The Earth is Full

“The Earth is full,” said the man on the radio.  “It’s full of us, and it’s full of our stuff.  It’s full of our waste.  Full of our demands.”  He had one of those fat British accents, the kind she imagined required a curled, contorted tongue to produce any words at all, and she didn’t know how talking like that didn’t wear a person out before they reached the end of a thought.

Gilding was his name, Paul Gilding.  She’d have to remember to look up this Englishman to see what he did for a living.  He wasn’t a farmer, that was for sure.  Across the endless Iowa cornfields, jade, towering stalks were full of buttery kernels and ready to be harvested.  Burnt tassels waved from their tops like little flags; we surrender, we surrender, come for us with the machines, we can’t possibly grow any taller.  A marmalade sun threatened to dip into the horizon, burying itself under that full Earth for a quick sleep.  The sky was a wall of color.  But it didn’t seem full of people, or their stuff, or their waste. She hadn’t seen an actual living soul in hours, driving or walking.  The world felt downright empty.

Interstate 80 stretched out before her, into the setting sun.  For an ambitious moment, she pictured herself catching up to it.  She could really lay into the Datsun, see what it could do, and instead of turning left when she hit Des Moines, she could keep going, play cat and mouse with the sun so that it never set, was forever a half moon of lava resting impatiently on the flat land.  When she hit the Pacific she would concede to the salty border and let the sun disappear into the water.  Or she could commandeer a very fast sea vessel, and keep up the chase.  How fast could fast boats travel? The Datsun could hit but probably not maintain 80 mph; certainly a decent boat could go at least that fast. But anyway, 80 probably wasn’t enough speed to keep up with the sun.  From her school memories she dredged up the Earth’s velocity as it traveled around the sun: around 67,000 mph.  She would need a faster car.

Mr. Oh-So-British Gilding droned on about the unsustainability of human consumption and economic growth.  He must be an economist.

“So, in 2012, Mom and Dad, what was it like when you’d had the hottest decade on record for the third decade in a row, when every scientific body in the world was saying you’ve got a major problem, when the oceans were acidifying, when oil and food prices were spiking, when they were rioting in the streets of London and occupying Wall Street? When the system was so clearly breaking down, Mom and Dad, what did you do, what were you thinking?”

Jesus, these TED Talk guests.  What would she tell her kids?  She would tell them that the world was huge and messy.  That understanding basic scientific facts like ‘we will one day run out of oil so using that specific substance to make every conceivably disposable item is probably fucking stupid’ doesn’t equal some single mom in shitstown, USA opting for a locally blown glass bottle over of the BPA riddled version from Dollar General that takes $1.99 and two minutes to acquire.

That well-meaning mother will, along with 90% of the world, opt for the convenient and cheap solution. And Hannah will tell her children that it is not her fault. It is not even Hannah’s fault  Education is a form of hope. But greed usually wins.

All of the People Hate Poetry

Oh, Calm Pirate!

I free quiet, lurid dreams:

the acrid taste of your fingers

dry and tight, hands perfumed of tobacco and salt

the oiled air you breathe (in MY lungs!);

the metallic tang of fish and water

a million mops saturated in dim light,

valiant, hearty men at your command, steering away from land,

pulling the ship’s bow, your barrel chest, against waves.

Restless, now, but shy in a rose-walled box, you push from inside me

(a whisper at my ears, a pressure against my ribs)

you are rolled into new flesh,

hunkered in my shadow,

a subconscious persuasion.

the taste of your life lingers.

pale, dirty curls

soft eyes          filmed over with fear

filmed over with anger.

years of white sun turned to ink under the pressure of your resentment, the pressure of

my bleeding pen, guided by firm hand, poured onto paper.

Your secrets hidden in attics,

earthen basements,

unknown dwellings out of sight

dusted with sealed mouths and averted eyes

A life carpeted in misgivings, a blanket of regret,

wrings my paper dry and rewrites itself,

over and over, purer, simpler.

Sea Captain,

You Were.

Otto And Eric

A few times, their mother left them in a land city and went out to sea without them.  This was only when they were still young, and couldn’t be trusted to go to a water port that the pirates or other unsavory characters (probably the  Mettes or the Slag, considering the time) governed.  Places like that weren’t safe for children.

So mother would have to leave them with a land port woman wherever they were visiting.  These ladies seemed made of children, didn’t seem to mind a couple more, and always needed money.  So their mother would negotiate a few dollars, and swear up and down that she would come back, and then threaten the life of the woman were the boys to not be ok upon her return.  This was the only part of the discussion to which they paid attention.

After seeing her out to sea, usually a tearful and dramatic event, they they had friends for a few weeks, ones that were more or less their own age.  And land children were exciting, different different than boat children.  Despite (what the boys considered) their confinement, they seemed freer.

During the day, they ran through the city and were excited to show off their friends and the tricks and corners of the town.  Always there was a butcher who would scowl at them until they begged enough, and then he would toss them fat slabs of dried pork.  The farmers were never friendly, but every local boy in every city knew how to crawl under a fence to steal potatoes or radishes or carrots.  They knew every nook and cranny of every street and stone building, like magic tricks.  They seemed sure of everything.

Tuesday 2

“Holy shit.  That’s never happened.”  And then he chuckled.  It was half sigh, words formed on accident before thought had been put into them.  His face was silver and blue in the shadow and streetlight.  It was probably his most genuine moment with her, and the one she always came back to when she needed him.

What had he told her to say?  She was a teacher.  Say she was a teacher and they were for her students.

The black man behind the counter was short with a nice face.  His head was shorn, just like Jon’s.  She tried to picture him with his hair grown out.  It would be like an afro, right?  Would it make him look taller?  Or is that the black guy equivalent of a comb over, but for shortness and not baldness?

He had five cell phones in five boxes next to his black keyboard on the glass counter, and he was pecking at that keyboard that was at least 10 years old while he glared intently into the boxy monitor.  She wondered if he was actually a fast typist but the computers were just very slow.  On cue, he shook his head and looked at her.

“Sorry, these things are so slow.  Especially today.  I think it’s worse when it rains.”  He shrugged and hit another key.  She relaxed.

“That’s ok.  These are for my students. They don’t all have their own phones and some of them need extra help in the evening and so I like to give them an option to get in touch with me.  I’m in no hurry.”  She gave her very best patient, sweet smile, the one with genuine eyes that showed affection and interest.

“Mhm.  Ok here we go,” he said, his face relaxing. “You can insert your card and hit the green button.”

She completed the transaction with Jon’s card and the nice man placed the boxes into a plastic bag with T-Mobile on the side and she walked out of the store with her heart in her throat.

Later, she would recall sunlight peeking through the clouds and dimpling the puddles, the smell of wet earth mingling with coffee from the shop next door, and she would wonder why she had just gone home to Jon the way he had instructed.  She could have walked in the opposite direction and saved herself so much trouble.

“That guy only had one arm.”  She raised her eyebrows, hoping someone else was up for this discussion.  Jon and Tony didn’t hear her over the music, but Lisa did and she nodded and laughed.

“Yes, Charlie, YES HE DID.”  She laughed so hard that she went silent.  “He could still sling some mean chili!  Oh my God Charlie you freak out over the weirdest shit.”  Charlie laughed also.

What she had meant to say, to ask, was why do you think this man only has one arm?  She wanted to talk about how he might have come to be the one-armed chili man with her friends, Jon and Tony and Lisa.  She hadn’t had time to ask the man himself, or she would have.

She never ate the chili.  The clumpy meat looked like the end of his arm.  You could see it poking out of his sleeve, the pinched, purple flesh at the end of his forearm.  He wasn’t born that way. That was a nasty car accident, or a fight with some animal, or someone ignoring OSHA in a factory.

Electric green vines grew up the brick walls of the walk to their apartment.  There were ten steps for each level.  She counted 20 steps, including the platform at the second level.  Their door was unlocked, which she found interesting, considering  how wound up Jon suddenly seemed about security.  A cursory inspection of the potted plant next to the door confirmed that the spare key was still in its hiding spot.

Charlie – The Start

The heat enhanced every feeling, but reduced clarity.  And it was hot.  The bare mattress, a surprising and wonderful find, was damp with sweat. At 15 floors up, a sympathetic breeze from the windows brushed her cheek now and then, but it was more of a tease than anything. She slowed her breathing and tried to focus.

Every other quarter inch of fabric in the mattress was silky. She ran her fingers back and forth over it, rough to silk, rough to silk, and repeated her name like a mantra in her head:  Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie

– and then a break to listen. After floor 10 the building was empty, from what she could tell. There were rats or something around that size on 11 or 12. Their primal, hungry urges were tickles at the edge of her mind. If she listened hard enough, she could hear even insects.  But that took unnecessary effort.

A person was a substantial feeling. Especially Henry. He was 6’2” and meaty, and more importantly, almost always on the verge of rage. When Henry got close, it was like a fist gripping her whole body. He could be in the next room and her jaw would clench in anticipation of his arrival.  But he didn’t feel things like she did, and so she had to antennae out her name so he could find her.  Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie

–  and listen.  The distant itching of the rats.  The swaying and creaking of the building itself.  Old (maybe 100 years?)  Brick, cement, soaked full of the vitriol and heartache of hundreds of people.  Also their happiness, and passion, but people were mostly shit.  Take away those social mores and plastic smiles, and you’re left with raw human.  Pretty much different colors of raw shit.

They had met in this same building before. It was cooler, and more full of people.  Up the stairs she’d gone, floor after floor, each heavy brown door with its heavy steel handle at each landing an invitation to another set of misery.  She’d gone up to 17.  The swaying of the building was unmistakable.  Through their entire conversation she was distracted, trying to figure out how the building would fall.  Would it crumble beneath them in a heap so that they were only halfway buried?  Would it topple sideways like dominoes?

– and then Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie 

And listen.  Under her fingers, rough to silk, rough to silk, resist the urge to pinch them together, rough to silk.  What a good find, this mattress.  It wasn’t too gross.  The nibbling & itching of the rats below.  The maudlin, bitter feeling of the mattress and the walls around her if she listened too hard.  This time would be the last time.  She shifted to be more comfortable but only moved into a slightly cooler pools of sweat, which made it worse.

– Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie 

And there he was.  Right into the front door, far below. She felt his hand grip the door frame, his foot stamp into dust and dirt on the first step of the stairway.  For a moment she just listened and felt.  He wasn’t alone, but that was ok.  He had another man with him, about his size, but walking behind him.  She could feel their silence.  They walked quietly one floor up and she felt Henry’s hesitation as he listened for her.

–  CHARLIE CHARLIE CHARLIE CHARLIE CHARLIE 15

It felt like screaming at a child, but they started walking up again.  She kept it up (CHARLIE 15 CHARLIE 15 CHARLIE 15) and waited, sprawled out on the mattress.  It would take them a minute to get to her. She didn’t want Henry to doubt where to go, so best be loud.  His buddy didn’t have any touch at all and didn’t hear a thing.  Wasn’t there a way to improve your skills?  There had to be a way to become more sensitive, exorcises for your brain to get at least a bit better at listening.  What kind of person were you to not hear a thing when someone so close was screaming inside their head? Or was he blocking like a champ?

As they rounded the last corner on her floor she felt a bump, a jarring, brilliant bit of life, maybe two floors down.  But right beneath her!  Immediately beneath her!

She jumped from the mattress and took a squatting stance, one knee toward the pebbly floor.  What was that?

And the door opened – that heavy brown door.  Henry was 15 feet away from her, near what must have been the kitchenette when running water was still a thing, but she sank like he was pushing her down at her shoulders. For someone with such dark hair he had such light eyes, she thought, just like every time she saw him.  She could see the silhouette of his friend in the hall behind him.

Charlie Charlie Charlie

Was he listening?

CHARLIE CHARLIE CHARLIE CHARLIE CHARLIE

What was downstairs?  Who was that?

She sank until her haunches were flat on the cheap linoleum and grit.

And Henry spoke.

Mia

She could see why Baby preferred Mia. It didn’t matter that Charlie wad the one that had found her, didn’t matter that without Charlie, Baby would undoubtedly be dead on Shuck Street, or, best case scenario be wandering the giant building’s halls living on food scraps and sleeping with feral dogs. It didn’t matter that Charlie had introduced her to Mia, cautiously, to protect her.

Within hours of meeting, Baby was trying to sit in Mia’s lap, curling tiny fingers around Mia’s thick black tendrils of hair with curiosity. Mia was instantly and without hesitation warm and motherly. Charlie was mesmerized by her transition into a cooing, baby-talking mommy, all smiles and shushes, delicately pulling Baby’s fine hairs out of her face. She could have sworn Mia’s breasts even grew into more voluptuous, and more comforting, as she snuggled Baby into them.

Drawing in a breath of cool air, she watched them sleep. The orange glow of the dying fire made both of their faces look flushed and young. Mia looked almost as sweet and tender as Baby. Maybe that was the kinship they had. Maybe Mia seemed so young that she felt like a sister.

Baby’s face puckered as she sucked her thumb in her sleep. A bead of drool collected under her protruded lip. Mia’s dark curls fell around both of their peaceful, sleeping faces.  Charlie pulled the surplus jacket she had kept for herself tighter around her shoulders.

Had it been a month? The weather hadn’t changed much from hot days and warm nights, but the light hours were shrinking. In a month she had become almost an outsider from the two people she felt responsible for.

It would be getting cold soon. Unless they were further south than she thought. The landscape had turned from a dirty city scape into a trash strewn, barren landscape. They were following an old highway, but in some act of nonsensical vandalism, every sign had been removed. A few had been moved to the wrong location (thankfully it was obvious in each instance.)

And some days, particularly when Baby was cranky, they only made it what she guessed were a few miles. Other days it felt like they covered five times that, alternating carrying Baby every few hours. But as every day became more similar they all started to blur together. It was impossible to gauge how much ground they were covering, and at this point, she wasn’t even sure how much time had passed.

But they were headed in the right direction. The pull of The Compound was stronger every day. Mia swore she couldn’t feel it. But Charlie felt it like a swelling in her chest and throat, sometimes it made it hard to catch her breath. And she thought Baby could sense it too, in ways Mia didn’t notice. It seemed likely that Baby was modified like Charlie. She didn’t want to bring it up, but that would be an issue they would have to deal with as they drew closer to the border.

But for now, she was wrapped safely in Mia’s warm arms. Turning to the sky, she drifted into a restless sleep.

Otto and That Other Guy

I waited two days to write this down somewhere, and I’m doing it here, now, because though I may not be thinking *entirely coherently*, I’ve already waited this long to make record of a dream that was more beautiful and vivid and is most definitely going to be the basis of the novel that I will actually finish and if I wait any longer or do it anywhere else, it’s going to disappear into an abyss of dirty dishes and cat fur.

On a boat, mostly a sailboat, lived two boys.  Otto and Eric. (Camillo?)  White sun was all they knew: it bleached the wood, it warmed their skin, it dried damp linen.  The sky was blue, the water was blue, sparkling, and they knew each other.

People were told they were brothers, but the men and the women laughed at that.  “You look so different, a sunny almond and a dark raisin, you are like the day and the night.  Maybe your mother wasn’t very honest,” they would say with a wink and a gut laugh.  The boys would watch the women clutch their throats, the men’s belly’s jiggle, enjoying a joke they didn’t yet understand.

Life was bare feet, scampering around barrel-chested men pulling sails, their mother and other women with soft voices feeding them bits of vegetables and oily, delicious fishes, and of course, Anna.  Eric was in love with Anna.  But so was Otto (along with anyone else who laid eyes on her).  She was the queen of the water, dark eyes as big as the sea at night, slim wrists, a smile that was hard to find.  I think they both knew she was Eric’s.