Chapter Text
The sand beneath my fingers is hot. Abrasive. The rolling vibration of the grain moving over the backs of my hands reminds me of a type of smoothness- a micro shhh shhh that is the only thing I can really focus on. I think it's all over-
whatever just happened.
[I know what happened.]
My fingers test the edges of where the water from the happening has settled into a damp clump in my shadow. It is evaporating nicely in irregular waves of heat The stodgy sand is gross. Doesn’t vibrate. Sticks. And I draw my fingers away- touch the wet shirt that is also sticking to me. That is evaporating fast too, wicking a chill into me that wont last.
“You okay over there?”
“Oh yeah! GREAT!”
The sand beneath me vibrates with her steps towards me, her gait is uneasy, her weight counter correcting once or twice per foot. City girl.
“Yup! The view here right?” I wave my arm at the canyon beyond
[keep her eyes on anything but me].
It's a great wound in the earth gouged by water that has been gone for millions of years. Millions and millions. Past tense. More bearable to hold in my mind conceptually than millions of years future tense. But the ghost of it sits with me patiently, nestles beside the wetness I am trying to ignore. Millions and millions make billions, and there's more grain of sand than I can even hold in my minds eye. I know. Because sometimes I try.
“I guess it is kind of pretty-” She says directly behind me. I lost track of her approach. Enough to make my shoulders jump up into my ears.
“What?” She demands.
“N-nothing. Completely normal here. Regular even.”
She steps around to my left, hands on her hips, leaning down- one single motion. I am having a difficulty looking away from the distant arch of the rock formation behind her. And she is seeking eye contact as she loads up her sudden anger at me like the cock of a weapon.
“Oh really- Mr. Spilled your canteen. Fucks sake- you said you were out of water.”
“I’m sorry.”
I can hear her teeth clack as she sets her jaw, the way she sucks her tongue to hold back saying what else I could only guess. The long slow breath through her nose. The anger in her evaporates as quickly as the water. But it stings. Lingers in my mind. More texture than taste. I like that about her.
I touch the damp clump of sand in my shadow, press my good palm into it until the impression is deep.
The water had bubbled up my throat like a spigot.
Pretty sure that’s not normal.
[It makes sense. But it's not normal.
Not for anyone. Not for me.]
“What isn’t?” Meryl asks. She is looking at the view, like I hoped she would. She takes her time with sights and grandeur. The dusky purple arches in the distance and the geological stripes of black and red of the deep gorge are nice. She is wondering what it would taste like if it was a bowl of ice cream. They're the kind of natural thing that should be looked at. With focus. And appreciation.
Which I don’t have right now.
If I survive this conversation maybe I’ll get my chance.
Actually.
This might be the conversation that kills me. I am just looking at her still. And the words aren't going to my mouth. Sometimes I don’t even have to ask my mouth to make the words. They just come out like the radio.
“I mean, it's sand. It wouldn't taste very good.” I say putting every fiber of my intention into saying it to her. Which is altogether too much of my attention for most to handle.
She frowns deeply, shifts uncomfortable with the intensity of me. She wishes I wasn't always like this. Buddy. Girl. Same. She had not said it out loud- that she wanted to eat the canyon like ice cream- Even though my response works with what I said before that I don't know if she'll bite. Cause she's smart. She's so smart. I hold her eyes. Watch the small movements they make as she searches my face. I resist the urge to swallow. Hold still. Silence will be my friend. Women can sense fear.
I can out Gatekeep. Gaslight. Girl boss. My way out of this.
“Yeah- I guess you’re right,” She says seeming to accept she’d accidentally said it aloud and not that I was mixing up thoughts and words.
I need to get up.
I make my knees work. Pop up too quickly, lose track of all four limbs. Over correct.
[Time to hit the bricks
hit the bricks hit the bricks.
“You are the weirdest man on this planet!” Meryl calls after me as I make my great escape at my current top speed of a brisk walk.
Fair. One of two at least.
I am almost back to the van when my malfunction churns in my abdomen, a squeezing suck sensation that sends the taste of sunlight across my skin. Makes my hair stand on end for the moment. Like when I can feel lightening- but reverse. Starting inside me- moving across my skin and then inward. The shiver moves through me and out- and I stop mid step for a second, catch myself, keep heading back to Roberto and WolfWood arguing about the flat tire. That was a lot of energy, and I don't know where it went- into me and away. Better than out.
I purse my lips, make my face like I have an opinion as I stand and pretend to watch. Putting my mechanical hand over my stomach and pressing as I feign interest - The mechanical hand because it can’t feel with it- not really- sometimes I trick myself that it does. The real sensation is too much to bear right now. I keep pressing like that will convince my insides to stop whatever my body is doing without my permission.
[I know what's starting You can't argue with Math]
I thought after the water had found it's way out it would stop. I had almost been relieved it was water.
[ I knew it would be water]
It still hurts. Like my guts have been replaced with a factory machine. Let's not get into the sound. Industrial but Squishier. Something nestled deep inside me, outside of my body but internal. Bader. Worse. Mostest not great.
I can't argue with Math:
CO2carbon dioxide + 2H2Owater + photonslight energy → [CH2O]carbohydrate + O2oxygen + H2O
Reverse photosynthesis creates double the water molecules per carbohydrate you put into the system. It's been three days and that was about a gallon? I’m not sure. I wasn’t completely here as it happened. Like being shot, it's the kind of thing I don't want to be here for. Even if I didn’t eat to restrict the carbohydrates in the equation there is no reasons the reaction couldn’t pull it out of my muscles, my tendons, the parts of me still cooperating in being organs
I don’t know what he did to me.
I don’t know how.
I don’t know why.
[I know]
[Technically.]
[I do.]
"Goddamn Sonuvabitch," Roberto complains pulling on the wrench. Reminding me I am here. In the heat with them. Usually reality presses in on me loudly from all unignorable angles. So I know that even that small amount of water has taken it out of me.
Roberto continues failing to get the necessary torque to get the tire's lug nut to budge and Wolfwood is playing a fun game pretending he's not strong enough. I let them go at it. Till I start to buy that maybe Wolfwood is made of noodles. Maybe he's just hung over. His annoyance is sour apple flavored.
[They don't make that flavor any more]
[I mean what the fuck even is an apple, right?]
[We live on planet K7-n31, on Gunsmoke, on Noman's Land what the fuck even is a tree?]
[Me, I'm trees I guess]
"You okay?" Roberto asks me. Because he can see through me.
I nod twice, step forward to where Wolfwood is crouching and struggling with the tire iron and press my foot on the tire iron hard enough to force it loose. The momentum of the sudden give is enough that Wolfwood almost smacks himself in the face and sprawls back on the sand.
He looks up at me and says; "You finally getting annoyed with us?"
I squint at him.
If I was feeling better. I Think. I think that would imply something I can't grasp.
[But I don't feel well. So I don't grasp it.]
"No. My stomach Just hurts," I say like a distant radio program coming out of my mouth. That's good. That's true.
"You get car sick on yourself?" Roberto teases me, pointing at the wet on shirt.
Wolfwood's brows pinch.
"Just water," I say pulling at the shirt. And then. The best way to make them stop asking questions and to ignore the sensations inside me and outside of me; I heft up the big replacement tire and force along the process of changing this tire.
"How many guys does it take to change a tire?" Meryl asks as I'm holding the tire and the other two work at the lug nuts. She has trudged back from the edge of the canyon to gawk at us.
Wolfwood looks at me like he has a dirty answer, I can taste it.
"Don't answer that, Roberto tells me," Because he knows it's a trap.
"Uh- three?" I say anyway.
This is some how not the answer she was expecting and she bursts in laughter, "Yeah okay- Right. Silly me! Carry on boys."
Roberto gives me a look like I'm being obtuse on purpose.
"I don't see you helping," Wolfwood snaps back at her.
"I mean it should only take three right?" She says like she's infallible. Bullet proof logic. I laugh.
"It's not funny," Roberto complains under his breath. I am not sure why so much of his self worth is tied up in his ability to change a tire right now.
When we get back in the van I arrange myself into the back seat, keep my good hand away from my stomach- I don't want Wolfwood to watch too closely. I close my eyes. And the sounds are still bright. Between bickering over our position on the map I hear Meryl scrape something metal across the vinyl flooring of the van- She sloshes it and I crack my eyes open. See her blue eyes on me in the rear view mirror. My Canteen in her hand- having rolled into the well of the front seat when we came to a sudden stop for the flat.
I have no control over what my face does and if it wasn't for the rear view mirror I might not have guessed what it decided to tell her.
"Yeah. Okay." She says cracking the top off and taking a sniff then a sip.
She's smart. Her mental math is a raspberry sandstorm.
"Oh come on, the man has a stomach ache," Roberto says, "Give him his canteen."
"No no, I want to see where this goes," Wolfwood says.
"Children," Roberto says lowly.
But I am too everything to lunge into the front seat and try to grab it from her, like I've done before. And the look of surprise when I don't is the last thing I chose to appreciate before shutting my eyes again.
When I pass out I dream. Walk through green fields of grass topped with fuzzy wheats. They shh shh shhh as the wind blows them and they pap against me like little hands as I walk in the cool blue shadows of tall trees. I stand under a warm sun in a green world. I become and become and become. Water, oxygen, fuel. light, cO2, Water. Back and again.
When I wake it's dark and my insides are tight but still. The second moon, the largest one and verdant, hangs like a taunt in the sky. I should ask Meryl sometime what she thinks it would taste like.