Eldon
I’m not alone. There’s a girl in here with me. The crawlers avoid her. At my end of the tomb there are hundreds scurrying. A wriggling carpet lining floor wall and ceiling. But the unconscious girl is left alone.
“Can you hear me?” My voice ripples through the creatures. They can. I sound strange, weak. My throat dry as an overcooked duck’s breast. The image shifts to the succulent parts. The memory of food. I could eat anything. I am thirsty. So thirsty it aches. Punishment for drowning is desiccation, the inner tribunal states. I sniff. The humour hasn’t dried up yet. But I agree, no water no life.
There’s a grinding noise for a while. To my left. More like scraping. Chalkboard torture upsetting a part of my brain already irritated. I can pinpoint the source. Marked by crawler activity on the ceiling.
My bed-chair starts drifting on the ocean of bodies. Crowd surfing again. Then the noise stops and is replaced by a clear splashing. Like a tap has opened producing a clattering stream of clear water that splashes on the unbothered floor population. My attempt to sit up is supported and I slide toward the quencher and am pushed underneath. I am wetted by the little stream. The cold takes my breath as I drink and swallow and even lift a hand to feel the miracle. Then I am removed. My head reaching. Wanting more than a few sips.
The carrier collective can be quick. Cause I am rolled, floated, to the other end of the room. My comfortable high throne shrinking as if the tires wear out over that short distance. As if the object melts away I am set down on my own behind right next to the tied up girl. My spine struggling. Pains flaring up, hands seeking support as the beasts abandon me within a few seconds. Retreating to the other half of the space.
I feel close to fainting. The clarity of my head draining away to halfway my lungs. Drowsy and dazed I sit on the ship’s deck. Rough seas. Peripheral darkness.
It takes me a minute to find myself, to restore my solid state. No sense of time. Could be I am missing bits of unknown size. But I am still upright. Sitting like a wet bag of flour. Reduced to breathing.
We’re both breathing bags of stillness.
The one who made this package did a sloppy job. They should be fired. It renders the product useless. Like stickers. Unremovable labels on crucial parts. The price tag reducing the value. That thought causes a few half-hearted quakes in the lower parts. The remnants of laughter. The stock exchange of the universe is not happy with price tags. Must be an annoyingly huge task, removing all of them. But the end is neigh. For both of us. For all of us. World-scale hit-song. I forgot the words. Forgot to remember until it wasn’t around. Pop has ended. Mom too. Child too.
I sob like I am. A child. Like she is both. Child and woman. Limbs bound with abominable, abummanibble, ... whatever... knots.
I can do better knots on her.
No, I can’t.
I can’t even undo these shitty... my hand is reaching.
I spend, what feels like, hours on the loose end, before I reach the end of the possible. I could pull two windings from under her scruffy legs, and now it disappears beneath a but in a black dress, hardly worth calling a but. Just legs joining, stopping being legs. I can’t pull or push, or move to her other side. It’s climbing rope. Non-chewable. Twenty-seven windings to go. That’s a century and a half. Ballpark. Give or take.
As give or take echos _—a pinbal machine that uses balloons— she produces a grunt. A long, near waking, utterance of resistance. She doesn’t want to surface. The deep ocean preferred over the narrow chamber of this life. I get that. Visited the place.
I look over my shoulder. Wonder why the crawlers do not help us. They could unroll her in a whiff. Have I run out of credits? Is the jar of small change empty? Have I used up my last coin?
The water is still running. From there a tiny river has formed on a bit of ribbed floor. It lands into a hollow right next to my working arm. It’s almost full.
We’re in the lower end of the long space, my brain notes. It may be on power-safe mode but that was a clear thought. Another insight dawning is that the crawlers provide. That puddle is intentional. They found a ceiling spot to tap that is just right. A trickle for two.
With a cupped hand I try to reach the hair covered mouth. I fall short. A man’s frame isn’t made sit on the rear end. It messes with the spine. You die from the ground up. But, is all I have to sit on, though.
As I am trying, a little friend visits.
I hesitate to cross this line.
But what have I got to lose?
“Two of you could function as a pouch. A travelling meditation seat. Two-bean beanbags with legs to move me around a bit. To help her. To retrieve the rope for better appliance.”
Only the first three words came out loud enough to count as speaking. But I think he heard me. He? It? No, this is a they.
Nothing happens.
I can uncover her face by reaching. Begin to remove what isn’t hair at all. It’s a bag.
I can see her jaw, her mouth, her nose has been bleeding. Her lips are cracked. My hands rest on her ribcage for a while. The faint tide of breath. She is so thin. Fragile as bird-bones they feel. I can see it in her jawbone too. She’s malnourished. Probably dehydrated by now. How long has she been here? Are we in a dungeon prison left to rot? Is this my destiny too?
Maybe it was my hand on her chest, but she makes a sudden move, sharply breathes in through her nose. Drinking in the new oxygen. She starts wriggling and stretching. She isn’t as restricted as I was. The rope is slack around her waist. Her head is wrestling to remove the bag. But her arms are unavailable.
Because of my meagre untying she can use her lower legs and does. Like a demon has woken up in this frail body she starts kicking and rolling and pumping air and making progress. She’s like an escape artist gone mad. Bending over backwards, like a cat run over by a car and just refusing to die. That is this child displaying a staggering will to live without the bonds of her braided prison. With one arm free she wildly yanks off her headwear. Her hair is shaved off, her eyes scan the room and me, as she is on her knees wurming herself out of the loosened coil. As she gets to her feet, its windings fall to the floor. She stands swaying, arms spasmodic and flailing, eyes sharp and on me.
I produce half a smile. How can something with so little body mass have that amount of energy?
“How did you escape?” She asks accusingly. “Who helped you?”
It feels like she’s throwing lightning bolts. Not yet at full strength, thank god. My eyes wander to the other side of our shared space.
“Them?” She says confused.
She’s a Genan too, another mind-reader.
Suddenly she folds in half. Arms holding her stomach.
‘Aaaaaah,” she screeches in abdominal pain. Stretching the word to its maximum length. Doing it with a level of indignation I’ve never seen before. I look at the crawlers again. Have a flash of clarity. I have two ends of the spectrum here. One is gentle. The other a banshee in a child’s body.
She slowly restores her upright position but with her eyes glazed over. I am not quick enough and can only half catch her as she collapses.
That was the first exchange.
She’s in my lap. Another child. Another girl. Another woman. What can I do? How can I give? Must I give anything?
Now I feed her water. Tiny bits, that gurgle and are half swallowed. Her eyes peak at me. Half open. She feels rag dol heavy. I drink too from my hand.
“I killed you,” she says, her voice void of passion.
I look at her for a long time. She’s right. This is an after-kill talk. A meeting before we fade.
“I killed everyone,” I say, “trying to save them. But here we are. You having the chance to finish me, while I try to save you.”
I am not sure she heard me. I start humming. It has no form or recognisable melody. It’s random, while-you-do-chores humming. Her closed eyes twitch. Her body has tremors. And I feel strangely numb for I don’t know how long.
“Can you feel her?” She asks, calling me back from a deep place. She’s wide awake. Sitting next to me. Her back straight. Right as rain. Who does she mean? Liora? Auryn? I think about Juniper, I can still feel that girl. The promise unfulfilled. Like you, Puddy sits beside me now and then. I looked at the floor thinking that, but in the corner of my eye, these women have just visited. One after the other. All where the nameless one occupies space.
“Put your hand on her,” her voice says from my other side. She walked over to the wall. Having both arms wide and her cheek against it. She merges with the soft skin of my prison. I feel amazement. I am envious of her melting into the bones of the place. There’s an escape. Fall through to the other side.
But I only have one arm. One hand to feel. One hand to touch. One hand to hold all that. First I need to find my other half. My twin self. My soul brother. My feet and how to apply them. A four step walk is out of reach.
She grabs back my wandering attention and is in front of me.
“You,” she says, “have sold me, abused me, worn me out. You have fenced my water. You drained the river to run your machines, chopped forests, poisoned soil.
You burned women, crucified wisdom, ground to powder the living tissue. You made machines to replace me. You took my womb. Took my skin. Took my blood. What did you think you could do with my soul when you drained it?”
The girl isn’t in front of me. She’s inside. I can’t push her out. I am violated with no chance of keeping my integrity. She’s breaking in and I can only let her.
These weren’t mere words spoken. They have the weight of the world behind them. Of her world and mine combined. She knows from experience. Has the poison running through her veins. Because I know her as she knows me. I can feel her and it breaks my bones.
I open my eyes. I am on the floor. Hurting.
This is the second exchange.
She’s curled up into a ball. Not too far from me. I am thirsty again. Every ounce of me resists getting up. First to my knees. My bones screaming. Stiff as a corpse I will myself upright. Then all of me on the soles of my feet, towering. What a miracle. My hipbone hurts. One shoulder feels as if it’s been dislocated. Half my face is mushed and I have aged a hundred years but I can walk. Slowly, slowly I do the ten step journey. Then drink from my one good hand. Drink the best water I ever tasted. All I do is drink and taste and feel the water go into my throat and be absorbed. I am this water. My tears are water, my piss is water. My blood. I am water.
There’s less activity from my companions. Are the numbers declining? My gentle death doulas are on their way out. Leaving me to it. Done with what they were made to do. It’s all done and said. My circle closed like the tomb gifted me by these earth servants. Nothing left but waiting for the lights to dim. I’ll be the last to leave. I will leave it all, to who comes next.
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