Scales 017

017; the petrified man.

Warning; Scales is a body-horror and, at times, terrible terrain for the mind. Remain in numbers while the numbers remain.

“Where’s Lily?” Bleu asks. 

“She’s already in place. She generally keeps a half-mile ahead, scouts it out. She has markers that I, or we, manage. Some of them will be damaged since the winter was so bad. Well, bad for me anyway.”

“You did what you could.” 

“Thanks.” A pause settles between my shame and guilt like a liferaft. “The air is going to get heavier as we head into the center of the Grid. So, what’s next?”

“Masks.” They repeat.

“Correct! And what happens if we don’t wear our masks?” I clap my hands together for effect.

“You don’t know but you assume it’s really bad?”

“Correct again, but I didn’t say I didn’t know. I said you ‘don’t wanna know.’”

“Don’t patronize me, please. I’m out here with you both.”

She’s got a point there. 

“Fine.” I let out an exasperated huff of air streaming through my nose. “If you know, you won’t go in.” 

I search Bleu’s face for an answer to expect. A facial twitch, an eye darting from one way to the other. Looking for the road map that guides them, hoping this isn’t the end. 

“Fair enough. Just tell me when we’re out.” They nod. “Can you hand me the binoculars?”

Phew.

“Yea, I can see Lily on the platform. How the fuck does she climb that?” Bleu points to the makeshift outpost just east of us. 

“She is a wonder out here, but only out here. You know what she’s like at home.” 

“A spoiled lap dog.”

“A spoiled lap dog, indeed.” 

We come to mounds of what look like the fallen pods from a tree, like so many discarded caterpillar bodies. Pollen sludge, mounds of mush to step in awkwardly as you try not to think about it. It used to be that this time of year the yellow haze would take hold of our collective sinus cavities with no mercy. 

I suppose the sentiment has only grown more violent, in effect. As there are yet more cavities to attack. 

We come to our first square. The old sign reads “Chatham” as it sits just above the waterline. 

“What the fuck is…”

A stone man sits hunched over in one of the benches. His face wrinkles in etched agony as we witness his perpetual last moments. He is certainly dead, but he also appears ‘suspended.’ Petrified. 

“I sometimes wonder if they’re still in there.” 

“Are there more?” Bleu asks.

“Secure your mask.”