skonen_blades

The new planet’s thick, soupy ‘air’ made twin blue plumes out of his suit’s exhalations when the carbon dioxide reacted with the unbreathable atmosphere. It turned into blue rust flakes that scattered around him like snow.

He walked over the rocky surface in a grav suit that would have looked right at home on the ocean floor in the 1760s back on Earth. Bulky, slow and primitive looking.

He looked like a train pretending to be human blasting out powder-blue fairy dust.

His face peeked out of a circular faceplate inset into a large spherical metal helmet. It amplified his breathing as well as the creaking of the servos helping him to walk across the high-gravity shale. It was like living inside a bell.

He could see the bright blue plumes coming out of his co-researcher’s suits all down the line if he turned his head.

It was actually quite beautiful.

He’d appreciate it a lot more if they all weren’t currently looking for their ship.

He’d left the ship second-to-last in the queue so he would run out of air second-to-last as well. It wasn’t something he was looking forward to.

Already, a suit with the number 28 painted on the shoulder down the line was starting to slow down. Its blue gusts of CO₂ were becoming yellower as the combination started to change. It was Yolanda.

They’d only gone a few steps out. They'd left the ships sentry programs on. It was folly of them to desert the ship entirely but no one wanted to be left behind for the first walk.

There was no life detected in the area. It had seemed safe.

Then their tracking devices stopped working properly. And their directional qualifiers.

They had no points of references. The atmosphere was a fog that gave them thirty feet of visibility. It ended in a starless ceiling above them as well. The ground was scattered rock.

They were lost. The ship, according to their scanners, was in twenty-seven places around them.

They’d turned around one hundred and eighty degrees and started walking back towards the ship, following their own blue rusted trails of encrusted CO₂ flakes.

They should have been there by now.



tags

He stomps through the door and into the dark warehouse with his head down. His face is in shadow underneath his fedora. He has a leopard print headband. He’s dressed like a pimp in a purple double breasted zoot suit with huge padded shoulders. His entire face is bandaged. His cigar pushes out clouds that puff and circle behind him like steam from a train. He strides quickly like an executioner that knows the only way he can do the killing is to do it quick. He has a cane held in one lilac gloved hand.

His walk taps out an angry even rhythm until he hits the center of the room. His heels come down together like a rifle shot in the darkening silence when he stops. The sun is going down so the light coming in the windows high up on the walls is almost horizontal.

This man, this homeless lord of the dark under the pier, he looks up. He’s trained the rats to do his bidding. He has seagull minions by the score. All manner of shore scavengers are his to command. He used to be a god but now he hunts for half eaten burgers and cold French fries like his slaves. His army of carrion feeders grows smaller every day as his power wanes. He has decades to live, perhaps years.

He is Oresh, the lord the lost. He is also known as Krane, the master of the missing. This man was what people used to pray to when they needed something found. He was born in the infancy of street voodoo in New Orleans and then forgotten. His existence is coming to an end like a mirror turning over.

He made a decision this morning to go out now and with style. He’s going to spread himself too thin and expend too much energy to ever reincorporate. With a few sharp breaths and a setting of his jaw, he begins.

He goes down on one knee and takes off his hat. He lets go of his cane and the cane stays standing. He reaches up and undoes the bandages that blind him. When he’s free of them, he straightens his back and puts his head up looking forward. His eyes are closed.

He finds things by seeing them. His eyes see all. Nothing is lost because he can see them. Normally he opens his eyes just a sliver and finds what he’s been asked to look for. Three times in his life he’s gone so far as to actually squint. It exhausts him.

This time he opens his eyes wide. The windows of the warehouse rattle to contain a sudden blast of air and light.

All the rats on the beach look towards the warehouse. All the seagulls in the area shut up for a minute.

Renee finds her hairbrush behind the couch. John finds his car keys under the radiator. Peter finds his wife’s will in a shoebox at the bottom of the closet. Lisa’s glasses were in her glove compartment all along. Tim finds the lottery ticket that won him ten dollars tucked in the back pocket of his jeans just before he washes them. Peter finds his shoe under Ellie’s bed before running out to work. Jill finds her earring tangled in the brush of the vacuum cleaner.

All over the country, everyday people find tiny things that were lost to them. Not one of them thinks to mention it to anyone else.

Back in the warehouse, a cane falls to the ground next to a hat and some bandages. Other than that, the warehouse is empty.



tags

Love. Bah.
Line crossers and throwbacks. Populations of over worked and undernourished termites. Couch surfers and homeowners. Movers and shakers. A definitive cross section of humanity. Neon bone splints and eyelights searching, tracking, identifying. Arms that whine. Shocks arc and trip off the triggers of others. There are stances. There are poses and stares. I wouldn't even call it a gathering. There's just not enough space. Accounted for and present. Absent friends. It's late. The meat is calling with its crazy calls and impulsive pulls. Spring victims me up to gird my already strengthened loins. Dragged off to the hunt. I can see the windows. I can see the doors. Antlers poke and scratch and itch as the velvet falls off in bloody strips. Nubs turn to points. A hexagram of pentagrams unfold and open up a doorway down the barrel of a well. Light spills out like a cheap special effect. The metaphors stir. Ridiculost years of my life. Divorsilly. Graviteases me. Paradiant. Ticker-typecast. Awareness binds and soothes. I cannot split the open night and I have trouble with the lack of shadows in the day.
We are all our own prisoners.
The belief that there is one true way is the downfall. There is no one true way. Inner pieces.