Wurld o' Woot

The Promise. Artist: Katerina Abels. Oil on canvas. A caterpillar, a snake and a honeybee emerge from the savage garden.

You're both somewhere out there — as a flower, an insect or an ophidian. An existence more simpler and beautiful than this. It's a comforting thought, isn't it? And yet… If that was really the case, why haven't you come back to me? Perhaps we've met again without my realising. Unless— no. Is it that you've forgotten the life we shared together?

"Memories are transformed."

I don't want to believe that. What's the point in living again if you lose your past? That's no different to death. No. I believe in a soul that never forgets.

I remember your words, Kane. "Religion is fabrication." If that's so, then you and Roark are with me. This, I believe. You are there in my reflections and in the words I speak. Your soul is here. Religion cannot alter the past, but if I keep remembering then none of you will truly die. Life after death shall be one where you will never have to experience the pain of death.

Do you hear me, brothers? Please answer me…

"Max…"

I turn away from my mirror. Edamai walks into my room, his body still coccooned within his biogear. It's odd seeing him so uncomfortably trapped inside. Despite his smiles, I can see the sweat on his brow. The awkwardness of his movements. How much the steam on his viewing screen frustrates him.

"Are you alright?" I say before he can.

"Fine. I wanted to ask you that, actually."

I can't speak to him like this. He's been suffocating in there for 83.3 hours. He's not like me, so used to the safety of the coccoon — I can scarcely tolerate wearing it these days. But a free soul like him will suffocate.

"What are you doing?"

"Let me get this stupid suit off of you."

"Stop, you'll get yourself into trouble—!"

The velcro tears off with a sharp crack. My fingers quickly find each zip, unravelling every layer.

"S level is where they isolate the sick. You don't pose a contamination risk to the colony here."

"What about yourself?"

I'm not well. It mattered little what happened to me. But I spared him from my own self-inflicted cruelty; he didn't need to hear any of it.

Just as I reached the final layer, he clasped my wrist still. Through those cold, plastic gloves, I felt his warmth.

"I don't want to make you ill."

What did it matter if he did? It's not like we never did it before. Perhaps this time, I can verify the truth of my new religion.

"What if I wanted you to?"

"Stop."

His voice was husky with the smoke of war. His eyes trace my hands, my shoulders, my face. He sees the symptoms and with one look, concludes: death has infected my soul.

I can't hide it from him. Not when he looks at me like that. Examining. He was a doctor once, the battlefield his hospital. Still is. That's his gift.

Even if it fills him with despair.

I see it in his far-away eyes — usually they are in that paralysing space between memory and dream, but now they are here. I am here, in the veil between earth and sky, where the storm or the savage garden cannot penetrate. Here — I am home in dark spheres where his being wraps around mine.

I retract my hand from his suit. He takes it. Calloused fingers knot through the spaces between mine, then leads me to bed. We sit, hand in hand in dimmed blue lights. Time stretches on as he watches me.

I see my brothers staring back from his sanctuary. It always hurts when they look at me like that. I let my head fall upon Edamai's shoulder. It feels wrong. It should be the other way around.

"Is it heavy?"

"Is what heavy?" he whispers.

"My head."

That laugh of his, so soft. He nods.

"I'm sorry…"

"Why? Someone needs to give your shoulders a break. Let me carry that mind of yours for once."

I smile at that.

He lays me down, in turn, I wrap around him. We stare into each other's eyes, painting a waking dream.

In that dream, the ceiling parts. Doubtless blinking stars tell us how to reach the heavens. The secret lies in the ocean. In sinking backwards. Edamai tells me the stars are liars. If they really knew everything, then they wouldn't need to ask us how to touch the ground.

"Edamai."

"Yes, Max?"

"Don't die."

I forbid it; my only prohibition.

He pauses for several heartbeats, then with his hand, draws an imaginary cross over his chest.

"For you, never. You must promise the same for me."

My finger draws a brand over mine. Into his soul, I whisper: