Pilot Manifest: The Source of all Things

by Tekla, Lucien

  Heat radiated against her in lovely suspicion as I stoked the fire. Darkness resettled as our star bound contemplations faded in the night.

  I awakened not too surprised that I was alive. It seemed that some apprehension was unwarranted of the Russian girl. Her fireside stories were great to hear once we were comfortable again the way we had been earlier yesterday. My concern was natural she understood—though unnecessary, she had said again. I remembered, more than once, feeling a hint of desire with the rasp of her laugh. I can only wonder about it now.

  — 45

  Some time, I guess a week already has gone by so fast with Vesna being here. McKenna returned to complete our trade. I felt some guilt trading so much of our fuel stock. It’s been a long time guarding and we will have more than half left. It should be ok. Besides, a sailboat could be a valuable asset for the integrity of our cause. You never know, we could be required to seek vengeance across the sea.

  This week has been unexpected. The series of days and nights passed by in an hour. I can hardly imagine all the time we’ve enjoyed. Vesna is a nymph, ceremonial in her obedience to the demand of our mission. She is a helium archer spirit gliding through the trees. Her new liberty has inspired her to become a heroine in the myth of skeletons, she says. She admires their majestic fellowship and discipline. I won’t need to counter McKenna’s offer. Vesna is staying.

  McKenna’s going to hang around for dinner. It’d be too late to get back on the water once we get the fuel down to the beach and loaded, I insist.

  —We spent most of the day touring around. We showed McKenna the lodge, torched mountainside, and where the incineration ceremony took place—now a place of scorched earth and abandoned chains marked by a headstone.

  Vesna seems to have changed so much since arriving, and she’s getting better with everything everyday. She was excited to show McKenna around, especially around the lodge and its skeletons in a row. Nothing other than excessive amends is evident of the old strain between any of us now.

  —At dinner last night, I told McKenna to visit soon. He promised he would be back before long and left early this morning.

  — 46

  Night out by the fire, again, as each and every night, Vesna says. Except when it’s raining too much. She loves the view from this overwatch fireplace. I don’t mind explaining these things, Vesna. Since you’re asking, and we’re sharing whiskey by a warm fire and with our faithful skeletons.

  Listen, so much of what we say and do goes in this book. At one time or another everything’s written on these pages. This way everything can still exist. Read here—you were once waiting at bay, fishing—I turn a page or two—you’ve joined us by the fire. And so you are in the book too with all of us as we recognize our existence beyond the nothingness of an unknown world. Everything’s in these pages. It’s a manifest. Everything must be written here. We must have as much of everything documented. Listen, this is the way all things may exist. So you understand, you should know that we accept you completely. We can enjoy the fire, the moon and stars. This life is a beautiful chance in desolation. You’ll never be exiled, Vesna.

  No, that wasn’t the only thing about you in the book, I said. It was told to me once: we tie your wrists when we crucify. Some reason was explained at the time. I don’t know anymore. Many things were said then, most I don’t recall. Anyway, your wrists were restrained before, and are now free of fastenings—you belong here with us. That’s why I thought of it—There’s reason to live without crucifying, without want of sacrifice.

  You can comprehend why I’m always mindful of the reaper. Death is waiting for me to fail, and you must know that the reaper is waiting, too, for you, for us. There is something important that you should know, and it should be noted about the reaper—death is obliged to take those I send when acting in defense of all we know. When I defend this place with you and the skeletons against anyone who will come to destroy us—we will have command of death. Death will obey.

  Once, in fact, often, I observe the reaper circling to destroy me. And I realized the circling was an ancient obedience—the reaper was waiting to be commanded.

  —Vesna and I remember the once that was destroyed by war. We talk of once beautiful places and people now lying in ruin. We know we must be diligent in our efforts to maintain our fortifications, improve weapon proficiency, and foresee places of imbalance in order to keep control of higher ground. For we have learned how complacency propagates a susceptibility to the will of an enemy in the offing, one that would leave us in ruin.

  Everyday exists, without need of our perceiving it. Things continue and sometimes change in wonderful ways, like Vesna being here now. Moment dissolves time. I imagine our discoveries shared walking by the ocean, or through the woodlands.

  It was a profound realization of the endless vying times before, that are now worthy of this. How each day in the past wasn’t sacrificed waiting to be saved. Vesna is with me now, here—in the once, soon to be. I thought about the struggle everyday, before. Everyday was worth facing without promise of such a lovely thing finding her way to me—escaping an elusive future. Without prejudice of solitude her presence has been honored.

  — 47

  Bear hide kept her warm while fishing the cold water this morning. The dark fur kept her blood warm. I surveyed the territory from a hillside overwatch. There were no visitors, again.

  I went down to meet her, and we talked about how they didn’t have many bears or deer on their island before. She likes that I’m a hunter. She helps me prepare hides with a respect for the animals. We’re efficient around camp. We cook and eat together.

  Vesna and I have become closer each day and night by the fire, as the warmth protects us from the settling frost. We spend time talking about the skeletons. She has learned so much of each one. Today, we listen to the trees as she looked through the journal given to me by Kagan. I explained the different writings. She meditated on our ideas.

  By now it must seem to her as if he is a friend she never knew. She found a reprieve from melancholy, though a somber one, for Kagan. It was discovered at a time when his thoughts were of an integration of reason and imagination, it seems. Vesna traced with her finger the ink on the page heavy with dew as it seeped from the past. It bled into the present as she read:

  Reason is the way. Imagination, the aether.

  We are more patient than time. By the fire, we veer in conversation to people we once knew and loved, and the places. We think about the people in the cafe that overlooked the freeway, and all that is known to be destroyed. I tell her about the fallen cities as we sit together under the warm fur. Our conversation drifts along despite our closeness and never falls onto her beauty though I can think almost of nothing else. She has me tell her, again and again. The fallen cities fade into the forest as she breathes in purposeful expectation of our touch.

  — 48

  Time is moving faster than ever before. There’s so much to do everyday, as usual. And I’ve lost track of days since Vesna has become one of us. It seems she’s been here for so long.

  With seasons we are aware.

  We’re fishing together today with an eagle. On our way back with fish we stopped at the lodge. I agreed that we could stay for tonight and head back to camp in the morning. We built a fire in the fireplace altar. Thin lacing frost covered thick glass panels that framed our ocean view.

  Vesna heated a bath with rocks from the fire for me. She called with a song from the room. The water is warm—Vesna sang, enchanting me. Into the night her allusions came true.

  In the morning with coffee at the fire I imagined this wondrous love of life as she appeared dressed in a fur. We’ll spend today in the lodge as every day has become a waking dream.

  — 49

  We’re having long range target practice. We have our camp territory covered from the mountain. I have set targets at numerous locations so we can move from one overwatch to the next to shoot. We will observe open ranges from each hide and discus
s the points of entry and egress. We use an island map to plan defense scenarios, our tactics and movement. Vesna is a capable still shooter consistently hitting the 400m target with her bolt-action rifle. We practice with automatic rifles and pistols before we’re done.

  — Returning to camp, walking down mountain way, we caught sight of a familiar ship off our coast. So we’ll walk down to the beach. I admit to feeling a bit of excitement that McKenna is here.

  Great, he has agreed to stay for dinner: fish, bear and whisky. And some coffee. I can’t believe it, how things have become peaceful, calming the prevailing stress of war.

  McKenna seems even more surprised to see Vesna has changed so much in the months since she’s been here—he senses she’s happy. He isn’t surprised actually, is what he said, with a humble, fatherly expression.

  The amends we had made—which attributed our original discord to the stress of war and fear—remain strong. We remembered fears and early conflicts and drank to overcoming such distasteful behavior. We drank to health and high spirits.

  McKenna will join the hunt today.

  In making coals for cooking, our fire burned high. It threw sparks toward the stars out early and bright. We placed the kettle and grates over the quieted flame to cook the meal. It was delicious, we agreed. I told McKenna that he’s always welcome. He promised to bring his family to visit soon. We’ll hunt a deer when they return. We made a late night coffee and the aroma was so sweet.

  Sometimes the stress of trust is knocked down by a detachment of fear. The reaper curves around us continually. Yet, there’s no reason to hide. Death can’t escape a 45.

  — 50

  We’re out on the water, sailing to escort McKenna. Keep the shore close, Copeland. We don’t want to drift out to sea. Raise another sail. We can figure it out. All these skeleton pirates should have some sense of it all. Ha! We sail the ocean blue! Guns on the rail! Guns on the rail!

  We’ve found some whales. Vesna wants to get closer, Copeland, closer. Ok, I got it. Oh, that’s close enough. Look, our island is among so many others, more than I could ever see before. It’s a group of islands, Vesna said, an archipelago. No, no I didn’t know that. Let’s turn back. We have got to get back the other way. Let McKenna go, like we said before, we’re escorting him out, only.

  —Strong winds pulled us into treacherous waters. We were unable to turn back before covering a good distance. The sails were wrong.

  We made adjustments and sailed far off the island. A massive island appeared in the fog to the East. It could be mainland. To go there would be the last thing we’d want.

  McKenna was long out of sight.

  We ventured north of our island into an untempered sea. Vesna pointed for us to redirect our sails, to aim for silk ocean meadows and the green sun in suspension. Our eyes were in suspension.

  The wind could push us into the transit cliff rocks, was Copeland’s apprehension. We kept the islands west, avoiding the eastern draw of the mainland currents—as planned. We stayed far enough away—it was the prudent way. Then the air changed—as if it began to listen to us. It approached our sail as if sent to scout our presence by its water God.

  Our vessel made a slight wake as we sailed into the dying wind. Our shadow was cast to the jagged shore of our island a mile away. Dark ocean drowned the light as frail ripples broke against the hull, like it was a boat in the docks at midnight. Our lone sail stood in the conjuring ocean of perdition—out from the obsidian rocks, at the center of eternity with a dissolving white line of perception in the West.

  We were a diminutive mast lost in the sea of abyss. Its presence developed around us like an infection in the creaking strains of the ship. This was where the terrors suffered. I waited for the reaper to appear. The scythe would be the crescent descending from the radiant evening star to send us to the sunken sepulcher, the wreck abandoned in fathoms of history.

  We were stalled in the water when the winds abandoned us to report our present circumstance to their underwater God. They would discover that he had no will. And death still had no interest in us—we were allowed to sail upon the souls of the damned. I could finally hear their suffocated wailing when the winds returned. It pulled our rigging taught, scarcely enough to show the cut of the canvas. No longer idle prey, we were again the ones listening into darkness, searching, hunting with the reaper for a hound.

  Soon we prepared to circle the southern end of our island. Sea lion bellows loitered at the point. We cruised through waves, through time and space. There was no future, or past. Picture this and someday it will be hanging on the wall of a crashed helicopter, in the wake of a war, where peace has filled the postwar void: a photograph with skeleton sailors, tattered garments flying in the wind, under sail, with guns on the rail. The learned pilot controlling the rudder wheel and a sultry woman gazing to the infinite line between water and sky, her fingers moving a strand of hair that had blown across her serene face. Through steady waves they go.

  It was a daylong sail going so far north and then back around the island. The beach in darkness was lit by starlight. If we can’t make the turn to anchor, we might have to go around the islands again, I thought.

  No Copeland, these skeletons are skilled enough. I’ve never sailed around an island in the north pacific before—yet I believe we could make the trip again, even overnight. See now Vesna is laughing because I said we might have to circle the island again, Copeland—or that we could. That’s fine open the wine, then. She already did, I guess. It was a long day. We should drink more wine.

  Our skeletons watched us from the beach wondering if we were going to miss it—if we’d be back tonight or tomorrow, or ever, the nighttime ocean pulling us away.

  It took some doing, real sailing was witnessed. We’ve finally dropped anchor after going so slow against the wind. We’re going to have dinner on the boat, I guess. Never mind, we’re going ashore.

  —It was an extraordinary memory late into the night and we agreed that we would be out on the open water again, soon. There’s no need to worry about the technical stuff, we figured it out. We’re a real band of ragged and worn misfit skeleton pirates. Vesna, our young maiden, was so beautiful laughing half the day.

  — 51

  McKenna visited today. It’s been a month again already, I guess. Three weeks, he said. He had good luck with some big fish and shared them with us. He will bring his family to visit soon.

  I patrolled and checked the stations the rest of the day. Vesna was working around camp.

  — 52

  Vesna was emotional today. She gets that way now that we are going to have a family. She wants to get married. I think she is scared, too. Because there aren’t many pediatricians on the island. Anyway, that’s what we are going to do—have a wedding. I’m going to keep it secret so Vesna will be surprised. It will be a great day. I asked McKenna to bring his family, we’ll be honored to have them. They enjoy it here with the changed Vesna and noble skeletons. McKenna will be an honored wedding guest, as will Commander Elmhurst and James. Copeland will be the best man. All guards and search and rescue guys will be in attendance.

  — The Wedding Day

  The preparations were endless but the day finally arrived. It was almost all psychological. Some things never change. McKenna brought his family for the wedding. Vesna was happy to see them. She was unaware of anything until McKenna’s young son asked her: where’s your wedding dress. She said she didn’t know, of course, and was happy knowing that we had a secret plan.

  She does have a dress. I discovered it in a cabin when resource gathering in the first weeks. I forgot about it until recently. I went back and found it stored in a wooden chest that filled the room with cedar when I opened it.

  It was an honor to be joined by McKenna and his family. McKenna’s children were in awe of the skeletons who were covered in the most formal attire available. We were a rather disparate crew.

  At a glance, it was as if we stood inside a crystal ball wrapped in northe
rn air. We were history displayed in a hazy orb that was called: waiting for the bride. Resurrected skeletons were symbols of an explosive light. Skeleton sentries were stationed at points around the ceremony grounds. Their war cry was a wind in the forest that declared our brand of reckoning would be fortified with time. The augury revealed a momentous future. A mist of rain ratified the ceremony and vision.

  Thank you, Copeland, for being my true great friend. Thank you, McKenna, for being after all a true great friend and for bringing Vesna, the young fighter, here to me. You could not have known the outcome of that dangerous risk or predicted this day in that decision. I think, though, somehow you did.

  From far off I saw her. She moved close with an aura beyond beauty. Vesna was as lovely then as in the dream that once caught a glimpse of her haunting the depths of my subconscious in the true beginning of our story together.

  The ceremony ended with a consuming embrace.

  Today we’ll go sailing.

  — 54

  So much time is spent at the lodge since the wedding. We can’t move there yet. Vesna thinks we can move there already. That isn’t possible. We still have a great responsibility to maintain and secure our camp. We need to keep watch over our supplies and fallen aircraft.

  We have moved an entire small cabin closer to our beach, two actually, with McKenna’s help. One has become a guest room when they visit. McKenna spends much more time with us these days. He usually takes a deer, or some supplies back when he goes. He always prefers to sail here now when visiting.

  —I walked along the path, alone, where the burnt mountainside continues to heal—I often visit this place alone. It will always be a memorial to me. Vesna understands the symbol. She is also affected by the violence against nature. I stopped and remembered the last time we were here, Vesna and our child—he gathered charcoal. Vesna held her hand behind his back to support him from tumbling in this necropolis of wilderness. Years from now, when evidence of devastation is less apparent, I imagine it could become a living memorial. Deer will walk through with ears alert for hunters in the trees. The returning forest will represent the resilience of nature and of man.