The Far Moai

by Neil Burlington

conclusion

* * *

Life continued on this way for some time until one year the weather changed just a little. Not too much, but it was enough. Some of the crops went bad. The fruit wasn’t as plentiful and the fish had changed their feeding grounds, taking them farther out from where all the nets were usually set up. We journeyed out in our little boats more often, but we still did not catch enough fish to sustain us.

We got through it, though. We adapted. As I have said, I live on the side of the island where fishing is the main endeavor and resource. That year, much of our food came from the land on the other side of the island during this ‘dry spell’.

This drawing of supply from the ‘other’ side was a source of some consternation to those living on ‘our’ side. It was an embarrassment to us, though we did not openly admit it. It felt as though we had chosen the poorer part of the island to call our home, yet no one wished to move. There is a need here for a sense of permanence that such relocation would deny. It’s not rational, but it feels necessary, to save face, now that the sites of homes have been chosen and maintained for some time.

The next year, things got better. The weather returned to normal. And people no longer talked about a rescue mission, a ship from the fleet that would use our last known position to find us. It was much too unlikely. We’d traveled such a great distance, giving off no signal.

We were light-years from nowhere. There would be no aid from above. And that one bad year had given us a taste of how vulnerable we really were. It had shown us how subject we were to the capricious changes of an unknown natural environment.

* * *

This is... year 37 on the island. I’m much older now. There’s a lot more to tell, but this is what matters. I’m writing this with shaking hands. A lot of things have happened here, but this is the relevant account.

They’ve been building large wooden statues for a long time now, to remember those who’ve passed away. They get most of the wood to build these things as well as more houses for those families who are still growing in number from ‘our’ side of the island. ‘We’ view this as something of an imposition on our resources but when the food shortages come — as they inevitably do when the weather changes — the other side has not yet denied us some of their food, though they have been progressively cutting down on the amount they allow us.

To continue with the story of the Moai: the artists also create them to remember those who came up with worthwhile ideas, and those who’ve built useful things. All of the accomplishments were achieved out of necessity. It’s not like these people now memorialized were doing it just for the benefit of others. They did it for themselves.

But people like to remember and to feel as though there’s something lasting, too. So they make these wooden statues of the guy who invented the stronger net-line, or the woman who came up with the best way to keep the houses dry and free of rot, or the man who found a way to grow better and larger vegetables. The biggest statues are of people like that.

I write things down and it’s the same thing I suppose. It’s a way, to remember. But nothing here will ultimately last. Our sense of place is defined in the narrow terms of where we live on the island, based on where we first set up residence. Our sense of history is defined by the meager accomplishments of survival that have thus far kept us from disappearing from our tiny place on this strange world.

Deep down everyone here knows nothing here will ultimately endure. This sentiment is openly expressed only on ‘our’ side of the island and always discreetly. It is often dismissed as cynical thinking by those on this less-favored side of the island, though many here feel it to be more real than just a case of sour grapes. We are a dot in the vastness of an open blue that in thirty-seven years we have not dared venture into for fear of monsters.

Yet before we came here, we traveled millions of miles in space. Now we are too comfortable and too afraid to travel even thousands, maybe only hundreds of miles by water, to a more promising home. Those on the somewhat more bountiful side of the island are visibly more at ease here. As to any thought of leaving... well, the conditions are a little different.

This kind of thing, goes on for some time...

* * *

Over the years the island has divided into two separate and distinct cultures. It’s no longer just place or work that divide us... people talk differently here. They even sound different. They celebrate success in different ways and the slang from ‘our’ side does not always translate on the farmers’ side of the island, even when it’s explained to them.

We are losing common points of cultural reference, and visiting between us is very infrequent and unpleasant. Trade has broken down completely. Even the officers on our side no longer communicate with officers on the other side of the island. Some say it’s a sad and natural evolution for people who want to cling to the past stubbornly or fearfully by staying where they first set up home and where they first claimed resources.

The lines are drawn plainly now. There’s no more uneasy sharing. We take what’s on our side and they take what’s on theirs. It’s foolish. Sharing everything broke down over the course of a few exceptionally bad growing and fishing seasons. Now if resources are thin on our side of the island, a conflict with the other side inevitably starts up, to get what they have. At this point it’s mostly skirmishes.

But some are saying that it will eventually lead to war. And war in such a small place, will be a complete disaster, as there is nowhere to run to.

But the split isn’t just about resources. It isn’t just about food. It’s about an idea, one that few people will speak aloud. It’s about supporting, a game. A game that many on ‘our’ side of the island have silently given consent to and the majority of those on the other side of the island are openly opposed to.

You see, a few of the young men have come up with a new pastime. It is called ‘Free-Floating’ and I will explain it, but first... let me relate this...

There is a lot of time to pass here on the island we call, Sanctum.

These young men who conceived the game, are unusual. They are the children of senior officers, and they are brazen and bold by nature. I hear them sometimes talking about the ‘Moai’. The statues of the famed dead and revered ancestors are called ‘Moai’ after those on Easter Island. No one has tried to carve a large stone into a depiction of one these people yet. But I anticipate the day.

These large wooden Moai are about the same size as the stone ones on Easter Island. The Easter Islanders made their wooden Moai small, but there is something different here: no one has yet lifted a chisel to the rocks. Wood seems to be more desirable as a means of memory at this point. It doesn’t take as long to make the faces in wood as it would to commit to a similar exercise in rock. The brazen young men don’t seem to think much of the Moai or their creators.

These young men are quite remarkable. The oldest of them is twenty-two and the youngest is nineteen. These are men here, as they take part in everything needed to ensure our survival, including the often dangerous job of fishing. And in their off time they play their game of ‘Free-Floating’. It’s not complicated.

There’s a rocky outcrop that is useless in any practical sense. It rests about three hundred yards beyond the island sand. It rests out in the ocean that we call the ‘Immanence’.

The young men who call themselves ‘Floaters’ harvest reeds, and bind them. The reeds of the Jungia plant have buoyancy to them. And in the beginning of summer the ‘Floaters’ — consisting of five to seven members depending on the nerve of certain individuals — press out to sea.

They put their little buoyant bundles of reeds between their legs like big elephantine phalluses, and push off the sand where they can still reach bottom. From there they swim out against the tide into the Immanence. They have been known to refer to the rocky outcrop as ‘Sanctum’s Moon’.

The elders gather on the beach. Some of the elders are revered and some of them are well thought of, and some are all but hermits. But — and this is the key thing — they gather from both sides of the island and watch the ‘Free-Floaters’ go. Many of the elders from the more prosperous side of the island have cautioned the ‘Floaters’ against their activity and have even chastised them. Many of those who live on our less gloried side of the island watch the ‘Free-Floaters’ go with silent cheers on their lips. Some even whisper their hopes, aloud. They whisper, ‘The moon is the beginning. The stars draw nearer still.’

Late at night, by the firelight you can sometimes hear hooting coming up from the beach when they return. Most of the elder islanders are sleeping or are getting there by this hour. But I can hear them, and others have, too.

I can hear the young men returning from the ‘Free Float’ into the Immanence. They laugh sharply and loudly among themselves, recalling aloud how they had stood on the rocks, and cursed the elders’ names.

How they had called the elders from both sides of the island- cowardly. They do not seem to need the approval of anyone to carry on with their dangerous and daring game. Their blood is still running hot when they return from their adventure.

Three are stung in their legs and another is missing a finger-tip bitten off by one of the many dangerous and deadly creatures of the Immanence. Several have seen and been enlivened by the sight of one of the thousand-toothed leviathans of the deep passing so near, it had almost taken notice of them. All of them know, and more than that they ‘feel’ the exhilaration which comes with understanding that they are fortunate to be alive.

They know it. After they have treated and bandaged their wounds, they feast with their adoring and lustful girlfriends who have waited patiently for them on the beach. All the other, meeker young men rest fitfully in their homes, overhearing this. They are still as yet unwilling to join in the game. Some of them have women, many do not. None of their women are as stirred up as the young women of the ‘Free-Floaters’. The sound of the ‘Free-Floaters’ love following their fire-light feast, carries through the village. It sounds very satisfying.

My woman, she who is still with me after Hanna passed away from a disease we can’t treat here, turns in her sleep and listens. She holds my hand and squeezes it tightly and listens to them, closely.

An interesting trend has continued... The ‘Free-Floaters’ have wrecked a couple of the Moai so far this year. They usually do. They don’t seem likely to stop it, and strangely enough no one is inclined to challenge them on this. The elders from the prosperous ‘farmers’ side of the island whine about it, but their arguments seem pale to those they try to convince, that we are losing items of historical significance. ‘You call that history?’ one of the eldest men was heard to reply, silencing many others.

The threat of war seems to be diminishing with these ‘Free-Floating’ excursions. At first the connection was not entirely clear. The danger of running out of food and of being subject to the changing nature of this place is still very real, even for the prosperous side of the island. They are not immune to the changes, only more resilient. Yet, if we are hit hard enough- they too may fall into ruin. I believe they understand this, very well. Their confidence on the surface is only well-hidden fear. And it is a justified fear.

But something has happened.

Something... some realization is there that wasn’t before. I didn’t see it clearly myself until the morning I awoke, and I saw them...

The Free-Floaters, were down on the beach.

The remains of several chopped-up wooden Moai, lay at their feet. Parts of their own houses were taken apart, and had been dragged there to use as building material. They were hammering. They were nailing together a vessel... A boat of scale... and presence. A ship that would be large enough to carry as many as would dare to travel in it.

They were working on it, together. Many of the young women working on it are from the other side of the island. Their relationships have crossed that boundary with the energy and persistence of youth. The elders on both sides of the island have grown weary of fighting against it, and it now appears this is for the good of those elders as well as these young people.

For you see...

The young men- were using nails... nails fashioned and hammered from the metal of broken pieces of worn-out technology. Nails that had been shaped in the fire-light- late at night. They were readying the ship for the Immanence.

Their young women stretched out a sail they had made from their old and faded clothing; the cast-off garments of their youth.

And in understanding of that which was to come, that which inevitably must be... I turned to my woman... She was standing at my side...

I took her hand. I squeezed it gently, with fading strength... and smiled.