Eat sleep share a part of the wall that sucks away our wastes
Ship no larger than an automobile
How many survived from Trojan Horse
Most of the seed-puffs gone now exhausted or served their purpose. Four worlds dead or dying, others under siege. God the power. What will we do after, knowing this? Maybe Hans is right they will snuff us.
Gas giants ripping apart in slow motion can it be we did this? They are like suns now, spinning tails of brilliance from poles and equator, prominences. Did Hans know we could do this
No messages and two days have passed. We sweep away from Leviathan. Sleep much of the time, eat rarely now, there is no space to exercise. Breathe slowly, watching worlds writhe and die across hours and days.
All the rocky planets and moons seething surfaces uniform deep red
All! All! Jesus, ALL of them!
Ariel leaned over him, hand on his shoulder. “I can’t get the ship to talk,” she told him. “It won’t answer.”
Martin tried. Still no answer.
“That means we’re going to die, doesn’t it?”
“I hope not,” he said.
Ariel pounded a fist on the gray wall. “Hey! Talk to us!”
No images no information. Try exercising, pushing against each other, feet to feet, wrestling she is almost as strong as I am strain a muscle.
Tell her I’m dreaming more now of Earth. Of forests and rivers, of our house in the woods in Oregon with the broad patio. My toys, soldiers my parents bought me. We talk until we get thirsty. Trickle of water from the wall, wastes still sucked away something is working but the mom does not speak and we can’t see anything outside. Sleep most of the time and talk of spaces outside, times past, places gone.
Getting cold actually now. We hug each other but no energy left to exercise. Saw Theodore in the cabin playing cards with himself. Smiled at me. Offered a deck to me. Maybe he’s a ghost and the dead are going to greet us soon.
Such a great tide of dead rising from this place, trillions we’ve killed. What do staircase gods look like reporting to the afterlife, already stripped of material bodies? No battlefield so crowded with dead in long lines and we stand in queue waiting our turn to be inspected passed through. Salamander and Frog ahead of me; the babar and sharks up ahead, looking angrily at us. Don’t get too close to them don’t want fights in line Theodore says.
“Martin, wake up. There’s a little water now. Drink.”
“Did you have yours?” he asked.
“I’ve had mine. Drink.”
He sucked globules from the air. One got in his eye, burned a little. The water didn’t taste good. But it was wet.
No food.
For some time, Martin felt no hunger, until he saw Ariel looking visibly thinner, and felt hungry in her place, for she did not complain.
“It’s been at least six days,” Martin said.
“It’s been eight days exactly.”
“How do you know?”
She held up her right hand and pointed to the middle ringer. “Eight. I trim my fingernails with my teeth. See? These two are long.”
Are my parents dead? How would I know? Maybe we’ll meet them soon. Is Rosa in this line? I see her. Won’t look at me, won’t give up her place to come talk to me. Theodore goes over to talk with her. He doesn’t care about his place.
“Who is Theodore?” Ariel asked. Her lips had cracked and bled sluggishly. She looked elfin with hunger, eyes large and high cheeks gaunt.
“He died.”
“On the Ark?”
Martin shook his head and his neck muscles hurt, bones grinding. Muscles atrophying. No exercise no energy. “On Dawn Treader. Killed himself.”
“I don’t remember him.”
“He killed himself.”
Ariel wrinkled her face in concentration. “Maybe my mind is going. I don’t remember him.”
Martin looked at her and felt something cold. His lips were parched and cracking and he licked them. “Very smart,” he said. “Smarter than me.”
Ariel shook her head, and the coldness grew in him.
“I remember him,” Martin said, but there wasn’t enough energy for either of them to carry the question farther.
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Captain Bligh in his boat
arving up a bird between the men
.
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sound
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.
.
Water dripped onto his lips like rain.
“Martin?”
Moved, lifted, weight. Pressing of hands weight on his back. Voices familiar.
“Twenty-two days.”
“Martin.”
Small pain in his arm nothing compared to a chorus of fresh pains all over his body. Tingles, stabs, bones grinding, eyes opened to whiteness no detail.
Then snakes of lights. Freeway rain in Oregon with tail-lights last year of the world. Snakes of lights in a cabin, ceiling and floor, weight.
“Hello.”
No longer in line of dead.
“Hello,” he said, voice like rocks in a slide.
“You look pretty shitty, my friend.”
So who was it? Familiar.
Shadow in the light, another shadow. “I can’t see.”
“You both died, you know that? I mean literally, your hearts were stopped and something in the ship, the ship’s last energy, wrapped you in a field so you couldn’t, you know, decay. Absolutely incredible. Martin, come forth.”
Who would talk like that.
Joe Flatworm.
“I’m on the ship?” Martin asked. “Greyhound?”
“We picked you up five days ago. The sores are gone. You’re looking a lot better. We got four of the other ships. Saved seven Brothers, seven of us.”
“Ariel.”
“She’s alive. It’s been a season of miracles, Martin.”
He saw Joe’s face more clearly. “The war?”
“It’s still going. We’re still here.” Joe’s broad, pleasant face, supple brows, wide smile. He held Martin’s hand firmly between his hands. Skin warm, dry, like sunned leather.
Martin craned his neck and looked at himself, wrapped in a medical field, surrounded by warmth, an electric tingle moving from place to place through his body. Relaxed his neck. Swallowed. Throat raw. “Hans?”
Joe’s smile vanished. “Hey,” he said. “We’re getting it done. That’s enough.”
Add to the list: Hakim Hadj, Erin Eire, Cham Shark. Silken Parts, Dry Skin/Norman, Sharp Seeing, missing or dead as well. Presumed dead after so many days.
Still weak, Martin insisted on leaving the medical field to join Hans and view the war. The war had been on for twenty-four days; most of the damage, Joe said, had been done. “We’ve whipped them,” he said with an uneasy smile. Then he took Martin to the nose of Greyhound.
Hans hung in a net before dozens of projections. His appearance shocked Martin; hair almost brown with sweat and oil, face thin, stinking of sweat and tension. Hans wore only shorts and a sleeveless shirt. His arms seemed knotted with muscles, empty of fat; legs likewise. He did not turn around as Martin and Joe entered.