Contemplating these absolutes, I thought about my new possession—it.
It was so very simple and that was what all the others had failed to understand. Here, very alone on the sea, I understood it. I could possess it. Or, it could possess me. And, I wanted to possess me. The fall through 35,827 feet of air was easy to calculate. The fall through 35,827 feet of ocean was incalculable. It would float. It would flutter. It would fall. It would drown in the undivided waters of the red sea.
There was no ceremony, there was no afterthought, there was no regret, and there was no prayer as I tossed it in into the deep red. I stepped back as I tossed it for I did not want any splash of blood to hit me.
It floated. It fluttered. It fell. I did have the hydrophone turned up to the maximum and the splash was explosive. The flutter was a fading swish. Then, even at maximum, there was just silence.
I ignited my engines.
As the wake expanded into that perfect “V” of divided foaming sea, I was free of it. And, the world was free of it.
33
11°22.260′ N x 142°35.589′ E, once the center of my wake, was now a point that had fallen off the curve of the earth. All the PCO’s had dissipated—for “disappeared” is such a poor empirical word. The engine was running most effectively as my ship skimmed along the surface for, after all, on the ship was one item less. The throbbing sounds of the boat engine and the hum of propellers was a gospel hymn to my ears.
I could push it to better than thirty knots but then I would not have enough fuel to reach the island. I reduced speed but I did not cruise. I was exhausted past the point of all need for food, water, sleep, and soap but all I wanted to do was eat, drink rest, and wash. So, maybe a little more speed could be applied.
What the—where did that swell come from?
I thought about its origin.
What the—
There was a second swell, a third, a fourth, and then some racing water beneath my boat. It caused my boat to race along at faster than its possible top-rated speed and with each swell I rode a little higher upon the ocean’s film.
The only moving air was that which I was creating by pushing through the atmosphere.
What was that sound?
It was not the efficient sound of the engines or the propellers. And it was not the sound of the sea—which I knew. The hydrophones were transmitting a low and deep sound of something angry as if a great leviathan had been wounded and was bleeding to death from a great open wound. Because it was screaming in the sea, its pain became a universal background cry of pain for the cry was vibrating each and every molecule of water in each and every direction—and the sound of its pain was out-racing my boat. Soon, the sound dimmed and faded out. The beast must have made a last cry and died.
Then I thought, I have never heard a birth cry. Maybe, it was a leviathan giving birth. I did know that PCOs cried neither in dying nor in giving birth.
I turned the hydrophone off. I turned the marine radio off. I turned the short wave and the sea phone off. In effect any device that had an on/off switch was turned off. I was electrically disconnected from the universe.
34
There it was, The Last Island. There it was, the outline of the top of the island. But where was the coast and what was that dark line beyond the high-water mark?
What the—Am I on the right island? Have I navigated incorrectly by dead reckoning and made landfall on another island by mistake?
I answered myself, No. You are too good for that and besides, it is the Last Island, just look.
But, there was something amiss in my muddled brain.
Had the toll of the voyage exhausted me to a state of misperception?
No, I thought.
Water always falls downhill. It is the ultimate truth. I began by following the outgoing tide and, in doing so, floated backward in time.
Those swells in the ocean were swells that reached 35,827 feet down to the floor of the sea. Those swells had out-raced me by five hundred sixty-three miles per hour. Those swells had reached the Last Island as tsunami waves and had eroded the shore away as a fisherman removes scales from his catch of the day. The debris of man and nature were simply piled up as so much junk at the inner-most places where the wave is removed of its last energy. The incoming tide had in effect raised the sea depths to the surface in a series of rising waves and, as water always falls downhill, the sea bottom and the sea wave fell upon the island. And, in doing so, scoured it to the island’s coral base.
A goldfish bowl had been knocked to the floor and the goldfish were flopping, fighting, and dying in fright. That is what I saw as I navigated without a wake through the floating debris field that had once been the Last Island.
The Last Island was largely decimated, but not destroyed.
I set foot upon the shipwrecked island. I was a pitiful and ragged pirate coming ashore on a desolate island which contained no buried treasure.
“11°22.260′ N x 142°35.589′ E.” It was the Deacon’s voice.
I knew no wave had enough energy to wash him away.
“Yeah, I know—and it makes sense,” I replied. Then I continued, “How about John Henry and Manta?”
He answered.
“It is all about humanity and organization. John Henry and Manta are doing what they do best: she giving aid and comfort and he constructing out of destruction; they are both good people. Better people than you or I.”
He was correct, of course. I never knew him to be wrong.
To the Deacon and me, life was a controlled experiment where one side had to equal the other side. To John Henry and Manta life was greater than the sum of its parts where one side had an infinite value and the other side was larger than infinity.
“Got something for you,” the Deacon said.
“It came in on the tide and was deposited at the doorstep of the LION. You have to come with me.”
We walked over broken things and people. He talked. I listened. He was the Deacon and I was his disciple.
He stopped. He reached into a sea-worn old goodie bag. He pulled it out.
“Here it is,” he said as he handed it to me. “The sea does not want it.”
What was that expression upon his face?
“You wanted it. Now, here it is. I do not want it.”
He just stood there taking the measure of my manhood.
“All the others who wanted it,” I said. “I was not one of those who wanted it and now—I have it to keep as a treasure.”
“It is harmless and incorruptible. It has no power over you—unless you choose to donate the power of your life to it,” he said.
What the— I thought.
The shallow warm foam teased my toes, but not my soul. I had been in the truth of the deep cold Abyss and, though it was playing tag with me, I was not going to be it.
35
The landing protocol had been concluded and the inertia of the plane was zero as we opened our inertial restraints. As always the opening of the seat belt induced the duel feelings of freedom and relief. The math of Newton had once again delivered a correct solution to: if X goes at this rate of speed with this amount of mass, how much energy is needed to keep me from dying in a plane crash?