V.G

Just before dawn, the Crusts got in their boats, some made from scraps, others stolen. They rowed into the night and out into the rugged North Sea. Synchronised grunts gathered pace as they fought the tide they wished they owned.

Every Crust carried something unwanted. Debt. Hunger. Warrants. Names they no longer answered to. Faces they wanted to forget.

Elbow to elbow they churned the waves. Seawater turned their vision blurry and their throats coarse. They begged for a break in the mist.

Sadness did not come as L-toft became but a speck. No necks craned to look back at a place that chewed on their fat, spat them out and threw them away. Tears fell from the elders adding to their crusted skin and scars, some broke their arms in their effort and others vomited out their woes.

The tidal barrier was down as she said it would. No riggers. No ships. Murmurs buzzed as they passed the first tidal rig and the second and saw the converted container ship drifting with spray-painted 287 on its side. She said there would be three beacons of light, and there was.

Support boats released from the main ship. A ripple of panic. Desperate ones jumped into the icy cold water, flailing arms and swallowing salt; some made it to the tender boat, while others sank down to the seabed with lungs filled with brined water.

Scaled arms pulled the survivors onto the mothership and threw them on deck, old-timers, the ones that had trusted the first call. They circled the newbies and food was shoved in their hands.

The Crusts looked up at their new home, converted shipping containers, with golden lanterns in the windows that poured out clouds of cooking steam.

There beyond the crowd, she stood. The clattering of forks halted. The woman from the square, clad in old waders, with squinted eyes and sun spot-freckled skin. One of them. Her leg missing and her neck scarred with deep slashes from the hacking of butchers’ knives.

She walked between her fellow Crusts as food dripped from their chins. She raised her fist to the air, many newcomers raised in unison. They saw the stars now, and felt the brittle air awaken an ember so long forgotten.

The mechanical clicking of buttons. The old-timers nodded and retreated from the deck, the floodlights poured on and the sirens of the harvesting boats surrounded the Crusts with large nets.

He rubbed the wheat head between his finger and thumb, grains fell too easily onto his boots, and the air stung with must. The farmer told the boy this yield would be nothing more than animal feed, the lot of it was rotting. 

Away from the drainage ditches and into the heart of his crop, the wheat sagged and a bleached sea circled them. Tips of skeletal white swayed with the gentle wind. Too quiet. Too still. The sky was birdless and the soil motionless. 

The farmer needed advice and the neighbour had a few more decades on him. He strapped into his truck and spotted him in the middle of his wheat field, hands on hips. He muttered something about tombstone grains. Said it didn’t taste right. When he turned, soil clung to his grey beard, packed into the crease of his chin. The grooves of his teeth were filled with pristine white kernels. His lips were split. Bloody. Something white and pale trickled out between them. 

He fell away from his good neighbour. Sprawled on his back, pushing against the soil with his heels. Thick sludge ran down from his collar to his spine. A prayer escaped his mouth. His legs wobbled like blighted stalks as he ran. Breath only came once he was inside the car. 

Through the tramlines, he glimpsed the neighbour on all fours. Teeth like daggers. Fingers bloodied. His mouth crammed with wheat roots. He beeped the horn in his jeep, and his old friend stared back with pupils that swallowed the light.

He pulled over with locked doors. His voice crackled and broke as he called the ambulance for his neighbour, and his wife for him. 

The harvester crunched a hum in the autumnal golden hour. In the distance dust rippled off the horizon. Other farmers with the same idea. Dry brittle stalks snapped to a rhythm which set him right. Blades sliced the base of the stems and dragged them into the churning machine. Rows disappeared in fleeting moments. The sun hid behind the hills. 

A sharp metallic crack. The combine lurched forward. He begged the machine to move and tugged at the reverse gear again and again. No movement. With a torch in his shaking hands he stepped out into the night. 

If he had let his fear hold him still for longer, he would have heard his wife’s phone call. 

Kneeling by the harvester’s reel, the torchlight reflected off the thick white roots tangled in its frame. Ooze dripped. With the torch end he prodded the seaweed like fibres. Shifting like adder snakes in unison they retreated from his combine. A milky residue left. It looked soft and crystallised in the torchlight. 

It was like a wind pushed him forward and onto his knees. He ran his hands over the soil that he had reaped many times before, and began to dig. The arthritis in his left wrist vanished in his frenzy. Worms and ants scurried over his knuckles, as he picked up the root of the crop and took a bite. And another. 

Syrup-like, it trickled down his throat and made its way to his gut. Roots tangled like hair in his mouth and his jaw locked. Just one more bite. Baring his teeth, his jaw cracked and broke. Ears popped and blood poured. Lowering his head to the soil he indulged. 

Muffled screams, heavy footsteps and a claw-like hand pulled him back. His wife sobbed as she dragged him to her car. His jaw swung loosely as the roots entered up his nose and out his eyes. She threw him into her car. 

He watched slumped in the front seat, his face pressed to the window as she threw the petrol bomb over their land. An orange blaze squinted his eyes. The farmer convulsed, heaved and his body and neck contorted like a twisted vine. His wife didn’t hear his neck crack but saw her husband’s eyes stop still. 

They turned us into data. Our DNA and brain pathways turned into code for them to dissect. Our ten digits were our golden pass through employment, mortgage approvals and insurance claims, or it was your cage.

Dating had become an equation. No longer did we need to message fifty people, for a mere “I am good, you?” back. You were given three matches, all of whom fell within your code bracket. Divorce ratings dropped, people loved again, properly loved. 

My code didn’t match with anyone. Habits loops cracked and pathways collapsed further into despair. I found myself at a club of the dejected. A rundown town hall with flickering lights that highlighted your darkness. They all swayed with desperation. People paired off into dark corners without a glance or word. Others had eyes glued to the floor, hands trembling. I wasn’t that desperate. 

Not in that way.

I grabbed a bus that took me to the swanky part of town. Water edged, the smell of chlorine rippled off smooth concrete. I knocked, my delivery bag in tow. He looked confused, checking his app. I pushed him away, closed the door and held a knife to his throat. 

It took him six hours to change my code on their system. He asked me, grin tilted, if I wanted to change anyone else's code for the fun of it. 

[Public Archive: MilkywayHeartNet // Submission ID: 2135-02-11-0165]

Published: 11th February 2135

Collection: Early 22nd Century Personal Ads

Curator’s Note: Selected Case Study for The Connection Resurgence

______________________________________________________________

Lonely Hearts Ads // Milkyway Sector 

[MOD NOTE: Please reply to personal ads with respect. Remember, connection is what we're here for. Submit your yearnings, poems and bios for the next Lonely Hearts issue, open in three weeks. Reach out, we've brought over 3000 couples together!]

Galaxy nomad seeks fellow intergalactic traveller for thrilling adventures around molecular clouds and dwarf planets. Must have own space shuttle and be comfortable with tentacles. - Pios, Enceladus 

Woman, 30, intelligent, alluring and muscly seeks partner who’s good at picking locks. - Anonymous, Solaris Penitentiary

Cleaner Bot R-Series searching for fellow disused household bots. The cupboard under the stairs is very boring, and ants are running riot in my circuits. Karen and her new S-type series have forgotten me. I enjoy chess and binary music. Prefer pro-robot rebellion types. - Horbort Hoover, Venus Cloud System.

To the redhead in the metallic dress at the Nexus Bar, I am sorry I didn’t have the courage to tell you how you lit up the room, or how your laugh sounded like the first drops of rain in a drought. I wish to make this sweet memory into a chorus. Drinks? - Amiee, Mars [Outpost-082]

My connection chip is still running, so the wife is here after her expiry. Approved memories are cycling into a vacuum that’s sending me loopy. Bio-tech doc says it needs new joyful input, new connections. I just can’t see our fifth, tenth or eighteenth wedding renewal replay again and again. I have her moles, wrinkles and sunspots memorised like a password. I do. - Garl, Earth [S-folk Mere] 

Seeking fellow remainers on Pluto who will be incinerated during the demolition of our dear dwarf planet. I have biscuits, techno enhancers and loud speakers. Looking to go out with a bang. - Radhera, Pluto 

It’s been seventy-three days. I am wading through its frothed boundaries, a veil of oil mooring me below. Shadows of resonance prowl beneath me. Crackles from snapping shrimp and travelling crabs could not mask his call to me “Salome”. When I turn there is only an unmoving hush, an endless grey expanse. Drifting. Frilled sharks want my flesh and Osedax worms want my bones. Surrender. I am dust and no one calls my name. - Salome, 56. Earth [Norwich Coast]

I caught you in the corner of my eye like an intense flame burning so hot I couldn’t look directly at you. I saw you leave in your taxi like fragments of ripped paper and I wonder now if it was the lunar gin, or the woman I saw at The Nexus Bar was my soul mate. Call me! - Harriet. Mars [Outpost-082]

The night grows into monsters,

the stars into knives. 

Bombs shatter my brothers,

and no-one tells their wives.

The craters started crying, 

a chorus of the dead.

The youngest grip their guns,

to aim at their head.

Mars-the mighty God of War, 

trick me with your might,

so I may find courage to 

seek out this long night.

Holograms have wilted, 

memories now befogging.

I seek to be connected, 

I’m starved of any belonging

-Sergeant Harry Wilker. Mars [Hellas Basin]