text: The Archipelago publishes every Wednesday. See the pinned comment for links to the contents. \ I threw up again twice that night. By the third time, I was dry heaving, my body trying to squeeze every last piece of food out of my system, wrapping my guts up in knots like a wrung cloth. Nothing would be left. My throat burned, my mouth tasted of bile and with every inhale, my sinuses filled with the stench of my own insides. The dropped carcass and the spew were only a metre from me, but I couldn’t move. Moving hurt. I just closed my eyes, faced away from it, and tried to ignore the revulsion. Flies landed on me, sucking on my sweat for a light snack as they looked down at the offering like kings from a cliff. What a waste that kill was. I had murdered a gull only for it to end up as hurled-up chunks and discarded sinew on the stones. The next day, as the knives in my stomach began to dissolve, I found the energy to move, albeit slow and ragged. The gagging had cleared me of fluids and I was aware of the risk of dehydration. With the waters from the last storm dried up, I’d have to resort to blood for my liquid. I looked down at the flies swarming around yesterday’s meal. I couldn’t eat that. One hand clutching to my stomach, the other dragging the bird along the floor, I walked over to my usual spot. I tried to think of some other choice than to try this madness again, to keep eating raw, gamey gull - hoping I held it down - until by some miracle someone arrived to rescue me. But I was out of options. This was it. This was my last hope, my last stand. I placed the bird down and hobbled back to my spot, nestling down into my position one knee at a time. Lying down again, it was difficult to stay conscious. I could feel the blood pool in the bottom of my body, weighing me down, my back feeling cold and numb. My breath still tasted of the retching from last night, and each inhalation made me dizzy. Luckily the gulls seemed more attracted by day-old raw meat than any other bait, and soon the first one descended to the ground, and inched closer to the enticing meal. I waited, going through the motions, letting them pick once or twice at the meat before swinging the club as hard as I could. But my arms were tired, my timing off. The great lever merely prodded the bird. It was enough to push it over, but not stun it. I rose to my feet, seething as my stomach found a stray knife still remaining, and limped forward. The gull looked at me confused, then turned, and flew away. It wasn’t even close. It wasn’t till the fourth attempt that I even got a good hit. I pushed myself up to my feet, but the lethargy in my legs remained, the muscles were empty, and I languidly faltered to the bird as it flew away, barely sensing the danger. Again, and again, and again I tried. But with each attempt, as each bird stretched its wings and took flight, I could feel my body growing wearier. It was futile. And by the end of the day, I began to wonder if the birds even saw me as a threat. They would look at me, seemingly weighing up which of us was the predator and which of us was the prey. Maybe it wasn’t just the bait that drew them down, but my own decay. They were waiting. The next day I was too weak to even try and hunt. I shuffled through the forest, my spine hunched, lacking the strength to overcome gravity. I picked what berries I could find, before eating them with more fury, gulping the insipid beads down in handfuls. Who even knew if they were toxic? It didn’t matter. The island was tiny, I had to squeeze every gram of life out of it that I could. And I was running out. -------------------------------------- I had lost track of how long I had been stranded. About four weeks was my estimate. Slowly, I could feel the malnutrition and the dehydration taking effect. My skin felt dry, and dead, like it was no longer a part of me, as though I was a skeleton wrapped in cloth for dignity. Even at the height of the afternoon, when the bright sun could bring warmth to the stones beneath me, I shivered. My heart beat slowed, awaiting a hibernation it would never wake from. When I walked, the world spun, and I struggled to decipher between the trees and the sky and the land and the sea. Everything was a blur, indistinct shapes that took time to settle in categorization. My stomach didn’t ache anymore. Aching cost energy. I just felt dry. My mouth empty of saliva, my eyes crusted with dirt, and the inside of my nose scratched with every breath. As I stumbled along the coastline, hoping desperately for food or water, I found myself looking at the sea. I knew I couldn’t drink. It was the kind of fact drilled into you as a kid, and never forgotten. Yet the lapping waters, the small flickers of droplets teased me like a siren. My mind was slowly slipping. I was on the beach, thinking of the water, imagining its taste on my lips, and before I even realised, I was stepping into the ocean. The water washed around my ankles. It was cold. Icy cold. Yet it felt wet. Gloriously wet. I sucked, guzzling air. No. That didn’t work. There was no hydration there. But my shins. They felt the relief. Maybe I didn’t need to drink, I could simply hydrate through the skin. I sat down, the ocean pooling over my thighs and hips, as I began shovelling handfuls of water over my arms and my face. I could feel the liquid soak into me. The hairs on my arms prickled with life like a germinating plant. A desert fresh with life again. It took a few minutes for the reality, the stupidity, the suicide to catch up to me. I stumbled back to the shore, already knowing it was too late. Soon the sun set, and a frosty autumn breeze blew up cold sea air onto the beach, turning the salt water in my pores to frost. My shivers were more like convulsions. My jaw spasmed rather than my teeth chattered. I wanted to sleep, but maybe the urge to close my eyes was more than tiredness. Maybe this was something else. Now, I battled against the instinct I had spent most nights on this island craving. I had to stay awake. Or else I may not get another chance. I began reciting stories from my past, talking myself through good times. I told old jokes, and forced myself to laugh, hoping the grinning muscles and chuckling would force vitality. My mind rolled through happy memories. The song of Deer Drum. Lachlann and his guitar as the whole ship sang with him; sometimes out of tune, often out of time, always full of spirit. My friends, come along. Don’t you hear the fond song? The sweet notes where the nightingale flows? For to hear the fond tale of the sweet nightingale, I sang the words to myself until I could see myself back on that boat. I floated over the seas, over time, and sat with my friends singing the refrain. As she sings in the valley below, As she sings in the valley below. I continued to float as the music continued. I was still singing, but the voice was outside of myself. As though I was singing to me, rather than from me. A disembodied vocalist serenading my body through the skies. My trav’lers don’t fail, for I’ll carry your pail, Safe home to a harbour we’ll go. You shall hear the fond tale of the sweet nightingale I find myself looking at Kadear. Back before it became Pomafauc, before I left. The Citadel was fully pristine again, how I had known it growing up, before the truth had collapsed it as fraud. I saw the residents, those who had worked hardest, enjoying the fruits of their labours. Two children in white shirts chased each other on clipped grass, as parents watched on, her arm wrapped around his. Elsewhere, a man painted. A swirl of greens and browns representative of a nearby tree slowly filled the blank white canvas. He looked free. There was no pressure to each dab of the brush, just expression. As she sings in the valley below, As she sings in the valley below. Then, among them, I saw Thomas. I was on the ground now. He saw me and walked towards me. “How’s the Archipelago?” He asked. “Found out what caused it yet?” I ignored the question. It didn’t matter. “I’m sorry.” “What for?” he asked. As his brow narrowed in confusion, there was the flash of red lines across his neck, deep purple bruises from the rope. They disappeared as he smiled again. “So tell me, what’s the best thing you’ve seen?” “I wish... I wish I could’ve saved you. I’m so sorry.” Those purple bruises returned again. “Don’t be. I made the decisions I made. I could’ve apologised and recanted and survived.” “Yet you didn’t.” “Like I said. Faint faith is better than a strong heresy. Better to win with your heart, than survive but lose in here.” He pointed to his chest. “You never knew you were right.” The words were hard to say, and they choked at the back of my throat. “We all end in ignorance. All of us. We will all never know what comes after we’re gone. We can only try to give those left behind the best chance.” “You did that,” I smiled. The bruises faded again. “So tell me, what was the best thing in the Archipelago?” “You want to tell him?” I heard the voice behind me. Soft, gentle and feminine. I could sense the wet dripping of her hair. But I didn’t turn around. Instead I thought back to Deer Drum. Alessia insisted we save the islanders. So we bought them a boat, and taught them to sail. I remembered when we first left. My feet were planted on the deck. It was a calm day, and I could feel a light breeze from the west push my hair forwards. Eir was there, steering the ship. Alessia stood calmly beside her, teaching her how to get a feel for the wheel in her hands, how to sense what the wind and the tides were saying. Ahead, I could see Xander playing with Novak and Mirai. Kurbani stood to the, her arms resting on her thighs, bent over in laughter.. “This is how I remember them all too.” Lachlann appeared next to me. “My friends, happy with an ocean breeze.” He held the guitar in his arms. They didn’t move, but the melody played anyway. \*That\* melody. I, that other me, that disembodied me, sang along. The present me spoke. “We never heard your last verse.” “Some things don’t get resolved.” He replied. “Sometimes, things end prematurely.” I still think of my home, where I’d lands of my own. The spirit of Deer Drum’s hard as stone, We will hear the fond tale, of the sweet nightingale “It deserved a better end... a longer end. It never should have finished when it did.” He chuckled. “It’s almost like you’re not talking about the song.” In a moment the sky turned black, and the seas swelled as the left side of his face became a gaping wound. His skull was crushed in, and his eye hung loose from his socket. My throat tightened, and my stomach sank. “Too many stories ended too soon.” On the ship behind Lachlann I could see the boy from Outer Fastanet, the pirates from the beach, Marshall on Aila Flagstones, Rory on Granite Vorhorn. “If they were too soon, when were they meant to end?” Lachlann asked, the broken face contorting as he spoke. “Longer. Just longer. Can’t I keep yours going?” “Only in your mind.” He smiled, loose tendons hanging from the jawbone “I’m not there for it.” My eyes looked down, avoiding the sight. “What point does that serve?” “Because if you keep that love alive, then maybe you can pass it onto the next person. If we take our love for the dead, and pass it onto the living, maybe we can build a better Archipelago.” I looked back up. A blue sky was restored along with his face. The old ghosts, too, had gone with the storm. “Why am I here? What do you need?” “Oh, I don’t need anything. I can’t. I’m not around to need.” As he spoke, his face briefly transformed to a concave bloody mess, before it flashed to skin again. “This is for you, not for me. You are. I am not.” “Then what do I need?” It was Thomas, in Lachlann’s place, that replied. “To know that even if the final thoughts were horror, my mind held more good memories than bad. Good memories given by you.” I blinked. Lachlann returned. “To know that life is for the living. That there is nothing you can do for me now. You have to do what is best for you and those still around to experience what you have to give.” As she sings in the valley below, As she sings in the valley below. “Goodbye then.” I said, a bittersweet smile crossing my lips. His face turned sour. “Just be sure to say goodbye to everyone.” I could feel a sensation behind me. Cold, cold water. I could hear the sea trickle off long damp hair. “I’m not saying goodbye to her.” I planted my feet and tensed my shoulders. The guitar vanished as Lachlann began marching towards me. “You have to.” “No I don’t. Because that hasn’t happened.” “You saw it, Ferdinand.” He placed his arms on my shoulder and began trying to usher me round. Wet footprints slapped against the deck. The wind grew to a gale, and the sky blackened again. “I’m not turning.” “You have to face things, Ferdinand. Your own fears. Your own loss.” Lachlann bared his teeth as he tightened his grip. “Turn to face it. Face your own thoughts.” He wrestled me as my arms flinched to keep him off. “These are your conclusions, Ferdinand. You came to this thought. I’m not here to turn you. You are. Face your failure.” He jolted me hard, and my feet gave way. I wheeled around, falling, and screamed. “NO!” I was on the beach again. Lying down. The sea was slowly cascading onto the shore in dull, delayed tones. The splash of the waves morphed with the drag of the sand back out to sea. My breathing was slow. Too slow. My eyes were struggling to focus, and as the evening light glanced off the sea, it became a white slate, stretching off to the horizon. “I’m dying. I’m dying, and I don’t want to.” “It’s okay,” came the voice. The stones beneath my head became a lap. Black denim jeans, clogged with water. Soft and cool. “I’m here.” “You’re not here. You can’t be here.” I shook my head. “Why not?” I looked up at Alessia’s face above me. Droplets from her hair fell down and landed on my skin. “Because you’re alive.” “The living don’t tend to have ghosts.” I felt like a dagger had been driven through my chest. Alessia saw my face squirm, and placed a hand on my head, running her fingers through my hair. “Are you...” I stopped. I didn’t want to finish the sentence. “Are you dead? Did you die?” “What do you want to believe?” “That you’re okay. That even as I die here, you’re out there, sailing.” A breeze blew her hair back, revealing the same calm face she had when she was at the helm of her ship. “Then let’s choose to believe that.” “But what’s the truth?” My voice was thin and raspy, struggling to contain the bitter confusion it held. “You know neither of us know that. Let’s focus on you for now.” I could feel my heart rate slow a little more. “I don’t want to be alone. Not now.” “You’re not. I’m here.” “I tried. I tried to survive here. I wasn’t strong enough.” My limbs felt numb with the cold. Her fingers played with tussle of my hair. “We’re all only as strong as those around us.” “I needed you.” My tear ducts squeezed a tear from the corner of my eye, and it tracked down my cheek. “I know.” I turned to face the ocean again. “I love you.” “Its okay. Close your eyes.” I blinked, the eyelids staying shut for a couple of seconds before I found the strength to open them. “I wish I could’ve told you. I wish I could tell you I loved you. How you made me feel.” “I’m sorry you can’t.” I felt her hand running across my head in soft pets until I no longer felt those either. “I don’t want to die not telling you.” My eyes blinked again, more time passed before they opened. “It’s okay. I’m here now.” My eyes closed. In the darkness, the music began again. At first it was my own voice, accompanying Lachlann’s guitar. But as the verses transitioned the guitar stopped, and my own voice faded to silence. Then, in the emptiness, I could hear other voices. Ones I recognized, but couldn’t place. \*Pray sit yourself down, with me on the ground,\* \*On this bank where sweet primroses grow,\* \*You shall hear the fond tale,of the sweet nightingale.\* I felt myself being lifted up from the ground, carried into the sky. \*As she sings in the valley below,\* \*As she sings in the valley below.\* Then everything faded. For time, there was nothing. Then my eyes flicked open. I blinked, the pupils shocked by light. I cracked them open again. I fluttered. Between each flick of my eyelids, I could see a bit more detail of my hazy surroundings. Old nerve endings returned to life. There was something beneath me. Not stone. But fabric. A bed. Slowly, focus came. There were walls, wooden panelling on all four sides. Footsteps scurried away followed by a young woman’s voice. One I recognized. “Mum! Dad! He’s awake!” I closed my eyes and squinted hard, clearing the mist from my vision. When I opened them, I saw three faces at the foot of my bed. Mirai to my right. And to the left, Xander and Kurbani, smiling down at me. \ The Archipelago publishes every Wednesday. See the pinned comment for links to the contents.