To be discovered and forgotten in endless cycles. That's me in a nutshell. But still. If I trust Pyrrha, she will hear my prayer and often surprise me in mysterious ways.
I vaguely remember coming across another piezo element in one of the many crates. My wall of treasure-chests filled with total random shit. It is my hardware store, my spare parts' supplier, my cabinet of curiosities. But the direct intention to find surely curses all attempts.
It takes me a good while to find it. A red button with a short bit of wire. Taken from some non-electric barbecue or a stove from the time before. Maybe I can extend the wire. The button contains a mini hammer release mechanism, and it should produce a high charge if it hits the bit of crystal inside. Not sure if that charge is high enough for a spark ten steps away. And I would rather be even further away. Just to be on the safe side. My knowledge of voltage and copper wires is insufficient. Everything, always, needs testing. Time-consuming testing, going against my grain. I am impatient, impulsive. The creativity of compromise is a frustrating devil. And with this repair, I feel pressure. There is a doom glooming in this little problem. My water is now stagnant and will go bad rapidly in the long hot days of this year-round midsummer. What do I know? It still is weeks until there is a chance of the wet spell I stubbornly name fall. A three-week dent in the drought. Then it's back to summer. High chance of withering, Eldon. Of all life to shrivel up. To sun-dry not only my wild apples and tomatoes but much more. I am in a hurry to get this right. To restore my water. To wake up the water and invite it to move again. For the earth's blood to reach the capillaries.
I fiddle for hours, but I can't get the spark transferred more than a meter or two away. Is the thing too old? The wire too thin? Meanwhile, I poke the depths of my brain to tell me all it knows about making electricity. I need a lightning bolt. Just a little one. And I know there is a way of building up static, but I don't know the details, nor do I have the time to re-invent a generator.
How can I get a flame deep inside the pipe? A little man with a lighter willing to sacrifice himself? A dragon using the pipe as a straw? Boomph. She would end up as a dragon balloon, and be splattered all over the garden. I wouldn't waste a perfectly good dragon for that. The thought of blowing fire, triggers a little tinker-bell, though. Can I send a flame through the garden hose? To function as a fuse? Do the exact same thing within the hose as I try to do with the big pipe. Only smaller. That could work. Fill it with a mixture of air and methane. Half, half? I don't know. I am guessing more air than gas.
I dig up two corks, and set up a trial with a short bit. Lab-grade transparent PVC tubing is what I use as garden-hose. It is one of my weird abundances. No less than six reels were stacked into Pyrrha. Very similar to the ones we used in the water lab in the time before. I choose the thumb-size, the thickest of my stock. In that, the red button igniter fits snugly.
Now I fill the hose with gas. The air is already in. Dosage is difficult, but I probably need less than I think. I count to five before I close the tap on my bladder. I cork it, and wiggle the two-meter snake to mix its load. The end cork must be in very loosely. Just to stop the gas from escaping. I place my ignition, take a breath and press the button. It goddamn works. A section of flame travels through the hose and poofs the cork. I didn't expect it to be so visual. And I repeat it, just to see the magic of the fire speeding through the tube.
I see no reason why this wouldn't work scaled up to a thirty-foot flamethrower python. I am ready for the big bang. My stomach knows. It tingles.
I will wait until the sun is behind the wall. It is too hot to work out there in the afternoon. I will do my shadow chores. No hot meal today because I'm not sure about how much gas I'll need.
The amount of tomatoes I will harvest this year will be insane. I only had the marble sized kind. But each year the variety increases. They range from orange to black, from little pearls to golfball size. I just let them grow wild, and they seem to enjoy themselves. I do harvest the seeds of the best. But they also propagate all by themselves. Many of my plants do by now. They find spots they like and live there happily among who else has landed there.
I can't concentrate on stringing the unripe figs I picked two days ago. The big momma tree has gone to sleep and will neglect her massive offspring from now. One sign the all too subtle season is turning. I can't cook these amounts, so I will try sun drying them six different ways. Including figmentation. I keep hearing Auryn's voice in my head. Not as a hallucination, no, just memory. Can one even have a normal memory of a figmented conversation? A figment of a figment? I don't know. It feels so normal. So extremely normal that it's unsettling. But I did right, cutting it off, didn't I? I stare, sort of frozen, for a long time. Poking a baby-fig with my long rusted needle. Wondering why everything seems filled with change. With ending. I caught myself several times these last days, looking at the thirty-foot concrete keeping me in. I have never seriously considered escape. I wasn't supposed to. I deserved to be locked away for a long time. But this long? Isn't it enough by now. Haven't I paid back the debt? I grind my teeth. My left wisdom tooth has been bothering me again lately. I hate pain.
Something else is bothering me. On a deeper layer. As if the birds are trying to draw my attention. Trying to inform me. To alarm me? The flying companions are wise. Shrewd little quick ones. Their timescale is not mine. I can't keep up with them. I cannot understand the flittering twitters they throw at me from all around. Like they make sure I can't blame them for not alerting me, for shutting me out. Told you so, they will repeat tomorrow, told you so, tol'youso. But now they sound more like calling my name. Eldon? Eeeeeldonnn? The word imminent, is in there, imminent. Imminent-imminent.
"What the folk do I know about birdsong?"
I said that out loud. And they shut up for a few seconds. Creating an eerie silence. I hate silence.
I heard music yesterday.
I get up abruptly, don't wanna wait any longer. In an hour or so, it will cool down. Time to get a move on, mr. Mercer, and stop daydreaming about the unreachable.
I splint a fifteen-leg stretch of tube with two-foot sticks. So, it won't curl up in the pipe and be rigid enough to push it in. Two thirds inside and one third out, so I can hide as I press the ignition.
I have a plan. It has a backup, and it gives me the best chance with the first attempt. Not wasting too much gas on testing is wise, not enough is useless. I will empty the contents of the small bladder, yes, all of it, through the inserted hose, deep into the pipe's interior, and ignite in one go. Without blocking the open end of the PVC-tube with the spark-maker. I think the fire will draw in air as the flame travels. That's the theory.
I get to work, and it all goes amazingly smooth. The sun just about sinks behind the wall's edge as I am ready to fill. I am nervous. This blowjob is the most dangerous thing I have done in ages.
The tube went in as far as I'd hoped. No obstructions. The open end, my end, is located behind the concrete of the basin beneath the pipe. Even with a massive flame spitting out the inlet, I will be safe. I hope. The small bladder contains about a hundred litres of unpressurised methane. How poetic to use a former conduit-plug inflatable. I slowly squeeze it all in. I am highly focused. Feel stable and certain about my method. When the fuse-tube is full, I remove the filler hose. Pick up the ignition, put the wires in and fold back the button. I will point the open end of the hose away from me at the moment of ignition. So if, by accident, I have built a flamethrower in reverse, I will only burn some tall grass at the foot of the wall. And my relationship with grass is ambiguous anyway. I do the procedure in one smooth sequence and push the button without hesitation. The flame rushes in. A hand’s length of blue light travels down the fire transporter. I imagine it speeding through the pipe. A vehicle with headlights on, through a dark tunnel, placing a flash delivery.
I wait for what feels like too long. I forgot to count. Time stretches, but not that much. Expectation changes into disappointment. Nothing is happening. Eager voices scorn the initiative.
"What did you expect?"
"Succeeding in one go?"
In an impulsive second --and to prove the cynics wrong-- I place my mouth over the hose and blow as hard as I can. Plopping my ears. Triggering the image of my cheeks and head exploding from the ultra-rapid effect. It makes my heart race. I point the tube away in renewed anticipation.
The result is the same. Nothing happens. The birds casually spread the news of my failed attempt. I sit to regroup.
I think of Puddy. She would tell me to keep moving, to not give up, to try again. She could transfer energy with her eyes. Often without saying a word. When I'd shed my load too early for her, my drive evaporated, she would lock me in her gaze and fill me. Transferring her unfulfilled desire into my eyes. The fire would travel down my spine and I would grow back into her. Then I lasted.
I cry. A one tear cry. God, I miss her. Now, the thought lurking all afternoon can no longer be held back. If the phone has been repaired, what functions are available? Is Puddy's voice still on there? Videos?
On my way to execute the backup plan, I feel the dome pulling at me. But I resist. I will repeat the procedure with the big bladder. I will go all the way. Triple the amount of gas. Four times, if the first batch still lingers in there. Clearly, the internal volume of the water system is bigger than anticipated. I have to hurry.
As I walk past the dome again, now with the big tightly filled bag of gas on my shoulder, I decide I have earned a brief look at the phone. Just to check. Shielded by telling myself to expect nothing. It won't work without power, is what I tell my hyper-pumped hope.
"Calm the folk down."
Thinking you are prepared for disappointment, is the best way to set yourself up for it. I crawl into the twilight space. And my eyes need to adjust, of course, but I immediately know. My shrine seems untouched. Everything is still as it is supposed to be. The only difference is the tiny wooden pedestal I created to hold up the rectangular portrait of tempered dark glass is empty. The phone is no longer there. It is gone. Has disappeared. Vanished from its place in my world.