The Last Island Page 11

  “The waters have no ownership of my will. Percentage has no call upon my will. I am diving not because I do not fear the water or percentages but because I do fear the water and the percentages and that is not permissible. I am diving because fear is not permissible in the waters of the Deep, in the seasons of the times, or in the calculations of life. That is why I am diving and as for it—it will be captured. Intellect dictates that it must. It is just an inspiration.”

  Manta and John Henry were at peace.

  Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distress.

  I prayed.

  Then I talked to the group. “No good can come of this. If we are successful in gaining possession of it, then we will have failed. It has claimed the bodies, minds, and souls of many. I am certain that we are better than the waters. I am certain that we are better than percentages. I am sure that we are better than our fears.

  “I am not sure that we are better than our will. I think that we are weaker than our will. This is put before you as a proposal. Upon the capture of it, let’s take it to the fault line off Hopeless Atoll and drop it into the deepest waters of the Deep. Let it be there until it’s captured by the subductive flow pressures of the mantle. Then it will be gone, for all time.

  “Let us not become the curse. Let us not lose our humanity and simply become the thing that we do, the thing that we desire, or the thing that we are not.”

  John Henry and Manta answered with talk of unity and of one.

  Then the Deacon spoke, “What it is doesn’t matter until we have it. Let us first put upon it and then in cool and precise intellect make a willful decision.

  “With your insight you have put before all of us this problem. What is to become of it and what is to become of ourselves? I make no claim upon it. However, there is one of it but there are three of you. A decision may have to be made, but how is that decision to be made?”

  This was the first time that the question was asked. I supposed we had thought about such a decision in an ethereal way but never in a conclusive fashion. The way into the Deep had been singular and unified. Coming up from the Deep, we would be singular. But we would not be unified. We all knew that the sequence of events goes from order to disorder. In this case, from one will to three wills.

  “Drawing lots is unfair and voting will not work.” I don’t know who said it but it was said.

  Whoever said it was correct.

  They that go down to the sea in ships; that do business in great waters;

  These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.

  For He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.

  They mount up to heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.

  They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end.

  Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distress.

  He maketh the storm a calm, so that thereof are still.

  I pondered how a poet thousands of years ago and thousands of miles away and so deprived of thousands of devices was so aptly able to pen my situation. Who had been this desert genius that saw over the horizon and then saw into the Deep?

  It came to me that this man had once had it and worded an apocalypse. He knew the final finality of it and had given me a heads up, not knowing my name but knowing my will.

  I did not tell the others my thought nor, other than the Deacon, had the others told me their thoughts. The revelation was before me but now I had to incorporate into myself the cool intellect of the Deacon, the subliminal knowledge of Manta, and the liberated will of John Henry, while all the time never losing myself in the amalgam of my humanity.

  We all noticed the seasonal change. On the shore and on the surface waters, the great coelenterate mating migration had begun under their romantic dark moon. The ocean bubbled and boiled with these jellied beasts, some translucent, some transparent, some bio-luminescent, some floating, some pulsing, some giant, some miniscule, but all poisonous.

  27

  The ocean was filled with chop. The white chops of the waves went to the horizon. The chops of the jellied bodies went to the horizon. And, the chops of the thoughts of John Henry, Manta, the Deacon, and I went to the horizon, but also to the Deep. Mindless first-evolved organisms millions of years before us were sharing the same space and the same time as we: they were coming up from the Deep and we were going into the Deep. Which are the mindless, they or us?

  This was the beginning of the quiet time. With each moment, we became ever more silent. The components, the elements, the bits and pieces of master pieces were assembled, and now all that was left to do was to complete a performance. But, it was not such a simple thing. I was thinking of the dive. The Deacon was thinking of the dive but Manta and John Henry had thought past the dive.

  Manta spoke,“You have said that you have no inheritance in it. Is that not so, Deacon?”

  The Deacon nodded.

  Manta continued, “You, Vaughnie, you wish to assign it to the Deep, is that not so?”

  I nodded. Affirmative.

  Manta continued, “John Henry, you wish to make it public. Is that not so?”

  She nodded also.

  Manta continued, “I desire to keep it secret.”

  All the positions had been delineated but there was no point of intersection.

  Manta again, “It simply seems to me, but I am not very intelligent, that our choices seem to be doing this, doing that, or doing nothing at all. But of our choices, it is not which is the better or best but which choice is the most noble.”

  There was no altering or shift in the Deacon’s facial expression. It was as if the statement had never been vocalized. He, the Deacon, had come to his answer.

  John Henry’s expression altered and shifted to one of very deep thought. The statement had vocalized consequences and she wanted to respond with a valued answer.

  Manta’s expression altered and shifted to one of peacefulness. The statement vocalized values and he was to define the highest value.

  I don’t know if my expression changed. I did not know the derived resolution of the three but I did know my final resolution.

  The Deacon spoke, “We could dive through this jellyfish bloom but it is better if we wait a bit until the bloom is gone and that will still give us time in excess to dive comfortably. In the meantime you three geniuses will have a chance to generate a whiz-bang answer.”

  It came to me and I am sure it came to Manta and John Henry, too. How can one question have three correct solutions?

  Manta looked out to sea and spoke a reply, “The Deacon is right. He is one of those people who is not always right but he is right so often that he may as well be right all the time.”

  John Henry spoke, “You know, I wish he were more human and less Deacon. His standards are so elevated, perfect, and incorruptible but he cannot be that simple a man. Everyone, even the Deacon, has to have vulnerable, pathetic, and brittle aspects to their human nature.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  Then I spoke, “It has nothing to do with his humanity or his expertise. The Deacon is fortunate enough, but some may call him unfortunate enough, to hear the score of life.”

  “The score of life,” they both said in unison.

  Then I continued. “I do not mean the score like an addition or a subtraction score. I do not mean like a winning or a losing score. What I mean has nothing to do with numbers. What I mean has to do with notes. The Deacon hears the music of his life. He hears the melody and he hears the harmony of his life’s music. So he is fortunate because he hears it and he is most unfortunate that he cannot free himself from its beat.”

  John Henry thought a moment before replying. “Look out there at all that chop, Vaughnie. Millions and maybe billions of jellyfish are out there riding the meaningless music of their meaningless lives: water temper
ature, salinity, moon cycles. But they are blobs, no better today than a million or billion yesterdays ago and no better than a million or billion tomorrows from today.

  “Vaughnie, we are not to be dictated to by the music of our lives. Are we to dance to a score that we did not compose like those billions of blobs of jelly just pulsating to a no-good end, to either just dry up on the beach or dissolve back into the deep?

  “No. I say the score of the music of our lives is to be composed by us so that the millions and billions of tomorrows are liberated, emancipated from the restricted imprisonment of all those past yesterdays.

  “The Deacon is today, and he was today yesterday, and he will be today tomorrow. That is the noble beginning and the noble end of jellyfish.

  “I am no jellyfish. I am much better than a jellyfish.”

  I said nothing and neither did I nod nor shake my head.

  Then Manta began. “None of this is the point. To make a better tomorrow is not in our job description. Those jellyfish out there are what they are and that is all they are; not jelly and not fish. They are a couple layers of cell tissue, some gelatin, and a group of unknowing cells performing a unified purpose and that is all they are and it is all they do.

  “Somewhere and somehow in the simplicity of the Deep they refused the psychosis of complexity and elected the sanity of unfussiness. Where do you place simplicity on that upward chart of advancement that you carry around in your ego? You know and I know the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Things, all things, go from order to disorder—there is no exception. The world will be no better tomorrow for our efforts and the more we try to make it better, the more we will make it worse. There will be no better tomorrows. The good is today and the better was yesterday.

  “The Deacon has no inheritance in tomorrow because he has no birthright in today. I am no jellyfish either but I am no better than a jellyfish.”

  I did not nod. I did not move my head side to side.

  Each second there were more jellyfish by an exponential amount. The mass of jellyfish exceeded the mass of the sea.

  Then I spoke, “Jellyfish. Jellyfish. Tomorrow. Yesterday. It is not about those things. I don’t begin to understand the Deacon nor am I able to understand you. We are one step away from the completion of our task and now the vitality of raw nature dares us. It stands there and dares us. Imagine that—it dares us.

  “It says dive now in the midst of cnidoblast and go into the anaphylaxis of Irjukadji Syndrome because our white blood cells release mediators in response to a neurotoxin from nematocysts. Imagine that.

  “Then there is this: wait, which could lead to an out-of-season dive and the savage, cruel, and feral winds of the storm. Imagine that, imagine that.

  “It has brought suffering, anguish, and grief from the beginning because unlike those jellyfish, in season or out of season, in the deep or on the surface, it knows we may or may not tempt temptation. Destruction and desperation is not given to us, rather we choose to claim ownership of them.

  “Are we to dive to our destruction and cry in our desperation? No, we must not float on the tide in season only to pass as rot on the shore or film on the crest. Nor are we to not dive and claim ignorance. Such things as the Deep, the seasons, and jellyfish are lesser than we, but all are our greater, also.

  “Even a dead jellyfish can kill.”

  The Cyanea capillata that had started its journey at one thousand atmospheres below the surface had reached the final surface film of one atmosphere and was floating and its giant bell of six and a half feet pulsed slowly and in rhythm to the beat of the waves. Its hundreds of feet of invisible tentacles descended for a bit but then ascended to the surface and simply lazily floated along. The always armed microscopic and uncountable ruthless cnidoblast-nematocyst units were ready to generate death without motivation, neither malice nor mercy.

  28

  “Are not you embarrassed by the tag of Vaughnie? What kind of moniker is that for a man grown full? Is that gonna be your cute I.D. forever?” It was the voice of the Deacon.

  “What the—? Is everybody on this island a child of the living dead?” I said.

  The Deacon was no more than five feet distant from me but I had walked right past him. He was as stationary as the coconut tree that he was sitting on in the light of the dark sky. As always, his calmness showed his internal confidence and tranquility.

  “Look in the spit of light,” he commanded.

  I looked. I knew what he wanted me to see.

  “Cyanea capillata,” I said.

  “I do not know if you are all that smart or just goodly schooled but either way you know your stuff, kid.”

  What the—

  The Deacon used the familiar in his conversation and it was to me.

  “Yeah, a Lion Mane jellyfish is out there a ways or so. Giant, big creature. Maybe six or seven-foot bell, with a tentacle net long and wide enough to envelop a whale. Giant, big creature but inoffensive and totally nontoxic. You can bump into it and be home free. Just a giant, big beast. Lion Mane jellyfish sounds better than Cyanea capillata.”

  What the—

  The Deacon was a scholar. He played at being boorish. In the dark light, his intellectual refinement was radiating.

  “It is never of the giant big that you have to be vigilant, wary, or suspicious in life. On the whole such things are slow, dumb, and harmless but they fool you into thinking that they are a peril and a menace and, in haste caused by fear and panic, we put ourselves in jeopardy and expose our vulnerability,” he said.

  I spoke, then. “Chironex fleckeri.”

  He laughed out loud.

  “You got it, kid. The whole South Pacific contains a few harmless Lion Mane jellyfish that ain’t nothing more than floating balloons of glue which people avoid like salvation. But, it is filled with untold scores of killing, invisible Box Jellyfish that can and will hunt you down. And, as with all great evil, you are inveigled by its non-appearance and then only upon your death pang do you find the truth of the lie, kid.”

  What truth are you trying to reveal and impart to me?

  Then I continued aloud, “What the—”

  He laughed out loud in an uncontrollable manner.

  “The first time I saw you on the island, I told Manta what I was going to do to you. I wanted to see if you had a spine or a bag of jelly for a backbone. I knew you from the first. I gave Manta the thumbs up and then Manta gave you the LION.”

  “What the—”

  Then he began, again. “It is beginning not to matter at all, however. The storm season is going to come early and will probably be here in days, not weeks. The reason for this over-population and higher density of jellyfish is the same reason the tides and water overran Apocalypse Reef and are causing rogue waves here: the bottom is falling apart.”

  “The sea tide is going to claim this island," I said. "The deep tide is going to claim that U-Boat. When it, the Deep, opens up I wish that I could drop that cursed thing into its gaping mouth.”

  29

  “Is that you, Deacon?” It was the voice of John Henry.

  Why was she asking if I was the Deacon?

  Then she called out again, “Is that you, Deacon?”

  I did not answer. I just walked toward her voice and Manta’s imposing darkness.

  For a short time there was quiet.

  Then Manta called out. “Hey, Deacon. Something up? Is there a problem?”

  So now Manta just had to start playing the game. Well, I was not going to play it. So, in silence I proceeded toward John Henry and Manta.

  There were a few more shout-outs but I remained silent. They must be in cheerful spirits to be playing such a mindless game. I proceeded in silence.

  John Henry caught on. “It is not the Deacon.” The surprise showed on her face as she articulated the truth of her vision. “Vaughnie, it’s you,” she said. “You looked like the Deacon. Why didn’t you say something?”

  I thought, but did not say.

&nb
sp; I did not make the mistake.

  “Yes, you did have a bit of the Deacon in your stride,” Manta said. “And, now in your demeanor, there is the influence of the Deacon. He must have poured a great deal of water into your glass.”

  Were they just having fun at my expense? It did not matter. There was a bit of satisfaction in being associated with the Deacon but I thought better of telling my thought to them.

  “Look, he is smiling,” John Henry said. “Isn’t that the sweetest little smile, Manta?”

  “The sweetest,” Manta said.

  They were proud of themselves and began to laugh.

  “He walks like the Deacon. He is trying to stand like the Deacon. And now look, he is trying to be silent like the Deacon.” She spoke with a teasing laugh. “That’s so cute. But, I want my Vaughnie back. Vaughnie, Vaughnie, where are you?” Then she put her hands on either side of my face and, while squeezing, asked me her question. “Vaughnie, Vaughnie, are you still in there?”

  In a very playful, serious tone Manta picked up the Mutt and Jeff act.

  “He’s gone, John Henry.”

  “Gone,” she said.

  “Yes, gone,” he said.

  “Oh, no. Not gone,” she said before covering her eyes as if crying. “How, when, why? I don’t understand.”

  They were so proud of their little act.

  “It is just one of those things. It happens now and again here in the South Pacific. Vaughnies come and Vaughnies go. That is all there is to it. National Geographic did a show on it once,” he said.

  She pretended to cry but it came out as laughter.

  Then Manta began again, “You see, what we have here is not a Vaughnie nor a Deacon, but a creature half of each, a hybrid beast. It is more advanced than a Vaughnie but less so than a Deacon. It is classified as Deconas Wannabeis but most people just know it as a disciple. What we have here is a brand new-born disciple.”

  They thought they were as funny as three monkeys eating two over-ripe bananas on one swing. They fell out laughing. It was funny, however, and kind of quick-witted, also. As a matter of fact I enjoyed it. Who knew there was such dramatic talent between these orphaned sea dogs?