The Mariner (51 page)

The Mariner, clutching the side of the Neptune and leaning out over the ocean below, looked up at the great plume of liquid. “I’m here!” he told the sky. “Look at me! Listen to me!”

Suddenly the ship lurched, dropping into the ocean as if pushed. Above, one of the masts splintered, and with a mighty crack, broke, dropping onto the decking, hitting the boards beneath like a cannon-ball. Splinters flew in a spiky cloud and the Mariner was thrown down, rolling uncontrollably as the ship lurched, a terrible rupturing sending vibrations through his back to his teeth.

The Neptune came to a halt.

With shaky legs, the Mariner got to his feet and dashed to the bow, peering over, trying to spot the rocks she must have hit. There was none, just the lapping of the waves, strangely higher than they should be upon the hull.

Finally he looked up, and saw the cause of the jolt.

A great groove cut into the sky, The mast had crumpled the light blue around it into piles of displaced matter, cutting into some barrier above that gave the illusion of depth, yet really as firm as the ceiling of a cave.

He turned, inspecting the sky, trying to see any change in its nature. The sun was still there, but it had lost all definition. Didn’t it used to be an orb? Now it was just a hue, a changing tone from blue to bright, a patch of heat in an otherwise clear sky.

Like the stars, the sky was leaving, the concept forgotten. In its place was fakery, a firm barrier that could not be breached.

And the world was filling up.

He looked at the Waterfall, spewing from the office block like an almighty broken hydrant, the great source of water drenching a land that once made sense, the degradation of the cocoon given form. The waters were rising, pressing each and every ship upwards to be squashed against the barrier of forgotten sky.

The Neptune groaned, wedged tight, crushed against an invisible ceiling.

“I’m sorry girl,” he said, stroking her wooden carapace. She wailed and cracked. The old nag had fallen and broken a leg. “There may still be time for it to turn out right.”

The voice struck him, not in the ears, but through his whole body, as if every inch of flesh had been made a radio and adjusted to a specific frequency.

His head span as he tried to comprehend the concepts landing in his mind. Not sentences, but a jumble of meanings all at once, like having a conversation compressed into a single violent scream.

“This has got to end,” he pleaded as he gazed into the air, seeing nothing, but sensing the world he’d once known hovering just beyond sight. His words felt stupid and basic compared to the complexity landing in his head, clumsy in his mouth. “Take us all, or come back, you can’t exist like this.”

“No,” he argued, though as he conversed his body became weak, legs wobbling beneath with the effort of keeping him aloft. “You’re sick, you’re not whole. I’m sorry I scared you, I’m sorry I hurt you, but you can’t destroy yourself just because you’re too scared to face up to the truth.”

There was silence within, the Wasp refusing to negotiate with its rogue cell. Beneath him, the Neptune gave a final juddering sigh as she died, water pouring through her wounds, rocking the corpse as it sank.

“If you want to come back, you can. You did a little before; you inched closer when I remembered... how to love. You were less afraid of me and brought back Grace’s zoo.”

“You can’t take the health from a man and leave only the rotten! You can’t judge him man based on that. Come back to us, not just a little closer as you did before, but fully. Return and go to sleep! You woke too soon!”

“Nothing is perfect. The woman I loved was not perfect. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was I couldn’t understand there is still beauty in imperfection. Plato’s forms don’t mean
shit
. I understand that now. I emotionally ran away and in the process became corrupted and rotten. I know what it’s like to be too scared to accept the whole, of myself as well as another, but if you don’t learn to accept, you’ll never find peace. You’ll become obsessed with my failings just as I became obsessed with hers.”

He sank to his knees, legs giving way, and cried as he confessed. “If you don’t accept me, if you don’t accept that large parts of us
do
feel wrong,
are
ugly, then you’ll be chasing a fantasy, a dream of perfection, one that can never be achieved. You’ll always remain Shattered.”

“Don’t be.”

“Then you’re just as bad as me, another fantasist fleeing reality.”

The Mariner closed his eyes, completely drained by the scale of maintaining a bond with billions of minds made one. “Please,” he whispered, his lips against the wood. “I know my mind’s disgusting, but you’ve got to overcome it, even if just for yourself. Come home or take us all.”

And with that the link was severed. The Mariner felt his whole body relax, like an electrical current turned off. Physical relief however, was overshadowed by frustration. A slither of energy remained, available now the voice of the Wasp was gone.

“You have to make a decision!” he screamed, but knew the Wasp wasn’t willing to talk any-more, though he could still feel it watching.

“Arthur!” It was McConnell, calling to him as he climbed a rope-ladder onto the deck. “Your ship’s sinking, quickly, get on mine.”

The Mariner turned his head to look at the reverend. The holy man seemed just as tired as he, deep lines crossed his face and dark pouches beneath his eyes were puffy from tears.

“I’m sorry Christopher, but we’re at the end. I thought for a while I might fix it and get a happy ending. I guess for some people that’s just not possible. For some that can never be.” He spoke wearily, and McConnell ran to his side to support his swaying body. “The Wasp must choose, and it must choose now.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s scared of me, scared of my sins. For a while... it considered coming back, Grace and I almost tempted it, it inched closer and so brought back the zoo, but then it changed its mind. I guess what I did to Grace made certain of that.”

“You didn’t.”

“What?”

“You didn’t kill Grace, Harris did. You must have been so drunk...”

The Mariner shook his head. “Even if I didn’t do the deed, the eels told of my lust for her. On the way to the Pope, they tempted me with her body.”