If it ever was

In the far distance, the red clay walls of a city are barely visible atop an impossibly slender mountain - the base of which was completely consumed by waterfalls, giving the impression of an island floating in the sky. I can’t be sure, but there seems to be coloured light emitting from behind those city walls. Glowing just out of sight, creating a subtle kaleidoscope of greens and yellows and reds and blues. 

The landscape around the base of the mountain is flat, sandy desert. There are no roads or rivers. 

I lick my lips, parched, and scan for signs of life. A person or people, car or wagon, anything really. Any sign that - 

“Ah, you found it.” I nearly jump out of my skin as he grips my shoulder. 

“You scared me!”

“Forgive me, I’ll be more considerate next time I catch you trespassing. You shouldn’t be here.”

My cheeks burn and melt to the floor in the agonising pause, no more than a second, before he squeezes that wrinkled hand and we both turn back to gaze at the city floating above the desert.

“How long?” I ask. 

“To do what?”

“To get there, I guess. And how long to get from the base into the city.”

He laughs, the soft kind of laugh that doesn’t have anything to do with funny. 

“Infinity or zero, take your pick. If it ever was, it is no more.”

“How could it never be?” 

I lift the photograph, twist it back and forth, showing the proof in my hand. 

“Leave it, let’s go see your mother.”

“But papaw -”

“I said leave it.” 

¨

The grass is lush and tall, stretching away from us under the crystal blue sky. Birds flutter overhead, insects hum somewhere unseen. Ahead, barely visible at the far edge of the field, tiny blocks of grey stone peek through the swaying green grass. 

Slowly, slowly we draw near until finally the grass is tamed. Here, the stone monuments are clear, arranged in a sweeping grid atop the manicured lawn. We walk our usual path, down the middle, left, right - until we reach a distinct plot in the corner. 

Here the land is different than the rest, stripped bare and covered with red clay. And, rather than set on one end, my mother’s stone is set in the middle.

I stop a few feet away. My heart beats in my chest.

“Papaw…”

“Let’s sit and talk, boy, you and me.”

¨

That same night we pack our bags. Just in case, papaw says, but I know it’s a when and not an if. 

¨

“Did pa know?“

“Your ma didn’t even know, not really.” Papaw sat silent for a long time, turning this thought over and over in his mind. “No, she didn’t know - but she believed. Felt it in her heart, I reckon.”

¨

The way I remember it, in my own mind, what happened next happened next. But it wasn’t really that way, what happened next happened years later. Two, maybe three. 

It started on the news, just another sensational story. The government decided it was time to tell the public - let it out slowly, they thought, but once started it couldn’t be stopped. 

Made the conspiracy nutters look smart, of course, they had been right all along. Not that it made anyone treat those folks with any more respect than they did before. But, regular folks didn’t take the time to sort out details. Just flipped a switch, and the nuts became the new authorities. One big drop of truth was enough to swallow their whole view, I guess.

It doesn’t take long for shock, thrill, and awe to blend together and ferment into suspicion, terror, and anger. Couldn’t have been a month. 

When the National Biometric Defence Research Laboratory’s intranet was hacked, exposing their extensive database genealogical records, we knew it was time. 

¨

Funny how people look different, depending on how they look at you. Makes me wonder if they always looked that way, to someone else. 

There are no friendly faces on this road. Even the ones who help us along the way, if those folks do feel love or kinship it’s buried too deep to see, under blankets of suspicion and scarves of fear.

“Tell me Bill, where do you need to git to?” Papaw returns the man’s stony stare, he’s all granite except late at nights, when he thinks I sleep. 

“South. As far south as as we can git.”

“Have any money?” After a pause, the man’s face slowly turns from white to red. “Hate to ask. It’s just -“

“I understand. Not much, honest.”

“Not much to you might go a ways to people around here, jest sayin’.”

¨

It’s calmer here. I notice it right away, one foot on the dock, before we even speak to folks. Lighter somehow, not like the people are more ignorant than back home - they get the news just like anyone. More like they ain’t surprised by anything. 

We keep moving south, village to village. Papaw knows enough of the language, bits and pieces, to get us work. Small jobs keep us fed and we save enough and make friends enough to get moved a little further south every month or so. 

But I can see it in his eyes. Turning it over in his mind, over and over and over. We could stop, make this village our home. Or the next. Or maybe one a bit more to the west. 

Would we be safe here? There? For how long?

Papaw thinks and thinks on it, I can see he does, but he never says so. We keep moving. 

¨

I can see it now. It gathers like fog along the horizon. First a thin white line, eventually it grows into something more. 

Finally it towers above us. Our ship, which once felt impenetrable even on the roughest seas, is now tiny and fragile. 

We, the crew and the other passengers and papaw and I, hold our breath. 

Closer, closer. The bow of the ship bobs up and down, it chops closer and closer to the thick wall of ice. 

My knuckles throb, hands tight as fists around the railing. 

A wave rushes up and bursts, spraying an icy mist that shrouds our view. I reach out, on instinct, and grab the front of papaw’s shirt. 

When I look at him, his face is calm. 

“Papaw! We are going to hit -“

He nods his head forward, gently. 

When I look back, something glows through the mist. Like giant gems, beckoning us to continue, a kaleidoscope of greens and yellows and reds and blues.