Short stories

Sassafras in the Islets of Langerhans

On his traverse of the human Endo-system, Sassafrass discovered the portals, the link to the in-human exosystem and the body Shell.

He was simply perplexed.

Abundantly complex were his thoughts on the matter, as he climbed and clambered to the lower viewing ledge. How can these beautiful spherical organs act as an ultra-image device. The light reflects!

Depth is perceived, colour is interpreted. The world is digested and momentarily shut off. Was this to recoup, to assess?

These mirrors, he reasoned, must know all; the receptors, the glorious clarifiers. Furthermore, he demanded, they must know the whereabouts of _ .

Damn these ‘eyes’ he raged, as they remained insufferably silent. But as he looked through the water portals he saw the Exo-world begin to change. Tears filled his very own ducts as the people began to appear to him as sadness, fragility, hostility, futility. How can this be, he asked, that outer changes as inner changes. Ex is larger than In, I am larger than neither. Why, the laws of dominance hop foot! 

He began to fixate, dry his own image lenses. He bit his lips; nails dug into his palm and head hung, he ‘thought’. Thought of _ and her sublime. All those smalls which add up to a big and start the seas motions in his stomach.

He looked up to re-assess, and all he saw through the film of specialised cells was the bitter joy of pairs of humans. He noted smiles, posture, match but no love did he feel for others bound.

He called to mind his loving parental figures and as he smiled at the feeling, all the children in Exo caught ablaze in beauteous, innocent exuberance, the day seemed lighter. These unformed represented choice, a beginning. By far preferable to an end. A decision and cessation. The sad adults and fawning couples receded and fled. What curious portals to tell not the truth of the world, if there be such truth! Not a reflection of light from objects of various matter densities, but a projection of self. 

Well, he thought, at least they stop you walking into things.

Emiline and Bambi

Gingerly, Emiline pushed on the window – it’s frame decrepit and eaten, pane dusted and ingrained with the powder of times long since gone. Her handprints left negative spaces, inconsistencies in the story. Particles of unwanted life, gone unnoticed, filtering across the air like unintended consequences. Dust all around us. The widow gave, somewhat, and Emiline inched closer, peering down at the vertiginous drop through the house. Inside there was nothing, no rooms, no floor, no light, no sound – however, she felt the word vertiginous should still apply. 

“Bambi!” she shouted into the void. 

“Here!” replied Bambi, closer than Emiline expected. “I’m inside, here already. They found me.” 

Emiline shuddered. She propped the window open with her pack and carefully opened the front pouch to retrieve her ladder. Her breathing was ragged, her hands the physical manifestation of her fear, only her voice maintaining calm. 

“On my way.” She let down the ladder on the other side of the window and started climbing down. “Come to my voice Bambi.”

 “I’m stuck. Emiline, it’s over. Please just leave, save the others”. 

Emiline heard the air move behind her. Pinpricks of light started appearing in the blackness. 

“I’m not leaving!”

Flecks of dust were falling from the abyss above her, illuminated like a fine mist. More and more light was streaming in, blinding Emiline. 

“Bambi!”

She reached out to where she last heard him and felt a wisp of fur. 

“Got you!” 

Emiline bundled Bambi into her jacket and raced up the ladder, as fast as she could. There was no more darkness behind her, just white and noise and chaos as she reached the window and hauled herself back through to the other side.

Emiline and Bambi stood in the light. The world was gone and they were too late.

As she was falling from the cliff she wondered again why she was doing this. Funny that your  memory would fail you at a time like this, she thought. Perhaps it’s the physical stress, but then if  one’s deductive reasoning was still working under such conditions then why not the memory?     Still, onwards and upwards (or rather downwards). Another second or two passed without event  and she still hadn’t reached the ground. As a matter of fact the ground seemed no closer now  than when she had started.     Holding her hands up to shelter her eyes from the blasting cold breezes, she squinted below  trying to make some sense of the delay in impact. She was still high up enough for clouds to be  gently brushing past obscuring her view, so she focussed on finding a reference point. It was  starting to get very cold up here.     She noticed a light shimmer on her hands as she held them up. There were colours there that  she was sure hadn’t been present before. A bright pink, a lime green. A soft, weaved skein was  beginning to form around her fingers. It pulled together in a beautiful lattice of thread.  Strange, she thought, I don’t remember being so prismatic . It continued to wind its way around  her body and she was soon cocooned in a tough, neon shell. Instead of hair, she saw ribbons of  magenta, coquelicot, azure and erin cascading around her. She felt as light as a feather,  content to be carried away on the currents as if by a whim. Her arms no longer flesh, her legs  nothing but twine, she skimmed the ground and was carried away by the mistral. If only she  could remember what she came here for. 

Balloons
It’s those tiny gestures, those bends in the leg
a look
the postures
all the things other people gift to us without them knowing
shedding part of themselves
their whole lives
but losing nothing from it
Doesn’t it make you wonder what you give to others?
Do I crease at the hip in such a way?
Do my hands stay still when I smile?
These gifts seem a ghost
A bunch of balloons always with us
full of our selves
The second one is caught and glides into the real word
It bursts and that immortality is lost
This buoyant companion causes me to love you
briefly, and never again
For, as far as we know, I will never see you again
You can float to the sea
And I will never know
We judge and judge
Discuss and discuss
For what means we never know
Who values your opinion?
This strange circle of beings
Always talking, going nowhere
Worried about everything
You’ll never go anywhere without these companions
Without your constant giveaways
That’s so nice
Don’t you think?
“Why are we here?”
“It’s lunchtime.”
“I think it’s too early for lunch. Normally I wait until at least 12.10.”
“That’s only 5 minutes away. Come on – there’s something I need to show you.”
“Can’t it wait?”
“If we don’t go now, we will die here – in the office. Is that what you want?”
Rebecca had been doing the commute to work for 4 years now, along the same train lines,
at the same time, with familiar faces. After a couple of years, it seemed like no trouble at
all. In fact it was quite the opposite, it was as though that time just did not exist any more.
7.30am to 8.43am did not exist, just as 5.25pm to 6.56pm did not exist. There was a hole in
the fabric of the universe during these times and Rebecca fell in there 5 days a week
without even noticing any more.
She never took first class and never bought coffee on the train. To be honest, the coffee
was disgusting and nobody really liked it when other people ate or drank in confined
spaces with other strangers, despite pretending that they didn’t mind one bit. She did not
listen to music, for fear of disturbing the peace and had recently starting refusing the free
newspapers. All that was ever in there was bad news and what help did it do to read about
things that are out of your control? There didn’t seem to be any nice news in the world but
she was sure that there were plenty of people doing nice things everywhere. She had read
on a news site somewhere recently about a burglary in a Charity Shop during which the
perpetrators fed the resident cat and gave it a drink of milk. That kind of thing was just
confusing, and she didn’t know if it was good news dressed up as bad news or the other
way round. Anyway, those free papers just ended up grubby and flapping around
dejectedly by the side of the tracks at the end of their sorry lives. Rebecca spent her
journeys looking out of the windows, noting the new developments in the city and
wondering what everyone else was doing at this time on a Tuesday morning. She never
failed to be puzzled as to why some of those people weren’t at work. Were they students?
No, too old to be students. Were they journalists? Actors? Nurses? IT consultants?
Physicists? Ammonia tanker inspectors having a rostered day off?
It’s always such a shame that we don’t carry our names and our occupations around
visibly, too. Life would be far easier to navigate if that were the case.
There were never any seats on the train at this time of the morning, so the commuters
shuffled around awkwardly, trying to maintain space and dignity and balance all the same
time. People were nestled into the bicycle racks, buried in books, staring determinedly at
the safety stickers on the walls in an effort not to create any openings for the ‘chatters’. No
one was awake yet, and no one needed inanity at this time of the morning. The bad news
was enough for most people. Why bother talking after you had read that? Strike up a
conversation about the current foreign policies and the country’s burgeoning debt? She
didn’t think so.
It had just started pelting down with rain outside, streaking the windows with diagonal
droplets of water and grime. Somehow the weather just knew the worst possible time to
rain, and it was for that brief dash to the office from the train station each morning. Even in
summer, especially the most recent summers. The train started slowing and grinding
towards the station for the last stop on the journey, which was also the busiest. People
started bustling around even though there was no space to move, and the bravest of them
all were forging down the carriage towards the doors, laptop bag in hand, ready to fight
the great fight. Rebecca shimmied into her rain jacket in preparation for the outside and
turned to face the door. The usual sea of balloons looked back at her and began to break
up like bromine particles in a school science experiment as people dispersed from the
packed cylinder onto the platform.
“Sorry, sorry. Sorry love.”
A tangle of strings and red, caught on latches and rucksacks and hair clips just as they are
every morning. Rebecca felt a tugging on her sleeve
“Sorry love, there’s just a..ah…”
“Oh, i’m so sorry!”
Rebecca unhooked the man’s balloon string from a button on her jacket.
“Thanks, sorry about that.”
“No problem, sorry, too. Thanks!”
She stepped off the train and followed the crowd up towards the ticket barriers. There was
the inevitable concertina of people cramming their tickets in, casting disparaging looks to
the poor souls whose tickets weren’t accepted and who instead presented with an angry
red cross.
It’s a shame crowd management doesn’t follow the natural laws of entropy. Perhaps they
could design it, but they don’t want to – whoever they are. The people who make these
things up, these strange, stilted systems.
She walked towards the side exit through a crowd of pigeons, and then through a crowd of
people and then some more pigeons. The station had been revamped recently in an
attempt to make things look a bit ‘friendlier’ for the incoming commuters. It hadn’t really
worked, but at least now it was interesting and grey, rather than just grey. Some parts of
the city just looked like they had been vacuum formed of grey concrete, 3d printed from a
vat of speckled, ageing dense sponge. It wasn’t really a case of liking it or not, it was just
there. She had always liked the marble floors though.
By the time she got outside, the rain had eased to a miserable little drizzle and she
grimaced under her hood. The walk to the office was only 15 minutes and she quite
enjoyed the fresh air, even if it was stifled by other people stealing the oxygen for the first 6
minutes. She walked out over the bridge, down the steps and right towards the river, under
the bridge. This area was the gateway into the city, and it felt to her as though it was there
for the purpose of easing in the newcomers. Cleanliness and options within a 30 minute
radius, and then decreasing in quality each half a mile outside of that. The space opened
out just as she got to the bridge over the river, and she began to feel momentarily normal.
There was nothing better than water and sky and bricks assembled for a purpose to give a
bit of perspective. She breathed in the suspiciously foul air and wondered if there were any
dead bodies in the river. Actually, she wondered how many there were. She had heard
everything from buried teenagers in old docks, celtic shields and gifted swords to whales.
And let’s not get started on the culverts. This silt held some secrets still.
The bridge was interspersed with commuters dressed in dark uniforms, and the only colour
visible outside the uniform grey was the vivid red of a hundred gliding balloons. Some of
them were head height, some of them taller, some of them larger, all of them red. It was as
though a field of poppies were traversing the water, swaying in the wind.
She arrived at the office soggy, but not too disheartened by the weather today.
“Hi.”
“Hi”
“Hey”
“You good?”
“Yup. You?”
“Yup.”
“Cool.”
She put her coat on the back of her chair, pressed the on button on her computer and left
to make coffee in the kitchen.
Damned machines always take so long to turn on. Who knows that they have to think
about for so long.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Still raining?”
“Yep, still grizzlin’.”
“Shame.”
“Why’s that? We are stuck in here for 8 hours, not sure it makes a difference either way,
right?”
“True. True that.”
She looked at Alexander, the first time she had made eye contact with anyone all morning.
It was good to see him, and he did have a nice pair of eyes. Although she supposed the
fact that anyone had eyes that worked, regardless of whether or not they looked nice, was
a lovely thing for all parties involved.
“How’s your morning been?” he asked
“Brief, i’m only just waking up.” she smiled “this coffee will help, and then i’ll be a
productivity demon. Setting records left right and centre. Bringing the noise. Dropping the
mic.”
Alexander laughed and turned around to get a mug from the cupboard. She liked his mug
because it had cats on it and said “Show Me Your Kitties.” She noticed that his balloon was
looking somewhat withered and little pang of concern rippled through her.
“Hey – you ok?” he asked him
He turned back to her side-on and rinsed his mug in the sink. He didn’t look at her, but he
muttered into the sink
“Yeah, sure Becs. Just a bit under the weather at the moment.”
“Do you want to…”
“Nope.”
“OK, ok. No worries. Just…well, you know where I sit. So…you know, if you need to…chat..”
“Thanks babe.”
Alexander winked at her and left the kitchen. You didn’t see that often, that reduction in
people’s vessels. She wondered where he was putting it all if it wasn’t going in his balloon.
Maybe he was honest-to-goodness stone on the inside, and what little emotion he had was
dying now. No, she thought, that couldn’t be true. Poor Alexander.
She got back to her desk and sat down next to Naomi, still deep in thought.
“Hey – Names?”
“Yeah?”
“Have you ever seen anyone’s vessel shrink before? As if it’s a little, well, deflated?”
“I’ve heard bits and bobs about it but nothing concrete. It’s not something that happens
often for sure. How come? You ok?”
“Fine, thanks. Just curious about it. It’s good to know these things, right.”
“Sometimes it’s better not to know Becs. You will drive yourself nuts thinking too deep into
these things.”
“You may be right, Names.”
The day went by as every other day did. No records were broken. Maybe no real progress
was made in terms of useful additions to the world at large, but she got through a ton of
emails. Sometimes that was enough, but today it didn’t seem to be.
She left the office at the end of the day and headed back towards the station. She couldn’t
get the sight of Alex’s vessel out of her mind. How did it happen? Where did it go? She
passed a young family with their children on the bridge. They were dressed in duffle coats,
clutching their satchels and tugging on each other’s threads playfully, their tiny balloons
trying to defy the children’s orders in the wind. Bec’s thought how lovely it would be to see
her own kid’s balloons grow with them, become their companion, both part of them and
friends with them.
The train was late as usual, and pulled into the station at 5.39pm. The weather had
worsened throughout the day, and she wondered if people had left earlier as the platform
seemed quiet this evening. She bustled onto the train with the other passengers and
patiently waited for order to return in the carriage. As the hubbub died down, she was
surprised to see a vacant seat, and started edging towards it, ready to nonchalantly walk
past it if someone else looked to have the same end-goal in mind. The seat remained
unchallenged and she folded herself into the l-shaped space so ergonomically ill-thought
out but so seemingly ubiquitous. There was a general rustling of papers, bags, coats and
jumpers being sloughed in preparation for the stifling air-conditioning and then as the train
pulled out the station, there was a quiet that fell over them all. Nothing but the sound of the
electricity coursing through the tracks, and the verges sighing as the train rushed past
them. Becs wondered if the verges minded that transport was now so fast that no one
looked at them. They got on with their quiet lives, albeit caked in dust and decaying Ribena
cartons and those damn discarded newspapers. She turned her attention to the inside of
the carriage. All gazes were downcast, or directed out of the window. The glorious thing
about this carriage upholstery, she thought, was how it absolutely matched the vessel
colour. She silently congratulated the ‘them’ who created this small element of the
commuter world. As the sky began to darken further outside, the last mottled patches of
subdued light were cast onto the balloons around her and illuminated strips of dust
floating in the air like little tractor beams.
The golden light on the red reminded her of autumn and cinnamon and candlelit rooms.
If only I could see inside them. What is it that’s hidden in them all? Don’t they realise how
much of it they give away in the wave of a hand, or a wry smile or a slight turning down of
the mouth? Although she very much enjoyed the solitude of keeping everything in her
vessel that meant something to her, sometimes she was forced to think that it was all too
much effort.
The train pushed on, a vessel for the vessels to return to their homes.
The next morning, the sun was out in fits and starts which lightened the mood of the
passengers on the commuter run. Once they were all packed in like little seeds, the train
departed and they were off to work for another day.
One of the things Becs always found interesting about the buildings at her destination was
the inability of the sun to change their grey colour. Almost everything else in this planet
reacted to the sun, but the concrete here seemed to be a black hole for the optical
window. Perhaps the stuff was made from the densest particles to have ever existed. She
put a tentative hand out to touch it’s rough surface.
As she crossed the bridge today, her thoughts were still on the vessels. She reached
behind her and pulled the bubble of red in front of her to look at it. Was hers withering too?
As she inspected it’s smooth surface she slowed her pace down and watched the
reflections shifting across it.
She looked up just in time to avoid a collision with an lady, proudly displaying a healthy
looking vessel tied to her hunched body.
“I’m sorry, excuse me.” said Becs.
The old lady looked at her worriedly, a crumpled face of concern
“It doesn’t pay to look too much, you know. There’s a reason we lock things up in there.”
“Umm. Thanks. I’ll bear that in mind.”
“You should.”
“I will?”
“You should.”
Becs released her balloon hurriedly and continued across the bridge to work. Some part of
her wished she recognised the woman, and that she could treat it as a portent because of
that, but she had never seen her before. For all she knew the lady didn’t even exist.
Somehow, however, it seemed to move something in her. Perhaps it was seeing age up
close – that always shook her up because of what had happened to her gran.
When she reached the office however, she had all but forgotten about it and continued to
her desk as normal. Alex had got to the kitchen before her – was she late? She was never
late. She looked at her watch. 9.03. Well well, a day of firsts.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“How are you doing?”
Alex looked back at her and her stomach churned. He looked hollowed out, a husk – pale
and gaunt. His vessel was even more shrunken.
“Alex, what the hell is going on?” she whispered “What’s happening?”
“Nothing. Not here. Let’s not do this – Becs i’m fine, please.”
“But Alex, look at you!”
“Please, Becs!”
He walked out of the kitchen unsteadily and fell into his chair as though he hadn’t sat down
in years. Becs stood and watched him for a few seconds as he shakily sipped at his coffee,
then went back to her desk.
“Hey.” said Naomi. “Hello?”
“Oh, sorry – hi hi. How are you doing?”
“I’m ok. Are you? you look a little shaken. Big night?”
“What? No. No, just..a little under the weather.”
“Babes, if you need to go home, just go and rest up.”
“I’ll be fine. Really. I need to get this report in today, or i’ll be sentenced to eternal
damnation by Matt.”
Naomi laughed cautiously
“Well OK then.”
Becs opened up her report and began typing in an effort to shake the image of Alex
looking half-dead from her mind. Just as she had got into the swing of things, her IM
flashed. It was Alex.
“Meet me in the foyer in ten?”
“What for?”
“Please…”
“Alright, i’ll be there.”
She shuffled her belongings nervously, rustled around in her bag for a while and then
decided she had to go.
“Just popping for something to eat Names.”
“Late in, then an early lunch? You must be under the weather.”
Becs nodded and picked up her coat. She got as far as the hallway before she realised she
had forgotten her bag, after all that. Dammit! She stalked back in and swooped it before
anyone could ask her any questions, and headed out to the lifts.
Alex wasn’t there when she arrived. It was just her and the high ceilings and the
uncomfortably large portrait of an unknown man in a bowler hat with tattoos on his face.
The lift announced it’s arrival in the empty foyer and Alex stepped out.
“Why are we here?” she asked.
……
Alex took her hand and they left the building, walking briskly and trying not to get their
threads tangled in the busy lunchtime crossings. Neither of them spoke until the people
thinned out and they were heading back across the water.
“Where are we going?”
“The sea.”
“The sea?”
Despite his frail frame, Alex pulled Becs along easily and they were soon back at the train
station. She had never done anything like this before, she went to work and she stayed all
day. She took a 30 minute lunch break and tried to keep things on an even keel with her
colleagues. She put everything she didnt want to think about or feel into her vessel, as they
all did, and continued to be an asset to society.
Alex was stuffing notes into the ticket machine frantically.
“Come on, come on!” he muttered
The second the tickets dropped into the collection tray, Alex snatched them and ran with
Becs still attached to his hand to the gates for platform 12.
“Jesus christ, Alex! Are you abducting me?! I need to get back to work, Matt is going to kill
me if I don’t get that report done today.”
“It won’t be Matt who kills you, Becs.” he panted “Seriously, I need you to get on this train
with me.”
The doors were starting to flash their warning closing signs and after one more imploring
look backwards out towards her known world, Becs stepped on.
“You better explain this to me, Alex.”
“I will, in time, please. You have to trust me. I have to show you, there’s no point in telling
you. You don’t trust anyone, I know that. I know you don’t deep down. I feel the same. I don’t
trust any of them, those people out there. But i’m not crazy. I just can’t live like this.”
“What happened to you?”
In a hoarse whisper, Alex said “I started writing it down, and drawing it.”
“What?”
“The stuff! The contents of the vessel! It’s possible, you can do it. There is actually nothing
that’s stopping you at the time. Why is here, locked away in these hideous balloons?
There’s no escaping anything but it doesn’t have to be like this. We can empty them out!
We don’t do it because we are afraid of what’s in there, but the only thing in there is us!
Don’t you see Becs, we trap it for no good reason! These things don’t keep us ‘alive’ in the
normal sense of the word. We are tethered to them, it’s not the other way round. Can you
just imagine a world where you don’t have to drag these things around any more Becs? No
more obvious checking of vessel health, no more work disciplinaries for the monstrosities
getting too unwieldy? No more tangled threads with people who resent your very
existence. Come on, please, let me at least show you.”
“How did this happen? I mean, what happened to you? Jesus christ – Alex. I don’t know
where to start.”
“You have already started by getting on this train. I promise you, you will understand
everything when I show you.”
“It’s not you showing me that I care about Alex. I care about showing you whats…!”
“Listen, it’s not…” Alex stalled as an old lady walked towards them on a course for the
bathroom.
“Good lord!” It was the lady from the bridge. As she walked closer to them she held Becs’
gaze and shook her head sadly. She didn’t say a word as she went past, which was even
more troubling. Becs would gladly have taken any advice right about now.
“We have 1 hour 15 minutes on this train. Let’s see this part out, get away from these
people and continue with this. Okay?”
“Do i have a choice?”
“Of course you have a choice!” Alex hissed.
They sat in silence for the remaining time, as the unloved verges flashed past and began
to take on a more verdant form. The land had opened out into fields and hills. Becs hadn’t
seen either of these things in such a long time. She suddenly balked at the thought that
she had been gone from the office for 1 hour 20 minutes. Naomi would have noticed
something wasn’t right, but perhaps it would be ok and they just assumed she had gone
home sick?She knew Matt though, knew he would be checking through the data prints
and camera footage as he usually did, to make sure no one was wasting his money by not
working.
She was so busy panicking that she hadn’t noticed them stop. Alex took her hand again
and they stepped off the train. It all felt so surreal, and so damned windy. She hadn’t even
thought to ask where the hell they were going.
“Where the hell are we?”
“At the coast.”
“The goddamn coast?! Is this just a day trip for you? Have you lost your mind?!”
Head down, Alex walked on through the barriers, out of the ornate blue and white mock
Victorian station and turned left. They walked down a steep hill, took a right, then a left, and
there it was. The sea.
Alex straightened up, let go of Becs and collapsed on the pebbled beach.
“Alex!”
There was no response from the limp form lying awkwardly on the shingle, barbour jacket
splayed open and chest weakly rising and falling with a rattle.
He lifted a skinny hand and pointed to the sea. Something gurgled from his throat and he
pointed again.
Becs was panicking, running her hands through her hair and trying to drown out the
rushing blood in her ears with sensical thoughts but it just wouldn’t work. She looked
around frantically for anyone else, but there was no one here. Everyone was at work. The
whole goddamn world was at work in their offices or their ammonia tankers or whatever.
“Jesus fucking christ!” she screamed. She bent down and listened for his breathing. It was
faint and shallow and rattled. He looked like he had aged in the last 4 minutes to an
unreasonable degree. He tried to whisper again.
“Sea.”
“Fuck!” Becs grabbed Alex under his arms and dragged him the last 20 metres to the
water’s edge. Given the size of him, he was surprisingly heavy, and his withered little
balloon just would not let up in the wind. It was wrapped around her neck and her left arm
and repeatedly got in her line of vision, whipping around in circles in the wind.
“Alex!Alex, please what do I do now?!”
Alex pointed again at the water, so Becs readjusted her hold on him and started wading in,
falling and spluttering and cursing and shouting, her vessel bobbing on the water. He was
whispering again, and she tried desperately to listen over the increasingly turbulent waves,
and the wind and now the rain. Fucking rain!
“Let it go.” he said
“Let what go, Alex, please!” she sobbed into his emaciated chest, sodden, eyes burning
from salt water and tears.
“My vessel..let out. Open it. To water.”
“Oh my god Alex, how?!”
“Pocket.”
Becs reached into his pocket and found a small box, whilst trying to stop him being swept
away with one arm. Her shoulder was giving out, the wind was raging around them now
and her grip on both Alex and the box was loosening. They were almost out of treading
water depth now and Becs was suddenly frozen with fear.
Am i going to die? Am I going to kill him? What am I doing here? I don’t want this, I don’t
want want this!
She shouted out again, and prised open the box carefully keeping it out of the water. Inside
the box was a pin in a plastic case, carefully sealed. She swapped arms and got the pin,
clamping it hastily in her teeth and dropping the box.
“Are you sure?” she shouted through gritted teeth. There was no reply but she knew the
answer. She let go of Alex and grabbed his vessel. Alex immediately began sinking, so she
quickly plunged the pin into the vessel. The material of the balloon began to melt and bend
and pour into the water, forming a red oil slick on the water, with red clouds beneath it like
a sandstorm. She tried to rip it further but it wouldn’t give, the only thing that made a
difference was this tiny pin. She carried on making punctures in it until the effect spread
across the whole surface of the vessel and it broke away into the water. She tried to
breathe and couldn’t, as she leant down to recover Alex, hoping he was still alive after
those seconds underwater. As she scooped him up into her arms, he fell apart like sand,
too. His body disintegrated in her arms and disappeared completely within seconds.
Becs was frozen, she felt like her heart had stopped and her lungs were full of death. How
could she live with this? What had happened here?
There was no going back, she thought. What are these vessels, what are we carrying?! She
held the pin up to her red balloon and began to push the pin in slowly, liquid and sand and
essence dispersing everywhere. The sea closed in around her, and she collapsed
underwater. The water felt viscous and full but calm. She opened her eyes and expected
to see grey ocean floor, bleary through salt-sodden eyes. Instead she saw Alex, waiting for
her and back in normal form, floating in the dimly lit foreground.
“I thought you were dead.” she said
“We won’t die. Because we were incomplete to begin with. We had never lived and we
were alone. But now, we can be together. I know you, and we have never known anyone
else as long as we have lived in this miserable life. We are the first, and we will be the last.”
The water around them started crystallising into kaleidoscopic colours, clusters of the
most beautiful gems ever imagined sparkling and hung in the water. They began to
compound with each other and soon Becs felt as though they were in a three dimensional
spectrum of light, all around them, becoming real. She reached out to touch them and felt
their cool, bright existence. She could see the crystallization had spread as far as her vision
would allow, and they were getting closer to Alex and Becs. As they held hands in the wake
of the approaching mesmerising lattices of colour, they knew what it was they had been
missing all this time. They shared a last look, and the crystal sea exploded around them,
splintering across the earth. Nothing was left of the world but space, and colour and light.