The Other Side

by Daniel Willcocks

  It took some time to find a comfortable position to lie in. I must have tried about a thousand, but eventually the recovery position served me well enough. The pain was still present, a constant throb in the affected places of my body, but at least here I could breathe—if breathing is what you called this state of shallow inhalations and exhalations. The sand below me irritated my skin, found its way into my ear, but instead of the problems, I focused on the beauty that splattered the canvas above me.

  The star-dappled cosmos was a welcome distraction as I closed my eyes and dared to sleep.

  Wounds heal slowly.

  Days lose meaning.

  Time passes, as it always has.

  An island.

  There was no other word for it. A tiny island, surrounded by an endless sea. An island that stretched no larger in diameter than an open parachute, made entirely of dark sand that looked to have been made of onyx. When I was well enough to stand, I circled the island in moments, searching for anything substantial that I could hold onto. A tree. An animal. A shell.

  There was nothing.

  I filled my lungs with air, only a dull ache remaining from my busted rib. I kicked the sand and it fell where it lay. There was no wind with which to guide it. Above me, the universe stretched as far as I could see, reaching some form of horizon where it met the inky ocean that surrounded the island. Gentle waves impossibly lapped, providing a hushing lullaby to the world. It was nice. The first sound which I’d heard that hadn’t been a grunt or cry of pain from trying to move and get comfortable again. Despite the fact that I was naked, the temperature was tepid, and I didn’t suffer from the hot or cold.

  Thank god for small favors.

  I took my time to explore all angles of the island, searching out into the ocean for something that could give me any sense of direction. There was nothing. I wasn’t surprised. There had been nothing for the longest time. If days should exist here—and I’m not sure they do—I’d be hard-pressed to determine the length of my inhabitance. At a push, I’d say three weeks.

  Though, in truth, my heart told me it was years.

  For the first time since I had arrived, my stomach growled.

  Like the creation of the stars in that infinite womb that followed death, the others sprang up across the ocean.

  At first it was one, though with each blink of my eyes another would show. Dozens upon dozens of islands, each the size of my own, each with their own inhabitants.

  Naked. The lot of them. Dazed and confused. Some were elderly, some were slender, others were obese, and all of them waved and shouted and ran and called and beat their fists and cried and laughed and jumped and kicked the sand until their voices were, presumably, hoarse.

  I don’t know if that was true. I couldn’t hear them. They clearly couldn’t hear me. My throat became a ream of sandpaper and each swallow was painful. I cast distrustful eyes at the black ocean, wondering whether drinking the liquid would hurt more than entering its fiery wrath.

  The scars still stained my ankles. A few splashes on my shins and knees. When the first other appeared, my excitement had grown. I never pegged myself for one who craved the company of others, but to see another creature in a world you believed had isolated you in its foreverness, it brings out another side. She was in her sixties, skin starting to sag, but she kept in good shape. When she unfurled from her cocoon, she glanced in all directions. At first I believed she couldn’t see me. Her eyes passed across my island without recognition, despite my enthusiastic waves and calls. I had all but given up, when hours later she waved back at me.

  Sound didn’t cross between islands, that soon became clear. We mimed, cupped hands behind ears and spelled words with our bodies. We beamed, smiles breaking our faces as we counted to three. She told me she was a swimmer. She would cross the void and unite us on my island. Though I felt a sudden hesitation at losing control of my own island, I welcomed the effort. Company in death, perhaps this might not be the exact route Mother had described, but if this woman could join me, who’s to say the others wouldn’t too? Mother and Father and all my loved ones united in the great beyond. No cumulus clouds. No man with a great white beard. Just me and the ones I loved most.

  Wouldn’t that be something?

  The countdown went fast. Her smile unbroken as she confidently ran and dived headfirst into the water. Her body slipped from sight, not a splash to indicate where she’d gone. I marveled at the sight, impressed by her form, confirmed that her swimming training had allowed her to dive without much disturbance.

  I don’t know how long I waited for her to surface.

  Dreams shattered like fallen glass as I narrowed my eyes at the charcoal sea, wondering if she would appear before me, launch herself from the ocean like a Baywatch actress and throw her arms around me. After some time, I ran to the water’s edge, kicked at the ocean with striking conviction, as though my meager knock with my toes could in some way inflict damage on the body that had taken my only chance at company.

  The heat was excruciating, swallowing every nerve ending in my foot. Every millimeter of skin touched by the ocean flared in white-hot pain that caused my skin to prick and my mouth to open into a colossal cavern of screams. Fireworks of white light exploded in my vision. I crumpled back onto the sand, retreating to the center of the island. Thousands upon thousands of needle-like teeth chomped into my flesh, tasted the skin, drew the blood. I could do nothing but wait and allow it to happen. It didn’t make sense. The air wasn’t warm, the ocean wasn’t steaming, so what was this atrocious pain that ate at my senses?

  Eventually the pain subsided. The ocean marked my legs. Great red splotches of fevered skin, painted like a Pollock.

  Over the course of passing time I witnessed the other islanders experience the agony of submersion. Some with toe dips, others with dives. Tears glistened on cheeks of survivors. Mouths sprang open. Fists shook at the skies. We all had our own journeys to tread, I guess.

  The woman never returned. I doubted she ever would.

  When the sapling appeared, it was a welcome distraction.

  With each passing second my hunger grew. The growling that had first pinched its dextrous fingers around my stomach swelled into a forceful belch. Until now I hadn’t felt the need to excrete my bodily substances, but it became clear that was soon to change.

  I slept intermittently, and not for long—though, in reality, I had no idea how long I slept for. Sand explored my crevices and found new homes. Skin chaffed and there was no means to clean myself as the cosmos whirled on by. On the neighboring islands, the residents crossed through a spectrum of behaviors: some of them running endlessly around their small patch of space, wearing circular tracks into the sand, others resigning themselves to mere pieces of frozen art to be studied by curious eyes, sat in trances, laying still.

  I had been watching two of my neighbors with my own curious eyes for some time. At some point in the past I etched a groove into the sand with my toe, a safe distance from the water’s edge. This was to act as my compass. To give me some state of solid direction. By returning to this point I could track the progress of those surrounding me and feel as if I had some semblance of control in this frustrating new reality.

  A man and woman. It seemed they knew each other, though I couldn’t ask how. The first thing I noticed was that the man had a tree on his island, a thick, knotted trunk stretching at least ten-feet into the air. Throngs of leaves and branches yielded fruit as white as snow. Unblemished. Virgin. The woman had a tree of her own, though half his size. Still, it bore its own fruit. Precious orbs, half the size of his.

  My mouth salivated. My stomach yearned for the fruit—if fruit it was.

  The second thing I noticed was that their islands were larger than mine and those around me. At least twice as large. Somehow they had each found a way to unlock a new level of this strange existence, and I longed to know how. I longed to understand. Until this point, my island had felt fine, a welcome embrace from the sea. But now
, having seen the luxuries that others were living, I wanted more. Needed more.

  I took a few steps backwards, searching for other islands that matched this impressive new standard. Trees had sprung up around me without my knowledge, each islander now tending to their new garden. I staggered backwards. Caught my heel. Fell on my ass.

  Between my legs was a fresh, spring sapling. A single stalk with a crop of variegated leaves and several balls of white attached to the fragile stem. I tenderly held my hand beneath a leaf, unable to process what I was seeing. The leaf was crisp and delicate. One pinch too rough and it would snap. I stared at that sapling for some time, eyes wide and glassy. This was a wondrous thing, an indication that life could only improve. Maybe in death we learn from our mistakes, go through the process of discovering ourselves anew, and form a life one piece at a time. A rediscovery of the most important elements of existence. Joy in food. Wonder in drink. Ecstasy in love and sex.

  Three fruits, each the size of a marble, reminding me of the pinhead of light back in the aeons past when I first arrived on this plane. Drool escaped my lips.

  My stomach roared.

  I plucked.

  Juices exploded on my tongue.

  Yum.

  As delicious as my feast of fruits had been, it was some time until the sapling bore fruit again.

  I don’t know how long I sat with the shrub between my legs, the fatty flesh of my body slowly withering away, but in the time that it took for more fruit to bear, my neighbors’ trees had flourished.

  Great towering monoliths pricked the sky, branches packed with an immense supply of fruit. Their islands doubling, then tripling in size as the gaps between them closed.

  And there, alone, me and my plant. The note appeared before the fruit did. Scripted by an unseen hand. Scratched into the sand before me, the letters burning momentarily in shades of crimson and fire.

  From stone to seed, all things feed.

  Ignore the wants, take what you need.

  The letters faded. The fruits appeared. I popped like them Xanax.

  One. Two. Three.

  Gulp.

  Still, I felt empty.

  I wonder if it’s possible to die twice. If maybe I’m being punished for something.

  The other islands have grown. The trees have multiplied. Though my vision is limited from this distance, it seems they have tools. On the farthest reaches of sight, I was certain I saw fire. A number of the islands have connected, the ocean parting enough to create a causeway between them. I’ve witnessed hugs. Seen love-making. Heaven for some.

  I find myself in Hell.

  The sapling refuses to grow. While most islands foster towering trees as grand as oaks, my sapling’s growth is stunted. I taste the fruit and yet my body shrinks before me. I can feel my ribs as though there is no skin there. My arms are stick thin, emulating the bracken that the sapling should mature to hold. My lips peel back and recede as my body drinks its own fluids and eats itself from the inside out. Those few seconds of respite are abysmal, those meager moments in which fruit juice zaps my tongue with citrus and my tastebuds come alive. The ultimate tease, to hold onto a second death and watch the world around you come alive while you wither from existence.

  I’m so terribly alone.

  Movement becomes painful. It’s been days since I made an effort to move. Still, that legend burns in the sand, a strange scripture that teases me with a meaning I cannot grasp. For hours after it has faded, the words stain my retinas:

  From stone to seed, all things feed.

  Ignore the wants, take what you need.

  I need food. Plain and simple. While my neighbors connect islands of four, five, ten people, I’m left out here alone like a chump. Lost to the void and forgotten. They used to look at me, wave encouragement my way.

  Now I don’t get a second glance.

  Why should death be any different to life?

  My stomach no longer growls. My appetite, too, has finally abandoned me.

  I sleep for what feels like an eternity. Waking feels futile.

  For the first time since arriving on the island, I feel rested, though it does little to my atrophied muscles. My skin is so thin I can see the inner workings of my body. Dark shapes of my organs pulsing and writhing on their final legs. I marvel for some time at my beating heart. Its pace is slow, conserving the last of the energy it has. I feel I shall fade soon, and thank God for that. To die is to suffer a burden greater than life could bear.

  I sit up, my bones protesting in a bristling language of their own. My eyes are dazzled with eruptions of white, sharp dots of light attacking my vision. I rapidly blink, I shield with my arm, the whites don’t fade.

  And why should they? The fruits are abundant, a great bushel of glorious white fruit, dozens upon dozens waiting to be picked and devoured. My parched mouth gasps a dry croak, my withered fingers, turned to thin, stick-like claws, shakily reach for the nearest yield. To pluck is an effort, but one I must make, and soon my mouth is bursting with juices.

  My body responds in orgasmic delight. No longer needing to savor the budlings, I allow myself to indulge. After three juvenile fruits I feel sick, my stomach bulges, sticky residue paints my chin, but still I feast, dine and tuck into the impossible, laughing and almost choking with every bite. Tears don’t come, for what liquid is there left in me? But now my jaw aches and I know I must keep on eating, indulging myself, losing myself in the erotic satiating efforts as the bush is stripped bare and my stomach is fed.

  I purge. I eat. I vomit. I feast.

  That is the way of my island.

  By the time the fruit is gone, so is my mind. I lay on the rough sand, hands resting atop my stomach. I’m vaguely aware of my erection, my mind mostly lost to the bliss of digestion, eyes rolled into the back of my head, a drunken grin on my face.

  I burp.

  I chuckle.

  Later on, I will have one of the most painful shits of my life.

  But, for now, I am happy.

  I am full.

  Already I know it won’t last long.

  Strength returns to my body. For the first time since… sometime, I am able to walk the island.

  It doesn’t make sense. The hours I lost to lethargy have yielded growth. My island is larger, by several feet, in fact. The bushel rose from the sapling, and now I ponder the reasoning of it. Although my hips still protrude and my ribcage is on display, there is a thin veil of fleshy fat on my stomach, where before there was none. I am thankful there are no mirrors in the beyond. Even the ocean can’t reflect my true form, not that I’d dare go near the Devil’s water.

  I am scarred by the other islanders. Their plots continue to grow at a rapid pace. Some have animals, creatures whose shape I cannot make out, but I can see their devilish forms pacing around excitedly as the occupants dance, drink, and be merry. Great orgies occur, their mouths pulled so wide open in pleasure it doesn’t seem possible that I shouldn’t hear their moans. Clusters of islands join into a natural raft that carries its residents across the ocean.

  Yet there are still others like me.

  They arrive every day. Some of them blink out within a short matter of time, others stay stationery in their progress, as do I. Sullen, miserable islanders with beards and frowns and saplings that barely stretch to the length of my cock.

  At least I have my bushel.

  Even if it is refusing to yield fruit again.

  Stubborn bastard.

  Three times the bush has given, and three times I have taken.

  Fruit-drunk. That’s what I give the name for my comatose state of satisfaction in the wake of my feast. It seems the fruits will only bloom when I’m on the cusp of my finality. When my thoughts linger on following in the steps of the woman and diving into the depths. When all I can think of is how the end should be better than this torturous state of monotony. In the final stages of will, the fruits appear as if they have always been there, and I, like the dutiful servant I am, chow down on its gif
ts.

  I’m satisfied a little less each time. Maybe there’s a lesson I’m missing here, I think, as those same words glow in the sand as though the onyx has turned to magma and some higher power is speaking to me.

  I burp. I shit. I bleed. I sleep.

  I’m left with a lot of time to ponder, and so I do.

  I wonder if I’ve made the right choice. I question if there was another path. I replay the event over and over again, counting the steps I took into the road, listening to the screeching brakes of the semi careening down the highway, knowing that it had too much momentum to ever stop.

  I taste metal on my tongue.

  It’s better than metal hitting my teeth.

  My chapped lips are bleeding.

  I shook the bushel for hours before I eventually passed out.

  I was desperate. My body throbbed for sustenance. All around me the other islanders raved and hollered in their silent bubbles, their own islands expanding into great expanses of territory, never getting closer to my own, but always growing, always stretching. Fires blazed and roasted meats cooked, tears pricked my eyes and I collapsed to my knees, holding my hands around the trunk of the bushel as though I could constrict its windpipe. I shoved leaves into my mouth, chewed on their sour crunch, but it wasn’t enough. Compared to the fruits, the leaves tasted like dust. I fell onto my face, licked the sand, chewed the gritty particles until my teeth began to wear.

  I couldn’t swallow.

  I could only cough.

  Cough.

  Splutter.

  Slip into unconsciousness.

  I feared I would sleep forever. As my eyes closed I became nothing more than the orb of conscious that had welcomed me into depth. The non-black returned, and I hung there, paralyzed. No body to move, no strength to try, no more thoughts to think. Wasted and turned into the same nothingness that surrounded me.