And at the end of a long day on the open sea, when darkness has blackened everything, the stars grow dull, the wind breathes its last, our ship sails on into the last refuge of abundance. There is only one Terra Nullius left on Earth, and that’s where we are headed, “whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white” the language shrinks back from the miracle, the silence awaits us beyond the mist, where “glimmered the white Moon-shine.”
So pick up your phone and dial right now for your chance to win, the first three callers will receive a free blow job, I’m not what you’d call happy-go-fucky, Charlie don’t start without me, I’ve kissed the girls of Naples, as they say the pitcher will keep going to the well until it breaks, you can’t afford to give things away either, Charlie, wait she’s not just yours you know, do your looting while supplies last. The matter will be looked into at once, I’m afraid you’re going to have to fly right back, you better eat something while the machine’s being refueled, this is no longer a photo shoot, it’s an emergency. They’re pretty as can be, that comes from putting off the necessary repairs, the street is closed due to construction, please follow the detour, oceangoing tankers are kept in use until they break apart, see-lonce, see-lonce, watchin’ the ships roll in, legs well worth the look let me tell you, where there’s a middle class there will be banksters, you slave away for thirty years scrimping and saving every penny never going on vacation and then something like this happens, imao, do you have any idea what’s at stake here? we’re looking at a maritime emergency with international complications, all ships in the area, the Urd, the Verdandi and the Skuld are headed for Gerlache Strait to rescue the passengers, we have to be prepared for every contingency. You want to know the problem with the indigenous people, I’ll tell you, they’re too docile, we need to infect them with our greed, otherwise there’ll never be any peace between them and us, the overweight will have to weigh things over. The first ship should be there in roughly two hours, the captain of the Urd has taken command of the operation, water doesn’t get any colder. Then I watch them roll away again, you should snatch that up, the weather changes every minute and so does the business climate, and I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay, the atmospheric depressions return every thirty-six hours, watchin’ the tide roll away, in the course of a single day we experience all four seasons, I’m just sittin’ on the dock of the bay BREAKING NEWS HOPE FOR SURVIVORS BREAKING NEWS HOPE FOR SURVIVORS wastin’ time
6. 54°16′8″S, 36°30′5″W
A DAY WHEN clouds look like mountains and mountains like clouds. Alpine peaks spring up in the middle of the ocean, a tear in the sloping cloudbank exposes rocky cliffs and glaciers looming over patches of pasture, where reindeer introduced by homesick Norwegians chomp away at the vegetation. Trees have never set down their roots. The water inside the pot cove is rich in oxygen and krill and takes on a greenish tint. Here Creation appears with unfamiliar clarity, as though all cataracts have been removed and our collective vision was suddenly unclouded. We put into Grytviken, an old whaling station that was abandoned overnight and left to rot and ruin. The passengers stroll from the cemetery to the flensing plan to the mudhole where the elephant seals wallow motionless except when yawning. Our dock isn’t far from the graveyard which offers a small but very choice selection. The names are etched in white stone, on calm days we pay our respects to Sir Ernest Shackleton with a champagne toast. The diesel tanks are lined up as neatly as the graves — a reminder of how much blubber was processed in this cove. Inside the factory humans once dismembered whales, now time is dismantling the factory. Silence weighs on the dilapidated halls, the skuas fly in other skies. The whale oil tanks still exude a stench, so it seems to me: it’s hard to breathe in the middle of the rusting slaughter-works. Here and there a roof slants downward between the clouds and the tin floor, red signs mark off an area infested with asbestos. In front of the bone-rendering plant three figures clamp their hands around an iron chain and lean back as though in a tug-of-war with long dead whalers. The wind carries a sound of giggling, the Filipinos enjoy playing hide-and-seek in the ruins. But how am I supposed to distance myself from this flensing deck, this place synonymous with death? The snow-covered mountains are mere backdrops, distant and detached. So well hidden are the fur seals that you have to pay close attention not to step on one by accident. The younger seals scamper into the water, twisting in middive, then give themselves a vigorous shake as soon as they crawl ashore. A stand of gentoo penguins keeps watch between an anchor and some ship’s propellers (which, uncoupled from their purpose, are nothing more than grotesque jetsam), mocking glances behind red beaks. And by the jetty the Albatros has listed ostentatiously for decades, its harpoon gun long turned landward.
“Hello hello, hey it’s our guide, what an interesting place, isn’t it; just like you say, this is where humans and the Antarctic got to know each other, it sure is quite a mess, they really ought to clean it up, do you know what that building was for?”
“There are some plaques on the other side, along the main path, with detailed information.”