Veracity (33 page)

But that was the wrong word. Mikkel straightened instantly and broke into a powerful stride toward Knut, stopping directly in front of him with a stamp of his foot, their faces only inches apart. Knut, understandably, had already begun to squinch. "Let us understand something right now Knut. You have no rank on this ship, no authority. And if you think that you can manoeuvre your way into power with a little childish intimidation, you are
sorely
mistaken. I will happily show everyone here exactly what you are. And if you want that, then please, deny my request again and face the consequences. If not, then step away from Joshua. Now."

Knut slowly shuffled to the rail. Mikkel was watching him closely, probably to see if he would display the slightest mark of insolence. He didn't.

There were a few disapproving mumbles at Mikkel's back, though he didn't seem to mind; because he wasn't finished yet. And once he'd watched Knut settle himself against the rail, he turned to look at me along with everyone else, a cheerless smirk - which I think was meant to be sympathetic or comforting - creasing his face. It was obvious that he had to do something with me. Things had been said which could never be taken back. And because I hadn't provided anything to defend myself against the accusations, they would be taken as truth, and things would quickly spiral out of control. The only way to maintain order would be to completely change the leadership and intentions of the expedition, and this would have to be done immediately. I couldn't blame him, even though I knew he'd always secretly looked forward to this day.

"Joshua. In light of what's been said - some of it being bullshit, but some of it, as you and I both know, being true - I'm taking over control of the ship and the expedition from here. You will be locked in your quarters, treated respectfully, and given food and water until we reach land, but from there, I'm afraid you're on your own. Do you think that's reasonable?"

I nodded quickly. Putting my life in Mikkel's hands was worlds better than putting it in Knut's, or anyone else's for that matter. As soon as I'd nodded, there were a few curses; most of the crew had brought a hand up to their head as they strained to keep up with it all. Their world was changing faster than they could possibly learn the rules.

"So... I'll take you to your room," Mikkel said, turning from me and walking toward the stairs. He looked at Solmund as we passed by, whereas I looked at the floor in front of my feet, avoiding the scowls and shaking heads, the appalled expressions.

We walked through the gangway and into my room, where Mikkel took the key from inside my door and put it on the outside. Before he closed it, he addressed me, looking around the room uncomfortably. "I hope you see that I'm locking you in here to keep
you
safe, not us. Okay?" I nodded. "We'll bring you some fish whenever we catch some, and in a little while I'll give you a bucket of water, and you can use the one that's already in here to piss in." He began to shut the door.

"Mikkel..."

"Sorry," he said, closing and locking it, and speaking from the other side, "I don't really want to talk."

But I pressed my face against the door to say something anyway. It was urgent. "Listen: I want you to know that it was Knut and Toivo who threw him in. I mean - I don't think they knew, because... well, none of us knew. But I also think... I think you should make them admit it."

There was a thoughtful pause. "Why? I mean - what's the point? Whatever they say, he's still dead." He removed the key from the door and turned, his footsteps receding quickly, leaving me alone with the quiet of my room.

I sighed and walked to the bed, laying down on it and staring up at the ceiling. It's interesting, because a million thoughts
should
have been going through my head at that point, things about The Goal or the Elders, or what I'd done to allow things to deteriorate so quickly, maybe even how I might gain control of the ship again, but nothing of that nature entered my mind. I could only think of Solmund, of his arms outstretched against the water as he fell, of his desperate struggle. I was imagining the things he must have heard, the fear he must have felt. But what I thought about most was the bubble of water that had swelled from his open mouth when Mikkel had struck him, and that, at that moment, his eyes had become so calm and definite, so peaceful, that - and for the first time ever - he could have easily held someone's gaze. But we'd all looked away instead.

25

When our senses are deprived of what they unconsciously and incessantly gorge themselves on, they seek sustenance elsewhere. They begin to scavenge, to crawl along the ground, meticulously sifting through the grass with their fingers in hopes of coming across some kind of nourishment; and when they find it, they shovel it into their pockets and hoard it, dwell on it, take it out more than they need to afterwards, greedily turning it over in the light. My hearing had replaced all of my other senses. In fact, sometimes I even closed my eyes as I listened, as if the sight of the few inanimate shapes in my room would blur and distort the sounds that made it to my ears. And sometimes it worked. Every hour it felt like I was catching more detail in the muffled noises, hearing different tones in the voices, coming to understand the different creaks the ship made when people were weighting specific parts of the deck, or the floorboards in the gangway, or each individual stair.

There was a story being told through the cracks around my door, behind every one of my walls, and through my ceiling. A story that, strangely enough, I was removed from, yet was also the centre of. It was about me; what I was, and what the crew were going to do with me (and with themselves) once they knew the bigger story that they had all unwittingly been a part of. And the only thing I really had to do with my time was piece this story together. And think.

There was no movement for a long while on the upper deck, only a thick, drawn out silence. Which, I was sure, was because of some kind of impromptu ceremony that Mikkel was giving, in order to throw Solmund overboard in the most respectful way possible. I tried to imagine how and what he was saying, which wasn't too difficult really. He was probably just following the Elders' example of what was said after Peik's death, offering a few vibrant words about what Solmund 'was', which, of course, would have had little to do with what he was, and more to do with what we wished he was; a few sentences that would help lead the crew toward that age old and venerable process of inventing memories.

Though, as opposed to what the Elders would have done, I couldn't really imagine Mikkel saying anything
ideological
before throwing Solmund into the sea; and not because it wasn't in him, but because he probably considered it as redundant as the rest of us. Since, in terms of the design of the universe, we all understood perfectly well what was happening to Solmund, just as we understood it when it was happening to Peik. After all, the workings of God had been relentlessly drilled into us throughout the span of our lives, having to meet with different Elders on a regular basis, who would then point out specific natural processes and break down exactly what God was doing in every one of them. This was the pedantic nature of our religion, which we would later learn, was not usually the case with belief systems involving God.

One of the first things that you did after Coming of Age was begin studying geography for the first time, along with learning the bare essentials of a few cultures, whose ruins you would be walking through if you happened to be chosen for the expedition. Whereas Mikkel and I - and as I'm sure Peik
would
have done as well - got to learn about these cultures in a bit more depth, focusing on their historical problems, political and social strife, and the amount of damage that they'd caused to themselves, neighbouring cultures, and the world around them. But one of my favourite parts in learning about these civilizations was talking about their religions; and not because they were interesting or novel, but because the Elders held such an animated contempt for them.

They would begin their lessons by rolling their eyes and thumping a finger onto a picture, which usually depicted the same kind of scene: a white-bearded man, his hair falling in lazy curls over muscular shoulders, sitting in the clouds with a melodramatic pose, looking down on the people of the world and dwelling on their every minuscule action. Though He wouldn't just think about those actions, He would also control things according to what He saw or what people asked for - provided they were moral people, of course; and if they weren't moral, then provided that they'd at least told other people, who happened to wear special black costumes (and were often just as corrupt themselves), that they
had
, in fact, been immoral like everyone else. And so long as these steps were followed, why then, He would happily manipulate the universe to suit those 'exceptional' people inside it. (Though, interestingly enough, if it
didn't
suit them, then it suddenly became obvious that He was trying to teach them some unseen lesson that they were apparently in need of learning, and of which they would have to spend a considerable amount of time interpreting in order to divulge its 'true' meaning.) Harek, but many of the other Elders as well, would get incredibly worked up at these notions, pacing around the room, mockingly holding his hands up to the ceiling and speaking in a raised voice, as if he were addressing someone walking on the roof above us. And when he was finished with all of his satirical theatrics, his hands would finally drape back down to his sides, and he would turn to me, shaking his head, and say something like: "Believe me, Joshua - religion is nothing but a direct product of our arrogance or fear; or both."

Then he would go on to talk about the birth of all belief systems; how they usually began with our insatiable need to categorize things, to put them in their 'right' place for our later reference. "Everything that we see around us and learn in books and from our lives, every question that we ask ourselves and to the learned men and women around us, and every answer we receive, we quickly place alongside the rest of the world's learning, tidily in its corresponding spot. And after we've done this, it's natural enough to find ourselves sweeping our eyes across the breadth of our knowledge base, though not really to learn or refresh our memories, but to make sure that there is nothing missing, that there are no gaps or holes in what or how we understand things. But the fact remains that there
are
holes. There are things that are completely beyond our capacity to understand, enormous questions, which, due to their very nature, are completely unanswerable. And so, if we were ever to lean in and look closely at this neat and tidy foundation of knowledge, we would see that there aren't tiny gaps in it at all, but rather mammoth voids that stretch from one subject area and span wildly across the next three or four! And those few brave minds in every culture that come to this realization, take a quick step back, stunned, afraid. They watch, horrified, as the voids become more obvious, begin to swell and bulge, and then they take another step back. These holes in our understanding somehow demean them, insult them, taunt them with their blaring unknowability. So what are they to do? They can't just
leave
them there!

"And alas! The solution lights up in front of them. Yes. There is only one thing to do with unanswerable questions: give them unquestionable answers. We need only look to the heavens, creating gods that supposedly created us, along with havoc, and the universe, and good, and evil, and, conveniently, every other inexplicable thing that remained blank in our knowledge base. And suddenly, the sounds echoing from those throbbing voids are completely pacified, smothered into silence, and as the inexplicable becomes increasingly easy to explain, we reassure ourselves that we have indeed discovered the glorious missing piece to our puzzle, and that, finally, we can rest assured in our conviction, safe and content, wherever we are, and whatever we do. We find ourselves leaning casually in the corner again, a modest smirk on our faces, and the entire universe and everything in it, neatly ordered at our feet - just the way it should be. There are no slippery questions anymore, we have found a way to supersede them, to ignore them, but most importantly, to feel as if we've confronted them, and won."

Then Harek would shake his head, scoff with a sad laugh, and slam the book with the painting of God in it shut, both of us watching the streams of dust spewing out of the pages and billowing into the room, curling in the shafts of light from the windows.

But sometimes I would think to myself that, if he were right, and religion was merely a means of answering the unanswerable, and knowing where and how each individual fits into it all, then, I'm not sure we all should have been rolling our eyes so dramatically; because our culture was no exception. We too had a religion, just like every group of people before us. And, like every other culture, we also believed in it with blind confidence, convinced that our belief system was superior, or at least more accurate than the rest of them. We didn't have any questions that couldn't be answered; we 'knew', without a doubt, where we were coming from, and what would happen to us after we died.

And we knew it all so automatically, so verbatim, that I honestly don't think Mikkel would have felt the need to reiterate it before throwing Solmund overboard. It was enough to just talk about him - him and some of his 'wonderful' attributes (which we would all dearly miss, of course). We already understood that he wasn't passing into heaven, nor was he patiently lingering in an invisible place, waiting for his soul to find another body. What Solmund was doing, in the grand scheme of things, was simply sinking to the bottom of the ocean to be consumed by fish. And to our minds, this unquestionable fact wasn't offensive or demeaning, but rather beautiful, regardless of its unimaginative nature.

The island's belief system was - I think - both mundane and magical at the same time. It went like this: The universe is naturally chaotic, disordered, faltering. There is only one thing that consistently brings, or attempts to bring, some kind of order to the things in it, which is energy. Energy has multiple forms: the nuclear forces, gravity, and electro-magnetism, and through these forms, it organizes, arranges, regulates, and reorganizes everything. From atoms into molecules; molecules into minerals; minerals into cells; cells into beings; and scattered matter into stars, planets, and galaxies. And as all life had the commonality of being organized by, and containing energy, and as energy couldn't be created nor destroyed, then, it fell that nothing really dies; and that all things, as they innately have some form of energy inside of them, are 'alive', so to speak. What we think of as death for a cell, or a plant, animal, volcano, or star is really only a phase, a rearrangement of sorts; the inevitable passing from one organized form of matter, to another organized form of matter. It is a necessary part of the ebb and flow of energy.