Joan Groves - The Last Island

“Been a while, boss” Joe smiled.

Travis agreed.

“Yeah. It has, champ. Done it once, done it a thousand times. The sea don’t change. We don’t change.”

“Seems like yesterday that we were doin’ this for good and ill. Now, we are like this thing—old and not improved, but the best there ever was. Huh, boss?”

“Yep, the best there ever was. We are like this contraption—we ain’t pretty no more but we ain’t worn out, neither. Not like stuff and people of today, once and done. That ain’t the way of the ocean. It ain’t fancy and it ain’t never been worn out, neither.”

“When you are right, you are right, boss.” Joe was ready to assist.

With Joe’s assistance Travis got into his old atmospheric diving suit and helmet. Everything was checked, double-checked, and rechecked.

There is one thing about the sea and that is truth. If you are above the water, you are not on the water. If you are on the water, you are not in the water. The truth only comes with the immersion in the wet of baptism. The ocean’s truth is not the surface but the Deep.

Onto the platform Travis strode. He balanced himself on the platform, grasped the attached chains. With Joe working the winch that lowered the platform, down into the Deep he went—the weight with dumbness falling slowly and silently. The whoosh of his breath and the hammering of his heart were the only living sounds. The mechanism with its well-oiled and machined regularity of noise was extracted from the circumstance.

The light—clear, diffused, and with a glow—slowly evolved into a gray, then black syrup. The Deep chilled what had been his sun-warmed skin and slowly—standing on the platform—

he fell deeper and deeper. He was getting ever smaller. The air was being pushed from his ears; the air was being pushed from his lungs and entrails; the air, it seemed to him, was being pushed from his bones. He fell silently ever deeper into the truth of the Deep, the increasing compression on his body making it ever harder to breathe.

There was a time when he could have looked up and seen the truth of the ship’s bottom but that time and sight had passed. He was isolated and falling, the controlled drop taking him down in the dark of the isolated Deep. He knew that the weights would endure. He knew that the machine would endure. He knew that the ship would endure. He hoped that he would endure the Deep.

Just keep breathing!

This had always been the mantra that he chanted in the Deep, the mantra of all divers. In good times, in bad times, when calm, when excited—just keep breathing and think. Work the problem, never make the situation worse, find the answer, and never get scared—were what had allowed him to just keep breathing when the truth of many a situation was simply one breath from death.

Just keep breathing!

No, it is not the time to turn on the lights—have to manage the resources , he thought. The coral shelf where the U-Boat lies has to be near.

On its chains the platform dropped lower down along the wall as Joe, far above, cranked the handle of the winch, paying out chain through the hollow leg-like extensions of the spider-gear. Down, down the platform went along the wall, then hit a coral shelf with a thud.

The sound of the thud on his eardrums was confirmed by the stillness of fluid in his inner ears. There was no more motion. His body and his soul were with the body and the soul of the Deep.

He flipped on the lights and saw into the Deep. He stepped from the platform, the long hose seated in a metal ring in his suit still bringing life-giving air from the pump above. He found himself co-mingled with the Deep and his truth was its truth.

There it was, the sunken U-Boat on a shelf off the wall, just within the halo of the lights. He sent his “go” signal up from the Deep and continued on toward it.

In the incompressible fluid universe, the dark was nearly impenetrable with foreign energy. The vibration of the thud raced uncontested to the surface ever faster and faster, pulling energy from the Deep and ascending to the surface through the chain attached to the spider-gear with a surplus of oomph. The last of the energy leaped with a pop through the spider-gear’s sprockets. The old spider-gear, not being able to maintain its integrity, fell into the Deep with an almost silent plop. The chains, pulled down, hung limp and there was only slackness in the Deep as Travis turned his back to the now-drowned contraption.

What is true of water is true of contraptions, also. As water seeks the lowest level of inertial maintenance, the same is true for contraptions. The lowest level for a contraption is failure and that failure cannot be until there are causal events that can be neither checked, double-checked, nor rechecked for the consequence. So the magnificent rig of the contraption loomed ever-imposing but simply loomed over doom with no hope of intervention.

The sun was upon Joe’s face as lost lovers warmed his heart. Ever faithful to his buddy, he had seen the ripples in the water where the leg-like extensions of the spider-gear fell and he went about in seaman-like fashion to bring good repair to the contraption.

He and his buddy knew that failure—the state of all things on or in the sea—was not of the sea. The repair was one of mechanical replacement. He had done it many times before and he could think and reflect upon the warm faces of those that he had loved and the faces of the ones who had loved him—so long ago.

It was stupid , he thought now. He had departed for the cold and relentless never-changing beast of the ocean. His cut, rough, grime-covered hands maneuvered and manipulated this part and that part into place. His dreams and thoughts manipulated and maneuvered his dreams and his thoughts into place.

Then he looked into the Deep. He could see the slow trickle of air bubbles escaping to the surface, finding liberation in the atmosphere, and he saw the dreams of his loves vaporized into a mist of memories. He was a good sailor and he had long ago accepted the sacrifice of his life.

Put this on and secure it with that and a job well-done is a well-done job , Joe thought.

This fell into the water; that fell into the water— he fell into the water. A small plop, followed by a bigger plop, followed by the plop of a dead man were the sounds. His system had failed. Failure, death, is the inertial consequence of life above the Deep, on the Deep, and in the Deep.

The automatic engine droned on. Down below on the shelf, Travis’s every weighted step into the muck and the mire of the Deep was a challenge to his most mature muscles. Each new step required another fresh drop of oxygen and each fresh drop of oxygen required another fresh drop of fuel. The automatic engine droned on until it gasped and sucked down the last drop of fuel and the vapors of the fuel. His blood gasped for the last drop of oxygen. His muscles gasped for the last drop of blood. The engine ran out of fuel and vapors. His blood ran out of oxygen. His muscles ran out of blood. Peacefully, in the Deep, a silent falling silhouette came to rest near his feet. The smiling face with open eyes was his buddy, Joe.

He had come to truth in the dim light of the dark Deep before all went to black.

The ripple of spider-gear and Joe’s falling body had passed into the sea. The automatic engine shut off. In moments, there were no more ripples from ascending air bubbles. The underwater current caused the bodies to drift. It, the slave ship, had grasped the U-Boat; it, the U-Boat, grasped and seized the lifeless forms.

“We live in a world that is defined by who, what, where, why, and how—and still that does not answer all the questions. The Deacon fills it in with some sort of razor-sharp steeliness and Manta fills in the spaces with vapor intuitions. That U-Boat, that old slaver, what the Deacon saw, what Manta photographed. Me, I don’t know—anything. It scares me.”