by T. Warwick
“This is the will of God,” Muath said.
“Really?” Harold said blankly. “Where are the ovens?”
“Downstairs.”
“Hurry,” Harold said, pushing Muath ahead of him down the stairs.
“Now what?”
“Now we turn on the ovens.”
“You want to burn them?”
“No. I want to burn everything. Turn them on.”
“My employees will be returning soon.”
“Then you need to hurry. Do you have a lighter?” Harold said as he systematically opened cabinets and tossed everything on the floor.
“Here. You can use my gel fuel canisters for the Ramadan Iftar.”
“Perfect. Now turn on the ovens.”
Muath went to the ovens and turned the nozzles on. Soon, there was the sound of gas hissing. “Leave. Now.”
“What? What are you going to do?”
“Go out the front door. Lock it.”
“OK, brother.”
Harold stood and waited. It occurred to him that he could end his own life in a moment, but he pushed the thought out of his mind. He slowly walked back up the stairs and through the family section. The smell of gas hadn’t followed him yet. He popped open the canister and smeared the gel on the bodies and lit them. He waited a solid minute and watched the blue flames get stronger and stronger. Muath had enough wasta that no one would be able to question him. The police had been very daring. Stupid but daring.
He got in the car and started driving. The LED streetlights produced hazy blurs in the dusty, moist Gulf air. He got as far as a construction site with black flags planted on it, indicating it had been a Shiite shrine, when he heard the distant explosion of Muath’s donut shop. He weaved through traffic until he was able to connect to the Autohighway and played a game of tennis on the windshield.
16
Charlie took a moment to inspect his freshly dyed black hair as he stood in front of the small circular bathroom mirror slapping white makeup on all of his exposed skin. Underneath the smoldering Motel Green logo, the timer in the mirror was counting down the minutes and seconds until he was scheduled to check out. He still had over four hours remaining, but he needed to get to the seaport. Air travel was out of the question; it was too expensive, and they would recognize him immediately. The only possibility of getting to Bahrain was by solar liner. It would be slow, and he would have to be sedated. Solar liners had started out as a curiosity for the rich, but they quickly evolved into budget transportation for laborers once the severest point of the energy crisis caused by the terrorists’ fuel infection had been stopped. After the advent of new bacterial fuels, the ships remained as a cheap form of transportation for contracted labor.
He checked out of the hotel. The woman at reception didn’t stop singing along with a Korean pop star in AR as she counted out his deposit in shriveled, overused leaves of currency that had lost value against both the US dollar and the Bahraini dinar since he had checked in. It was cheaper to get a ticket at the port. He would sleep there until he could get on the next boat. Tonya had told him he had twelve hours to leave before the police were made aware of the death of her friend’s friend. The morgue would report the death of the man whose retinal prints he was wearing on his contacts. There were a lot of variables and chances for things going wrong, but he was so adrenalized and focused on the future that he became overtaken by an intense feeling of raw calm. Vietnamese laborers were leaving in droves to work on the fish farms that were popping up all around the coast of Bahrain. They were never scrutinized; that was his hope. AR Lauren was wearing a black T-shirt and short jeans shorts and black suede hiking boots. She walked close beside him as they descended the subway staircase together. It was the middle of the afternoon, so there were few passengers. He brought up an AR overlay of the seaport’s site. All the boats on the seaport schedule were listed as delayed, but it didn’t say why or for how long. AR Lauren seemed to intuitively understand his somber mood as she matched his slouching posture in the seat across from his.
The doors opened, and he felt a wall of humidity hit him as he walked out. His glasses fogged up, and Lauren looked smudged. He felt the sharpness of ammonia in the back of his eyes. It was what they used to sterilize for SARS IX. Even though the threat was over, the government’s budget allocation for sterilization ensured that it continued as a form of reassurance.
The serene female voice on the intercom announced their arrival at International Port, the final station. The water on the platform was just deep enough to get the edges of his blue suede shoes wet. The cracked dark-yellow walls were covered in a thin layer of water that gurgled loudly but only became noticeable at the large cracks, where it rippled. Lauren walked ahead to the staircase exit. Upon emerging, the sound of rain rumbled on the aluminum stadium dome. There were so many layers of different ticket offers that he couldn’t read them all. He quickly realized that most of them were for freight. Most of the berths were blocked out by corporate accounts, but not all. He scanned the arena that was the size of five ice hockey rinks for surplus berth offers.
“What do you think, Lauren?”
“Hush,” she said as she held her forefinger up and moved it to the side of her lips to scratch a nonexistent itch. Charlie stopped and looked at the nonchalant expression on her face. She didn’t need to sleep or eat. He had a flash of what felt like direct experience of living in the non-physical world. Then it was gone.
“Let’s see what we can find,” he said. The hawkers for the next ship were all on intranets so the police couldn’t monitor their transactions and charge them with tax evasion. He walked briskly as he checked each AR display, but none of them were selling berths to Bahrain.
He passed one that was displaying three berths to Los Angeles. “Going back home?”
“Bahrain,” Charlie said.
“Difficult.”
“Why?”
“That boat sank.”
“Oh, yeah? When?”
“No announcement yet. But no radio contact. You want Bahrain?”
“Yes. I really do.”
“Lots of transit to Bahrain now. Easy for you.”
“Easy. Right.”
“I got berth for you. Eight hundred thousand dong.”
“The dong is weak today, boss. I should know. But it’s not that weak.”
“Seven hundred.”
“That’s a big jump. How about five hundred?”
“Five fifty.”
“When does it leave?”
“Tonight. Eight o’clock,” he said as he flicked Charlie what looked like a communications status report.
“This proves it’s coming?”
“Don’t worry. Boat come. You happy. Me happy. Everybody happy.”
Charlie reached into his belt wallet stuffed full of dong and handed him a billfold with exactly five hundred thousand dong in crisp new notes. He had withdrawn everything that remained in his account.
“Don’t worry. Easy connection for you in Jakarta.”
“Just give me the berth code.”
“Sure, boss,” he said as he flicked Charlie the code for the berth. It hung in midair, written on old parchment held in the claws of a large eagle flapping its wings amid two schools of fish with blue and violet reflective scales swimming in choreographed, intersecting patterns.
The ship was an old relic that retained an infinitesimal sense of its former grandeur. The blue carpet was covered in mold and mildew stains, and the beige plastic walls were slimy to the touch. The air-conditioning system had been turned on only a few minutes before boarding, so the vents were pouring out plumes of white vapor into the humid tropical air. He climbed up some indentations in the wall that served as a kind of ladder before slipping into his berth that appeared to be nothing more than a fully reclined dentist’s chair. A nurse came by in a white lab coat, methodically dispensing packets of needles that she inserted into each passenger’s arm before attaching an IV tube that met up with other tubes
like a medical plumbing system. In its heyday, the ship had offered passengers a choice of sedative cocktails, some of which produced extraordinarily vivid dreams that passengers would remember long after their voyage. But contracted labor was not considered important enough for such luxuries, much less heart monitors. Charlie faded into a blank sleep.
He was awake. It wasn’t a dream. He felt the water and the cold and the tension of his body convulsing. But he was strapped into the berth. The air was murky, but then he realized it was water when he felt the burn of saltwater through his nostrils and into his lungs. There was an Asian woman in a black bikini hovering over him. Her eyes glittered like an AR goddess; he wondered if it was a dream. Maybe they were still docked in Vietnam. She brought a canister to his mouth, and he felt the ability to breathe return. He looked into her eyes, and she abruptly removed the mask and gave herself oxygen. She motioned for him to follow her as she swam up, and he did. He gasped for breath as he reached the surface. She surfaced next to him and smiled tranquilly. He treaded water for a few seconds before he realized there was a sailboat next to them. She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward some netting on the side of the boat and began climbing up the side. He noticed her one-piece swimsuit was torn to shreds as he followed her up. Her light brown skin was accented by the moonlight. On the deck, five people with dark shawls draped over them were sitting around a fire.
“Where am I?” Charlie said.
The woman brought a finger to her lips and smiled before ducking down to the cabin below the deck. Though her hair was matted and her swimsuit torn, she possessed a grace that transcended her circumstances. The entire concept of wealth and poverty seemed irrelevant in her presence.
“You speak English?” an old man sitting by the fire said as he turned and glowered through long locks of frazzled white hair that seemed to have been formed and dyed by the sea itself.
“Yes, I do. Where is this place?” Charlie was still dazed by the woman’s presence. He approached the fire and sat down next to the man and looked in his eyes. The man had streaks of wrinkles that extended from his forehead down his cheeks. The others were boys no older than fifteen.
“Ocean. Ship sank.”
“What about the other people?”
“Don’t know. Maybe dead. Where you from?”
“New York.”
“Aah. Big Apple. Not many apple here.”
“You’re fishing here?”
“Yes. We fish. We are one with the fish.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. Here, have some fish.” The man reached in a bag and pulled out a handful of tiny dried fish.
“Thanks.” Charlie cupped his hands and brought the dried fish to his mouth. Coming out of stasis, he was famished. The fish tasted like pure salt.
“Sardine. You like?”
Charlie nodded.
“Here,” the man said as he passed him a plastic bottle of water with a faded label.
“Thanks. Do your friends speak English?” He felt helpless without an AR translation app.
“No.”
“Hi,” Charlie said to them.
“They don’t speak English,” the man said, somewhat angrily.
“So how did my ship sink?”
“Pirates.”
“Where are they?”
“Gone. No cargo on your ship. Only people.”
“Why did you save me?”
“You don’t want to live?”
“Hi,” the woman said as she emerged from the cabin below and sat down next to Charlie.
“Hi,” Charlie said.
“You are guest. Where you go?”
“Bahrain. Where are you going?”
“Here. With fish. With sea.”
“That’s not bad.”
“Is good.”
“How far are we from land?”
“Thailand.” The man pointed into the distance with his right hand.
“Thailand,” Charlie repeated under his breath. He had no concept of how much time had passed or any details of anything that had happened on the voyage, other than what the man had just told him.
“Come. You wet,” the woman said as she stood up and pulled him to his feet. She guided him down the steps into the cabin below. She drew a curtain and handed him an old nanofiber chamois cloth. She opened an old black trunk and rummaged through pieces of cloth and clothing. After a few minutes, she held up a ragged scuba suit that had been torn off at the waist.
“Shark attack?” Charlie said.
She gave him a confused look.
“Never mind. Thanks.”
When he was dry and had changed into the scuba outfit, she scurried behind the curtain and grabbed his wet clothes. She giggled mischievously as she raced up the stairs with them. He walked up the stairs and saw her waiting for him as she held his clothes over the side. He took a step forward, and she threw them overboard. Everyone started laughing except Charlie.
“Come, sit down, bro,” the old man said to Charlie.
Charlie sat down and looked at him blankly. The fire was nearly out.
“We sleep now,” the man said as he and the boys stood up together.
“Not me,” Charlie said. “I’ve been sleeping too long.”
“No sleep?” the woman said with an expression of exaggerated disappointment.
“No sleep,” Charlie said.
The boys shuffled to the other side of the boat, but the man remained seated. Slowly, the woman descended the stairs while peering over the deck and staring at Charlie. Charlie looked away.
Looking out at the first glimmers of the sun on the horizon, he allowed his mind to rest in the idea of having a family with the woman. He would impregnate her in the ocean when no one was around, and her body would writhe in the pain and pleasure of his larger size as she delighted in thoughts of the power his larger body would assert toward anyone they would encounter. He imagined having children, a young boy and a young girl who learned to be “one with the fish” away from the absurd transactions of Chi and the complexities of AR. Away from Lauren. Away from Saigon and New York. But he couldn’t. It was just a dream. He stopped himself and tried to calculate how many minutes he had considered giving up on finding Lauren. Without AR, he didn’t even know what day it was. He listened to the lapping of the waves for what seemed like ten hours but could have been less. His eyes had nearly closed when the sun rose beyond a glimmer on the horizon and began to illuminate the world. He could see that there were at least ten other sailboats in the vicinity. He looked to his right at what seemed to be a sliver of brown and green in the distance and remembered that he wasn’t wearing his AR glasses. There really seemed to be land there.
He felt the woman’s hand on his shoulder. His body felt cramped as he turned around and saw her standing naked just two feet in front of him. Her body seemed to glow from something within her, and she emanated a placid contentment that alone seemed capable of satiating all of his needs. She brushed his face with the back of her hand and pointed into the distance. He looked at her finger and then at the bay that was now visible where before there had been only an indentation on a brown sliver. He looked back at her, and her eyes seemed to tear. He knew that if he hesitated any longer, he would never leave. He sprung up and felt his body uncramp and then the shock of the cold water all around him.
He swam until he reached the beach. He stopped at the edge of the surf where his feet could touch the ground. American voices were shouting back and forth. The woman was nowhere in sight. His chest was heaving as he caught his breath and looked out at a group of Thai men and women in sarongs and bathing suits laughing and joking as they made their way back onto their small sailboats. The solar liner was partially submerged beyond them. He crawled to the water’s edge. Some men in brown uniforms held him steady before letting him collapse on the beach. He turned to the right just as a man about ten years older than him in an immaculate white US Navy uniform sat down beside him in the water as if it were the most natural thin
g in the world.
“Who were those guys?” Charlie said between gasps for air.
“Sea gypsies.”
“What?”
“They can do things in the water that can’t be explained. They can hold their breath for I don’t know how many minutes. They can dive depths that most people can’t. It was pure luck that one of them was there when you went down.”
“Where are they from?”
“Here. Thailand. You’re on Phuket. But they don’t speak Thai. Their language is different. We’re working on a real-time translation app. But for now we just smile and play along when we encounter them.”
“So why did they sink my ship?”
“They didn’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. What’s your name?”
“Tommy Nguyen.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yup.”
The man looked at him as if waiting for him to say something. His face went blank as he went into AR. “Yup. You’re on the manifest.”
“Yup.”
“Consider yourself lucky, Tommy.”
“I do.”
“You know…we’re just renting time here.”
“Are we?”
“You just got a new lease.”
“On what?”
“Well, whatever you believe about the soul or an afterlife…We’re on this planet for a limited time.”
“Everything’s limited—yeah. I used to think that way…It’s a waste of time.”
“You’re alive. And why do you suppose that is? These gypsies just happened to be swimming around when you went under. And one of them just happened to save you and no one else in your compartment. But you can’t question it…If you start questioning it, you’re gonna drive yourself crazy. Just trust it.”
“Yeah. If you can’t trust a sea gypsy, who can you trust?”
“You don’t look like a Vietnamese laborer. What are you doing going to work on a fish farm?”
“I have my reasons.”
