Andrew McGahan - Wonders of a Godless World

Sunlight glared at the edges of her vision—but yes, there were more islands out there, and beyond them, a larger, solid mass of land, reaching away unbroken. And something was strange about the horizon now. It wasn’t as straight as it had been before. It appeared to fall away. To curve. But how could that be? What did it mean? A revelation seemed almost within her grasp, and she flew, dragging the foreigner behind her, climbing and climbing, until the shriek of the wind scaled upwards out of hearing and faded away. They were beyond the wind now, and the cold was piercing. Fatal, in fact. There was no way they could have survived if their real bodies were this high, instead of sitting safe in the hospital room below. But their shadow selves lofted onwards, through silence and cold and a pain that was close to agony.

But yes! The arc of the horizon grew more pronounced, and suddenly the orphan understood that it went full circle and joined together. Why, the world was an enormous ball! All the great landmasses, all the sparkling oceans, all the sweeping bands of clouds—they were curved into a sphere. And the sphere itself was suspended in a glowing sheath of air, beyond which was only a profound and icy blackness.

Astounding. And beautiful. And so strange that surely no one else had ever imagined it. Oh, but the pain! Its source, she could tell now, was the foreigner. It poured into her through their clasped hands. This was killing him. She had taken him too far, much further than he had meant to take her. They had to go back.

But even then she could not surrender the vision. The sun was behind them, and as she stared at all the lands and seas glowing in the fierce light, she made another discovery—the ball turned! So slowly that it was not even visible, but her inner senses detected it. The vast sphere was revolving there in its void, rotating the lands on its surface from day into night and into day again. And the weight of that movement staggered her, so much stone and sea and air in perpetual motion. It was worth the agony to behold it just a moment longer, to feel, to wonder…

And then the pain was too much. Someone, herself or the foreigner, cried out in surrender. Something—strained beyond endurance—snapped. The foreigner’s hand tore loose from her own, and she was alone. She was falling, in spinning silence at first, then the air was howling around her, and the ocean and the clouds and the sun were all tumbling in confusion as the land rushed up from below.

And then—nothing. Darkness. Heat.

The orphan opened her eyes. She was back in the little furnace room. Her limbs were covered with sweat, her lungs labouring. From terror. From exhilaration. Before her lay the foreigner, his pale skin dry, his breathing calm, his hands folded on his chest. He might have been sleeping as soundly as when she had first entered the room, except that his eyes were open.

His gaze was blank—but the orphan knew better now. She leant over him, her face above his, her mouth close enough to exhale her hot breath onto his cold lips. Deep in his empty eyes she was certain there was recognition of her. Weary. Pain-ridden. Exhausted even. But approving. And proud.

You see? he said. You see how clever you are?

By next morning the hospital had mostly recovered from the effects of the eruption. The electricity had been restored overnight, the ash had been swept from the interiors and from the roofs, and in the yard the pathways were clear again. The laundry had even caught up with the washing.

It was virtually an ordinary morning, but to the orphan, roaming the back wards, such ordinariness was itself extraordinary. Obviously, no one at the hospital knew what she now knew—that the world was round, that it spun in empty space. They couldn’t possibly, because how could people just carry on as usual if they had known—if they understood that the buildings they lived in, the ground they stood on, even the air they breathed, was all spinning on an immense, glowing ball?

The orphan hugged the discovery to herself like a treasure. Never in her life had she possessed knowledge that no one else did. Always she was the slow one, the one left mystified. But this—this was a secret greater than any other. The patients would never guess it. It was beyond even the nurses and doctors. Why, if she told them, even if she could find a way, they would think she was mad. Or madder.

But she wasn’t going to tell anyone.

You must pretend nothing has happened , the foreigner instructed. He had been too exhausted to speak to her after their flight the previous afternoon, and she had left him for the evening. But, delightfully, he was there in her mind again when she woke at sunrise, quite audible, even though she was in her room and he was all the way across the compound in his. No one would understand. They’d only be scared of you.

The orphan didn’t think she was capable of scaring anybody, but there was no question of arguing. Not with him. So she attended to her usual morning chores as if she was still the same old orphan. As if she couldn’t feel the floor moving and moving and moving as the earth revolved beneath her. As if, when she went out into the yard and looked up at the sky, she couldn’t remember what it had been like to soar beyond the warm blue air into a pure and freezing and silent blackness. As if the foreigner wasn’t with her, hour after hour—no matter where she was in the hospital.

We’re connected now, you and I. Distance doesn’t mean anything. We’ll always be able to talk…and do other things.

Other things? Did that mean they would fly again?

A rueful laugh. When I’ve rested more, maybe.

She was sorry. She had pushed him too hard and too high.

Yes, you’re very strong, and I’m much weaker than normal. But when I’m fully healed, I’ll be able to match you. Don’t worry.

Wonderful!

But she was aware of a strange frustration. She was so grateful to him, so open to him, so enmeshed with him—quite unlike anything she had experienced with any other person—and yet it seemed that she had no word to define that to herself. No word to identify the sweet uniqueness of him.

My name—that’s what you’re searching for.

His name! But she could never know names…

No…but there’s no reason that should be a barrier between us. Names aren’t the same thing as knowing. After all, you can’t tell me your own name, and yet I know everything about you.

Yes, he did, it was true. But what did she know about him ? Their connection flowed in only the one direction, it seemed. They had soared together, yes, and it was the most sublime moment of sharing she had ever experienced—but the sharing was all on her part. His own mind had remained closed throughout. Who he was, where he had come from, of those things she knew almost nothing.

You will, in due course .

When? Why not now?

More laughter. Mine is a longer story than yours, and much more complex.

But that wasn’t good enough. She needed to know, because not knowing frightened her. He had been trapped under a falling mountain and somehow survived and that was ninety-two years ago and she believed every word—but none of it made sense , and if it didn’t make sense, then maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe she was imagining it all, making it all up in her head. Maybe it was just her madness.

It’s not madness. How could it be? Could you imagine flying? Could you make up the things you saw yesterday?

The orphan wouldn’t have thought so. Certainly, she had never before imagined anything so exquisite as the shining world, spinning in space. But wasn’t that the cruelty of hallucinations? That they could be fatefully beautiful?