by Fred Strydom
Dust and skeletons
The Silver Whisper showed us the world.
As the sun and moon rolled overhead, we soared across every kind of terrain. We sped across a range of snowy peaks where two continents crashed into each other, over an ancient city, long silvery seascapes, patches of steaming marshland. We looked down on shambolic blankets of houses tossed in heaps around large cities, trailing into thin clusters as the countryside took over. We slipped through wrinkled canyons, over gushing rivers, and across grasslands bowed by the wind. We saw woods, cracked deserts, salt flats, twisted jungles and neat bays lined with the glittering towers of expired super-cities.
Each landscape could have been the surface of its own planet. Over every horizon a new face of the earth was revealed—broken and beautiful, peaceful and perilous—and I realised then the many outlandish faces of Man were but miniature reflections of those very outlands.
The final horizon of our journey had arrived and we were approaching the ragged valley where the Silver Whisper had first come crashing down. Gideon was the one who noticed the reading on the screen. The number of kilometres left to travel clicked to less than thirty, a short stretch from our destination.
There was a small farmhouse on a square of pasture to the left of us, which might have been the house of Jai-Li’s unremembered family. I saw the route the young girl must have taken back to the pod. As I tried to imagine her down there, I felt something well within me—a sense that Gideon and I had become a part of that lore, of everything we’d heard. We were flying among the words of a story, into the realm of myth, a modest Holy Land only we had been allowed to know.
As the kilometres on the screen dropped to zero the Silver Whisper floated down and circled in the air above the rocky earth. We were hovering directly above the spot where the pod had once crashed, the only detail of interest in an otherwise unremarkable location. The pod lowered slowly, setting up a gentle rustling in the nearby brush and scattered trees. Small rocks and pebbles clattered in their places. We touched the ground and the whirring of the engine subsided and then stopped completely.
On either side, jagged cliff-faces extended upwards. The arid land was hot and unforgiving, and the trusses of dull green plants crawling up through the gaps between the rocks alluded to a long, waterless history.
Gideon grabbed our bags from under the seats as the side of the pod opened. The warm desert air rushed into the cool interior. I shouldered my rucksack and stepped out. I scrambled down a pile of dusty rocks with Gideon close behind me. When we were about twenty metres from the pod the door retreated into the body of the pod, closing seamlessly.
“Where do we go from here?” Gideon asked. I stopped and looked up and down the valley. I’d seen the farmhouse as we’d flown in, which meant the tower was most likely in the opposite direction. That was as much as I could deduce.
“There. I think,” I said, pointing towards the narrowing walls of steep mountainside before us. “I want to say I’m sure, but …”
Gideon did not hesitate, and began to walk in the direction I had suggested, placing one careful foot in front of the next on the bed of loose rocks.
“There isn’t a sure thing left, Mr. Kayle,” he said, pushing on confidently as if he’d seen a large arrow painted on the side of the mountain. “I’m quite sure about that.”
I followed him, over rocks that crackled and clapped beneath our feet. As we walked away, I looked back over my shoulder once more to pay my last respects to the vessel. The metallic bubble had served us well. It sat easily in its spot, catching the blue sky and orange cliffs, as if holding on to a memory of its own. It was finally ready to take Jai-Li and her child to the temple. It was her story that had allowed us to get to where we were. I would never forget that. But it was Shen—the one who had ingeniously intertwined our paths—who deserved more than our gratitude.
We owed it to him to go on.
He deserved an ending.
We hiked our way through the rocky gorge, along the flat, winding scar of a long-dried river. We’d been walking for a couple of hours and the scorching weather was doing us no favours. We drank small quantities of water frequently, to stave off dehydration. We passed the skulls and skeletons of small and large animals, reminding us of an all too likely outcome. Gideon’s face was impassive. Either he was feeling no fear or he was able to control his emotions perfectly. I was faring less well. Each hot breath and sip of warm water did nothing to replenish me. I said nothing but could not help feeling we were marching towards our deaths. Any time now and we’d fall to our knees beneath the blue sky, defeated by the heat. We’d become two more fossils—two more dusty warnings for anyone foolish enough to pass.
“Gideon, I need to rest a moment.”
Gideon stopped. He tilted his face to the sky and blinked at the sun. I took a seat on a rock and pulled up my shirt to wipe the sweat from my face. Gideon grabbed a bottle of water and gave it to me. I threw back my neck and sipped, but held back from drinking more than I should. The water barely seemed to touch my throat, vaporising at the back of my mouth.
Big black birds circled overhead, waiting for our bottles to empty and our bodies to collapse under us—waiting to feast on the soft meat of our sunken eyes and swollen tongues. They’d seen this before. They knew how it ended, and perhaps even how long it would take to end. They circled in front of the sun, speckling the earth in moving shadows.
Gideon sat down next to me and had a sip of water. He dragged his forearm over his face and put the bottle back in the bag.
“I’m glad you’re here, Gideon,” I said. “I couldn’t do this without you.”
“Neither could I, Mr. Kayle. We should go. Let’s keep walking.”
Gideon lent a hand to lift me from the rock. He cupped a hand on my shoulder and then turned and navigated his way over the rocks. The birds broke their formation and flew towards the turn in the valley, perhaps towards something freshly dead beneath the murderous sun. We followed their lead.
As we walked, the shadows of the valley shifted, the day bled away. Once the sun went down, the temperature would drop drastically and we’d suffer the night.
Finally, the valley tapered and we had to climb over a pile of enormous boulders. We rounded a bend and the valley came to an abrupt end. Past the exit to the gorge there was a flat expanse of brown desert sand. Gideon and I stood atop a boulder and stared out.
“There,” Gideon said, pointing. “Do you see that?”
I could see it perfectly. At the edge of the horizon, a colossal black structure wavered through a mirage of heat. It was a man-made craft, the largest astromining ship ever built, the size of a small town. We were staring at Chang’e 11.
“We need a single day to get to it,” Gideon said. “There’s no point going now. Come the night, we’d be stuck in the middle of the desert. For now, we should find a place in the mountain to camp. We need shelter and water. More than that, we need to prepare ourselves, Mr. Kayle—our bodies and our minds. The desert does not forgive fools.”
Time
I opened my eyes and I could hear and feel the rush of water beneath me. It took me a moment to figure out where I was. Finally, it came to me, with absolutely no sense of relief: I was on the ocean. I was on the raft.
I must be dreaming. Another cruel dream.
“Kayle,” I heard. I rolled my head to my left. It was Daniel, the young man who’d first brought us to the whale. He was holding the side of the raft. “You did it. You made it. It’s over.” He was standing in the water beside me, smiling awkwardly.
“Gideon …” My throat seared with pain. “Andy … Chang’e 11.”
“Take it easy now. Everything will be all right,” he tried to comfort me. “It was a long stretch, but it’s all over.”
I tried to sit up but was still shackled at the neck, wrists and ankles. Daniel put his hands on my chest to calm me.
“What’s going on?” I muttered. “Where’s Gideon?”
“The
y’ve pulled him out already,” Daniel said. “Everyone’s out of the water; you’re the last one.”
I shook my head, my neck tight under the leather neck-strap. My eyes rolled, taking in what they could, looking for a crack in the shell of a convincing delusion.
“It’s been three days,” Daniel said. “Three days. The longest sentence yet.”
There was no crack. The world shaped itself into a terrifying reality. The indentations in Daniel’s acne-scarred skin. The powdery tufts of cloud above and the birds that flew freely through them. The caress of the breeze on my face. Icy seawater lashed my back, the sun lashed me from above.
Cold water. Hot sun. Cold water. Hot sun.
In a dream, can we tell the difference between the burn of cold and the burn of heat? I wasn’t sure. A lucid dream can trick us, but never with the complexity of wakeful thought. Could it really be that it had all been a drug-induced fallacy, that I hadn’t gone anywhere?
No! You were there! my mind insisted. You were on your way to Chang’e 11, to confront Quon and rescue your son. Wake up, Kayle …
But I didn’t wake. I was still there. I probed my new reality, as tender as the reddened skin on the edge of an inflamed swelling. I felt sick. I wanted to throw up, but I didn’t. I stared at the broad blue sky and breathed in a deep ocean breath. I let the air out, and with it, myself.
I thought about that quest—so full of coincidences—and the more I thought, the more ludicrous it began to seem. How could I have believed I had been set upon a quest of such importance? The simplest explanation was, in the end, the most likely; all of it was nothing more than an elaborate fabrication of the ego, the invention of a man desperate for purpose, for meaning and resolution. I’d even made myself the hero of the story.
I felt like a broken idiot.
I would never see my son.
I would never leave that beach.
The raft had done its job; it had crippled my will, demonstrated the uselessness of mutiny, emphasised our individual insignificance. Not long after waking (dreaming, Kayle, you’re only dreaming!), I felt the raft being pulled through the water. The water rushed over my forearms, soothing my blistered skin. My exile was over, my sentence had been served and I was being pulled to shore.
I was not permitted to see Gideon, Theunis or Angerona. I was taken straight to the white house on the hill and put back in the chair. The plugs were attached to my head and the grey machine read my thoughts, as it apparently always had.
The Body sat behind their long table and asked me about my time out on the raft. They asked if I had seen the error of my ways and if I regretted having helped Jai-Li escape the beach.
I could barely respond to their questions. The light of the overhead lamp seared my eyes. Even then, sweating in that big chair, I thought I would wake up to discover it had all been a ruse, a chilling new trick of the mind. I didn’t want to tell them anything, but they waited, silent, until I was left with no choice but to speak. They were curious about my experience. No two raft experiences were the same, they said, but there was always some kind of experience.
In the end, I submitted and told them what I remembered so clearly: the island of fruit, Anubis, the family of machines and Gideon. I told them many things, but I did not say a word about Shen and Quon; they were my last two cards: my king and my joker.
Once I had told them the story, they said they were impressed by my fabrication, that I had always been gifted with imagination. And then, almost as an afterthought, they mentioned that they’d found Jai-Li; she hadn’t made it very far from the cove before her boat had tipped, sending both her and her child to their watery deaths. My first reaction was shock, and deep sorrow, but then I remembered the story they’d concocted to cover up Moneta’s fatal escape. They were seasoned liars, and I decided not to believe them. They asked how I felt about that news and I said nothing—they could read my answer if they wanted it.
Next they said I would no longer have contact with the other offenders. They added they were pleased with my co-operation and hoped I’d make the most of my reintegration into the commune. They expected great things of me, they said, which meant great things of doing nothing at all.
I was taken back to my tent where all my things were waiting for me. I climbed into bed. Maybe when you awake, you’ll be back there, Kayle, back in the desert. But when I awoke the next day, I was still in the tent.
I was put to various tasks. I helped the fishermen with the lave nets and the young men and women with the cleaning. I’d stare at the ocean frequently, wondering if I’d ever be able to get back. It pained me to think how close I had been to finding my son. Or, at least, how close it had felt. Memories of my journey flew about my mind like the orange-tipped embers that blew from the nightly bonfires. I ran through the details over and over again, but the more I tried to remember them, the dimmer the flames of my certainty grew, the greyer the ash of my doubt.
I saw Gideon a few times, wandering through the commune. I tried to call him, but he wouldn’t look my way. Was he deliberately ignoring me or simply obeying the orders of The Body? I couldn’t tell. I’d go back to my chore, wondering if he resented me asking him to help with Jai-Li’s escape. Whatever the reason, I had lost my one friend. That was difficult to accept. I thought I had been lonely before my time on the raft, but this was true loneliness: it isn’t simply the difficulty of being by yourself; it’s being near the people you care about most, and having them deny you.
I did end up on the raft once more, a few months after my first sentence. This time, I hadn’t saved anyone’s life or helped anyone off the beach. I was convicted because I had tried to run, to escape through the woods against the mountain, only to find my plan thwarted by an immense wall that I knew nothing about. There was no way over it and no way around it; we were truly imprisoned on the beach. Somehow the story of my attempt to leave got out and I was put back on a raft. I remember thinking that perhaps that would be the clincher; I’d lie back on the raft and pick up where I had left off with Gideon, in the desert, but over the course of my second sentence, I experienced nothing but a watery day and cold wet night before being pulled back to shore.
The time following my second return from the raft was long and painfully mundane, one long day recycled for all eternity. The nights were even longer than the days, sleepless and formless, offering nothing but a black wall against which I tried to paste the faded scraps of my memories. Over time, there was hardly anything to think about. Slowly, irrevocably, I was losing every last drop of my hope. And then, one day, I forgot to hope at all. That was the day I put to rest the whole idea of returning to the world and hope became a faint and faded glimmer, seldom seen, seldom felt.
Months turned into years, and the years rolled on.
Every now and again I sat and thought about that first time on the raft. I would never completely let it go, even though I felt that it somehow wanted to let go of me. I was on the beach for good, that was obvious now, and I told myself to accept it. Nothing hinted otherwise. The Renascence proved to be some kind of farce (the omega point of The Renascence had either not occurred, or was vastly less ceremonious than we had imagined), and everything simply, and gradually, wasted away. We had been on the beach for so long the water level of the ocean had risen and eventually there was barely a beach at all. We were forced to move our tents to the woods.
The dictatorship too had simply come to an end. Trawlers stopped bringing new communers, and nobody was called up to the white house on the hill (which was no longer a white house at all but a flaking, cream-yellow shack). One day, on a whim, I went up to inspect it. There was no longer any fear of being punished—The Body had already done their worst—and I knew there would be nobody inside. I was right. Bushes and trees had grown up to the entrance and the house was filled with little but dust and ruined furniture. The grey machine that once read our minds sat in its corner like a creature turned to stone by an angry god. There were no floating heads behind the table,
no more bearing witness, no more questions and plugs and sentences for trivial misdemeanours.
Our commune had been forgotten by the world. We had no communication with outsiders, so had no idea whether The Renascence was being continued elsewhere. Nobody bothered dancing around bonfires (there was too little of the shore left to even make a fire), and we simply huddled through the seasons, keeping ourselves alive on fish and fruit.
Angerona was now a grown woman, but still hadn’t uttered a word in her life. I had become an old and weary man. My knees were bad. I had arthritis in both wrists. I was the crumbling mess none of us ever dream of one day becoming.
I was often revisited by that old memory of a journey I thought I’d taken, but the memory had been hollowed of its worth by the chisel of time. It might as well have been someone else’s memory, and someone else’s quest—I had preserved every detail in my mind, but felt nothing for it. My son was either an old man himself, or dead; perhaps that, after everything, would be the one true way in which we’d finally be reunited. If I had thought such a thing was possible, I might have at some earlier time taken my life, just to see. But now I was too old to bother with suicide—a young man’s escape. Time would do it for me, ungraciously and grudgingly, and I was prepared to wait.
We thought the rising ocean would be the means of our eventual end (we’d all be pushed up against the wall in the woods waiting for the ocean to claim us), but one ordinary day a communer began to cough in his tent. He came out, his mouth running with blood. Not long after that, someone else began coughing and appeared with the same scarlet patch of blood on her face. We did not know what the illness was, but over the course of a few months, it spread from communer to communer, claiming life upon life. Some people said it was the water we were drinking. Others said we had contracted a virus from mosquitoes. It didn’t matter what caused it, though. There was nothing we could do about it, and people were dying. We dug holes in the dirt and buried the bodies to prevent the disease from spreading, but we may as well have dug pits for ourselves and gone to bed in them.