Evelyn Earth Part 14

Getting time away from Owen was easier said than done. I could tell just by looking at him that he was earning for affection. It rolled off him in waves, break after break of need that was slowly but surely pulling me under.

                We spent the following week by each other’s sides. In that short time we had effectively moved in together. My mattress and other various belongings were transported to his shipyard bunker after many protestations from me. The docks were not meant for continuous habitation. Now in the heat of summer they seemed like the ideal place to hole up, but three months had already passed since the first phase of the war or the destruction of the ‘black holes’ as Owen liked to call it. Holing up wasn’t going to be an option for much longer. We needed a stable living situation, one with fresh water surrounding us, rather than poisonous salt water. I personally needed to break free of the ties that were linking me to this place.

                Everything around me was concrete and metal and hard. I could feel the coldness of these things surrounding me, sapping my energy and draining me of any happiness that Owen could muster. Not even Fins could get a laugh out of me anymore and I think Owen was beginning to catch on. After a few more days of monotonous living I told him that I needed some time alone in my apartment. He nodded at me, not saying a word. I knew that I was somehow hurting his feelings, but the initial connection that I had felt with him was gradually fading, I just didn’t care anymore.

                I had used his company to acclimatise to my new situation and now that I could get my head around the power I possessed I failed to see what else I needed from him. I took a different route back to my building, stopping every now and then to see if any bare patches of earth were showing up through the concrete. At one point I found a significant amount of uncovered ground. Stooping down I placed my right palm flat on the surface. It was funny how in all the commotion Owen never even noticed that my hand had gone back to normal. You think he would have made some kind of comment, but it seemed as if in his mind the darkness had never touched me.

                A feint pulse wriggled up my arm. Intrigued I knelt down and placed both palms onto the ground. Another small pulse vibrated through me. It were as if the ground were talking to me, so to hear it better I placed my head on the ground. I had inadvertently assumed a position of prayer, a position of universal supplication and servitude. The Earth Mother stirred in response creating a mighty rumble that rippled through the area. My heart surged at her response, I was barely one of her newborn children and already she was recognising my supplication. Eagerly I flattened myself further into the dirt and closed my eyes.

                A map unfolded before me, although it wasn’t exactly a map per say, it was more of a puzzle with each piece being a part of the terrain. In every direction that I let my inner gaze wander more pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. It was a mass of confusion though and I tried to reel myself in, like I did with the darkness and my night vision. Instead of snapping out of the trance though I just pulled back. It was a curious sensation that I couldn’t equate with normal eyesight—I was seeing my surroundings from the ground up, but all at once, as if I were looking down.

                I let my inner eye travel over the geography, taking me deeper into the city. I could see the outlines of the buildings, the rubble, but only faintly. Most of my vision was focussed on the rise and fall of the earth, the way it curved continuously creating a brail-like surface that I could read with my mind. I tried to expand it further, but the more I stretched myself the harder it became to hold onto the images, until abruptly I was snapped back into my body like a rubber band pulled too tight.

                I sat up and dusted off my hands before rigorously rubbing at my eyes. It felt like I had just read a huge novel written in fine print. I guess viewing the world from the ground up takes its toll. More importantly though, I now had a new tool in my arsenal, a new way to asses situations. I giggled. Suddenly I had discovered Google Maps in my head. Oh the irony.

                I spent the rest of that night up on my roof looking at the stars. They hovered above us like small insignificant pinpricks of light, but they could each be holding as much life as there was on our floating piece of earth. I wondered for hours how many other Earth Mother’s there were out there and if all their children treated them better than we did our own. They must all have been sisters once, part of a great big life force, split to create their own unique family units.

                Sighing I put my hands behind my head and concentrated on brushing up against the liquid darkness within me. This had become a nightly ritual, sort of like a game children play—who can get closest to the edge of the water without getting wet. So far I had managed to isolate parts of myself that could access the darkness. My hands for example could reach deep within me and pull out a smudge of pitch black that coloured the tips of my fingers. If I touched a piece of man-made rock I could get it to crumble and disappear. I played around with metal bars and long pieces of wire just to see how far the destruction could spread. Tonight I had managed to disintegrate a piece of steel which stretched on for at least ten metres.

                It was only a matter of time before I could learn to cope with more and more of the darkness. Sometimes I asked myself why I didn’t just let it all out, see how much damage I could do in one go. Frankly I was afraid. Not all of me was lost to my new cause, I was still Evelyn Khol, still a frightened girl who didn’t want to hurt herself. Hurting others though was becoming a non-existent line that I wouldn’t even think twice about crossing. Just the other day I had seen Marla weaving through the containers. The intense hatred I felt for her in that moment was almost enough to tip me over the edge. The memories of her smug grin, the way she pulled out my gun and flaunted it before me. She had taken something of mine and I felt the absolute need to take something away from her, even her life.

                I closed my eyes and Owen drifted up before me. He was so kind. It made me wonder why he had been left behind. Even Fins. His story was the epitome of innocence, a father sacrificing his life so his blameless son could escape. I knew though, I knew that the truly innocent, the pure of heart had been whisked away by the Earth Mother. We all had our roles to play in this war, and some of those roles were to stay safe, to stay on the sidelines until it was time to come out and rebuild. She must be saving them for a special moment.

 Then in one glorious moment all the people that had simply vanished would reappear. Or at least that was what I was hoping. As cold and vengeful as the Earth had become she was still the source of life, a creator, not a destroyer. That’s why she needs us, she needs us to do her dirty work because let’s face it humans are the dirtiest most despicable things to ever spring forth from her. We were her horror, her shame.

I shuddered and drifted off to sleep.