Eldon
The pain is a constant presence. It travels from place to place, but never leaves. Not when awake. The right side of my face is swollen. The eye pressed closed by bulbous flesh.
The list of my sores is as long as my body has places to name. Itches blend seamlessly with the high-pitched feedback from unseen wounds. Imagined while felt. My body is a wound. Inside and out. My mind a palace burning. Soon there will be no rooms left. I will have to get out of this building. Go elsewhere.
How long has it been? Minutes? Days? The limited view of my left eye sees the floor. It has a feverish glow. Floors do not emit light. Humans are not wrapped in anti-bird netting.
I know nothing about this world. Am I in a cave? I imagine sounds because of the silence. I hear water. I hear whizzing, crunching, and what sounds like tiny mouths smacking. A bit like sex can sound when wet.
I remember the singing from when I was carried by a hundred hands. The tingle in my spine’s tail end.
I endlessly slam into the valley floor. Shocking me back awake. Back to the pain.
I tend the garden. In my head. Walk the patches. Dig out peanuts. I meet and re-meet the girl.
Liora visits.
Sits by me.
Just out of view, just out of reach.
The strangest thing happens. Something heavy is travelling my body. Again and again. Back and forth. Left to right it crosses, then right to left.
I begin anticipating the visiting. Welcoming it. It emanates gentleness. Soothes my deepest core. My thirst lessens.
The whirring sound comes from that visitor. It is not spirit. Its weight denies that.
The path taken has shifted bit by bit. From my pelvis to my lower chest.
I’ve lost my body image. I do not know where my arms are, or my hands. If my legs are straight or bent. My left side is to the floor, my head turned down. My phantom limbs are all over. I can’t move a muscle—still, they change position randomly. It worries me. Have I become torso only? A giant head glued to a ball of flesh?
The first is joined by another. Now they walk randomly. Do they walk? The weight moves. Somewhere between spiders and snakes. I am beyond scared. My fear has given up.
I feel something nudging my back. A third one? Then I see one passing right next to me. I know these. The builder armadillos Ledon was so proud of. Crawlers.
Up close, they seem different. Benign. I think they are blind. No eyes. Their snout trembles with sensitivity. I have sparked their curiosity. I am explored. A slow process. Taking their time. More and more arrive. The room becomes brighter. The glow of surfaces intensifies with their presence. I am being nibbled on.
The small section of floor I can see is meticulously clean. Like porous marble, polished by the tiny feet. They are centipedes, walking on their toes. Each toe constantly seeking, finding, adjusting. They function as legs, as arms, and as antennae.
The nudging has intensified. My back is pushed rhythmically by a whole regiment. They begin to rock me back and forth, until I roll onto my front, causing a wave of sharp, sparking pains. A guttural grunt empties my lungs. The beasts back off. Trotting surprisingly fast onto walls. Into corridors.
I can see a different part of the cavernous space. It has many of those crawler-size holes. One-way tubes.
I am avoided for a bit, until the curiosity game resumes. New places to nibble on. I think they are gnawing the threads of my restraint. In my right arm, the nerves coming back to life celebrate by shooting waves of needles into my brain.
The pressure of several crawlers working away on top of me is strangely satisfying. Are they licking my wounds? Attempting to repair?
I can move my hand. It feels stiff and alien, and even the tiniest of changes stings as if broken bones rub against each other. It is like the two-toed hands are massaging me back to life.
All this takes hours. But they keep going. For short stretches I can sleep, cradled by a hundred of them munching away. Real sleep. Dreamless.
I am woken by the light. I turn my head too quickly, retaliated by a shockwave travelling down, and the first proper sound from my throat. I still have a voice. Now the response is only a short break in activities. Then they banter on without sound.
Waves of emotion attack me with total randomness. I am returning to life. I had settled, surrendered. I have allowed myself to be ended. To accept the completion of me. But maybe I will get a few more breaths.
I want to sit up, but that is an undoable task of complexity. I have forgotten how. There is not enough strength in my flesh. Not nearly enough.
Are they trying to help me? They crawl on top of each other, form mounts of nozzles and sculpting hands to push and hold. Pinch and shift. Softly wiggling their way under my shoulder, lifting my head. Hundreds of them form a chair, a giant’s hand, and sit me up. My dizziness makes me lean over. They correct and support, comprising armrests, jacking me up until the lazy throne is done. I shake all over. Shed tears. In the one good eye, that I cannot wipe with an after-stroke arm that has lost all coordination.
I am in a large cavity, with a nearly flat floor and an arched ceiling. All the surfaces have inner light that makes the material look like opal. My watering eye blends the undersurface colours into streaming rainbows.
I have fallen asleep for a long time. Wake up thirsty but bright. Less pain. I squeeze both my hands. The left wrist hurts as if bruised. The swelling of my face has subsided a bit. I have two eyes again.
On the floor, at the far end of the cave, lies a bundle of ropes. A package similar to mine. Yet unbothered by the crawlers. I stare at the motionless shape before I piece together that it is a girl’s body.
I am not alone.