“Prophets of rage.”

Comfort feeds off terror like a flood to water. Shatters growth, leaves behind, in its recession, the same sewage, old, as bacteria. Parity dissolves at our response, from torrent we scatter. Masses of stuff we are aware, instinctually, challenge our continued existence, but a belly full of people? A master of them will power their teeth beyond the skull. Teeth that speak to the stars, and what do they find? They are only as valuable as the mouth they inhabit. A loose tooth is garbage. A loose person finds trouble. A loose mind? The single thing a star can feel a sense of camaraderie towards.

First off I’m going to need to deal with the boat trip back. I don’t want to, I have to, for the distraction or something. He, Hunter, that’s the bloke I left the island with, could be a right mean sod when he wanted. Stopped paddling, refused to paddle solo when I got sick. Perfectly capable of it, how else would he have got around when he was on his own otherwise? He’d stare out in the opposite direction as he waited for me to cease my, “Vacated guts routine,” Into the channel. Fully cleaned out, when I sat upright and picked up my paddle, only then could we go forward. That’s mean, right? Prolonged my suffering as much as I can see. Prolonged the ride for sure. It’s the kind of throw a lot of men like, some women too, a slice of justice, perhaps? Can’t be seen to grow someone into a role. If they don’t fit? You have to break off the parts that stick out. Don’t like it? There are plenty of directions to swim, try the opposite one they’re going in. What is that called? What’d I say? Justice! That’s right.

Hunter brought the boat through the surf on his own, I was too busy with my own work as I sank into the solid ground like a baby into its mother’s arms. “Like a bloated rotter.” He gave me a gentle kick in my leg, “Either bury yourself, or help me bury this boat.” I took the end of the boat that had dug itself into the sand, off we went, me getting dragged along and trying not to trip over as we waddled on.

I’m not permitted to divulge the exact area we buried the boat, it was around some bushes though. The paddles acted as a pretty effective shovel as we excavated the boat’s shallow grave together. The paddles were then transformed into markers that jutted out the ground to remind Hunter where to dig in the future. Didn’t say anything, didn’t make a big stink, but Hunter did have a pair of gloves, when we dug, which I was not afforded. Those bushes brimmed with nettles. Stung my hands white and red. “Took your mind off those sorry guts.” Yeah, I never came across that remedy for a poorly stomach where a person dives head first into nettles, but what do I know? We camped at a spot nearby, made sure nobody was sniffing around the area. Nothing was disturbed in the morning, and, didn’t know it at the time, but that evening prior, welted and sick, was the last evening of peace I’d get for a while.

It went like this. Walking, yep, plenty of that, but, where walking would be the prime pursuit amongst previous groups, with Hunter it was a means and sleep an afterthought. Evenings, around the fire, were there to conduct rehearsal. The first few revolved around him coming right up to the brink of smacking me one because I didn’t do precisely what he had asked of me. I’d be finishing lines, or describing scenery and I’d make a mistake, or, scold upon offence, add my own touch of flair which would cause him to flair up in rage. Could even say exactly what he wanted, oh, but if I stressed the wrong part, yeah, you get the idea. My way wasn’t permitted, his precision absolute. One time, right, I was really tired, it was getting on, I suggested this different sort of ending, “Perhaps the hero should actually be the monster?” Probably flicked my eyebrows at him a little too confidently for his liking after I said that, because that was the closest he came to violence, think he picked up a stick or a rock or something by his side. Not a consensus builder in this regard, and, really, what storyteller should allow their tyranny to decay? That portion of work would end though, we’d eventually arrive at some village where the work could actually begin, with, perhaps, some non-work interspersed too.

Good, honest, folk. Salt out the rock. Every village we’d visit held in it some part of my youth. Simple meals, freshly prepared with ritualistic care. Empty heads with clear minds. Busy only as they rested, happy to let sleeping dogs go at it too. Probably better for the fact that I never stayed anywhere long enough to get tired of it all. Better, most importantly, because I was their honoured guest who was not expected to collect anything or hump stuff up hills. They’d honour us so much that we’d get showered with gifts when we left, and this was the perfect way to end our time there. Of course I didn’t get the prime share, that was for Hunter, but I appreciated the warmness of their send off regardless.

A whole load of socialising was burnt into the job, didn’t see that side of it as a kid. Half of it was performing, the other was getting in good with the people who were in charge. Establishing a rapport, that’s how you got invites, “Oh, we’re celebrating a coming of age, won’t you take part?” Or, “Oh, we’re celebrating a birth and would be happy to have your talents as part of the festivities, if that’s okay?” Of course it was always our pleasure to be a part of their joyous occasions. Hunter did most of the talking, but I played my part too, he always told me, “Leave it outside.” When we entered a new village. That meant I had to show a carefree, non-hostile, mask. That was my part to play in negotiations and I managed to play it to Hunter’s satisfaction at least.

Sound effects, those were my favourite. I’d see my younger self in the crowd, a little kid whose eyes lit up when I came in with a big crash of thunder. Being the person that got everyone to cheer wasn’t so bad as well. And I didn’t even need to learn that much, Hunter did most of it. I just had to pay attention and hit my mark, at most that would be three or four times a performance, and it was a performance I was familiar with from my childhood.

The stories remained eerily similar despite being so far from my original settlement. Guess it’s not that surprising, when you think about it. Storytelling is a collective as much as it is loneliness. One story veered off course, and stuck out for doing so. Was about a man in love with a magic woman. She was magic since she could only be seen by him. He tries to get others to see her in the story, but he is frustrated. The man kills himself in an attempt to be with her. In death he finds nothing, not even a dream, just another pot of imagination emptied into a void. I asked Hunter about it, he said, “You ever been smacked hard enough to lose your senses?” Honestly, I had not experienced that, “One moment you’re here and then you wake without a thing in between, peaceful. A peaceful nothing. Death is that without the waking up part.” Came back at him with a, “You actually believe that?” He replied, “First rule. You’re telling a story, what you believe amounts to precisely bullshit.” I learnt that, even as a weaver, he liked it straight. And there was one aspect of the story-teller life that he did not embellish.

Casual sex is great at first, but it’s also great at last. Too much magic gets collected if you never let it escape into another’s purse. It was always worth keeping it vague with the holders of that purse. Magic wants to stick to the sides, however once it flights its fancy the urge to stay leaves with it. They can knit fantastical tales about peace and security within their natural waters, but once that spark jumps the boundary snaps shut. Ever I missed a drop, got too sentimental on the thread they were pulling, Hunter was always there to shake the last drops out of me. “Only reason they show any interest in you is because of the line I got going. If you’re not their first choice then why should they be yours?”

Could’ve done that job until my back gave in and my knees rubbed themselves out, at that point I would’ve been content to live on the memories alone. The seasons had to do their flip though. Over and over, it can never stop. One moment you’re falling asleep on the grass under the stars, next the open sky invites you to a frozen death.

That’s where me and the beat took a different path. Tried his best to convince me otherwise, “We’ll look for something to settle your stomach on the ride over.” That wasn’t the problem. “I’ll get you a new name, a new persona, a new look. We’d basically be hibernating there the whole time anyway.” Their retribution wasn’t quite it either. “Well, sorry, but that’s the only place I know for when the season decides to constrict.” Memories are like nettles with no glove that wards their sting. Hunter wouldn’t put his bare hand in the bushes, I won’t make nice with a place that did what they did. As much as it matters, it wasn’t his fault, and as much as anyone can be blamed, I was the one.

Alone I went, in the opposite direction of the island. The Sun, the brief glimpses it allowed for itself, on my right hand side. There’s a reason people don’t make long journeys during that season. Cold and muddy, yes, but it also gets dark quick and the pickings get slim too. Slogged through it way longer than I should have, lived off supplies for the first part, was living off wild blackberries by the end, fingers stained purple. Pretty sure that trip constituted the longest I had ever travelled by myself. Went through a hilly clearance and past mountains wearing blankets of trees and hats of white. Perhaps it was snow up there? Maybe that’s where snow comes from? As the hills receded and the land flattened out I had become increasingly desperate, malnourished with the bite of the chill becoming more and more unbearable. Came across a stone circle. First one I’d seen, first thing I’d seen that resembled any kind of human life. I jumped on it, wasn’t in a position to be picky. Waited there, I had no other option. That’s a lie, I could have gone out and froze myself to death, which wasn’t the option I was so fond of at the time.

It was flat and open around the stones, it gave Cain good visibility of the surrounding area. He did not need to spend a night there before he spotted people. They did not walk in his direction, they walked parallel to a crop of trees off in the distance. Cain ran towards them as he hollered and waved his arms. They did not hear him so he got closer, “Hey, over here!” They had a dog with them, leading their posse, which barked to Cain’s cries. The two men stopped and one of them lifted his head as if he had caught the scent of prey. He looked around, first to the trees, then to where Cain was standing and lifting his skinny fists. The three of them, two men and a dog, made a line towards Cain.

Both of them wore a sleeveless tunic, brown and leathery, that exposed their larger than normal arms. The dog was the first to meet Cain, it bolted right at him. Cain stood still, the dog stalled its charge as it panted and paced in front of him whilst it kept visual contact. Without uttering a word the two men retrieved their dog and got Cain to step with them, Cain’s forearm was grabbed as he was given a direction to walk in, they both travelled behind. Given enough strides they lobbed some words at him, Cain barely understood a thing that was spat. He twisted the top half of his body around as he kept on forwards. “Please,” Cain said, “Food?” One of the men clicked his fingers and pointed frontward, in response Cain put clasped fingers to his lip and rubbed his stomach. The man on the left scratched at his scalp and said something that ended with the word, “Grass.” Then he laughed. The other man made a sleeping gesture and spoke to Cain as slowly as he was able, “Where we,” Cain did not recognise the middle but it concluded, “You work, you eat.” Cain was satisfied with this and these men were big enough that he did not want to bother them any more than necessary. Cain went back to facing forward with the dog occasionally sniffing at his ankles along the way.

They arrived at a camp, Cain was not busy paying attention to his whereabouts because he was half-starved and had finished off the last drops of water in his flask halfway through the journey. He was placed inside of a medium-sized hut that had a straw padded floor with no fire or furniture. Again, when he was placed there, he asked for food. The man that made the grass comment put his hand on Cain’s chest and pushed him back on to his rear. They removed Cain’s empty flask and they left as they announced to Cain, “Stay.” Cain obeyed despite his thirst and hunger urging him to venture. He studied the walls to keep his mind off the pangs, it had been put together with straw and muck, until finally the door opened and in came his fellows.

They were emaciated, Cain overfed and over-dressed in their presence, their bones scarcely covered flesh and their flesh was scantily clad by threadbare rags. They filed in and noted Cain’s existence, but not a lot else, they were more interested in rest. This, it turned out, was a sleeping hut, though it most resembled a barn. A single fellow, Aristocles, did not brush past Cain, he handed Cain something he had never seen before. Cain got placed into his cupped hands multiple red things that appeared, at first glance, to be tools, however they contained a flaky meat. Cain gobbled it down, no hesitation. The outside part was crunchy and sharp to eat and did not taste of much, the insides tasted alright though. When he got through a whole one he thanked Aristocles and asked him, slowly, “What are these?” Aristocles leaned towards Cain and loaned him his ear, “Huh?” Cain held out a piece of food he had not eaten and repeated his question. Aristocles ceased his lean and said, “Oh, what.” He spoke too fast for Cain to understand after this and it was Cain’s turn to let out a, “Huh?” Aristocles spoke slower and Cain caught the words, “From,” And, “Sea.” Cain put a halt to his mastication. His cultural sensitivities instructed him to spit this food out, his need pressed on him to keep eating. Cain compromised, he ate half of what was in his hands, forcing it down his throat with exaggerated gulps, and gave the rest back to Aristocles. “Thank you, again.” Aristocles took Cain’s wrist, attempting to apply pressure but barely able to muster enough strength, he spoke extra slow, “In your mouth, in their hole.” Cain did not comprehend his meaning. Aristocles took Cain’s wrist with him outside.

Cain was taken to a large vat of water and given a cup, “Slurp,” Cain took that as permission to drink. Aristocles muttered to Cain as he drank, these words, “Run,” And, “Strength,” Came through in the first part and for the second part, “Stay,” And, “Know,” Were the only ones he could pick out. Cain was then pulled away from the vat and taken over to a ditch with a raised bank. Now, Cain was used to smells, had witnessed, and stepped in, the droppings of many a beast, even made his own, however the stench that came off this ditch made him want to stop breathing on principle. Aristocles motioned with his hand things leaving his groin and Cain got the gist. Drinking had given him the slight urge to urinate, he stood on the bank and added his own unique flavour to the open casserole of excreta. His piss took time to arrive as he willed it to let him leave, when it came it was dark, almost orange.

Aristocles arranged for Cain to receive a blanket to sleep under, the blanket was dirty and almost as terrible smelling as the ditch. By this it was almost night. Aristocles and Cain used their blankets to fetch hot rocks from the base of an outside fire and placed them in the middle of the sleeping hut on a tiny patch of bare earth. Aristocles found Cain a place to sleep, Cain could barely see but he managed to find a gap on the straw floor. Aristocles left him there and went off to find his own spot.

Cain attempted sleep, his ears full of pinched orifices, his stomach full of taboo. Between being woken he had a dream about his mystery woman. She was slightly more actual in his dreams now. He saw her black hair trimmed on the sides and woven into knots at the back. Her eyes came to him, hovering over him, wide and deer-like, open to his heart, the pure parts and the dissolved. In his moments awake he hugged the blanket. A presence, a torso, pressed up against him where there was only straw, blanket, and air.

One of the fellows came round the huts and woke everyone up, he poked his head through the door and bellowed, what Cain assumed was, “Wake up!” This was less an eruption from sleep for Cain, his eyes had been open, staring at the ceiling, for a while before that, it was more of a signal that he could be released from the burden of his ruminations, none of them hopeful, and freely move outside.

A clear day, except for the clouds that crackled from Cain’s mouth. The Sun had only just clawed its way fully past the horizon. In the morning light Cain saw that he was the odd one out, his fellows with cropped hair and him with wild, dancing, locks. His beard jigged too, but nothing compared to some of them that had let their beards obscure their whole chest. Collectively they bundled toward the communal fire pit, Cain followed but was diverted before he could submerge in its warmth. He was taken aside and placed on a wooden stool.

A fellow, Emanuel, came towards Cain with a flint razor. Cain’s dance fell to the ground and left him, in clumps, to become dark blades of grass. As he cut he whispered, first something involving, “Eyes,” And, “Ground,” Cain nodded his head slightly and Emanuel used his free hand to clamp Cain’s head still. Second whisper induced the words, “Liars,” And, “Caught.” The penultimate whisper Cain grasped more fully, “Escape’s a falsehood. Frowns are built with smiles.” His hair cutting skills went beyond measure, one small cut on Cain’s scalp and it barely bled, he must have done this work over and over before. Emanuel brushed Cain down and rubbed a sweet-smelling ointment on to the cut, here, with Emanuel leaning over him, Cain received one final chop of wisdom, “Fight is only forgiven by death.”

Emanuel withdrew towards the fire. A supervisor took Cain by his left arm, bent Cain off the stool and onto his knees, he placed Cain’s arm between his thighs as he turned his rump to face Cain. They stayed locked in that awkward pose until Emanuel came back carrying something in his, now, gloved hand. Shrouded by the man, Cain only felt the searing pain that was inflicted on his forearm. Cain muted a scream. He instinctively struggled to free his arm, but not enough to get loose. Only when he got his arm back did he notice that he had pissed himself a tiny bit. A hexagon had been burnt into his skin. He sat back on the stool and nursed his arm, a smouldering piece of pottery lay dormant in the dirt next to him. Emanuel took Cain by the hand and stretched his arm away from Cain’s body. He rubbed the wound with a leaf covered with the ointment from before. As he massaged Cain noticed a similar shaped scar on Emanuel’s arm. Later on he saw that everyone of his fellows had been stung by a similar procedure.

Cain and his sleeping fellows stood in a line outside their hut and facing away from it. Similar lines formed outside huts that stood opposite. A man, a stick tucked in his armpit, went down each line with a wave of trembling preceding him, as his presence grew closer it caused Cain to wobble too. A fellow next to Cain pointed down and gave him, in a hushed voice, the word again, “Ground.” When the man with the stick stood in front of him directly, Cain’s marked arm still bubbling with grievance, he gave the man the slightest flick of eye contact birthed from salt. The stick fell to the man’s feet and he gave Cain two full slaps round his chops, forehand and back. The man leaned down and picked his stick up as Cain denied his urge to rub his cheeks. Cain got it now, what they had tried to tell him. His eyes stayed firmly on the floor around those men from then on.

After inspection was completed they formed a queue with the other huts. Movement was slow, Cain only got a glimpse of its purpose as he got nearer to the front. They, divided, roughly twelve to a group, were assigned different implements at the end of the queue. A single carrying pole was placed on Cain’s shoulders by one fellow, empty pails hooked on to each end by two others. Cain did not let his eyes wander when the carrying pole was placed, but for the pails he had to look to balance them out. Strange objects were on each side of the pole. They did not use rope to bind the pails, the pails had a leather strap which was placed on to a thing shaped like what he had eaten previously, though much more slender. Seemed ordinary to everyone else so Cain did not make a bother of it right there and then.

In a line they were marched off accompanied by two supervisors, two dogs, and two sticks. The journey they took was rhythmic, each footstep locked to a beat that, with each right foot planted, crested and then released on the left. They sang, except Cain, in the same fashion. Cain had not overcome the language barrier well enough to join them. They did not sing like the birds, more a howl, though it gave to Cain normality despite the increased reality.

The tune only carried as the terrain permitted, when they reached a series of bumpy dunes it loosened, their line too. The wind upped and blasted, the day even colder, as they reached the far lip of the dune. Another coast came into sight, the other end of Cain’s world. Orders came to remove their empty pails and to sit on the cusp, Cain sat and huddled as close to himself as he possibly could. It was not until they had all been inspected by the supervisors that Cain allowed himself to survey. Both ways down were similar groups, behind him the uneven grassy sands, in front the secret of a sea laid bare. The covering water was scant, a deep dish of sodden silt only transformed into something resembling a sea way off into the distance.

Cain had time to inspect the strange objects after the order came to unhook their pails. He reeled one side of his pole towards himself, put the hooks between his thumb and forefinger. They were smooth to touch, colder than the wood they had been dug into. Cain pressed his middle finger against the point, the material rigid without being brittle. He withdrew his fingers and gave them a sniff, it smelled, it smelled just like semen. The supervisor barked something, Cain did not understand what he said but it made him realign the pole back into his lap as if he had done something rude. Two fellows, on the far left of his line, sprung up and trudged off onto the flats with their pails, they were accompanied by a fellow holding a wooden shovel, the supervisors stayed behind with the rest of the group. The three of them went out, not crazy far, but far enough that Cain could not make out the specifics of what they were up to. Down the line it went, two plus one trudged off and then came back, until it got to Cain.

A supervisor stepped close by, which caused Cain’s eyes to fix to the floor, he shouted something and it took the fellow with the spade to place the pails in Cain’s hands and grab Cain by the bicep before he understood that it was his turn. Cain skulked past the supervisor and his dog, did not raise his head until they had stepped at least twenty paces or so away from the shore. His steps squelched in the wet ground, left behind definite footprints in their wake. A couple of times Cain thought he had lost his foot from the sheer effort it took to lift it out of the less pebbled parts of the flats. They got to a miniscule channel of running water that had been forgotten by the sea, it was barely deep enough to cover Cain’s toes. They were told to, “Wait,” By the spade fellow as he went in and dug a small hole for the water to collect. He said, “Quick,” And beckoned with his hand. The other fellow hurried forward and took Cain with him, “Watch.” He dipped one of his pails into the hole, “Look,” He placed his fingers on the brim and his thumb at the height of the water, there was a healthy gap between each. “Spills,” He shook his head violently and motioned to the shore, he then took his fist and planted it into his other palm. Message received, this time, loud and clear.

Cain placed his pails down, back at the shore, in the exact manner of the fellow that went out with him and sat next to his carrying pole. When the emptiness of their pails had fully been depleted, left to right, the fellow with the shovel, now strapped over his shoulder, went through and hooked everyone’s pail to their carrying pole. Going back hurt much more than trotting out. The pole had rubbed on Cain’s nape on the way to the shore, but the soreness of it was only appreciated when he placed the full load back on his shoulders. Along with his neck and spine taking turns to yell at him there was also the ever present danger of spills, it made the way back much slower, especially through the bumps of the dunes. Cain had to constantly check both sides to make sure that the pails did not swing too much. Relief came when the load was emptied into the vats back at camp. That was the one trip they made to the flats that day. They did two very similar trips to a river to collect fresh water, similar apart from the possibility of slipping and being taken off by the current to be drowned. It probably was not that dramatic, still it worried Cain, he knew how to float, not how to swim.

The days twisted on, same job for, oh, a moon cycle or so? A moon and a half? The working portion of the day saw no substantial breaks. Only thing that even resembled relaxation came in the time directly before and after sleep. A lot of that time Cain used, when not defecating into the pit or eating and drinking, to learn the local language. It was not completely alien to what was spoken on the opposite coast. Lots of the same words, familiar grammatical structures, with an occasional related idiom that bounced around these lot too. Main difference, the thing that had thrown him off so many times, was the pronunciation of vowels. Often an, “Ah,” Sound would be elongated into an “Ooh,” As an example. And then some of the words were just plain foreign to Cain’s ear, he stumbled on those the most and it took him longer to replicate them. Learning was extra on top of the physical work, but preferable, the study could frustrate him but it never rubbed at his spinal cord, and he was stuck in limbo until he got their speech patterns down. Plus he fancied getting involved in a song or two at some point in the future.

Cain was placed on a new work order just as his confidence with the language had built up his courage enough to go out and possibly sing some with his fellows. Day started as ever, fire, drink, eat, and the other stuff, this time though Cain was given gloves instead of a pole, placed into a group of only three fellows. They were charged with processing the sea water that Cain had previously been made to collect. More dangerous work, hotter, more technical than the collection, less spine deforming, less cold, and less intensely supervised. So long as the group produced, roughly, the amount of salt they wanted the supervisors were content to chill and keep only a partial eye on proceedings. One of his fellows, Wilhelm, scooped up the, partially pre-evaporated, sea water into a narrow mouthed plain clay pot. Carefully he gave it to the third fellow who placed it in the fire and watched over it. At this point Cain and Wilhelm were stuck with nothing to do but wait, and so, with his slightly better grasp on the language, Cain chatted with Wilhelm.

Wilhelm asked Cain, “How long you been at this?” Cain replied, “Compared to some? An eye blink. How about you?” Wilhelm pointed to his beard, “Not the longest, not the shortest.” Cain scratched at his chin through his scarcely grown beard. Wilhelm told him, “This job, this right here, this is as close as it gets.” In unison they stared at the ground and sat in silence until Wilhelm added, “As close as we’ll ever know.” Wilhelm shrugged. More silence was added until Wilhelm asked, “Hey, you want to know how salt got into the sea in the first place?” Cain had no reason not to want that and so he nodded, “In the mountains there’s this giant, she’s upset. Why? Her rivers were the only gift she had to give to people, but people, back then, had all the water they could ever need already, the sea full of it. She had no reason to be, she left the mountain snivelling and dropping salted tears as she walked. When she got to the sea she looked at her reflection, to herself she looked so ugly, she only saw a useless old giant with an existence worth nothing. This made her cry even more fiercely and those were the tears that poisoned the waters of the sea. That act made people dependent on the rivers for drinking water, though that was never her intention. She went back to the mountain and cried no more. That’s the story I remember, from being young, the story we were given to be known.” Cain gave Wilhelm’s story some thought and then said to Wilhelm, “Getting here I went by some real big mountains, didn’t see a single giant.” Wilhelm replied, “Yes, of course you didn’t, this happened a long time in the past.” Cain gave his own version in response, “Here’s the thing,” Wilhelm clasped his hands together, “Ah, there’s always a thing.” Cain continued his response and ignored Wilhelm’s remark, “We eat salt, right? Goes in our body. Can’t stay in there forever, nothing can. When we die, when we piss, it goes back to the earth.” Wilhelm raised his hands, palms forward, “But the earth isn’t the sea, so?” Cain had not, actually, finished. “Sea’s really low, at least you never see the sea up in the air. So it’s like stones rolling down a hill, the salt collects there because that’s where everything has to go.” Wilhelm gave out a light-hearted chuckle, “Glorious and foul, all ends meet the sea. Perhaps, some of us, better for it.” A little more silence followed, then Cain started to ask Wilhelm, “How’d you end up-” Before Wilhelm deflected him, “These moons are cold, these days short. All thoughts are for warmth. Warm moons bring long days. All thoughts turn to sleep. Hope, in my eyes, is a day short under a moon that is warm.” With that the clay pot was ready and handed to Cain.

Through his gloves he could feel the warmth of the pot, it sizzled with positional uncertainty. Back and forth it breathed until Cain dug it into the ground for it to cool off. Cain watched Wilhelm scoop up more sea water and hand it over to be boiled as he waited for the pot to calm down. Wilhelm did not simply duck it in the vat, he took several glancing swipes at the surface and swirled each gulp around in the pot. Cain had no clear insight into what Wilhelm thought he would achieve with these actions. Perhaps the water at the top was the most saline? Perhaps the water objects to being bustled where salt takes that in its stride? After every swirl Wilhelm would poke an eye into the pot’s narrow entrance. Once he had got it full enough for his liking he would pour a tiny amount back into the vat over his palm, he then gave it a smell. With that done he handed the pot over to the fellow at the fire whilst taking extremely careful steps. Wilhelm came over to Cain and gave his pot a mighty whiff, “That’s as ripe as they come. Ready for the smash, hey?” Wilhelm then went round the opposite side of the fire and stretched his back, fingers, and arms. Cain took one glove off, he placed his ungloved hand, tentatively, near the pot. When he was satisfied that it would not scold him he placed it directly on the surface of the clay. Not amazingly hot, but hot enough that he still needed gloves to hold it. Cain put his glove back on to place the pot inside of a leather bag. Immediately he had to take both gloves off, as he made a little sigh, to tie a knot. He used a double knot to close up the bag with a piece of string. He tested his knot by holding the bag upside down, and the moment he did this he realised that it might not be a wholly wise decision, valuable grains could have escaped, which they did not, before he turned the bag the right side up again. Cain checked the floor, nope, nothing. Cain then checked the two other fellows, both were busy, one with the fire and one staring away. Cain checked for supervisors, none had direct line of sight. Cain tested his knot the proper way by trying to open the hole up in the bag with his fingers and feeling for resistance. Then came the best part, the big crunch. Cain put his gloves back on and picked up a specially chosen rock for the operation. If he held the rock up to his stomach it would have covered about three-quarters of the width and half the length. Was not a pretty rock, was intensely jagged, but it held a definite bulk that made it perfect for the job at hand. He lifted the rock above his head as he knelt, a great sacrifice, the bag a skull, the pot a brain with the juice inside, except the skull was the soft part, the brain hard, and the salt juiceless. He brought the rock down to line up his shot, then swung it up above his head and brought it down with all the repressed forces of our ever yearning hearts. A single crack sound. Cain put the rock down and groped the top of the bag, through it appeared a slight hole, possibly just a dent, in the pot. One swing would not be enough. The rock got heavier with every swing, he touched the bag again after the third, the pot had now become discrete parts within the bag. Cain used several smaller hits on the bag to finish it off. Gloves off, he picked the bag up and undid both the knots. He would now have to sift through small and medium fragments of pottery to leave behind the good stuff, he would do this one at a time as he inspected each for stowaway residues of salt. Even the suggestion of salt dust meant he had to brush every part of the fragment into the bag, a painstaking task. When even the smallest fragment had been inspected he ushered Wilhelm over to sweep his own eye over the job that he had done. Wilhelm said, “Not bad, for a first timer.” He took each fragment and washed them off in the sea water vat before throwing them into another leather bag.

Smashing and picking, that was it, that was his job for a decent two cycles. The same people did not work it each time, but he did work with Wilhelm on a few more occasions. Cain asked him, “You remember anyone leaving, erm, escaping?” Wilhelm answered, “Everyone is free to run. Those that do are never seen again. Maybe they escaped? There’s another possibility that is far more likely though. That’s what the people that picked you up are for, that’s why they go out there with their dogs. That’s why they give us these marks, can’t wash scars off in the river.”

One morning, a morning for a day that eroded salt into Cain’s mind, Cain was assigned to a third work order. Given a medium-sized cloth bag with a bundle of leg-length rope and marched off as a line in the opposite direction of the coast. Some song rang out on the way, Cain chirped along, happy to go with the melody. The contents of the song revolved around the grass being green, the sky being its cousin blue, and the mud sucking the grass down from the sky. Against the grain, Cain managed to enjoy himself, that is, oh, oh shit, until he saw it lurch and gape before him.

Their course headed straight towards the forest. Cain’s legs willed to stay with the line, however his feet had a different intent, they wanted to dig themselves into the frozen soil. Cain watched the first of them despatch themselves to the gloom, as he saw his fellows withdraw from the light Cain’s feet won, he sank to his knees, dropped his instruments and collapsed into a foetal position on the ground. The line marched on despite him, one of them whispered to him, “Get up, idiot.” But he could not. The supervisors spotted him, circled above, and dragged him out of the way of the procession. With the dull ends of their sticks they beat him as the dogs sounded off, they upgraded to exaggerated kicks into his curved arse and crooked upper back. They shouted at him, “Get up, idiot!” Cain stayed put until the pointed ends of their sticks came forth and laid pressure upon his neck and chest. On his feet he had the bag and rope slammed back into his hands, “Move!” Carved into his ear drums as a supervisor cracked a pointed finger towards the forest. He still could not obey. “You asked for it.” The bag and rope were snatched from him and a supervisor, along with his snarling dog, prodded Cain back towards the camp.

At camp Cain was made to pick up his blanket and then forced inside of a wicker casket that was not big enough for him to lay in and straighten his legs at the same time. The lid was closed and fastened, he tried it, tried to push against the walls, but that was fruitless, he settled down and lifted from the fog. His situation exposed itself, he began to cry whilst making sure not to sob. They left him in there long enough that he could not hold it any more, he fully pissed himself. That humiliation was then added to. Time flitted by without reference, but, at some point, he heard people gather and drops of liquid land on the wicker lid, this seeped through onto Cain. Laughter bled from the wicker walls. Cain closed his eyes and mouth as tight as he could, held his hand over his nose, that barely helped, piss soaked into his clothes and lingered the whole night. He eventually fell asleep there, hugging his blanket, covered in tears, piss, and fear.

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The wicker lid flung open and woke Cain up. He sheltered his eyes from the sunlight till an arm thrust at him and lifted him out by his collar. The men cackled as they wafted the air from their noses, “Boy, you stink.” One of them said. Two men prodded Cain through the camp and to a concealed complex of buildings that Cain had not witnessed hence. They went through a set of double doors into a wooden hall with a vast open ceiling and a busy fireplace warming the interior. They slung Cain down on to his knees and left the hall in haste.

As the double doors crashed closed two naked women entered from the opposite direction, their brown skin knitted to their flesh. Their buttocks splayed as they sat down, cross-legged, in front of the kneeling Cain. He tried not to recognise their presence, pressed his gaze to the slat slab floor. Another set of naked women entered who flanked a man dressed in bulbous red and orange, in a type of garb Cain was unfamiliar with, his hair, chin and scalp, punctured the air, his eyes shone out, unbordered, with a caress for the beyond and an allure for the depths. A wooden throne dominated one side of the hall, glistening amber coloured at its peak, but the man, Charlie, chose instead to grab a small, three-legged, wooden stool and sit on it in front of Cain. “What a waste it is to tie down sight when every note could be the first of none.” Charlie drew out a chuckled breath, “Unburden your sight.” Cain, hunched, did not trust this piece of advice, it took Charlie to joyously exclaim, “Look up!” For Cain to lift his head. Charlie waited for Cain’s eyes to venture towards one of the many naked breasts on display, “You like that?” Cain immediately flipped his eyes back down. Charlie hooked his finger under Cain’s chin and gently lifted his face, “Don’t feel shame. Nobody is denied from basking in sight here.” Charlie slapped the woman, the specific one Cain had spied, on her rear end which sent an echo wailing through the hall, “Just don’t touch or they’ll rip your hand off with their teeth.” The woman bit down towards Cain and laughed. “Sit.” Two women, the originals, stood up and fetched a similar stool to the one Charlie was parked on. They both grabbed Cain under his armpits and placed him on the stool, he was now at an equal height, face to face, with Charlie. “Some men grow prettier for their bruises.” Charlie stood and placed Cain’s hand on his crotch, to cup his genitals, and held it there. Some time went by and then Charlie announced his findings, “Nope, nothing.” Charlie let Cain’s arm flop back down as he sat on his stool. “Why’d they give you that tasty beating?” Cain looked at the floor and did not reply, “Look at me in my eyes.” Cain slid his face towards Charlie, “Now.” Charlie placed his hands on his thighs and leaned forward, “What did you do to displease them?”

“I,” Cain allowed himself to stutter, “I broke down.” Charlie ceased leaning but kept eye contact, “Why’d you break down?” Cain gave himself space to decide on which dice to roll, fiction or fact, he chose neither, “I don’t know.” Charlie clattered forward and stood up on his stool, he proclaimed, to the empty parts of the hall, “Come world, come and see, your holiest creature, the one that doesn’t know!” Charlie fixed his collar and sat back down, “Start knowing.” Charlie locked eyes with Cain even more intensely than before, “Let’s begin anew, shall we? Why did you break down?” Cain tweaked his left eyebrow, “They ordered us into the forest, and I couldn’t.” Cain almost finished there but then added, “Because I was afraid.” Charlie patted Cain on the knee, “There, there. I can feel your pain. So, where’d the fear come from?” Cain clicked his jaw side to side, “It’s a long story.” Charlie clicked his fingers, “Hurry up with it then.”

“Back at the settlement, the settlement I grew up in, there was this man set apart from the normal affairs of the community.” Charlie placed his fingertips on his chest and interrupted, “Like me?” Cain gave off a murmur and said, “Sort of,” Cain scratched at his scalp, “He offered me the world, a route out of the humdrum, on a single condition, a calf had to go with me.” Charlie posed his thinking face as Cain continued, “I went with it, took the bargain.” Cain’s voice cracked on him a fraction, “And it didn’t,” Cain cleared his throat, “It wasn’t my best decision.” Charlie stroked his beard and rolled his wrist at Cain, “You need to paint me more of a picture, make me feel something.” Cain strained his jaw into his cheek, “This animal was bad at travelling, couldn’t walk very far without a rest, but I was determined to make it my companion, everyone needs a companion when they take to the world. Anyway, besides that, I had the idea of being a hunter, a man from the stories, like everyone wants that, right?” Charlie did not answer, “I went to the forest,” Tears bayed behind Cain’s eyes and he instinctively looked at the floor, “Look at me!” Swollen eyes came back to Charlie, “The calf was so new to life, weaned but fresh. Had this joy that all things ready to exist have when they unfold their own being. A beautiful clumsiness, a glorious trusting soul. I endangered that. I took it for nought, and for what? Happiness? A stranger that comes and goes by a reason all its own. Greatness? Birth dictates the great, and they live half the life that their legends tell. Pleasure? Righteousness? Vengeance? Truth? None of that revealed itself to me when I watched the wolves rip its little body apart. That’s what waits in the forest, more terrible than any group of men with sticks. Would’ve ripped me up too if it wasn’t for that calf, it saved me that fate. Because of that I can’t go back. Pull every tree there down if I could, start everything from scratch.”

Charlie got up, turned away. Cain took the opportunity to give his eyes a well-deserved series of blinks. Charlie swivelled, put his face right in Cain’s, and laughed a jagged laugh that seemed as much forced as it did genuine. Charlie backed off and sat down, “That has to be the most profoundly stupid thing I’ve ever heard. Hilarious. Brilliant work.” Charlie whispered into an ear of one of the naked women which made them leave the hall. They came back with a white hat, in the shape of the teat of an old nurse dog, and placed it on Cain’s head. She spoke to Cain, “You get up, you dance.” Cain questioned her, “Right here?” She replied, “Err, yes. Where else?” Cain got up but stood still until she shook him out of it when she shouted, “Quickly!” He pumped his arms up and down and bounced his right leg out of rhythm with his arms. Charlie blurted out three distinct words, “No,” And, “Stop,” And, “Sit.” Cain, relieved, obeyed. Another whisper and a second of the naked women disappeared. She came back with a clay jug full of liquid that she ordered Cain to drink. Similar in zest to a drink they would brew out of hazelnut, for funeral rites, back at the settlement, a similar affect too, a loose euphoria. As it took hold Cain wondered whether this would likewise be his funeral libation, but then Charlie ordered him, “Up,” And, “Dance,” Whilst he urged the women to clap. Cain’s dance came out much more instinctual, he swished his hands above his head, waved his rump with the claps. Charlie, finally satisfied, placed a hand on Cain’s shoulder and, with no pressure applied, made him sit back down on the stool.

Charlie left the hall with one of the naked women. She came back, on her own, with a white robe. The women lifted a sluggish Cain up off his stool and undressed him. Every bruise and cut they unveiled was poked at with the sharp point of their fingernails, this made Cain wince and them guffaw. When they did not poke they conferred, under their breath, about Cain’s aroma. Fully undressed one of them tickled Cain’s ball sack and patted the head of his penis. Cain got hard, this, desired effect, threw the entire lot of them into rapturous, thigh-slapping, fits of laughter. With their delight settled they dressed Cain in the white robes and put his white hat back on. They stared at him, like an ornament, until Charlie came back.

Charlie held a large pole and sat on his throne, “Come,” Charlie waved Cain over and, when he got to him, instructed Cain, “Kneel.” Charlie put the pole, which, on closer inspection, appeared to be a four-pronged blunt weapon, up against Cain’s lips and told him, “Kiss.” The thing tasted bitter and sharp, familiar to the smell of the hooks, like licking a cut lip. After this the alcohol got a better grip on his senses. What happened? They cut his burgeoning beard off, the women did it to him outside and actually put some clothes on for it, they did a pretty awful job but nothing life threatening. Cain was given a place to sleep and a new, much less ripe, blanket to hug. He also got an introduction to his fellow white hat bearers. Cain slurred a couple of greetings towards them, other than that their travels around the sleeping room appeared like they were floating on the ceiling. The next morning he woke with a dry mouth and a throbbing headache.

The next season, not that he experienced the weather owing to his almost permanent indoor lifestyle, saw Cain get well and truly, wall-to-wall, plastered. A mandatory state for the daily performances. It was all done for Charlie’s sake, but even if he left early, or did not turn up at all, they still had to dance, still had to make music, and still had to put on their show. Several degrees less demoralising and exhausting than the productive labour, but, still, somewhere lurking in the same bushes. Initially six fellows made up the performances, one drummed, one used a rattle, one with an antler flute, and three dancers. Cain was one of the dancers, he would always mix it up, bounce some to the beat of the drum, shake it with the rattle, and flow with the flute. Each fellow had been taken from their home to work at the camp. Most of them plucked from the camp after one transgression or another. All of them had been there before Cain, none of them treated him different for being fresh.

One fellow performer, never content with anything anyone did or said, Baruch, had grown up not far off, up the coast somewhere near another river. He inquired if Cain had been near where he grew up one time, Cain had not, though Cain wished that he had ended up there instead. His story was, well, I will let him tell it to you himself, “Hunted birds for their feathers. Had a knack for it, not to brag, could hit them out the sky no problem. Others had to wait for it, catch them on a branch or pecking for worms, but I’d get them, you know, you have to predict where they’re going, hit the space for the line, or curve, they’re tracing and mind the wind. That’s, essentially, how it’s done. They’ll twist on you in flight, but hitting a wing is as good as hitting the heart. Another part of it, the other half, was knowing where they liked to hang about. Have to get into a bird’s head for that. You’d walk to where they might be, wait for them to announce themselves. Enjoyed it, I’d test my bow, make sure it was ready, take a look down my arrows, make sure they were tidy. Go out, completely on my own. Got into this funk though, a dry spell. Bringing back dead birds, that was my thing, got me down when I came back empty. Over the days I’d go farther and farther to try and score, that’s what did me in. Went to an area I didn’t know too well, an area I was specifically warned against going to. Didn’t listen, did I? Wasn’t so bad at first, caught a couple, felt really smart, but then these men with a dog came. They wanted a look at my weapon, it wasn’t a weapon, I didn’t use it against people, let them have a look anyway. They asked me questions about why I was out there, told them the truth, I was out looking for birds. They said they had feathers where they came from and would give me some. Was dubious, but what? Could have told them no, and that probably would’ve meant them just beating me up and dragging me back, saved them the bother. First days I only thought about being rescued. Any moment my people would arrive and save me. That didn’t happen. Settled into the place, not much else to do, and did their work. Noticed myself, over a season or so, getting progressively weaker, avoided eating because, well, you know, lost the sense of myself, who I was, if that makes sense? Was waiting for it, every day, waiting for the collapse and the beating. Was the fire that did it, working that close to the flame for all that time caused me to faint. They dragged me all the way to this place here, still have the scars on my back, and then, next thing I know, I’m drinking and blowing on a flute. There’s not many in this group, you see that? Lots of people that make mistakes and take beatings though. Only have to add those things up. We’re the few that tickled him. I heard, never seen it happen, that people who fail get taken round back. He watches his harpies stab them up in a frenzy and use a rock to split their head open. You know where their bodies end up? That ditch, isn’t it? The ditch everyone pisses and shits in. Could be worse though. If they get him going, get him hard, he’ll set them up and rape them. Only then, when he’s bored with them, do they get the mercy of being taken away and dumped in the ditch. Take this as a lesson, it’s always better to be funny than boring, a given, but the worst of it is always reserved for the beautiful, tell you that for nought. Only hope is that somewhere else this makes sense, because it don’t make sense where I’m standing. Whole thing’s fucked, and the whole world is a fucker for letting it happen, as demonstrated.”

Another fellow, Filippo, was part of the group without ever having taken a beating. He can speak for himself too, “We used to go outside. We put on a show for everyone. This place wasn’t so bad, people could come and go as they pleased, didn’t keep them as haggard and listless once upon a time. They’d cheer for our performances, clap and dance to our tunes before their slumber. Skies open to our music, clouds parted at the rhythm. But then, I don’t know, I guess things changed when they wanted to build this complex. Work was amplified, horizons snatched away. Some of that original group skipped out, a few of them, I imagine, because of luck, a few because they could see the fire circling. Some of us weren’t so smart or lucky, out of them I’m the last one standing. You’re not as safe in this pocket as you suppose, you’re safer, but you can still make mistakes here, you can still become absent. I don’t dwell on what happened to them, there’s rumours, none of them seen it actually happen though, nobody knows for certain. Maybe the drink got them, who can tell? Still, it’s nothing compared to those minds which labour. Up with the singular beat of that Sun. Forced to march, forced to starve, to boil away the sea as they boil away their lives. Salt, as good to them as it would be sprinkled across the night’s sky. Salt nought water, labour nought pleasure. We can only hope that their labour finds its way back to the sea, some day, perhaps?”

Filippo also talked about Charlie, “In his mind there’s no process, no pressure, we’re one big family. We’re his children, through him the suffering becomes whole, the squalor made clean. No matter what forces come, his legacy will be our purity. His values will be fused with ours. Once a fellow has been in our place long enough he likes to pour his words into them, as well as the drink. He can burden us with anything, what does he care? We have no influence, we’re removed, we’re comfortable. He’ll come for you, in his little relaxing chamber, embrace you to his bosom. You’ll want to be afraid, but you can’t, that would be taken as an insult. Can’t be too confident, you’ll look like a threat. He must be the centre of your attention lest he judge you disinterested. Listen closely to him. Speak with utter focus. Most importantly, be graced by the fortune that many of us lack.”

A naked woman came to their sleeping room as they were about to nod off, she stood, silent, as they all ignored her. Finally, finding her target, she snatched Cain from the room and took him to one like Filippo had described. A room replete with soft furnishings and fragrance burners, yellow drapes that flowed to the draft supplied to them by wooden slats high up on the wall. Charlie, wearing his usual loose, orange and red, clothing, sat like the tides to Cain’s entrance, a jug on the table next to him and another next to an empty seat that Cain was fastened to by the naked woman, who then left them alone. Charlie did not say anything at first, he motioned towards Cain for him to drink, Cain obliged. Charlie watched Cain sip until he let the goats out, “You keep it extra clean.” Cain smiled as warmly as he could, “Thank you.” Charlie replicated Cain’s expression, “Drink up. Don’t worry about me or my mumblings, drink as much as you want.” Charlie took on some drink and said, not mumbling one bit, “Our clothes,” Charlie let his hands wave across his torso, “They’re the outward facing memory of our actions. You must know that already, hey, come on, you worked that out, didn’t you?” Cain kept the jug tight to his lips and did not respond, “I have not got eyes that roam the whole world, just these two.” Charlie pointed two fingers to his eyes, “A being with two eyes fixed in his skull needs techniques to see more than he otherwise would, to make sure everyone is in their place. That’s how come I keep them naked, being clothed around me would give them ideas. That’s why I keep them sleeveless, sleeves would only submerge their power. That’s why you wear white, well, you already know that one, huh?” Cain played the same game from before, this time Charlie waited from him to finish, he kept the jug on his lips until it looked too ridiculous, Cain lowered the jug to his chest and stayed silent up to the point that Charlie raised his eyebrows, Cain spoke, “Children don’t need to know, they just need to do as they’re told.” Charlie swigged his drink before he replied, “Who said you were children?” Charlie ran his fingers through his hair, “I was like you, in that mode. Did what others instructed out of obedience, fear, weakness.” Cain froze and bit the jug’s lip between his teeth, he lowered it and said, “Fear or duty?” Charlie looked at his jug but did not pick it up, “You don’t need to ask questions.” Cain nodded with the jug tucked into his lap, “You know what, put it on the table, no more jugs, listen.” Cain put the jug back on the table next to him and put on a concerned expression, “Fear,” Charlie tapped his forefinger in the air and said, “Weakness. I created a family from strangers. I trod a path for humanity through darkness. Rumours, you will hear so much in your role, you especially, huh? We mete out the things given to us. You hear that rumour?” Cain told Charlie, “I don’t think so.” Charlie’s face went from relaxed to serious in an instant, “Think more. Lies sit like rocks, two arms are limited to what they can carry.” Charlie stroked his beard and pinched his fingers at the tip, “None of us are decent people, decent people wouldn’t be here, we are survivors. We witnessed their ways, knew the pattern, had it branded on our souls.” Charlie got up and lifted Cain’s arm, “Much better to be branded here,” He flicked his thumb over Cain’s scar and pointed to his chest with the same, “Than here.”

Charlie sat, drank a bit, held his jug as he spoke, “They offer peace when they come first time. Smile, eat your food, drink the water, bless the day. Those lot believed them, I watched elders huddle and do the rituals, their rituals. They were convinced that if they followed their spirits then they would be spared from their wrath. It didn’t spin that way. They, the pale ones that travel by beast, always make a follow up visit. I saw open arms welcome them, I saw them visit death to man and boy, slavery to woman and girl. They didn’t kill me though, they forgot me, I survived.” Charlie pointed to one of his eyes, “Should be seeing tears here, but do you see them? Some tears are too cold to flow. After they left I could have cowered, worse, I could have ran off in vain vengeance and tried to settle things in a bid to heal my wounds, I did neither. I found a young girl, who also survived, we were distant cousins, we became brother and sister when I lifted her from her hiding spot. She was so afraid, but that wasn’t going to help. I didn’t want to be afraid, I couldn’t afford to be afraid! I had a purpose, she saw that and the fear drained from her. We travelled together to a nearby settlement, they weren’t far behind us. The elders of that settlement didn’t believe me, but some of them did. They went against tradition to stand there with me, and I knew the pattern. After the initial visit we withdrew. When the second of them hit, we hit back.” Charlie slammed his fist on one of the soft furnishings and exclaimed, “We knew their pattern!” Cain tried his best not to show it, but Charlie’s sudden movement had startled him, he was relieved when it merely caused Charlie to laugh and roll on, “We were ready for them, they thought they’d found another cunt, but what they found was a snare. Cut them up. Exposed their innards to the wind. Ate their beasts, delicious, drowned ourselves in the liquid from their carts.” Charlie lifted his jug, “This liquid.” Cain, likewise, lifted his own jug whilst he made sure his expression was the correct fusion of mournful and joyful to show that he had listened and that he cared. “That’s the pit where this family was forged, where I learnt what I would become. I was their Father, the embodiment of Him on this soil.” Charlie got up and turned his back on Cain, he gazed out the wooden slats to the night sky and continued, “We didn’t wait for them any more, no more snare, we went after them. Took no captives, fucked any one we felt like fucking. How does that sound?” Cain lurched as he tried to project his voice round towards where Charlie stood, “Sounds very, erm,” Cain spoke the last word as if he was leaping towards it, “Heroic.” Charlie gave Cain another interpretation, “Sounds like fluid motion through the shit.” Cain could not help himself, “Definitely, yes, that as well.” Charlie did not recognise Cain’s attempt to flatter, “They got this dark woman pregnant, one of us and one of them combined in her bulge. She pleaded, she wanted us to at least let the child live, that wasn’t possible. Some seeds are more rotten alive. Sisters set about her, probably took more stabs than a whole unit of pales.” Charlie turned towards Cain, “She chose debasement, that’s nobody’s fault but hers.” Charlie took some time to sit back down and drink before he said, “I don’t hate, I judge. We do not kill, we erase. That right there is a base to build on, the only way to keep up above the soil.” Charlie flicked his right hand towards Cain, “You want to leave?” This question twisted itself through Cain’s blood, “I don’t have anywhere I need to be, but if you want me to?” Charlie answered curtly, “Yes.” Cain, with a little hesitation, left the room and met up with his escort outside. He went back to the sleeping room and laid down on his bedding thinking about all the stupid things he had spluttered.

“You erased weakness.” Cain had been asked to recount to Charlie what they had discussed in the first session in this second session. Charlie gave Cain encouragement in the form of an interested, “Go on.” Accompanied by him crossing his legs. Cain continued, “You trapped them in a snare that they thought was something else. Caught them in their own, erm, pattern, erm,” Cain itched his nose, “You had to,” He scrunched his eyebrows, “You had to survive.” Charlie cut him off, “It’s important you soak in this, make it as if it had happened to you. It didn’t happen to me, remember, it happened to the entirety, and you are, at least part, entirety. If I die, if I can die, I will need somebody ready to grasp this flame. You could be that vessel, the soul that it chooses to carry this weight.” Charlie scrutinised Cain’s blank response, “What? What other candidates are there? Think the brutes out there, master or slave, can replicate, maybe even transcend, the heights we have become?” Charlie motioned around him, “They got their fix on the plain, firmly set in their environment. You think a sister could rise to the Father? That’s not a natural state, that’s not how their beautifully feral minds work.” Cain still refused to hand over a reaction, “Don’t you want this?” Charlie raised his eyebrows, widened his eyes, and placed both feet on the floor, “You think I’m lying to you?” Cain trickled out a response, “Hopefully, like you say, with all good intentions provided, and for the welfare of humanity, you are incapable of death.” Charlie pushed on his lower lip, “Clean clothes, aren’t you? Sly, isn’t it? Interesting. Ready to soak in more?” Cain was not ready, but that still did not matter.

“The Father lives in the sky, that’s what they told us. Up there somewhere,” Charlie pointed upwards, “You want to know why there’s suffering? Of course you do. It’s because there is none above. We all come here,” Charlie pointed down, “To enjoy what is denied above. Whether you know it or not we all make that choice to come here and spoil ourselves in depravity. There is no innocent, this is something you need to feel in your bones in order to embody the Father. Now, come on son, why would I let you know that if I were lying to you about your future?” Cain scratched his scalp just above his ear as Charlie continued, “The Father must recognise these dynamics. He must lead the hidden, govern the silent, set the rules, draw salt from the sea. He must choose to do these things, but, more importantly, he must see, divinely and without prejudice, that He has chosen this path.” Charlie paused to give Cain a chance to comment, nothing came forth so he kept going, “They had this trick when they first came to lure us in. They’d put these different coloured crystals in front of the fire, blue and yellow, and they’d tell us that they could show us the reality of our minds. They’d overlap the two and they’d show us green, you know what that means?” Charlie emphasised that he wanted a response from Cain, “Do you know?” Cain gave it his best shot, “Fire. It’s the fire inside of us that interprets the world. Fire that is our best friend, but if you get too close it can be your worst enemy.” Charlie glanced to the side to revivify himself and then came back to Cain’s world, “What happens in the mind is pattern. You have the pattern you have the world. You have the world as if it were in your hands smiling back. Fire doesn’t burn, no, the burning pattern makes a fire.” Charlie drew a deep breath inside of himself, “We’re at the peak, sitting here, we’re loaning time. Too much action for the yellow to fit inside itself, too many thoughts for the capacity of the blue. I click my fingers and that’s another bit flying away, I love and that’s another weight added. Their war is coming our way, not today, soon. You know war?” Cain shook his head, he’d never come across that word before. Charlie sat up, “Because you’ve never witnessed it. You think of fighting as some skirmish over territory? A struggle for resources? Those things, the things you know, they are the actual being chipped at for the benefit of the imagined. But war seeks to destroy the imagined in favour of the actual becoming like their mind.” Charlie clasped his fingers together, “War is coming. Here and to every blade of grass you’ve scurried across. My body was born outside of war, my mind became the Father because of it. That’s what I was telling you last time, that’s what you were supposed to understand.” Charlie slumped back a tad, “We’re building a boat in this place, a boat that can traverse death. Make no mistake, these people, the pale ones, are death. Sure, they got arms, legs, faces, and they bleed, but their skin is one of the sick and dying. They are walking corpses. That’s the real war, life against death, a war between shades. The natural dark complexion of these lands versus the light skinned usurpers and their unholy beasts. But guess what? Guess what I have seen as the Father? They’re the ones that are going to win, initially that is. They’ll touch everyone here with their skin and evaporate them, everywhere except, that is, this family. They’ll find out. In the moment of their victory they’ll see what I have seen like it was an arrow hurtling towards their foreheads. They can’t live here without us, without what we know, without our darkness. Once everywhere, but this island, is destroyed they’ll come to us as seeds to the wind. They’ll recognise that our Father is theirs embodied. A new age will spark from that. Their snake in our garden will be our boat on their sea. It’s all coming about, you’ll see. It’s all coming about!”

For his fellows the thought of escape was the only spring that quenched their enclosure. Cain would try and steer conversations with them towards things Charlie had disclosed to him, but they would not have it. Privately, and they would never divulge this too vigorously, they considered anything Charlie had to say as mind games or as the rantings of a power-deranged homicidal maniac. Cain sympathised with that read, Charlie had, at the very least, been party to horrific acts of violence. However, and it was a however swimming with curses, that did not mean every statement he made should be treated as fictitious. Even a deranged plan with a grasp on some hint of the actual would be more effective than a rational plan with no way of climbing to the light. But, what? What did he expect? All of them had been selected for goofiness and neoteny. Escape could not be real to them, it was a dream, a method of coping. That dream crumbled with the arrival of a figure, later than they needed and earlier than they deserved, who selected himself.

He, John, made seven and became an extra drummer. John was cropped, like all of them, but he still managed to look scruffy. Maybe it was the last hints of hair, his eyebrows, which grew grey and wild off the top of his eyes? Maybe it was the unusual style he would play the drums with, the way he threw Cain’s dance routine off? Maybe it was because he was someone whose borders could not ever agree on where they ended? Everything apart from his eyes, they were like Charlie’s except for clipped straight at the edges. A stern expression followed him as a default, but he had a playful warmth that he could summon when the need arose. Probably was that twinkle that got him passage into the group.

Cain’s first interaction with John came after a row he’d got into with people that, “Stood less chance than wet leaves on the forest floor.” John had no qualms about treating Cain as his lackey from the very start, “Hey, fetch me some schnapps, would you?” Not those words exactly, an example of what was an alien word to Cain. Cain could not comprehend so as to fulfil John’s request. He got up and fetched it himself, he pointed to the jug and repeated the alien word, “Oh, I get it now.” John made a habit of it, he would throw strange words at Cain all the time, a “Goiz,” Or an, “Arratsalde,” To greet Cain at different parts of the day. He had picked alien words up travelling parts of the World Cain had only heard about in passing. Parts that had been mutilated by war, he already knew that word at least, in similar ways to what Charlie had described.

John was interested in Cain recounting what Charlie had said, he let Cain know, “Aye, you’re right, he’s probably not giving you a complete pack of lies.” John, as he put his drum back in storage, told Cain, “Cut my teeth in rhyming circumstances. Nothing enjoyable though, things we had to do. Part of the reason why I’m here now, how I got to know about this place.” Cain needed to know more, he nudged at John verbally as they walked down a hallway, “What happened to you? Who else knows about this place?” John stopped and took Cain’s arm and put it next to his own scarred arm, “See what we share here?” John let Cain’s arm go and undressed the top half of his robe, “Not much compared to this.” John showed off a scar that went from the side of his hip all the way up to near his nipple, it mangled most of the side of his torso, “Get cut like this, survive the bleed, then you have to deal with the fever. You’ll be dreaming of the slash in the midst of the sickness.” Cain, transfixed, went to touch the scar but John flipped his robe back on and gave Cain a wink, “Bet you’ve never witnessed the sort of blade that can do that. Bet you’ve never tasted metal.” John had to methodically repeat the last word before Cain remembered that he had tasted it, “Not the same thing son. That was copper you sucked on.” John repeated the word, “Cop-per.” for Cain’s benefit, “You must have had one sheltered childhood.” Cain wanted to dispute that, but he could not find the courage, instead he complained that this new metal thing sounded like putting clothes on goats. “Maybe with the metal you’ve interacted with, it’s more versatile than stone but it won’t hold as well under a lot of stress. But there are other metals, they can be elongated and still hold firm, strikes fear in people as much as it slices through faces. Ah, but, saying that, you’re not completely wrong. In a pinch you can still do work with the old stuff, maybe I’ll give you a demonstration some day.” John put his elbow in Cain’s ribs, “Ultimately it’s the man that makes the thrust, but,” John sighed, “Even the best of our thrusts can’t turn back the tide.”

Arthur was a fellow Cain never really got to know. Cain gave it a go, but Arthur was a terse speaker. His favoured answer to various questions would be, “Nothing.” Someone would be like, “What you up to?” And he’d reply like, “Nothing.” They’d ask, “What you eaten today?” And he’d go, “Nothing.” Then you’d ask him, “Hey, how are you?” And, yeah, he’d tell you, “Nothing.”

With his insertion into the group John had created a new source of debate. Cain tried to keep clear of this controversy. In theory Cain’s strategy should have seen him stand aloof and allow him to move arguments within the group towards more conciliatory conclusions. In reality both sides regarded him as taking their side. As they bundled on John and clung to the futility of passive resistance, Cain clung too, he clung to the mirage of his own abstraction, “Maybe action would make things worse?” Cain’s questioning tone satisfied his needs, but it gave John a constant springboard to counterpoint. “How much worse can things really get?” Meanwhile, alone with John, Cain would freely gift him insight into Charlie’s mind which gave John the impression that Cain wanted to be an integral part of his revolt. Things settled into this routine and, much to Cain’s relief, it seemed as if it would last like that forever. However Arthur changed things. Not by valiantly clasping to John’s conspiracy, but by his sudden absence.

Arthur went to one of his sessions with Charlie and never came back. Nothing changed straight away, the group imagined he was occupied elsewhere. “Oh, he’s probably off doing various tasks,” Someone would say, “He’ll be sweeping up somewhere,” Or, “He’s just doing some private errand at the camp.” Regular stuff like that. But his absence grew with time and, with that, so did John’s support. Cain watched as his fellows, who knew this could happen, it was them who had told him the rumours, woke up. When the last hand reached out to John they were unified. At togetherness plans could be made. At solidarity targets could be set, and a day fused.

Two visions, two arrows hitting each other in flight mid-air. Cain was shaken awake early, it was still solid dark as he was handed a flint knife by, an overly calm, John. Three of them, led by John, had sneaked out and raided the arsenal at the complex, broken open locks with flutes and drum sticks. John instructed Cain when he handed the knife to him, “It’s no longer alien, it’s an extension of your arm.” They bundled out their sleeping room, in the hallway Cain had to step over a dead guard that had bruises on his head and a face that had turned bright red and strained. His face sickened Cain, wondering where that guard was now sickened him further. They went through the hallway until they reached the entrance to the hall. Cain was ordered to stand by the entrance and cover their backs as the bulk infiltrated. John told him, “Don’t get caught alive.” There were multiple occasions where Cain was tempted to go inside and join them, but then he would hear a massive set of screams emanate from the hollow which focused him back on his personal objective. At one point the door to the hallway thudded on its hinges which sent an urge of surrender trickle down Cain’s spine. Cain stood firm until the hall fell completely silent, so silent that it withered him, but then cheers rang out and John burst through the door. His robes were splattered with blood as he ushered Cain through, congratulated him, and said to him, “Behold the bounty of our righteousness.” John went to the centre of the hall and addressed the group, “They had greater numbers, but what are numbers worth that would sooner run than face the fight?” The group cheered and one of the men slapped a red handprint on the back of Cain’s white robe. Where the spectacle had been the dead lay. A few of the sleeveless and one of the naked collapsed about the hall like spent dice. John inspected everyone for injuries, none of them had suffered anything too bad, especially Cain. John proclaimed, “Now enjoyment. Now the hunt.”

The group split, each man given orders, “Stab first, stab deep, take note only of his screams.” Cain was in a detachment of three that searched the rear stores. That detachment split at the stores to search each one individually. Cain found him, he found him cowering behind sacks of salt.

A sense of relief splintered off of the terror and disgust, but mostly it divided out of the previous humiliation. The humiliation of being his dancing livestock, of being his counsellor, of being his dutiful role performer. Cain tightened his grip on the shaft of his knife. He had every intention of ripping a hole in the Universe, a fascination towards whether blood would spill from Charlie’s body or from his knife. He looked down at him, Charlie lay there mute, his hair and fine clothing doused in the muck of his hiding spot, his eyes had lost their final leash on his own trick. Cain, weak, needed Charlie to resist, fight back or run, but he did neither. He just laid there. Cain was prepared to kill a monster, waited, his whole life, to kill a beast. But this empty and defeated thing? Cain leaned down and picked up a small bag of salt that covered part of Charlie’s thigh, he wanted a response, Charlie did not flinch, he was more frozen than the dead. Cain put the knife and bag of salt in his left hand, with his right he picked up one of Charlie’s discarded slippers, he brought that slipper down on Charlie’s cheek as if it were a drum to be played. Charlie gave out a constricted yelp and held his cheek. Cain waited over him, waited for something more, some sort of colour to escape Charlie’s mouth, nothing was offered to him. Cain bumped into one of the other men as he left that store room, “You find it?” Cain closed the door behind him with a hand that also carried the bag of salt, “Nothing.” The third man of their detachment shouted to them, “Come!” They both followed him through the complex.

In the hall people had lit fires, took bundles of dry straw and set them alight in the grand fireplace. One of them handed a torch to Cain, “Light it up.” Cain placed his torch to one of the wooden beams and held it there until it caught. When that was done all of them exited through the double doors.

Out in the open air, as dawn creaked open night’s lid, the whole group gathered, joined by a few more bodies that John had rustled to their cause. John lifted his knife to the sky, as the fires crackled, and spoke, “From here battle begins!” John gazed upon his men and cried, “For Arthur!” Everyone lifted their knives and cried, likewise, “For Arthur!” They marched off to meet the remnants of the guards that had fled to rally at the camp. Cain did not join them, John looked back at him, he told the group that marched forwards, “I’ll catch up. Don’t attack before I get there.” He got close to Cain and talked at a hush, “I thought you’d be the one leading the charge.” John rested his forearm on the top of his head, “You told me, you told me yourself, what they did to you. And I know that you risked death to feed me information.” Cain pondered John’s bloodied robe and his own, from the front, slightly dusty one. He let John know, “They’re going to be waiting for us this time.” John put his hand down on Cain’s shoulder, “Lots of men will be waiting for us, not all of them against us.” Cain clicked his knuckles and John withdrew his hand, John spoke a little louder, “I thought you understood. Escape, out there, was the one thing keeping these men locked up.” Cain made it brief, “I don’t want to die.” John was running out of time, he walked away from Cain and looked over his shoulder as he said, “Fine. You’ll carry the weight of witness. I hope that you find somewhere comfortable to die, I truly do. Far from terror.” Those were his last words to Cain before he ran off in the direction of the camp. Cain dropped his knife and bolted in the opposite direction with his bag of salt, in the direction that the Sun uses to lug itself across the sky.