2013: The Aftermath

by Shane McKenzie

  I arrive in front of the garden gate at T minus 80 with the book in my hand.

  “I miss you terribly,” I say, cupping a lozenge into my mouth. The book unfolds instinctively to the pages of a tale I’ve read more times than I can recall.

  ***

  Centuries ago, during the reign of King Tran Thuan Tong, there lived a young man named Tu Thuc, who was chief of the Tien Du district. Despite his youth, Tu Thuc possessed wisdom seldom found in the most learned and traveled men. He roamed the country collecting books of uncharted antiquity, arcane artifacts, and the secrets of sages who kept themselves hidden from the likes of ordinary scholars. A great many trials had Tu Thuc overcome to gain the trust of this shadowy brotherhood. But for all his accomplishments, he consistently failed to discover the single treasure that had turned his quest to obsession: the location of the Land of Bliss, in the realm of fairies.

  Growing up, Tu Thuc had been regaled with stories of the Chinese Emperor Duong Minh Hoang, the only mortal to have discovered the Land of Bliss. According to the legend, the path to this paradise revealed itself only during a single night in August, in a particular spot on the vast and open sea, under the full moon. Many pleasures awaited those who crossed over. Wondrous beings with complexions of peach blossom, adorned in iridescent robes that sparkled with the colors of alien rainbows. A region dense with eternal youth and sprightly fairies who passed their days in laughter, music, and dance. A world of indescribable joy and beauty.

  It was said that upon the emperor’s return to the mortal plane, he taught the ladies of the imperial palace the Khuc Nghe Thuong dance, which he had learned from the fairies themselves. And on nights when the moon shone silvery across the fields, and after the sipping of a rare perfumed wine, the women of the palace would perform the dance for the emperor and his revelers. It was after witnessing this spectacle for himself that Tu Thuc’s greatest ambition became the discovery of the Land of Bliss.

  One day during the Flower Festival of the year Binh Ti, Tu Thuc came to an old pagoda where it was believed a group of priests kept a piece of the map to the Land of Bliss. Glorious bouquets of red peonies bloomed there, a sight rivaled only by the young maiden standing nearby. Entranced by the girl’s presence, Tu Thuc watched as she lowered the branches to better admire the radiance of the flowers. But one of them snapped off in her hand. The priests of the pagoda were angered by this violation and imposed a fine as punishment. But the young woman had no money, so the priests demanded her banishment. Outraged at these proceedings, Tu Thuc offered the priests the brocade from his coat, which they accepted. The young maiden, now freed from her obligation, thanked Tu Thuc and spread word of his honor throughout the empire.

  Tu Thuc continued to rule his district as a kind and efficient chief, but the duties of his office never distracted him from seeking the fairy land visited by Duong Minh Hoang. After several years of study and exploration, Tu Thuc became convinced that he had discovered the gateway to the Land of Bliss. Taking only his lute, a book of poems, and a gourd of wine, he resigned his post and set out for Tong-Son, a place a blue mountains and emerald-green waters. He crossed many streams. He ate from the bounty of the land and drank from lapping brooks. He trekked across the Pink Mountain, the Cave of Green Clouds, and forded the Lai River, composing verses as he wandered. When he reached the shore, having no more land to cross, he bartered for a small boat from a local fisherman and cast off into the most uncertain leg of his journey.

  Tu Thuc spent several weeks at sea, searching for the signs that would point the way to his destination. But as the sun rose and set each day over the same waves, Tu Thuc began to give up hope. He had run out of food and water. He could no longer stave off his exhaustion. He had lost the strength to fight the currents threatening to scuttle his vessel. “If this is the end chosen for me,” Tu Thuc said to the universe, “then it was worth the effort, for I have ventured farther than most.” He let sleep overtake him and prepared to join his ancestors in the afterlife.

  But death did not come for Tu Thuc. When the dawn broke, he awoke safe in his boat, sailing peacefully beneath five pastel clouds shimmering over the water. As he beheld their forms shifting in the breeze, they unfurled into the image of a lotus flower. Inspired by this sign, Tu Thuc rowed toward the clouds until a mystical island appeared before him. Gaining its banks, he moored the boat, stepped ashore, and waited for nightfall at the foot of the mountain that dominated the land.

  Hours later, as the moon climbed into the August sky, the rocks at the foot of the mountain started to rumble and quake. Tu Thuc leaped back as they parted to reveal a cavern. Inside, the air was perfumed with lilies and roses. Ruby and silver fish swam beneath lotus leaves floating on the surface of crystalline springs. Tu Thuc marvelled at these sites and pushed deeper into the recesses of the grotto, moving toward a golden light that illuminated a summit at the end of the path. He clutched at the jagged rocks and climbed until he reached its peak. There he was delivered onto a path of marble, strewn with petals like peacock feathers that had fallen from boughs of diamonds overhead. His heart raced, and he found himself running through the pulsating colors of this strange wilderness until a brilliant and immense garden spread itself before his eyes. He had discovered the Land of Bliss.

  Beings of all shapes and hues flitted over to gaze upon Tu Thuc. “How could a man from the world of brown dust find this place?” one of the fairies asked.

  Tu Thuc was about to answer when an exquisite woman in glimmering robes approached. “Greetings learned scholar and lover of beautiful sights,” she said. “Do you know what land this is?”

  “The Land of Bliss!” Tu Thuc gasped, unable to contain his joy.

  “You have found us at last,” the woman rejoiced.

  “You have been expecting me?”

  “My daughter has. Allow me to introduce you.” And with that, the woman clapped her hands and a group of fairies led a young maiden in equally resplendent garments to Tu Thuc. “This is my daughter, Giang Huong, Princess of the Fairies,” the woman said.

  Tu Thuc’s rapture turned to surprise. Before him stood the girl he had rescued from the priests of the pagoda years ago. She had not aged a single day.

  “I have never forgotten your kindness and virtue,” Giang Huong said to Tu Thuc. “I have waited a long time to show you my gratitude.”

  Giang Huong’s mother promptly offered Tu Thuc her daughter’s hand in marriage. The ceremony was held that very day.

  Tu Thuc lived happily with his bride in the Land of Bliss, realizing that there was nothing more in life he could wish for. And yet, after some time had passed, he began to miss his native village and the family he had left behind. So it happened one day that Tu Thuc asked Giang Huong if he could return. “It has been but a few months,” he explained. “Once I have seen my relatives, I promise to return.”

  Giang Huong took Tu Thuc before her mother, the Queen of the Fairies, for counsel. “If he wishes to return to a land of toil and sadness,” the Queen sighed, “then his wish shall be granted.”

  The Queen instructed Tu Thuc to close his eyes. When he opened them, he found himself back on earth. Tu Thuc spent many days searching for his village. Nothing of the land appeared the same. The rocks and trees and structures had all changed. After a week, Tu Thuc stopped to replenish his supplies in a village he had never seen before. He asked an old man for directions back to his home: “My name is Tu Thuc, and I am looking for the Tien Du district. Would you be kind enough to show me the way?”

  “You are standing in the Tien Du district.”

  “But that cannot be.”

  “Tu Thuc? That is your name?” the old man puzzled. “How odd.”

  “Why is that odd, venerable grandfather?”

  “When I was a boy,” the old man explained, “I heard many stories about an ancestor of mine. His name was Tu Thuc, and he was the chief of this district. He left the village over two hundred years ago to seek the Land of Bliss. He never returned.”
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br />   “Two hundred years ago? Why do you mock me with such jests?” Tu Thuc asked.

  “I speak the truth. If you are Tu Thuc, my ancestor, and if you have been to the Land of Bliss, then surely you must know that a month there takes one hundred mortal years to pass.”

  Tu Thuc surveyed his surroundings and realized the truth of the old man’s words. Fearing the consequences of his actions, Tu Thuc fled the village and retraced his steps, desperate to find his way back to the realm of fairy and his bride, Giang Huong. Three nights came and went. Tu Thuc had neither slept nor eaten, and he had grown too weary to continue. He fainted against a bush on the grounds of a ruined pagoda.

  The next morning, Tu Thuc rose to the sound of rustling. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw a young maiden before him plucking peonies from the branch above his head. It was Giang Huong.

  “Giang Huong! My love! I have found you!” Tu Thuc shouted, but the young girl recoiled. “Why do you shrink from my embrace?”

  “I have disturbed you,” the young women cried. “Please forgive me. I meant no harm.”

  “Do you not recognize your own husband?”

  “Good sir, I have no husband. I am a young girl, and we have never met. I beg you, let me depart in peace.”

  Tu Thuc nodded. The girl ran off into the fields, leaving a trail of red petals to mark her retreat. His heart heavy with despair, Tu Thuc continued north along the old path, now overgrown with weeds, in the direction of Tong-Son. He was never seen again.

  At the base of a shrub by a forgotten pagoda lay an ancient book of poems, a broken lute, and an empty gourd.

  ***

  T minus 60. I close the book and wipe the moisture from my eyes. “I love you very much,” I say. “In case something happens, in case I can’t find my way back, I want you to know how much I love you.”

  I tuck the book under my arm and step backward along the walkway that leads to the main gate. I want to take it all in before lift off; the fields and the unattended bandstand and the little pond disgorging ducks into a sky blushing with the first glow of daylight.

  Farther away, past a roundabout, the rolling lawn curves up against a wall where it sprouts rows of rounded stones. They smile back at me like rotting teeth. There’s an unmarked piece of marble over there too, hiding in the overgrowth at the foot of the gazebo. I can’t see it from here, but I know it well. Beneath that stone is planted an empty casket. There’s no body to fill it. It’s just a reminder of what I’ve lost. My little girl, my wife, lost somewhere out there as though they’d never existed. It’s where our house stood in another lifetime, in another world.

  No one I know is buried here. No one I know lives nearby. I’m alone on this planet. I’m an island, despite what the poets say. My maker is absent from this place. If there is a god who watches over these people, if a higher being fashioned this world, it doesn’t seem to mind my trespass. I doubt it even knows I’m here.

  ***

  They said this could happen, that our minds might play tricks on us. It can’t be real. A cognitive impairment, a bad reaction. That’s all. We’re only in Stage One. Everything will be okay if I can regain focus. But damn it, I’m going to be sick. Pulse too rapid. Can’t disengage SAINT. Got to fight it. Controls blurring. Screaming. The ship is screaming. Cats in a slaughterhouse. Phantom tanners flaying newborns alive. Colors of no earthly hue flooding the viewers. An ocean of vomit and pus and oil sucking us into its vortex. The grotesque wail of metal transmogrifying. Acid in my veins. Lava basting the ship. Distended sacs of flaming mucus bursting, the sallow globules pummeling the craft. The shade of abomination. Of disgust. The color of influenza. Larded with ichor. The blood of dead gods seeping through the instruments. It’s spewing across visors, mourning every birth, scorching every death. I’ve got to stop looking. It’s an illusion. Close my eyes and this all goes away.

  “Holy hell! Captain?”

  “Miner, are you seeing this too? What’s happening?”

  “Captain, the charges are firing on their own. I can’t...”

  “Can’t what? Miner? Miner, report in. What’s going on?”

  “They’re all dead.”

  “Nobody’s dead, Miner. Vitals are up on all sensors.”

  “Dead, Captain. We’ve lost the civilians. You’ve got to lower the bulkheads and get us access. Why are you sealing off the wombs?”

  “Miner, it’s just the effects of the jump. It’s messing with me too, but it’s not real. SAINT shows all systems running. There’s no damage. There are no quarantine actions under way. Miner, do you read me? It’s all in your head.”

  “SAINT hailing flight deck. Incoming command message received.”

  “Captain to SAINT. I did not initiate a command.”

  “Accepted. Go for Stage Two.”

  “No. SAINT? Respond.”

  “SAINT confirms Stage Two deployment.”

  “You’re in error, SAINT. We haven’t cleared the first portal. This isn’t happening.”

  ***

  At T minus 55, the road falls away behind me. I no longer see the garden gates in the mirror as I speed toward the launch site. Up ahead looms Anderson Hill, still shrouded in darkness, still waiting for dawn to lift this veil. The anvil cloud hovers over the pad, nearer now than eight miles. Silhouetted against this scene is the nose of my ship. It stabs at the cloud like a spike tearing open a balloon. Like a needle entering a tumor.

  As I enter the compound and approach the check point, Security waves me through without formalities. The MP looks me over once, checks his ledger, and opens the gates. That’s it. He doesn’t ask for ID. He makes no effort to ring Mission Control for verification. He offers no escort to the briefing center. Why should he? What is he protecting the facility against? War is a thing of the past. The old spy networks unraveled years ago. Everyone’s in space together, sharing the same satellites. But that’s not to say we aren’t mired in an unwinnable conflict.

  Our present battle has been waged by nature. This planet is dying, cliché as that sounds. It’s a punchbowl brimming with poison. The two land masses which haven’t slipped beneath the greasy waves are deserts. The trees exhale oxygen tinged with disease. The last corpses of our livestock decompose along the sides of motorways. We eat our pets now. Soon, it could be worse.

  If hope truly cowers in the bottom of Pandora’s filthy box, these people believe it will rise from the Unified Space Habitation program, the last technological feat the global government could devise with the resources remaining. I admit, it’s been a remarkable display of goodwill. For the first time in history, people have united in a single cause. Private and public sector agencies have merged without conflicting motives or agendas. All to address the issue of the planet. To show misery that its love of company will go unrequited. But the plan isn’t to save this galactic piece of charcoal. Who could agree on how? No, we’ve banded together to decide on the best way to leave. So at T minus zero, I’ll venture out with a group of pilgrims in the old spirit of manifest destiny. Or Diaspora, depending on your point of view. It seems such an innate reaction, doesn’t it? Such a human response? How the moment of decay signals a revival?

  I glimpse the MP in my rear-view mirror, eating his lunch alone in his guard shack, not giving me a second thought. I’m just the bus driver, after all. The real estate speculator. Captain of The Mayflower, which they’ve ironically christened the ship. He understands. No one expects me back anytime soon.

  They’ve chosen me to head up this mission out of hundreds of other pilots. The irony isn’t lost on me. I’ve been on this flight before, but they don’t remember. Society moves too quickly these days. People aren’t required to remember. Their pocket-sized computers tell them what’s worth remembering in abbreviated text. Sometimes I think the memories of these people are measured in bits, in binary digits stored in two stable states through integrated circuits and transistors. Memory is volatile and non volatile, randomly accessed. But I remember. I remember everything.
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  ***

  “Navigation hailing. We gotta a big fucking problem, Captain. Why are we deploying second stage now? Hello? We need affirmation, sir.”

  “Miner?”

  “His comm’s down. But I got three navigators suffocating here, Captain. The rest of us are fine. I don’t know. A psychosomatic response maybe. Medical can’t figure it out. We’re losing them.”

  “Medical hailing. Civilians are falling ill. Like tuberculosis in some. In others, almost dementia. Hold, we’re receiving new readings.”

  “Captain to Medical. Something’s happening up here too. I’m getting nauseous. Sleepy. I feel like I’ve downed a bottle of bourbon. My judgment can’t be impaired when SAINT is running. I need a solution, pronto. Do you read me? I can’t disconnect.”