Apposition 8: Slipstream

DAWNTON, WALL DISTRICT, COBA INDEPENDENCY, AZAYAN CONFEDERACY.

TA 2583.

Moon and I really had something wonderful. Sometimes, when it was just the two of us, we would go out and sit on the beach and not say a thing. That’s all we would do. Just be together, enjoying the mutuality of it. No pressure to keep talking, or make conversation, or even to be particularly interesting, because we’d already established that we enjoyed each other’s company no matter what. So we just sat there, listening to the crash of the waves.

The last night I saw my friends, though, we were loud as the underworld. Moon and I had wandered around town a bit, wasting time until Big was done with his job. Eventually we settled on waiting on the stone steps outside the Observatory Temple. It was the largest building in our tiny town, although that wasn’t saying much. From the steps, Moon and I could see the sun gradually fading down towards the horizon, outshone only by the eight little beams of light extending from the distant surface to the furthest reaches of the stars. This far away, the portals looked like a single line until they reached the upper range of the atmosphere, where they split off like branches of a tree, flowing towards other planets that I didn’t care about back then.

The portals apparently caught Moon’s attention, too. “Hard to believe you’re gonna be over there soon,” he pointed at the beams, glowing ever incessantly, looming over all of us.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess.” The Observatory Temple was right on the town square, so we had the pleasure of people watching. All the obsidian and salt traders were packing up for the day; a father consoled his two children to quit squabbling about; a couple civil-minded folk gathered around the town’s evening edicts. I could smell someone cooking salted pork nearby. The air was warm. Eventually, Big appeared from behind the observatory doors, still dressed in his little feathered priest hat, his deep eye circles all the more accentuated by his smeared face paint.

“Y’all didn’t have to wait on me,” he stepped down.

“Nothing better to do,” Moon got up and stretched. I did the same.

“For you guys, yeah,” Big huffed. With the setting sunlight directly shining you could see the temple dust covering him, so I set about wiping it off his shoulders and his back. “Thanks, Rabbit,” he said. “What are we doing today?”

“Beach,” I told him. “Race time.” Big nodded. The three of us descended from the observatory steps, through the square, along the white-paved roads, and past the southern town gates. North of town had all the docks, but south there was a little cove that was totally secluded. The coral reef prevented any ships from getting there, and the rocky cliffs towering around us blocked any line of sight from the old town watchtowers.

Just outside the gates, we passed the squash gardens and climbed down to the cove. We finally rounded the corner and the beach lay before us. By then the cliffs casted long shadows across the whole cove, and the stars were just starting to become visible on the ocean horizon. There was a group of seagulls dawdling about on the sand, and Moon upon seeing them froze in place and held his fingers up to his mouth to make us shut up. We stopped in our tracks and watched as he crouched low to the ground like a jaguar stalking its prey. The gulls noticed his presence and edged away a bit, and the moment they did so, Moon burst forth, and the birds all exploded into the air in a squawking fury. That’s about the closest he ever got. I don’t think his goal was to ever catch one, though; I think he just liked the tension building and building and finally blowing apart. Closest thing to excitement one could get in our town.

“That ain’t gonna work,” a voice called from across the beach. There sitting on the craggy gray rocks were Waterflower and Corn, waiting for us. “It never does,” Waterflower yelled. Corn held in her hand a bottle-gourd, and the two already swayed back and forth a bit with the sea breeze. A couple more bottle-gourds sat on the sand at the foot of the rocks.

“Praise Acan,” Big said when we got to the rocks, snatching up one of the bottle-gourds. “I need this.” We kicked off our sandals and the gritty sand squished under our feet.

“Stonevine,” Corn said proudly. Her parents owned the local distillery, so she was our mainstay when things got boring. That summer was particularly boring, so she was basically our mainstay every other night. It was that liminal summer between sixteen and seventeen, when you’re expected to either get a job like Big or leave town altogether for the City. My dad would’ve made me get a job, too, but he wanted me to enjoy the summer before I followed the family tradition like my mom did. Not that I had much of a choice. “Hey Moon,” Corn called, “You guys gonna run today?”

“We’re gonna run,” Moon repeated. “Later, though.”

The word run tasted just as bad in my mouth as the stonevine. “Y’all, it’s not a run,” I said, “It’s a race.” A crucial difference.

“Oh Nine, Rabbit, shut up,” Waterflower groaned.

“A run you do by yourself,” I argued, taking a swig from the bottle-gourd, pacing back and forth. “If it’s with another person, it’s a race!” I looked to Moon for support.

“Semantics,” Moon shrugged, leaning against one of the rocks. Come on, man, I remember thinking, Today of all days.

“It changes the meaning of the whole event,” I said.

“You run in a race, but you don’t always race in a run,” Corn butted in, still sitting in her spot on the rock. Big joined her up there. Despite the fact that he sat a little below, he still towered above her.

“Yeah, but race is more specific. That’s what we do. We race,” I lifted my free hand at the end, acting like an orator from some far-off city on a planet beyond the portals.

“Not after tomorrow,” Big sighed.

“The point stands,” I said.

“It doesn’t,” Big said. “Never has.”

“Whatever,” I took another swig. I knew I was right, not that it mattered. Moon had disappeared off somewhere during the debate, probably uncomfortable with the whole thing. I wouldn’t have blamed him. At some point Big started explaining the constellations he learned from working in the temple. Corn went along with it; Waterflower didn’t care. He started pointing out the planets that were visible for the month, and when he started talking about Eutopos I promptly got up from my spot on the rocks. My vision was blurred at the sides by then, but I stumbled from our group of rocks to a secluded cliff corner to piss. When I finished and turned to look for Moon, I found him sitting at the shoreline alone, looking out to sea.

I squatted down next to him. It’s a race, not a run, I wanted to tell him. ''I can’t race on my own. I need you for that.'' But I didn’t break our silence. His feet were perfectly positioned so the waves just barely hit his toes. The water was warm.

“Look at the moons tonight,” he pointed up again. They were huge that night, both full, both shining like crazy. Big hated when they were full for the same reason I loved them: their light outshone the planets and the stars.

“They’re pretty,” I said. From our position looking up, the cliffs blocked our view of anywhere except the east, so I was able to ignore the looming shine of the portals for at least a little bit longer.

“You know,” he said, “I heard Eutopos doesn’t even have a Moon.”

“Ha,” I said. Moon pun.

We sat in silence for a bit, and the waves crashed, and the moons shined, and a little bit aways you could hear Waterflower laughing her shrill laugh from behind our circle of rocks.

“I’m gonna miss you,” Moon said.

“I’m gonna miss you too,” I replied. The seagulls had returned to their previous spot on the shore across the cove, near the entrance.

“You’re doing a good thing, though. Service and all that,” he said. “You’re gonna get real tough.”

“Yeah. Eagle Warrior or whatever.”

“You think you’re gonna get that high?” Moon looked at me, and his eyes were shining and gray, and he smiled like he used to all the time.

“I’m fast,” I said. And my mom was an eagle warrior, too, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment with another reminder of stupid family expectations. Moon already dealt with that enough on his own.

“Not that fast.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Moon got up. “Hey, let’s race.”

We went back to the group and made our preparations. The two of us did our usual stretches, acting like we were long-distance message runners. Waterflower and Corn took their place on the craggy gray rocks, and Big joined us at the very southern edge of the crescent cove. Moon and I took position at a line in the sand that Big drew down with a stick, which he held in one hand with a bottle-gourd in the other. The stick he proceeded to bring up like a flag.

“One last race?” Moon asked me.

“One last race,” I repeated.

Big brought the stick down and we took off. Pure acceleration and pure exhilaration, years and years of skill built up from practice and competition, running as fast as we could, one final time. We raced in sync, perfectly along the edge of the beach and the water, rushing straight past our friends on the rocks. My feet pounded the sand, splashing up little water droplets with each stride, blasting the smell of sea salt in my face. I flew forward but Moon overtook me when we reached the curve of the cove. The seagulls saw us coming and flew somewhere safer before we barreled past them. Moon had better control. I kept going as fast as I could, but it was over; he reached the northern end of the cove and let out a cheer. I arrived just a split second later.

Moon won, but we had finished the race together. The two of us collapsed all sweaty on the shadowed sand, gasping for breath. In the distance, I could hear Corn and Big cheering on. Waterflower remained ever-uninterested.

Our gasps eventually steadied to match up with the waves. My awareness of our surroundings gradually returned, and on the other side of the crescent cove I could just barely see the portals peeking out from the cliffs opposite of us. Their gleam was unavoidable.

“Hey, Moon?” I breathed.

“Yeah?” Moon replied.

“I’ll be back, someday,” I said. I’d have a pension, and some medals, and some cool scars from fighting the Sassans in some proxy-war my town would never hear or care about. My mom would finally be proud.

“Yeah,” Moon exhaled. But it would be different by then. Moon would be different. The waves crashed again, and just for that one last night, the moons outshone the stars. “You’re gonna be a good soldier, Rabbit.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, “Good family and all that.”

“No, I mean you,” Moon said. “As a person.”

And just like that, it was over.