Never Never Stories

by Jason Sanford

  The mayor obviously believed the bad weather resulted from Cres and I going underground. He stopped by several times a day and grilled me about the weather. He didn't like my evasive answers, but he was also unwilling to arrest me.

  Whenever there was a break in the ships passing overhead, I climbed down the tower and checked on Cres. She slept most of the time. When she woke, she sometimes screamed and cried about the ship. Other times she laughed. Nothing I said or did would make her tell me what had happened. After a few minutes awake, she'd simply fall back asleep.

  Then came the day two massive ships arrived. The first, a flat ship of a style I'd never before seen, spanned half the horizon. It glowed dark blue and dropped shards of ice and metal across the land, smashing a number of roofs in town. The other large ship was a cumulus, and its storm was as bad as the one which rocked our town a few months back. I banged the warning bell for as long as I dared before jumping for the safety of my house.

  Once the floods subsided, I wasn't surprised to find the mayor and two constables at my door. The mayor demanded to inspect the hole in my root cellar. I argued, telling him it was forbidden, but the mayor simply shoved me out of the way. He and his constables waited for the waters in the tunnels to subside, then lowered themselves down the hole. The glow from their light sticks faded as they climbed deeper and deeper, heading straight for the ship.

  I said a prayer for my sister, hoping the mayor wouldn't hurt her if she appeared to him. I also prayed for myself and Cres. I could take execution without fear, but Cres was so young I didn't know how she'd react.

  Hours passed as I waited for the mayor to climb back out and arrest me, but he and his men took their time. Finally, as day turned to night, I decided to climb back up the weather tower. To my surprise, there were so many ships in the sky their individual glows merged into one rainbowed mass which rippled and swirled like water flowing across the land. I'd never seen anything like this. Unsure what it meant for the weather, I banged the warning bell. Better safe than sorry.

  Once I climbed down, I checked on Cres, but her bed was empty. That's when I heard the pulley in the basement squeaking. By the time I reached the hole, Cres was already gone. I grabbed a light stick and lowered myself down, hoping to stop Cres before the mayor saw her.

  Underground, everything had changed. Where before the first level had been half collapsed and full of sediment, now this old room was as clean and well-lit as I remembered from my childhood. The stove my mother cooked on glowed warmly, and the table where my sister and I had eaten so many meals looked as fresh as yesterday.

  Llin sat at the table, happily folding paper ships as if we were both still kids.

  This time I hugged her. She smiled and asked if I wanted to make paper ships with her, but I said I had to find Cres.

  “I know where she is.” Llin grabbed my hand and led me to the stairs leading to the next level.

  Each level of the house was a step back in time. We walked through the red-walled room from my grandmother's childhood. On an even deeper level, the cracked ceramic oven I'd previously seen was now clean and hot with bread baking inside.

  I asked Llin how this had happened and she told me the ship remembered the old houses. “I wanted you to be happy,” she said, “so I asked the ship to fix everything up.”

  Eventually, Llin led me to the lowest foundation, where the ship sat glowing a dark red haze. Cres stood before the ship as if in a trance.

  “Where are the mayor and the constables,” I asked Llin. She pointed to the ship. At first I thought she meant they were inside, but when I looked closer at the red haze lining the ship I saw blood vessels, and a heart, and skin stretched to the tearing point. I remembered how Llin's body had been torn and flattened and I screamed at Cres to get away from the ship.

  But when I tried to grab Cres, Llin held me back, her grip far stronger than any six-year-old girl's should be. I watched in horror as Cres reached for the ship, her hand stretching out and out until she touched half the ship with impossibly long fingers. She smiled at me as the rest of her body was pulled in and distorted beyond recognition.

  I turned and tried to flee, but Llin kept a firm grip on my hand. “It'll be okay,” she said. “You've always wanted to go.”

  As Llin spoke those words, a loud roar pounded my ears as water rushed down the tunnels. The current pushed me toward the ship, only Llin's grip keeping me from being washed away. As I looked at Llin's face – begging her not to let go – my sister grinned. Then, as the water rose over her head, she released my hand and I was washed into the ship.

  * * *

  The stretching didn't hurt. The tearing and rending and twisting of my body into something it was never meant to be was neither pain nor pleasure. I merely became the ship. I was the ship.

  I also wasn't alone. Melded into the ship with me were Cres and my little sister, along with the mayor and his men. However, while Cres and Llin hummed with excitement over what was to come, the mayor and his men screamed at me to help them. Not that I actually heard them; instead, their fear and pain screamed directly to my mind. Unable to do anything, and needing to focus on my own situation, I shut them out of my thoughts.

  Once my shock at the change ended, I looked around. The flood continued to carry water and nutrients into me, feeding the ship and strengthening all of us. As our energy grew, I felt beyond myself, feeling the ships in the air above the town, which called to us like parents urging scared children to come outside and play. As I reached out, I felt other ships under the ground with us, laying dormant here and there, many tied into the foundations of houses, others simply nestling in the dirt. All of them buzzed with life, but lacked the potential – lacked the humans with potential – needed to actually leave.

  Not our ship. Cres, Llin and I were ready to go. The ship had been ready for decades, ever since my sister had been washed into it. But she hadn't been strong enough to leave on her own. Her last memories, of fear and hope as I'd tried to save her, had trapped her here. She hadn't known where she wanted to go. Or how to leave.

  So with Cres assisting me, we began to raise the ship, floating up on a million drops of thought. The ground around us tumbled and collapsed. What had been my home fell in on itself, tearing itself to shreds and rising in a burst of debris and rain as our ship fell into the sky.

  As Cres and my sister learned to control our ship, I watched the town disappear below us. I also felt deep into our world, learning the answer to questions I'd asked ever since my youth. Our world had no core. Instead, it existed as ripples of space-time folded onto themselves, creating the barest of surfaces – like the film of a soap bubble – onto which the silt we lived off of continually fell. As the water and organics filtered down, they fed new ships bubbling up from below, ships needing only someone with potential before they too could take flight. That was why we were forbidden to go underground – doing so could damage the young ships.

  As we flew up, I felt the endless ships in the sky greet us. Across our world ships appeared and disappeared, coming and going to different parts of the universe. And that's when I understood. Our world existed to remind humanity of who we were. Humanity only traveled the universe by first coming here, making sure that a ship's crew always remembered that they were human – no matter what changes they might soon go through. Likewise, when ships returned from elsewhere, they came back here to re-remember who they were. Otherwise, as humans traveled the vast distances and times of the universe, they would slowly cease to be human. Without the dreams and hopes and everyday lives of our world's people, all humanity would fall apart.

  Some of us still fell apart. I felt the mayor and the two constables, who screamed at the thought of all they could be. They didn't have the potential to survive outside our world. Instead, their bodies, minds, and souls would be torn apart. When our ship one day returned to this world, the dust from their bodies would sprinkle down, helping to feed and create another human who might one day have the potential to unde
rstand eternity and survive.

  Worse, if they didn't die they'd be so damaged that they could cause great harm to others. The rogue ships which needlessly hurt our world were piloted by damaged people, storming across existence until the other ships stopped them.

  I felt Cres and Llin preparing to leave. Both of them focused on a distant galaxy, where news stars and life boiled out of a massive expanse of gas and heat. I felt those distant stars. Imagined the sights and wonders we would see. But even as I imagined us arriving there – and knew that imagining our trip would easily take us there – I heard one final plea from the men trapped with us. I was their last link to sanity. I remembered Llin as she'd held onto my hand. Remembered how I'd sworn never to let someone drown if I could save them.

  With the briefest of thought caresses, I said goodbye to Cres and my sister. Cres said she'd take care of Llin. Would help her grow into the limitless possibilities which existed before them. I then split myself from the ship, creating a smaller ball of ship which encompassed myself and the screaming men. As we fell toward town, I imagined my old house in all its history and glory, in all it had ever been and could ever be.

  With an explosion of light and energy, the ship became what I willed it to be.

  * * *

  The mayor and the constables woke in my den, surrounded by my books and furniture and a roaring fire in the ceramic fireplace. The mayor retched upon waking, while the two constables cried and shook. I sat in my new-old favorite chair and sipped a hot cup of tea, trying to overlook the limitations of these men.

  Finally, after he'd recovered enough to stand, the mayor ordered the constables to arrest me.

  “On what charge?” I asked.

  “Violating the ban. You've been underground. In a ship.”

  I smiled and placed my teacup on the end table. For the briefest of moments, I removed the reality I'd crafted around them. Showed them our world in all its glory. The mayor and the constables fell to the floor, screaming.

  “If you will excuse me, I have work to do,” I said. “After all, someone has to see to the weather.”

  Without another word, the mayor and constables scrambled to their feet and ran out the door.

  * * *

  I now know I have the potential to see the universe. I always thought I'd be afraid to give up my life, but that's no longer true.

  I still watch the skies. However, instead of predicting the weather, I now simply know it. I caress each ship that passes through our world. I understand the beauties and wonders that ship and people have seen in their travels. In return for this knowledge, I gently remind the ship's people what it means to be human. I speak to them of the most important duty of humanity, which is to care for those around you. I also keep watch over this world's people, seeking out those with the potential to embrace the greater universe and helping them toward that goal.

  One day Cres and Llin will return, singing to me of all they've seen. I'll join them on that day and go off to see eternity. Until then, I enjoy the warm water falling from the skies and the dust of other people's dreams. And while I never speak a word of this to anyone, I also know that the ships don't bring the weather to our world.

  Instead, we are the weather, and the ships rise off our rain.

  When Thorns Are The Tips Of Trees

  As I walked the heat-cracked sidewalk in front of Seanna's house, she surprised me by blowing a kiss from her bedroom window – a kiss I knew she'd never actually give. Even though I was mad at her mother for forbidding Seanna from seeing me, I blew a kiss back, only to have her mother evil-eye me from their garden. I ignored the look and kept walking. Seanna's Mom had hated me ever since I'd held her daughter's hand last month. Never mind that Seanna and I had both been wearing gloves, meaning I hadn't technically touched her skin.

  When Dad heard of me holding hands, he'd stayed calm and merely muttered about raging teenage hormones. But to be prudent, the next morning he'd still driven me to the town's pharmacy, where the Doc doubled my weekly dose of inhibitor. “Better safe than stiff,” Dad had said with a smirk.

  But I didn't have time to worry about Seanna or her mom or even my dad's lame sexual innuendos; the sun was setting and it wasn't safe to stay out after dark.

  Seanna's was the last maintained house on the block. Just down the street pine trees and kudzu sprawled across abandoned lawns and burned-out homes. Amid all this green lay the ruins of Brad's house. The old swing set we'd played on as kids was tipped over in the corner of the front yard, the reds and blues of its molded polymers faded away and small pines growing through the frame. The clubhouse we built in the oak tree hung half rotten, the tree itself almost buried in a sea of kudzu vines. I sneaked around to the back yard, where the grass looked like prairie and the second story windows – broken by last year's hail storm – still hadn't been replaced.

  The only spot the weeds and kudzu and pines hadn't invaded was a well-trimmed circle in the middle of the backyard where a single thorn tree grew.

  The lights were on in Brad's house and I watched his father's silhouette pace around the living room. I figured he was too drunk to notice me, but when I tried sneaking into the yard Brad's old German Sheppard barked and chased me back out. “Sarge?” I whispered. Sarge recognized my voice and padded over, whining as he licked my face. He then walked back to the thorn tree and lay down under its scraggy branches.

  I sneaked across the yard and crouched behind the thorn tree. The crystalline tree – two meters tall, with silver branches and needles crooking left and right like frozen lightning – was sickly and dangerously thin. When I pulled off my gloves and grabbed a needle, it shattered with a musical chime. Sarge growled from a dusty groove beside the tree trunk, where he obviously spent most of his time.

  Being more careful, I pushed my index finger onto another needle. A drop of blood ran into the needle as cold rushed my veins.

  “Hello Miles,” Brad said, emerging from the fog of too much time alone. “Do I even want to know how long it's been since your last visit?”

  “Two months,” I said, feeling both guilty and relieved that Brad still seemed so fresh. Too often the memories and personalities of thorns stiffened and decayed if they were left alone for long periods of time.

  Brad laughed at my guilt and relief, the same high-pitched cackle he'd had as a kid. Not, of course, that I actually heard him. When talking to thorns, it was best to keep your eyes closed. That way your mind turned the thoughts and feeling to words. With eyes closed, the person might almost be sitting next to you.

  Almost.

  “So what made you finally visit?” Brad asked.

  I started to make up an excuse, but it's pointless to lie to a thorn. Brad knew I hated seeing him in this situation. “Elleen was mad,” I confessed. “Wouldn't speak to me unless I checked on you.”

  Brad smiled. No one really cared for him anymore. His mother moved away last year – wanting to be near the safety of a big city – and his father drank too much and barely got by. “He only talks to me when he's almost comatose. I can taste the alcohol in his blood. Never tells me about his life. Simply jabs his hand over and over on my needles.”

  For a moment I opened my eyes and glanced at the living room window, where I saw Brad's father drinking a beer. As I shifted, the needle in my finger broke. I pulled the tip out of my skin and found another needle to impale myself on. “You're really brittle,” I said.

  “The water was cut off a while back. Dad can't pay the bill.”

  I cursed. I should have checked on him before this, what with the drought we've been having. I told Brad to wait, then grabbed an old bucket and sneaked back to Seanna's house. Seanna's Mom was inside but had left the sprinkler in her garden running. I filled the bucket and returned to Brad, flooding his roots. Sarge whined and climbed out of his hole. As the water washed in I thought I saw the glint of bones there, but I refused to look close enough to be certain.

  I made several more trips before Brad had enough water. Ev
en though the sun was setting and I needed to run home, I stabbed my finger again. Brad crept through my recent memories until he found the story Elleen had created for him – a haunting tale of lovers kept apart by cruel fate. Brad cried in my mind as he listened to the story. As it ended, Brad whispered thanks and said to give his love to Elleen.

  When I reached home, I wanted to tell Elleen about Brad. However, it was already nighttime and shrieks and perverse giggles rose from the fields behind our house. Not daring to discover what waited in that dark, I rushed inside and locked the door behind me.

  * * *

  The next day I worked with my dad, tossing bags of mulch and manure off the back of our flatbed truck as the sun climbed hot in the sky. We were landscaping the memorial grove in the rich part of town. Even though it was still morning, the heat swamped me as I sweated through my long-sleeve shirt and gloves. I'd strip them off in a second if we were home. But people in town would freak if I showed skin and Dad might lose this job. Couldn't risk that with work so hard to come by.

  After I finished unloading, my dad patted me on the back – a rare touch, even in his gloves – and told me to work on the trees in this area. He'd drive to the other side of the grove and deal with matters there. I nodded knowingly. Mrs. Blondheim, the fanatical town matriarch whose money maintained this grove, had complained about two new trees from thorn die, who'd sneaked into the park last week. She wanted them removed. I hated killing thorn trees, so my father always handled that chore.

  After Dad drove off, I added mulch around the tree trunks and dragged fresh bags deeper into the grove until I couldn't see anything except the glow of hundreds of silver trunks and branches and thorns. All the crystalline trees were at their full growth of two meters. Near the center of the grove, I accidentally brushed against a tree and a thorn stabbed through my shirt. Jackie, a cute-faced nine-year-old who'd turned thorn several decades ago, said hello. The fogginess of her thoughts told me no one had talked to her in years. Not wanting to be rude, I held my bleeding arm against her long enough to say hello back.