vOYAGE:O'Side

by Francis Kroncke

CHAPTER 5

  Frak's mind has come to fully accept and grasp Brok's world of submission, sacrifice, Our Father, Chosen sons—yet, it is only until his deepest feelings—the ones not sensed by the conscious mind or sensual body—finally re-form that his transformation is complete. He struggles for just the right word to control this radical shift in his heart, just one from the so many he has been learning: queer. This the word Brok used when he took away something he had never seen before. So it fit...felt right—queer, not spoken except within his own mind; a comforting word.

  Queer. Now adequately describing the way he felt since he first encountered Brok. Describing the primal shift as he digested Brok’s words and linked them into sentences and over time sentences were welded into non-stop chats with his crew mates. Queer, when Water-House took another psychic jump with ship and crew and troop. Most revolutionary as he came to soul-feaster and sacrifice and submitting.

  Ship. Queerly, he accepts that the ship is not alive. This insight comes after many late nights with Brok telling him how he had the vessel built, and how many other ships are as fearsomely put together. No, the ship is not alive. “Only Our Father is alive.” Frak struggles but gain clarity. It’s the first time he also accepts, in amazement, that all that is—living creatures, gen, kin, beasts...all that simply exist like rocks, trees, lakes—come from the Father. Our Father is the mother of all!

  With this queering shift, Frak begins to imagine himself as always having been a seafarer sailing upon the wide-open ocean. “Upon the briny deep!” as the crew sings.

  Brok also senses this queering movement within Frak. It pleases him greatly. It tells him that it is time—right and fitting.

  Brok takes Frak up onto the forecastle and into the small room which is solely his...this being the only room on the ship which all are forbidden to enter unless called by Brok...never has Frak seen nor heard anyone so called! Brok makes Frak feel specially chosen among the chosen sons!

  Frak senses upon him the astonished eyes and the hushed but gasping single breath of all. Brok...into a room unlike what Frak could ever have imagined.

  A room of maps.

  “Map,” as Brok draws his finger along the lines. He sketches in a motion which means nothing to Frak.

  He then points to the corner of the cabin. Frak sees a very large drawing of hor...but this living stone compass has four distinct needles, not just one...each laying against the other, at right angles.

  “East. West. North. South.” Brok touches and names the tip of each needle.

  Frak is a step behind in his thinking. Brok chuckles quietly as he observes Frak struggle with what he knows will soon become commonplace for him. Brok’s heartfelt satisfaction with his choice of Frak has grown every day of their shared journey.

  During the next full moon cycle, Brok trains Frak in the art of map reading, map making, and using the complex compass. As anticipated, Frak is an apt and studious apprentice.

  During the following full moon cycle, Frak stands on Brok’s ledge and plots the ship’s course.

  The queerness of the concept of a map—of capturing the movement of the stars, the changes in land formations, and discerning how the winds blow, then sketching on a finely scraped hide and creating a fixed memory of things that were once totally beyond Frak’s control or even imagination, all this pries opens Frak’s mind like a fragrant flower unfurling for the first time in spring—ah, the innocence of bees and wind and morning dew!

  Frak is heart thumping agog, time and again, as Brok shows him map after map, and with each map recalls for Frak where the ship had been, what Frak had taken away, where the Thanksgiving and Sacrifice had occurred.

  Frak is dizzy beyond giddy when Brok shows him maps indicating where they are sailing towards! To have such foreknowledge is such a sundering, disjointed concept to Frak that he cannot not summon a word or string of words with which to describe the how and the why of his heart feeling less and his mind burning more—he is simply ecstatic! All day for many days he walks about hotly feverish and with brow thickly beaded. His breathing become pants, then deeply held till his ears turn red, until exhausted with only sleep bringing him back to normalcy. All the time, his eyes are near unblinking: a tearless, fire—intense stare.

  With maps Frak begins to know...know that he knows...yet, he still doesn’t know how to say this...how to confess this shared bond with Brok.

  “You know?” Brok asks, hopefully. Frak: A head nod; wordless, I know. “Our Father be praised!” Frak knows where the passage to the faraway land of God, Our Father is! He shows Brok his “X” upon the map. Brok is stunned—the Master Teacher astounded by the knowledge and power of his once near-savage student. Awake! Frak’s grok is truly greater than even Brok had first assessed.

  From thenceforward, when they would land for barter or a take away, Frak could hardly be bothered with what the other members of the crew were doing. No, he, rather—in a fashion which others came to mockingly describe him—quickly ran, hurriedly walked, vigorously paced to and up the nearest hill, bluff, mountainside...climbed the tallest trees...sketched and drew and made idiosyncratic notations—always feverish, always sweating, always consumed.

  Frak’s skills at exact and measured freehand drawings boggles Brok. He has never seen in any of his family’s collections—collections from many lands and for many generations—never seen such precision, such measured correctness. He grasps that Frak is, truly, queerly blessed by Our Father—even possibly more so than he himself is! Without a doubt, he himself had not chosen this half-naked, grunting barbarian—All praise be to Our Father! who had sent him to meet Frak.

  Brok builds another room—barely smaller than his own—in the aft of the ship for Frak. He does not care whether this stirs up jealousy among the crew. It’s beyond evident to all that Brok has a special eye for Frak—some kidding as they pass around the gourd of gom that Frak likes Brok’s prodding cock too much! But the others who have benefited from Brok’s teaching quickly take to conveying the message, “Frak is a chosen servant!” This amazes the others who have expected that only Brok is a chosen servant. How has this barbarian, hardly more human than a babbling jungle ape, risen to Brok’s level? Impossible. But true. Like Brok—and from Brok’s actions all know that Brok himself is aware of this elevation, of Our Father’s anointment—Frak is chosen to officiate at the ceremonies of Thanksgiving and Sacrifice.

  In brief moments of self-reflection, Frak realizes that he has amazed even himself. He doesn’t dialogue within or without about his newfound queering skills—they wae simply “there”...he is too consumed by his work to fret away even a moment to wonder why or how. As he finishes each new map, he blesses himself and sings in audible praise, “Blessed be Thee O Mighty Father!”

  Yet, although Brok trained him in the duties and rights of being one blessed as a chosen servant, Frak starts to invoke Thanksgiving and Sacrifice more often than Brok thinks necessary and proper. Following his father’s tradition, Brok has been trained to pleasure Our Father only after certain terrible and cataclysmic storms or battles most savage and ferocious. It is within such tumultuous and dramatic events that he’s been taught that the message of the Father’s Will is made manifest.

  Frak, truly queerly, calls for Thanksgiving and Sacrifice every time a new map is completed. Sometimes this occurs more than once within a full moon. Brok becomes more curious than fearful—he wants to know how Frak hears Our Father’s message in such queer ways.

  “Our Father is giving us the whole world to take away...the whole world.” Frak—cupping his hands at eye level—speaks this calmly, clearly and with a confidence Brok has never sensed Frak has had before.

  “Maps are how Our Father sees!” A slight uplift on the exclamation.

  This, another queer thought that slaps Brok—mentally he staggers. Frak is surely more than a chosen servant!

  “What Our Father sees through me.” It is a humble statement.

  As the student rises to become the Teacher o
f his own Master, Frak sets several of the oldest maps before Brok...ones Brok has relied upon for many years. At first Brok doesn’t understand; is clearly confused, a bit apprehensive. “Watch!” An eagerness, a paced breathing of excitement—Frak picks up a roll, unties the thong, and spreads it over the old maps, one at a time. Frak’s roll is a beaten parchment that is thinner than even Darlm’s big hide—shawl—a shawl no longer an image in his mind—a roll which is nearly perfectly translucent. The roll itself fascinates Brok, but before he can inquire about it, Frak says, “Look!” with the voice of great discovery.

  Said just once, “Look!”

  Frak is consumed by his own looking.

  Brok looks but can’t see; stares and peers...but...for the first time ever he jolts with a controlled moment of strangling fear—Frak knows something he does not!

  Fear not of the enemy. Of him who can be slain.

  No. Fear of the usurper. Of the child grown to manhood.

  Fear of the wiser one who will learn how to use Brok’s own fear to be his undoing.

  Yet, Brok simultaneously grasps that Frak does not sense this fear. That Frak is as if lost in prayer, far away in a way Brok himself has been lost while praying before entering a great battle, beseeching Our Father before the onset of a storm at sea, pleading as he had prayed at his own father’s grave. Brok eyes, closely watches, scrutinizes Frak face, his stance, his attitude... nothing to fear!—he breathes slowly and under control, says, “Show me more.”

  Frak spends the rest of the day—way past supper and into the depth of the night—detailing for Brok how he has discovered the usefulness of “spoon lines”—which Brok names as “Curves. They are curves.” Frak speaks about these curved lines. How when they sail towards the setting sun and sunrise, how then the lines curve: falling off to the right and off to the left. Frak paces about and even hops and skips as he speaks—all an amusement to Brok...which is a feeling unnoticed by Frak, himself.

  Frak tells Brok how he had woken one evening, late at night, inside a deep presence of Og fog and simply saw—beheld it right there before him, clearly as if an invisible hand were holding it up to him—saw a map with curved lines. Curved north and south. Curved east and west.

  Frak speaks of the time just passed when he had not left his room for three days—Brok remembering these as the days Frak mumbled so incoherently with such rapid breathing that all thought he had caught the fatal south-wind fever...emerging three days later, haggard and spent, but alive.

  It was during these three days that Frak pounded out—boiled and pressed his first translucent rolls. Upon them he drew his first ever curves. Using the curves and information from his numerous and varied notations about how many strides there was between prominent hill tops and crags, about the size of a man compared to his thumb when on top of a hill compared to when standing level with him on the beach, about the stars seen in the sky, about the changes in the compass as he did all these things—notations which he has jotted down not knowing even then why, just knowing that he must...telling Brok that during these three days as he worked with the new maps so had he discovered and discerned how to, “See as Our Father wants us to see!”

  After this meeting, back in his own room, Brok kneels down to pray. He whispers in thanksgiving...prays for Frak—that Frak should never die! Brok proclaims the wondrousness of Our Father in having created such a chosen son as Frak.

  In short talks over the next several days, Brok conveys to the crew—knowing that each member is at his own level of understanding—the revelation Frak has received from Our Father. All are amazed that such a once dismal barbarian as Frak has become such a presence of Our Father among them—truly a Servant of God! From this time forward all approach Frak with a sense of awe and reverence.

  Brok fully understands, finally, why Frak has called for so many Thanksgivings and Sacrifices during the last several moons. Yet, he is not untroubled. He has been trained to strictly pace such rituals since, if called for too often, the crew will grow weary of what would soon become common and not mysterious. Yet, who is he to doubt Our Father?

  During the next full moon cycle, Frak faithfully continues to draw additional maps—yet not once doeshe call for a Thanksgiving. This—another queer turn of events—troubles Brok.

  “It is not mine to call for the Thanksgiving and Sacrifice,” Frak volunteers to Brok during one of his daily late afternoon visits. “It is not mine. It is yours.” Again, said with the absolute confidence which Brok has accepted as a sign of Frak’s close communication with Our Father.

  Before Brok can ask or question, Frak says, with a dismissing tone, “It is mine to do queerly. You to conduct the rites.” He speaks no more to Brok this day.

  Frak’s difference and his odd new ways become quickly apparent to all the crew. Early one day they wake to find the door to Frak’s room artfully decked with bright ribbons, a fist of flowers, and the oddest of things, a something which made them all gape but come up short as to words of description—only Brok knows it as the dried penis of the large “deep monster”—a fully erect, stuffed and nailed above his doorway monster’s penis

  Brok chuckles within, since this is his family treasure, one that he has kept in his room and shared with no one except Frak. Brok knows the deep creature as whale, but he has avoided the showing of this trophy, waiting until it would became useful—after some storm where a dead whale would be found on a beach...then he could show it and claim the whale’s power.

  But here is Frak—“When had he taken it?” muses Brok—bolder and more confident then Brok has reasons to like.

  This they see. Then, they see more.

  Frak comes out that day wearing a robe of the darkest hides craftily sewn together such that they seem—a marvel to all!—all of one piece; near seamless. Upon his head he wears a hat, a boxed black hat with a curious and eye-catching multi-colored drawing of the full compass known until now only to him and Brok. Its points are marked in bright yellow: E, W, N, S. All is a mystery to the crew.

  All this is more than strange, truly queer, a bit shocking, even amusing and enjoyable—but then the crew begins to see what they have never seen.

  Behind Frak emerges a shorter figure—one draped by the finest full flowing cloak any had ever seen—something they are sure was taken away from a great king. This cloak is white with sinuous green stripes swirling about it, and it almost fully envelopes the one they know as Jerd—the youngest among the crew. He had been captured by Brok not too may moons back, but is fairly worthless...he can only fix small things since he is not fully matured, not having a beard...all in all a puny, weak male. Why Brok has brought him aboard is unknown...and, unquestioned.

  Jerd stands just behind Frak. He’s upright but without expression...his ruddy hair neatly combed—stands there just behind Frak who says to all with a flourish of hands rising like birds taking to wing, hands which fly up and point to the sky and then down to the Earth and then rest upon Frak’s heart, “Jerd is my Thanksgiving.”

  Done, Frak turns and reenters his room. Jerd follows.

  No one fully understands. Not even Brok. But he senses enough to know that his position and power are safe, intact...Frak is not a usurper. Brok mulls, “If this is what Our Father says through Frak, so be it.”

  Inside his room—never ever imaging or sensing it as “theirs”—inside his room Frak enacts the ritual of Thanksgiving...submitting Jerd on a daily basis, ritually.

  As Frak prods Jerd, as he submits him, as he has him suck his cock time and again, he is suffused with a fullness of feeling, a warm sensation drenching the core of his being, the abiding thrill that all is right with the world—that Our Father is present, here and now, more and more, day after day. Also, that he is blessed in all things and that tomorrow will be even more blessed. As such, Frak forms the thought of the future—not as he now understands as tomorrow or the next moon cycle but in terms of direction, of purpose, of final consummation...that the voyage has a future—a time and a p
lace to reach and finally end. A final resting place—home and hum hum—which is with Our Father—“in heaven.” Unknown to Brok, Frak has identified and precisely mapped the location of the passage of that crosses over from this world of illusion to that of life-everlasting with “Our Father who art in heaven!”

  Frak knowing heaven as both up beyond the stars and as found deeply within Jerd through submission and Thanksgiving.