Oslo and Moore

Within the watery world at a depth which penetrated little of any light stood therein brothers alike, not of blood, mucous creatures Oslo and Moore; two skulkers about the nighttime seafloor who journeyed west as their town’s women, children, and men began their midnight rest.

They carried with them bright algae lanterns that lit the valley town and burned the black static of the ocean floor. As they walked they saw their footsteps get swallowed by the darkness and looked toward the town, which, at this distance, became a pale green dot that shimmered in an aurora of muted tones that flickered in the movement of water. It was this pale dot that guided Moore home after the pair’s altercation that began when Moore questioned Oslo about his nightly habit of leaving the town, to which Oslo replied, citing the habit of his wandering soul to drift into the darkness and carry itself upwards from the ocean valley, to which he would then attempt to catch it.

Wandering soul?

Oslo had made that pair’s journey before and had done so every night for a month before Moore had followed him to the town’s outskirts. In an insomnia Oslo was carried out of his bed into the darkness during the ambrosial hours of the night and he walked into that outside abyss with nothing to guide him save the strain on his mucous limbs which tired tremendously on the uphill walk and signaled to him that he was headed in the right direction. He would walk as far as his body would take him in that terrible and continuous cold of the dark sea.

One journey he had travelled so far that, upon looking behind him, he had lost sight of the green dot that he would use to head back to the town; he saw nothing but the absence of light and heard nothing but the moans of water that trailed the ground and picked up sand which would cut deep lines into his body. These sands, he knew, were the remnant shells of dead men, women, and children who had lived a thousand years before him, whose carcasses were gnawed at by an eternal, waking water that had drowned them and left them restless. They collapsed from under him with each step he took forward, rearranging themselves to give the ocean floor a new face that was indifferent to the lives that it was composed of. Oslo was shell-less. He wondered how many of his kind had died and been lost before him whose names had been forgotten to the sea.

At the exact moment that Oslo thought of his own mortality he turned again to face uphill and felt his eyes adjust to a gray static that he had not seen before that was large and continuous in every direction in his line of sight. This gray film danced around with little movements that shimmered into lighter and darker tones the further he walked. It was then that a beam of light in the distance touched the ocean floor before him. Oslo was compelled by a great fear he felt within his body to walk towards that pure light.

He reached the light and stood before it for a while. In time he walked into that beam and his body was swallowed entirely. He collapsed and felt the senses that once connected him to this corporeal world leave him one-by-one and burn in that great warmth which dissolved his body in an ecstasy that felt as if he had laid down on the lap of God.

The light dimmed slowly until it disappeared and he felt himself come back to life. The cold water rushed in and oozed into his body, sending him into hypothermia which caused him to scrape his body on the sand that cut his flesh as he shivered. He felt his senses flow back into him and his eyes adjusted to notice a shimmer in the sky. Oslo had seen the ocean surface.

He saw the surface of the water become a film that swayed and broke itself down into little shapes that constantly swallowed themselves. Beyond the film Oslo saw a bush which contained inside it a color that he had never seen before. A thousand bright-green dots were bundled together and swayed in a heavy breeze that exposed something which he could not name. He saw the color red in the dark and light petals that hugged themselves tight and had, on their velvety beds, little clear crystals that had fallen asleep and glistened in a tremendous and bright mandala when light passed through them. Oslo, in his subconscious, was certain that he had never seen such a color and lost himself entirely in its discovery. He would be the only of his kind to ever see a rose bush.

He attempted to walk to and reach out for the rose but felt his body collapse from under him. He, then, became aware of the toll that his body had gone through on his journey. He crawled on his stomach back into that eternal darkness and, at some point, noticed the familiar mute-green dot which he followed, arriving back into his town. He crawled further, back into his house at a time when all the town’s people would start to wake. He stayed there in his bed, in his house, for seven days and seven nights in a mental paralysis. He refused to admit anyone inside, even Moore.

Moore had waited outside his house for seven days and caught Oslo leaving in the dead of night. He followed him, passing the town’s outskirts and asked about his nightly journeys. Moore felt sickened by the story he was told.

Moore challenged Oslo. He asked when Oslo had become so self-serving and entirely withdrawn from the activities and plights of his people, to which Oslo remained silent. That a man with a position in society had upon him dependents that required, by will or without, their active presence which could not be forgone in suit of individualistic pleasures. That he does so and behaves as such has shown in him, in that darkness and coldness and solitude, a deterioration of his mind of which he is entirely unaware of and controlled by. No, this cannot do.

I’ve felt this for some time.

These feelings, yes, dissolve in the time spent with good company on work that the townsfolk depend upon, and alone fester. What cryptic ways of speaking have begotten him, this about the soul or that upon God. No, Moore would not step one foot further into these desecrated and treacherous lands that have consumed and created a mania that he does not rightly recognize as his brothers.

I’ll walk alone.

Oslo walked further. Moore grabbed his shoulder and threw him to the floor, falling down in the process. They both writhed in the pain of sand ripping against their flesh as one brother would try to overpower the other. Oslo pushed Moore’s face into the ground and let out a terrible cry. Moore kicked his legs and threw a jab which landed under Oslo’s chin, causing him to choke and fall backwards. They both took time to stand upright. Moore went to grab Oslo’s head and struck his shoulder which then burst and a piece of flesh ripped apart from his body and fell to the ground, dissolving on impact into pieces which were carried away by the water. Moore leaped towards Oslo who struck Moore right under the eye. Moore fell unconscious and laid there, down on the floor, drifting a little as the water swayed; his eye floated around in his head’s membrane and swam freely around his face which had begun to swell.

Oslo stopped. He kneeled down and wept in silence. He sat there with Moore beside him, holding his body upright. After some hours had past Oslo stood up and took one last glance at Moore before walking upwards and into the light.

He reached a point where he once again saw the rose bush and began walking directly towards it. He reached the surface and paused to look behind himself, staring for a while into the static darkness. With a great fear in his body he crossed out from the water and onto the land. He walked on the sand which would get stuck to his body. He felt an immeasurable heat walking closer to that rose bush and he burned in that naked light which blinded his eyes and melted his senses until his limbs dissolved and he fell down to the ground. Oslo saw nothing but pure white. He stared into that light for what seemed to be an eternity. He no longer sensed any part of his body but had felt as if he had entered into the kingdom of heaven whose clean-white sky comforted him and whose land of new sights and pleasures he was laid upon. He laid there, facing that sky, stuck in a great paralysis of the body, unable to look around due to the immense fear that he would see something extraordinary. He laid there eternally.

Moore, in time, had awoken and regained his senses. He was entirely alone. He looked around and saw in the light of the algae lanterns the ground and surrounding area. The footsteps from their journey had been washed away by the water. Any trace of Oslo was gone.