Paradigm Shift

By Jakub K Rucinski

Mushy, green and rich soil, fruitful ranches and crescent-shaped lakes defined the discovery of a new continent, on which settlements immediately began to arise - but the Realm of Arkaine is quite unlike any other state.

This cryptic thriller describes an alternate North American continent, where rather than promote justice through impartial jurie

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jakub Rucinski
• Release date: Apr 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9798886270471

Book preview

1

When I was a boy, mom would calm me to sleep with music from the radio. I had the occasion of finding one onboard the Katrina, a small mechanism in an oak espresso-colored box with a rotary dial. I was glad to see it disappear from the cafeteria on the third day of our journey into the lower straits – it had given me some unusual memories, owing to the fact I had not seen such a contraption since I was eight.

Around that time, we stayed in a rented room right off the fifty-third street in the new commercial district. There was a tiny, windowed kitchenette, and a curved hallway into my and my brother’s bedroom.

I remember the nights I woke up in sweat and there was no sound. My only friends were the trembling thumps of mice in the cracks of the walls and the traffic outside our bedroom curtains. I laid mute and motionless, eyes staring into the ceiling or at the wall, studying my lack of control. Sometimes, it was lacking the soothing adagios of Rossini and Scarlatti’s ‘Griselda’ that birthed my most resonant thoughts pertaining to the ways of the world.

Every now and again, the fireflies would come out at night. Their loud, metallic hum roared against the walls of the hub, the dams refracting the commotion into a pulsing sensation that made my stomach turn against its will. I felt a bursting stress within my ears, like an errand of fireworks throwing me off-balance.

Those nights, I could hardly sleep too, but it was well with reason. And when there was reason, there was comfort. I came to learn, as the minute moments of childhood elapsed, and adolescence fled my grip, that meaning had weight in the conditions of life. To my horror, I began understanding at last there was no justification behind our conditions. And so comes this doting articulation of my memories, beginning at my youngest.

I woke up one time as a child and felt the finger of bedlam scratching my back. In a panic, I threw my bedsheets over the couch, and off our bed, making loud clatter as I tossed belongings around in the dark. It was when I paused that I heard the footsteps coming from the kitchen, and saw the bathroom light flicker, its yellowish glow erupting onto the corridor.

She laid against the cold white of the wall’s popcorn texture, her fragile arm falling toward the floor, her face buried in her hands. My mother’s legs remained stretched across the floor as she attempted to balance her back and keep herself sitting, although both remained sprained near the edge of the wall. Wailing and howling in pain, she fidgeted her fingers and tried brushing the stream of tears off her face. Upon doing so, her eyes befell me, standing just several feet away.

Oliver?, her hand reached out to grab me. Oliver, sweetie, sit…

I did as I was told, and let my legs fall below me, settling myself down on the ground next to her. The bright pale bathroom light irradiated her posture and cast her shadow onto the wall along with mine, leaving us both within its severed grip. My attendance to there seemed only to make matters worse.

Through the jagged muttering and ruptured whispers, she let the hand leave her face and slip around her hair, which she grabbed and pulled in a harsh motion. My mother closed her eyes, took a prorupted breath, let out a quiet wail and a plea to God, before returning her eyes to me.

Honey, I’m so sorry.

It was the night of the Integration. We spent the previous day hungry, and the evening before it. Me and Simon did not mind, because the neighbors were kind enough to lend us some things to eat. Mother refused to. And now she was here, breathless and hungry, and there was nothing I could do to help except remain with her and stay aware of the misery. While a part of me pitied her, another wished for an explanation. It would not come easily.

She was shaken to the core and seemed to shiver her limbs and tremble her hands, trying to find something to grab onto, where there was nothing on the dry ground. When half an hour’s worth of tears finally fell down her neck onto the grey sweater and flannel skirt, she stretched out the legs before her, and let her fingers warm her elbows. After a while, she looked toward me, wiped the hand on her sweater, and reached for my arm. She grabbed my hand tightly and would not let go for a solid minute before her open mouth finally muttered a word.

Oliver… it’s okay. It will be okay.

I should have been the one telling her that, I thought. But I understood why she wanted to help. Her dark green pupils appeared calmed, and a strain of wavy hair now fell across her eye, covering her wet face. The window of the kitchenette let in the stray rays of sunlight, sinking through the clouds hanging above the Whitestock.

Mom, I asked, where’s Simon?

She looked toward me, her gaze resting on me for an uncomfortable second, before rapidly turning her head to the wall and staring down.

Simon?

Her sight ventured from the corner where the wall met the floor at the extension of her limb to the door I came from, a wide view into mine and Simon’s bedroom. I could not tell what was running across her mind.

Within a couple seconds, my mother made the first attempt to lift herself up, by pressing her hand onto the floor and kicking it with her right leg, although this simply made her fall flat once more. She strained her back, pushed her chest toward the other end of the bathroom doorway, and shoved both legs behind her, before taking the first step. In a few treads, she was back on her feet, towering some six or seven inches above my head, skimming the apartment.

I could not believe she forgot. Having woken up in sweat, unable to find my older brother, I took to her as my only source of help. And even my own mother couldn’t know everything. But the concern in her voice now became my precedence.

Simon?, she echoed once more.

It was reasonable to help look. I paced around the apartment, switching on the lights, so that she could better see into the distance.

Honey, don’t, she confessed. We can’t pay the bill.

She ran around the place once more. Where is your brother? As she spoke to me, her legs rushed across the hallway, tearing into every corner of our miniature room, swiveling back and forth through the separators, as her mind surely would have as well.

My voice trembled for a moment. I don’t know, Mom. He’s probably outside, I ungenially remarked.

This quip was taken too without a question or a doubt, for it was the only rational pardon. I knew Simon well, and he wouldn’t have left my mother weeping on the floor if he had the slightest idea of it. He must not have been around in the interiors.

She ran into her bedroom, walled off from the kitchenette by a hanging blanket, and put on her pair of outdoor shoes in a hurry. Mom gestured toward me and spoke in a quivering voice. Don’t come after me, I’ll go look for your brother.

I knelt at the bedroom window, looking three stories down onto the plates of the titanium leveled tiles, where fresh air could earnestly be met. She came running out the stairs of the complex, down several steps, and onto ground. I tracked my mother with tired eyes, anxiously looking where she could not, to find not a trace of Simon. Within a minute, I was more than relieved when his auburn coat came running with him past the fifty-third street in the morning light.

My mother locked Simon in an embrace, and he spoke a lot, words I could not make the distinction of. Unintelligible phrases, untold gestures. Even after I unfolded the curtains and unbolted the window in a struggle, letting air unfurl into the drained, arid room, I could still hear barely anything. They had relaxed their conversation, and my mother finally let Simon go, gesturing for him to come in. Perhaps she was keen to reveal the relieving news, but I already knew.

Moments after the door unbolted, and the dark ginger texture of my brother’s clothes emerged within the cessation of sight, my mother followed suit behind him, saying not a word, but gesturing for me to come closer. The relief of the near-calamity averted seemed to make her stiller. Simon’s russet hair played in contrast against his light bronzed skin, as did the scars on his shoulder from camp, showing an uncomfortable streak of red.

A conversation lapsed, and soon, we had all been sat at our table, inches away from the drying clothes and swinging blanket. The window on the left of the fridge gave an edged view to the dangling metropolis, and the full viewpoint of a nearby wall, owing its construction to the complex next to ours.

I could spend entire afternoons looking to the palettes of the outdoor floor and considering the ones below it and what they must have looked like, pondering about the places where I could not go. I felt oddly safe but constrained in the confines of our home – particularly when Simon went away for training, and my mother to one of her jobs, when I was once again alone with the radio set, a stack of magazines and whatever else I could find to amuse myself with around the space.

As we sat down early to talk that morning, the night’s rain and dew settling in on the frames of the windows, there was an aura of discomfort. My mother had once again gazed on her limbs, only not on the ground, having raised them again upon the table, now crossed in concern. Sunrise inched on us.

Will they ever get here?, Simon’s coarse, boyish voice plunged through.

My mother glanced in his direction. Hopefully not.

I meant uncle, mom, he clarified. Uncle Richard and Lane, will they be here?

She didn’t seem to know the answer to that question, only distancing her stare and pointing it toward the kitchenette door at the sheer mention of their names. My mother had hoped that within several minutes of the phone call, she’d already hear bolting on the wedging door. No such luck.

The minutes passed and each of us turned fatigued. There was no nerve anymore, and in fact, our joint hopelessness combed with the falling of sunrays upon the corners of the room gave us a sense of reassurance, like the final cling of a knight to the end of a brawl. I’d like to think that night changed Simon.

But it did finally happen, and rapidly so – it was a small unclenching sound at the other end of the quarters, followed by a rough kick. My mother went instantly to check.

Oh Rich, thank God, she exclaimed, clinging into his arms. I thought it was them.

He towered what must have been nearly two feet above her, placing his lower arm around her shoulders as my mother greeted the chest hanging above her head, on it a crude, dirty jacket. Uncle Richard bent down slightly to avoid hitting his head on the apartment ceiling, his pale skin glowing in the sunlight. Lane Luther walked in behind him.

My brother took to the front of me, and guided me, with several steps, toward the corridor, where the five of us finally met in a circle. Mother would not let go for a minute.

Charlotte, it’s okay, uncle’s voice flourished through. He told her what I could not have.

Simon stepped aside and let uncle pass through, my mom still standing to his side, as if seeking reassurance more than physical shelter. I could not tell whether he pitied her or was simply having a harder time than any of us bearing through the events of that night, but nevertheless he was keener to find me and my brother at the side of the kitchenette.

It’s just the same, he stated.

Mom simply nodded.

Well, her shaky voice persisted through, I hope you recognize them, at least.

Uncle Richard nodded his head graciously, as much as the space given by his kneeling posture allowed him. Oliver, Simon, you guys alright?

We nodded back. We were alright.

Simon looked toward him easily, and set aside the table chair, placing himself at the corner of the room near the sink. Mother and uncle sat side to side, and we observed along with Lane, who stopped just at the doorway of the kitchen where mother had lied motionless an hour before. There was some soul and liveliness in the dialogue, which I could faintly acknowledge.

How is the street? she begged analytically.

I hate to tell you Lot, he expounded, we had a bit of a rough time getting here.

Through the corner of my eye, I could see her placing her hand upon uncle’s arm. Mother glanced toward Lane, who stood motionless, hands in pockets. Oh God, I hope you didn’t…

We’re fine, Lot. You’re fine, uncle explained. What about you?

We just woke up early this morning. I heard the news on the radio, Simon clarified.

I had just then realized that the radio, which usually sat in the corner of mine and Simon’s bedroom, playing the purpose of the family room, was now settled on the counter next to me. Everyone looked towards it, and uncle glanced to me as well, but upon acknowledging its existence, the mood of the room returned to normal.

You can’t trust them, Lot, uncle detailed.

Mother buried her face in her arms again and stared down at her knees. It was a cold cry towards the depths. She soon raised her posture in a confront and murmured slowly. I don’t know who to trust, then. There’s nothing.

There’s us, Lane replied, listening from several feet behind Uncle Richard’s body. Uncle looked toward him distressingly and then back again.

Lot, he muttered. Seriously, it’s alright.

The street, she stated. How is it? Are they collecting? Have they already stationed everywhere?

Lane shrugged and walked several steps forward. They have since the morning. Swerving through the residential district, the airbase, the docks, even on the fences of the vista. And we still got here.

How?, she begged.

If you’re in defense as long as I and Lane have been, you know the protocols. And as long as you know the protocols, you’re safe.

But they don’t, she pointed toward me and Simon obliquely. They’re still kids, they don’t need this. They don’t know what it’s like. Does their future have to suffer because of this? Do- do I have to throw everything away? Just because… Her voice sank.

Uncle now reached with his other hand toward her elbow.

Rich, I…, mother bellowed.

At the attainment of realization that us and two older men had no scope to speak of, she calmed herself down, letting her head drop behind her in pain, letting out a silent weep. Simon walked toward her and grabbed her arm with his other hand.

It will be fine, mom, he tried to reassure her, spinning it back and forth. I’m almost fourteen, and Oliver doesn’t mind if he skips a year of school, do you, Oliver?

I shook my head in answer no, although I hadn’t really considered the option or the extent of my say in it. Ostensibly, there really wasn’t any, for most eyes in the room sat still, observing the scene unfold with uncle and mom and Simon.

There’s options, Lane tried to rationalize with her.

Uncle nodded away slowly, letting go of mother’s arm and catching her gaze. He’s right, Lot. We can lift the burden off of you. We can even tell Annette-

You’re not asking Annette for anything, mother sharply groaned.

But Lot, she’s family.

To this, she simply shook her head. I don’t care who she is, her harsh voice pulled through, we’re not turning to Annette.

Silence brought the room together. Mine and Simon’s eyes rested on Lane Luther, now just the length of a shoulder away from our uncle, looking over our tiny apartment.

Maybe not that option, his thick voice expounded, but others. Think of the kids.

Mother looked over at us, her dark brown hair flowing toward the floor in curls, her posture bent and back weak from lack of sleep. With the hush ushered in by the mention of our more prosperous aunt’s name, and the memories that came with it, the distant whirring of the fireflies readying for war rang in.

We knew it was coming, she admitted in a whisper. We just didn’t believe it.

Everyone followed her response in agreement, including uncle, who looked like he could no longer bear any more replies. He turned towards Simon.

Your training, Simon, he inquired, how has it been?

He’s the best in the class, mother smiled lightly. I grew a little jealous from this distinguishment, even though I still wasn’t old enough to attend sentry camp.

Uncle came to his senses and took up a more critical yet determined tone. Will he be ready within a year’s time?

Mother shrugged. I don’t like it, but that was always the plan. He’s been working really, really hard.

Is that true, Simon? uncle inquired. Have you been working hard?

I have, Simon admitted. Sergeant says I’ll be able to afford for officer’s school if I’m able to take charge of the newer kids.

The adults looked around the room in puzzlement. Uncle finally took his hand away from mother, stepped up from the chair and bent his head. Simon was allowed to sit.

Simon, mother begged, we just want you to do good. For now. Until it stops. Until it all… stops.

Until what stops? my brother questioned her anxiously. There was a look of puzzlement on his face, as if he didn’t expect her voice to break in such a way.

It was only then that we received some provable idea of what was happening. My uncle turned around to face me, and I was taken slightly aback. He put his hand on the radio, slashed the knob, and let a hum of static play in the back as he whispered to the both of us.

Oliver, do you remember learning about the lower straits? In school?

Yes, I nodded along.

In the years of my early childhood, before we moved to our room off the fifty-third, we lived in a small cabin intricacy of lodgings, conjoined by doors and halls. I attended that school in an almost windowless building of concrete, the Tasman Hall, just a quick drive away.

There I could remember being told, along with some dozen other kids, a number of things in a general class lit by a buzzing ceiling light alike to the one above our bathroom. The intricacies of the lower straits were one of them. Arkaine’s children were frequently told of the necessity for every citizen to know at least a piece of their nation’s record, and the situation down south affected us enough to be deemed worthy of a curriculum.

Well, my uncle elaborated, things there are no longer the way Berger wanted them. So around Whitestock, there are going to be changes. Your mom wants to keep you, you both, safe.

Out of all the words in his sentence, I only hunched back at the mention of Berger. I had heard the name several times through the radio or the school or my brother, and it was always in a critically prominent tone, as if the name itself bore some necessary implication or implied importance.

I had nothing else to say, so I nodded along. Simon did not convey a reaction, but it was clear from his expression that he understood much more than me out of what uncle said. I was content with finding out from him later.

The radio static continued, but with our uncle bent over us and the brief corroboration finished, we looked over to the other end of the kitchenette, where my mother had raised herself as well, and stood now a mere foot away from Lane, her hands crossed behind her back, lost in a dialog we were meant to know not what of. We were soon to disperse.

I moved several steps forward then to once more observe the world out of our framed window. The sun had finally settled beyond the barriers, casting a bizarrely large shadow over nearby edifice. A hostile wind flew by, plummeting the crests of the ocean ahead of our touch. Minute details altered with time, the sinking cool drops of water no longer infringing upon the view as I foresaw it, and then I’d make predictions in my mind as to what would move next.

Mother dragged me and Simon away, and soon, we were both back in our room. She ambled across the edges of the bedroom to shut the crimson curtains and left the doors separating our lodgings wide open. I could hear uncle’s footsteps beyond the peripheral not so far away. He soon appeared in our sight, motioning to mom.

Lot, take care, alright?

I will, her voice soared back. She paced the room toward him, and reassuringly moved her arm around his back. Some dread swamped her face. And you, too.

The day of the integration, in all its aspects, was relatively trivial for us Andersons. We fared through that week richer than most families around us in spite of the alienated situation given. Those who had it harsher even offered to help in face of their own struggles.

We frequently dodged their pity, albeit they had not much to give materially, anyway. It was difficult for mother to maintain honor while physically weak, and over time, me and Simon had grown used to these kinds of scenes. Sometimes there would be yelling or arguing, but in all cases, this would abruptly stop and quickly, the reasons for such a fight forgotten amid the chaos of the outside world.

We were evicted from our quarters in the new commercial district just two weeks later, and it took just under an hour to pack our bags and travel down the stairs, closing the doors of our room for the last time in our lives.

Uncle Richard met us hurriedly in his car several blocks away, and we drove through the rain and the thunder. That way, there was little traffic on the motorway, and we could take shortcuts, he said. These consisted of pushing through alleys between domestic zones, towers trapping us in their sway as we passed.

The older car flew through passageways and sectors, and sometimes we would travel upon a road so high that the clouds and mist would cover all below it, and we could only see the street until the vehicle rolled down to the very bottom, where it took turns towards bridges and connects, snubbing the glass overpass of the hub’s center and whooshing into the outskirts.

My new home, which aside from several mishaps, I had largely kept through most of my adolescence, was also situated near the docks. Despite being comparably far from the outlook in the middle of Whitestock, we were again situated too far from the Tasman Hall to continue my instruction. I had left school knowing only how to read, write, and perform arithmetic, leaving Simon to teach me algebra and find me picture books and encyclopedias from which I would study toward the end of that year. After it, much to his promise, he left for the final stages of his training, and would become the first in the family to leave Whitestock in military uniform as a mechanized artillery officer.

As a family, we never saw Lane again. When I talked with uncle over the phone, he would mention his calamities and voyages from time to time, but no escapade described seemed particularly safe. Much for this reason, mother had taken to the belief that he, knowing the dangers that faced him as a retired state agent, went into secrecy and hiding, although no mention of exile.

I believed for a few years that he had died somewhere along the way, and soon the glow of protection my uncle’s companion left us with would slowly disintegrate, as we were forced to make our own way, once more relying on neighbors and the sort of people willing to assist in place of our connections in the family. Simon leaving had left just me and mother, tied to our belongings.

And her duty as both the breadwinner and homemaker of our miniature clan left her either constantly in need of support or ailing and entirely absent from the picture. My adolescence was particularly lonely, and at one point or another, I found that there had been nobody left to turn on the radio.

Not a spirit of personhood to run her fingers through my hair as I was put to bed, reassuring me that despite its hiccups, life held some degree of poetry. It was only the overbearing silence and the hum of the fireflies that would drift me to sleep in that dark room, sometimes a flood of thoughts barraging my mind until I was merely too weary, and aware that if I were to go on, I had to simply let it go.

At age eighteen, I left for the Third Naval Military College, abbreviated to 3NMC. It was a mystifying year devoid of contact from anyone in my previous life, packed with the sort of study and exercise that drove me and others to desperation.

It was the scores, charts, rosters and tables, massive records kept by my authority, that pushed me to go on and continue, with each passing day giving hope that the next would become leisurelier. Only by believing everything was soon to end could I push through. Training for the navy, absent of school or camp and the privileges otherwise given to children not raised in martial law had left me with the kind of hope familiar to all residents of the eight level of hell.

I wore no more plaid shirts or sweatpants to bed in due time, instead locked in the uniform alike to the one worn by my brother, only dark blue with hints of ginger in place of the beige and black. It clamped tightly against my chest, along with a label reading Seaman Anderson.

In the first week of deployment, I stepped aboard the ANV Katrina, readying for the tour pushing on a set of black shoes and departing for the engine room, where I had the enthusiastic job of turning knobs, pressing levers, and verifying readings.

Days would stream by as the enormous vessel made its way toward the straights, pulling us along with it. We were from thereon entombed in a bemusement of missions consisting of assisting a comparable destroyer in barraging enemy ships off the eastern Tamaulipas harbor and shifting around friendly soldiers between positions. I felt desolate then, even in spite of the hundred and twenty-four or so other men continuously aboard. And then, I met Arthit.

2

Officer Duly’s threatening character appeared to us primarily in the form of a bald-headed man bearing a lanky yet lofty structure, a rough voice and a baffling demeanor. It was he who remained in charge of our daily assignments, considering that Captain Evergreen was rarely, if ever, spotted on deck. The captain remained on the bridge and in his cabin nearly every hour of every day throughout our excursion – whether the storm pulled our ship apart or the winds drove us by, in no regard to the proximity of the enemy or the threat such an approach could pose. Perhaps he had been in this position for an exceptionally long time and knew better to resort to such means rather than not to.

Most men on board were largely fond of Duly, to the extent they could be, without concern as to his standing. He would come out of a small cabin towards the end of the ship every morning and make a visit of the boat prior to sunrise.

The engineers would be ready with the munitions and machinery, then the wake-up and the engine room would become staffed. Out the barracks came I and several other men, priming for the day, a head count of the sailors in progress. Day (so-and-so) aboard the Arkainian Naval Vessel Katrina, he would read, temperature eighty-three or something degrees Fahrenheit, cloudy skies, wind traveling in the direction of the northwest. And on with the display, and on with the show - that would begin, too.

All day as I worked tirelessly with the engines, I would notice the arrays of men passing by. Some in them replicated Duly’s lanky structure, and despite their youth, nearly rivaled the height of the officer. Others lacked this appearance completely and reached all the way to my shoulders when standing on the forefront of their shoes and leaning in just the right amount.

Some I could not compare in terms of physique or height, as they would appear rarely and at separate times. Many men had such analogous faces, I could hardly learn names, even after reading them printed down on the fabric resting against their chests. I made the habit around a month into deployment, as we were settling on the voyage across the coast of the Gulf, to habitually understand the names, at which point I encountered a problem.

Sailors bore generic surnames, like Smith, Waters, Jackson or Johnson. My own being Anderson does not help to distinguish the case from others. But a peculiarity arose in the form of one compatriot, who like me, was at this time a man of only twenty or so years with little to his name aside from tedious hours of handbook labor and a short term of experience in grammar school.

We would perhaps have remained strangers if not for the circumstances, but I soon learned his name: Sailor Chaimongkhon. It took more than a few good looks to remember, and I had to inquire as to the pronunciation one Thursday afternoon on deck.

It’s easy. Chai, a ‘mongg’, and the beginning of the rest is silent. Hon. Chai-mongg-hon.

It was sorted.

Quite unlucky, I commented, to have a name like yours.

I think Anderson is simpler. But people don’t ask you about it, do they?

They didn’t, but I took a moment to think back and see if I could recall a single exception. Unfortunately, limited by my memory, I could not, although I doubt it ever happened.

No, I suppose not.

He set his shoulders straight. You’re not the charming kind. I have yet to know your name, Anderson.

Is Anderson not enough?, I replied, swerving an adjoining lever forward.

The scrawny dark-skinned boy hovered above me, observing the shift of the levers. He leaned his right arm forward to grab onto a key and pull it, at which point, the apparatus before us made a whirring motion. We took several steps back, and let the power mechanization carry out its work, as we descended the moving stairs toward the floor of the enormous engine room, where several motorized personnel were occupied developing a structure of titanium and copper.

Maybe it is, Arthit commented, moving with the stairs along my side, several steps back and now around two feet my superior. His voice descended on me. It’s got a ring to it. Easier for the history textbooks.

I doubt any of us are making it into history, I remarked thoughtlessly. This remark didn’t sit well with him.

And where do you suppose that from?

Well, I continued my dogmatic argument, look at us.

My arm extended toward the bottom of the metal floor, and stretched in an angle across the room, pointing to all within it. The whirring of the machines and the fine-tuned, glistening lights enveloped all my compatriots, to both the left and right a hum of automation.

The deck of the ship moved beneath the sinking stairs, as we approached the bottom of our trek down onto the amblery, one of the extensive pathed lanes laid around the naval vessel Katrina.

You mean all the men? He pointed. Down there?

I observed once more the engineers in the distance, as they carried around tubes and arranged chips on metallic sheets, before classifying them in such decorous and stately places, in endless trial to ascertain, and subsequently bring to life, a more perfect arrangement.

They are the designers, the planners. They’re the men with the aptitude, I explained. But that doesn’t mean they’ll get the credit for it. They need a spokesman.

And I suppose, Arthit pointed toward me, you think of yourself as a spokesman?

I was taken aback. No.

So you admit you will not go into history, either?

I don’t know that for sure, I attempted to reason on my point.

Arthit motioned forward with his hand through the air, play pushing me towards the amblery as the rolling stairs reached their break. I followed through with his suggestion and stepped down onto the path, allowing a moment’s breath to let him follow me. We now saw each other eye-to-eye.

He spun me a meanly sincere demeanor. So you mean to say, he elaborated, you doubt any of us are making it into history. Your reason for this is that we are just short of the manual laborers on the land, and that we are simply offshore and combat ready, to an extent. You point to technical authorities as an example. And yet you admit that you of all people, Seaman First Class Oliver Anderson, might someday become someone?

I cling onto hope, I merely stated.

That doesn’t sound very hopeful, Arthit commented. He took several steps forward and pointed for me to come with, as we walked through an enclosed room towards a metallic doorway, and out onto the deck of the ship.

A cold wind swept past our shoulders, and I tried to come up with a response. Nevertheless, I simply couldn’t in all my time. Arthit had placed his first insight upon me that day – and knowing that he could depend on me to play the role of a contrarian, such an opportunity would rehearse itself at least three or four times per week, until some blurry line had been crossed where we talked enough to one another and were seen together enough times that we mutually agreed, independent of each other, and without verbal notice, to develop a form of comradery.

This was strange to me, as Seaman Chaimongkhon appeared not only more mechanically experienced than I, but also more literate, despite his lack of formal schooling. He cited books as a source. Having learned to read and write from books at an early age and having read them for years as a form of light entertainment, I refused to believe and acknowledge this notion. Arthit didn’t care.

Supremacy of both his wit and endurance to mine, although I could not speak long of his muscle or lack thereof, was also accompanied with a somewhat more social presence among the ship, as he never needed to use my habitually developed library of memorized names to find himself in the right crowd. When we were apart, I’d often see as many as two to three men walking nearby him, and in most cases, just behind. He was a leader, while I, merely a companion. It was at that point I assumed I was not destined for history. It was also the beginning of a turning point that would put a significant mark upon the rest of my deployment.

Upon becoming somewhat of a soft acquaintance to Arthit, I promised myself to toughen up, and made the effort to rise from my bed before the call, to march out first of the dormitories head-on towards the deck, observed by Duly from the bridge and occasionally monitored by the uniformed Guard that appeared on our vessel.

Although somewhat intimidated by these circumstances at first, the presence of service in my family made the encounters much more bearable. I began to think of the wave-crashing system, this contraption in need of almost two hundred to assist it in its way toward the coarse waters near the fractured Mexico, the famed ANV Katrina, as simply a large family home, and it reduced my burden.

Along with it, I bore the thought, or rather the fantasy, that I was only a few days away from a new chapter in my life. By convincing myself always that I simply needed a few more days and a gleaming future could await me beyond the fences of the ship, I did not feel the urge to halt suddenly. And even as the weeks rushed past, and the likelihood of a savior spirit coming into life to resolve my chosen struggles seemed to diminish, I did not abandon this hope, which matter-of-factly grew stronger within me.

Whether this hope helped me become more assured, I cannot tell you to this day. But the way in which I spoke and acted seemed to attract more attention. I would hear the name Anderson pronounced more frequently on the ship, upward to a dozen or two dozen times a day, rarely in the rare accentuation with which Arthit’s speech would come. Soon after finding my first compatriot, I had familiarized myself with a large chunk of the crew, at which point I felt the need to settle down for a while and arrange my thoughts.

After the nine or ten hour shifts inside the engine room, with occasional stops in the form of urgent work on the bridge, I would find myself resolved in the dormitories, particularly in a cabin of a dozen men, myself included, with wooden walls and a stretched glass window. It was then that I would curl up and read anything from manuals to phone books, clinging onto the hope that the next day, as I pushed my muscles forward and bore the weight of magazine supplies on my arms, I could use the rigor to recall and teach myself these things, and that I would acquire new skills as I slept, able to think of only my physical extortion, the rare philosophical debate, and the contents of the written word as my salvation. But despite having done this for a month, my mind did not drift to any of these things at times of night. My brain wondered towards a woman.

In the healthy case of a man with unchanging ambitions, situated with a family and his chosen profession, thinking of a woman at night, in either a contemplative or lustful way, may not be such a bad thing after all, especially if that man wonders towards the contemplations and conversations held with that figure, as he wraps his arms around her body, her weary head on the pillow next to his.

But as any conscript, hopeless romantic or lively underdog can convince you with enough deliberation, thinking of a woman you simply cannot see eye-to-eye with is a doomed curse.

And as self-conscious as you might be, you likely will not find yourself able to rid your mind of inconsequential fantasies. It’s a great fault of the socially-geared mind to expect too much of those that may not have anything to give. Knowing all this at an older age, and to an extent, around the time of my voyage as well, did not prohibit me from falling fault to that passionate thirst for affection. It often got the best of me and pushed me back toward the end of the line as I marched sleepless behind my fellow working men, in the direction of the sun and a new day before it.

After one such tiring night, I was able to work for roughly three or four hours before my body had given up, and found a displaced corner of the ship to kneel in. My kneel had taken the form of sleep, and by some miracle, I woke up several hours later, undisturbed in my watery slumber, although alarmed at the possibility of having been noticed.

I picked myself up, brushed the dust off my uniform, and marched out onto the deck to observe the rising sun. With nearly every man feasting on meal packs and hydrating their self in the joint room of the lowered quarters, and the staff running amok on the bridge, there was only I and the face of nature.

No matter how much I rolled from one side to another that night, I simply could not sleep. There was something about the rolling waves below the ship that made them more distressing when one’s body did not tense up.

Standing up to exercise was not a possibility in the dark quarters, and so I was simply compelled to sit and pay attention to a constant beat of two to three snores, accompanied with the occasional ruckus of unconscious bodies, until my brain felt limp and overran with thoughts. And it was that night when I truly began to miss my life on land and began recalling the months prior to my training when I was perhaps the serenest I’d ever been. When Simon’s cruel fate in Guanajuato began to dissolve into a mere distant memory, and the burden of everyday life had obscured my greater worries. I longed for the people that made my reality meaningful, those who put energy and sense into the impassive, cold peril of functioning, laborious living.

3

Things take time, he admitted.

I could do nothing but confess my agreement with this truth and nod my head toward the direct expanse of the ocean. Arthit, leaning against the fence of the front deck, was naturally unable to witness my reaction.

After almost five weeks of having been acquainted with him, however, (judging by the onset of spring around that time) he had probably already guessed this was one of ‘those’ statements. Those I had difficulty posing an objection to.

Still, I find myself wondering, I blurted out to stop the silence, if we’ll ever go on shore again. I know it’s stupid. I know we will. But I can’t help myself.

Oftentimes the second voyage is like that.

I stared toward him. Isn’t this your second?

No, he acknowledged. Third or fourth, depends on how you count.

I was mildly in shock for a moment, and somewhat intimidated, as I had naturally grown to assume in time that many of the men alongside me had simply been conscripted. Throughout my time on board, even so much as silently listening to the distant conversations of others, I would come to learn that this was not so. Some had received professional, extended camp training. I questioned then why they chose to join the Navy rather than the Guard, the latter of which held a much more prestigious and reputable position in the culture.

How were the other ones?, I asked out of curiosity. Also destroyers?

He nodded. None too different from this one.

In size and structure as well?

Arthit motioned his chin in agreement, folding his arms against one another as he leaned against the fence. About the same crew, more or less the same mission. Two platoons a week, sinking a few Tamaulipas boats, and then back to shore. Compared to the expeditions to the Cape, conscripts these days have their jobs easy.

So you’re not a conscript?, I questioned.

No, Arthit admitted. I volunteered. Although the choice was not entirely my own.

I nodded and pretended to know this, although I had no way of verifying this as true. Although I admittedly had little interest in the matter and its circumstances, I found it bizarre that at some point in time, Arthit might have been convinced by someone into a path he did not intend. His views and perspectives always seemed solid, and the voyager was difficult to convince.

Somewhere around that afternoon we had reached an eastern harbor stationed near a beach – a small Mexican peninsula retaining the city of La Pesca, in the vicinity of Soto la Marina. Across the hurdle of the river and several flats, a camp of the Guard had readied supplies for a procession of marching soldiers, usually organized in platoons, who departed transport boats and walked down the long sultry road through farms and villages toward the hill where the rebels had been sat.

Although large groups of soldiers often came on unarmed boats, the Katrina had been home for the past five days to several squads, numbering four dozen and one man in total. They remained armed on the upper deck, and several sailors were instructed by Duly to monitor the sides of the ship as it approached the dock.

The tides rolled beneath us as the marina approached through the horizon, a beachfront rally of war machinery covering us. A ship imbedded to our own diagonal left bore on its side the insignia of the Arkainian Trifold, boasting atop it a cantaloupe-darkened tricolor in the harsh winds.

It’s all the same, I pointed out, the gulf.

Yeah, he agreed. It is. And it never changes.

I looked toward him. It will be a lot quieter without the Guard running around the ship. At least for a couple days.

Arthit only nodded, and didn’t say another word until ten minutes later, when he left the fence after hearing his name called toward a station. Duly came onto the deck and reprimanded three men who spent a considerable amount of time sitting on the ground, and I took it as sign to leave also.

Other than the approaching coast, my afternoon commenced as usual, which meant bearing hollering and the sounds of cluttering equipment while I moved toward the second space for light machinery. The propulsion compartment around me hummed a constant whirring blare.

After walking through a small corridor to inspect the thrusters, which remained segregated for being on command of the bridge, and not truly alterable from the room itself, I noticed four buzzing yellow lights atop the ceiling. I had then for the first time established that I had recognized them before from the fifty-third, and not any office or drill compound I had visited within the previous several years – not even the school. It was mere coincidence.

Me and another sailor began on the process of cooling some of the engines and made our way down the stairs to the bottom floor, although I had no objective of heading toward the deck until I surveyed the installed ventilation and corrected a mishap in the third space on the surface below. I thought I heard the waves angrily crash against the bottom floor of the Katrina.

Several engineers, previously preoccupied with orientating parts of the computer, left the room. In curiosity, I finished what remained of my work and followed them, once again bracing with my arm the hold of the door, pushing it onto the outside.

The lively sun barked onto my face, casting a bright ray of light in my pupils, forcing them shut. I sneezed instinctively and turned away from the glow, walking the deck with my head down. It was getting late, and my muscles felt weary. My mind had also not gotten a break, as I felt a swiftly approaching ache snugly shut beneath my forehead.

Sounds of hollering emerged from the front deck, and I paced myself slowly to see what the matter was. I soon found myself running against a spree of around four or five bodies, all generally but stubbornly heading in the opposite direction from mine, forming and smoothing out the question already entrenched deep inside my conscience.

As I paced further down the amblery, the issue at hand seated for a rough minute or two inside my mind, several more men walked in the direction opposite of mine. I identified the uniformity in our dress as paradoxical, be it that I could not grab the attention of any of them. The names on the badges flashed past me, and distant words did not put any more sense into the situation. As soon as I saw a gathering of sailors standing affront Duly, I knew this to be the query of the day. Soon his once-distant shouting reached a kind of proximity.

-seventeen point one, that’s the final measure, he cried loud enough for the men in the back to hear. "None below or above, and they walk off easily. It’s your job."

It seemed somewhat nonsensical until I approached promptly enough to get my ear in on the matter. Searching through the heads of the sailors, I found one I deemed familiar in Tom Evergreen; Sailor Evergreen.

He was a lanky boy of around six foot one who attained a sense of belonging for nothing further than inadvertently owing the same surname as the ship’s aged captain, despite an obvious lack of connection between the two. Tom had arrived from the harbors, while Captain spent most of his life in the Vista, in the center floor hanging above Whitestock. Unlike the Captain, he habitually bore an abhorrent but thoroughly cloaked smell.

Attempting to refrain from looking directly at Duly, perhaps due to a personal distaste, Tom’s eyes wondered around the crowd. Which is how he spotted me, ambling towards him in the distance. I extended my hand slightly, enough to show the sailor that I recognized a fellow in him and that my memory hadn’t played unkindly yet, but also adequately to the extent where I could unsettle it as a flinch were anybody to accuse me of interrupting. Thankfully this did not happen, and I soon stood beside him, not saying a word. Duly’s chanting continued.

And we will show them what we have, he shouted, one by one by one by one. Duly looked around. "There will be no questions when the process begins, and anybody with a question can leave the deck without uniform and trek with our compatriots toward the hills. I’ll be glad to see any of you get the Guard treatment – it would show you what true discipline is like. But you boys don’t know that."

His truism came in the form of sincere platitude. Duly had repeated this dull foible of a narrative each time the men were at apparent danger of disrespect or tediousness. We had drifted from the same mission.

Our only interruption was a forty-minute emergency situation the month before, involving an enemy force in the form of an allied ship hijacked by the rebels, several flames aboard our own vessel and a routing error that had supposedly been fixed after the exchanged fire downed the other crew.

In light of routine and forgetting all about this, most men were once again convinced that we would transport guards (aboard a non-transport ship) for the rest of the tour. And when such desperation arrived in morale, especially as the Mexican harbors remained still and unchanging, and the news off the shore did not seem kind to us, the state of mind and general mood across the Katrina would be altered quickly.

The men stood still, listening patiently to what remained of Duly’s words, compared and constrained within their roles.

"All logistical matters convey an expiry date of now", he voiced in some phony contempt. Duly watched the gathering of sailors before him with attentive eyes.

Some of us looked to the upper deck, where in the peripheral sight, the oblique glimpse of some prepared men baffled us. It appeared that the Guard had a job of its own.

Despite our recent shortcomings, it is evident that our fleet has attained a position where it is faced with a burden ahead of our ability, he spoke. A sense of duty ought to arise within each of you, are we successful in carrying the next cargoes of men and supplies, which will be distinctly critical for the progress of affairs here in Tamaulipas. If all goes well, I will consider it my accolade to update you men on the headway. The captain delivers his remarks toward the importance of this task.

The men around us scattered at this round remark, and several sailors had begun walking away. Duly also lowered his voice and started