Lisica Chapters

Thanks for joining us for the fourth and final volume of our Scientist Soap Opera escapist journey to the mysterious island of Lisica! You can find previous episodes in the link above or column on the right. Please don’t forget to subscribe and leave a comment if you enjoy what you find!

Audio for this episode:

49 – We’re Good

It was a couple hours later that the roof blew off the hut. Near evening, with no light in the sky, the heavens detonated. It began with a great rushing through the far trees. Then a moment of dreadful silence, followed by a great screaming roar like a steam locomotive falling off a cliff. Trees cracked and splintered and fell. Then the wind hit the hut with concussive force and half the roof peeled away and vanished.

Now screams and whipping water fill the hut. Chaos. Figures dive across Pradeep, shielding him from falling pieces of wood. Jay and Maahjabeen lash him to the travois they’d kept him in. Then they grab the few things they can and, nearly blind and deaf, follow the others out into the battering cyclone before the entire hut collapses around them.

They all know to make their way to the cave. But the wind blasts over the northern ridges behind them and slaps them down into the mud, again and again. Trees groan and fall in every direction. A redwood lands on a hut on the far side of the village with an unbearable crash, shaking the ground.

Jay is nearly horizontal to the ground, clawing through the mud as the wind hits him with unbearable force. He drags the travois, Maahjabeen somewhere back behind controlling its tail.

He comes upon Alonso, crawling across the mud, eyes squeezed shut. Jay grabs at his coat and pulls him in the right direction.

Finally they find themselves in the cave mouth. It is already filling with floodwaters. But there is a high slope and shelf where the wooden and textile belongings of the villagers have been stowed. It should remain above nearly any amount of water. If that isn’t safe then nowhere is.

They pull themselves out of the water and up the slope. Their refuge is more of a side grotto, a low gallery of deep depressions worn away in the limestone band here.

Shuddering groans and vocalized shock are all they can utter as they each take up residency among the baskets and bundles of firewood and cooking pots. Here they huddle, watching the water below them rise and fill the tunnel leading into the cave and the shaft with the tilted tree. Now they’re trapped here. This flood effectively blocks them from descending any deeper.

The temperature tilts to near freezing. A shattering blast of hail hits the cliff wall outside and chunks of ice the size of blueberries skitter in. Then, as suddenly, the hailstorm stops.

“Dead,” Jay pronounces. “We’d be dead for sure if we were still out there.”

The winds swirl now, buffeting across the mouth of the cave with harmonic concussions. Between that and the water swirling down the interior, closing the tunnel like a valve, the air pressure beats at them and they all squeeze their eyes shut and cover their ears.

Then the rain returns, a downpour as dense as a waterfall. The water in the cave rises even higher, only four meters or so from where they perch. The storm comes from the northwest, which is right along the line of the village into the cave mouth. The ragged hole screams, as if the god of thunder plays it like a flute, and gouts of water slap against the floor. This lasts for heart-stopping minutes and the water rises even higher. Then it abates and the storm’s fury lessens.

They grasp each other tight, shivering, terrified by what they have just witnessed. Finally Esquibel does a head count with her phone’s light and a shaking hand. Yes. All ten of them. And five golden childs, hunkered in a corner closer to the cave mouth. But wait. Their masks have been removed.

“Iwikanu!” Katrina croaks, stumbling forward. One of the youths rises and holds his hand out to her. “The wind…” she explains to the others. “I guess this is finally when it blew the pollen away.”

“Oh, good,” Esquibel tries to muster sarcasm, but it only comes out as sincere. “I am glad they are human again.”

Flavia stands and holds out the pigskin bag to the former golden childs. She shines her own light into it, displaying the three uneaten but cooked steaks. She motions to them, offering the food.

One of the other youths smiles, teeth bright in the darkness, and lifts his own sack. They are evidently still provisioned.

“The villagers knew this would happen, didn’t they?” Katrina asks Iwikanu. “The… oh, what are they called? The Keleptel? Buggered straight off, didn’t they, gé? The Keleptel.” She has one hand dive through the other, of Morska Vidra and his people retreating through the tunnels. She tells her colleagues, “You use the interrogative suffix ‘gé?’ to ask a yes or no question.”

“Da,” Iwikanu answers. “Oni poshli na plyazh.”

“The beach?” Katrina exclaims. “All the way down there? In this weather? Or is that the only place where they know for a fact it won’t flood?” She translates the question into Russian.

“Da, da…” Iwikanu agrees. “Tam net vody.”

“No water, he says. I bet the cliffs protect it. So they’re all in the bunker, just chilling. Bloody brilliant. We just left the one place on the island where it’s actually safe to be in this storm.”

“Not just a storm,” Mandy corrects her. “Bomb cyclone. Some of the most violent events on the planet. But it might be over soon.”

“That was like a whole war’s full of bomb cyclones, honey.” Triquet has never seen anything like it.

“They have the best names.” Mandy’s voice quivers in the dark but her enthusiasm for the subject warms her. “Officially, explosive cyclogenesis. Bombogenesis. They almost always form over the sea and aren’t usually experienced on land. The baroclinic instability of the Northwest Pacific is pretty well known. Just, like, rarely actually lived through. This was only one of the many bomb events they must get out here, leaking east this time I guess away from the instability and hitting the island. The cliffs and the local humidity might have actually triggered the whole thing. And it got so cold for May. There must be some deep upwelling off Kamchatka right now. But it can’t last much longer this late in the season. Yeah. Listen. It’s already easing.”

They hear the wind and rain relent to gusting showers. But the water is no less, coursing across the entrance at their feet. Jay tries to peer through the cave mouth at the village outside but he doesn’t have the angle. He considers if the current is too strong to actually wade through. He extends a sandal into the brown water…

An iron grip seizes his arm. “Don’t.” It’s Miriam. “Flood like this will get worse before it gets better.”

“Yeah, but the last of the light in the sky is dying and I wanted to see if there’s any… Oh, well.” Jay gives up on the plan. Miriam’s right. That water is running too fast.

Maahjabeen leans back in the shadows so none may see the look on her face. She is cold and frightened, yes, but also prepared. Coiled for a counter-attack, she listens to the rain ease, knowing this might be her opportunity here.

She has known for days and now, even more so, these last few hours. It was after Katrina had told them all of what the golden man had shared with her that Maahjabeen had asked if they had talked about Pradeep at all and what could be done to save him. Katrina had leaned back against the blackened timbers of the hut beside her and said they had spoken about such matters only in regards to the shamans, and how they store the spirits they steal in clay jars on shelves in their homes.

Most of the unbelievers in the hut had laughed at the words but to Maahjabeen it sounded credible, like something an ancient Bedouin mystic would do, the kind of satanic witchcraft the Prophet first encountered in the desert and fought against. Yes, it is like a djinn in its lamp. Her Pradeep is bottled up, kept from her where one of the shamans hide him.

Katrina hadn’t asked the old man where they might find them. Not for lack of trying. Any attempts to draw a map or even discuss the island by landmarks had become hopelessly confused, she’d said. He couldn’t grasp any graphical or visual representations of the island at all. According to the Dandawu, the island is a poem.

Again, this makes sense to Maahjabeen in a way that it can’t to the others. Her entire life is shaped by verse. Of course the island is a poem. And once the Lisicans someday learn of the even greater poems of the Quran their lives will truly be saved.

So none of the researchers know where to find the shamans and their hidden shelves. But these Thunderbird youths probably do. Maahjabeen is counting on it. She’ll enlist one or more of them to lead her there so she can steal her lover’s soul right back.

But she can’t let the others know what she plans. They’d never let her go, especially Esquibel. So she must wait until she can slip away, probably right as this storm ends. Perhaps she can get Katrina’s friend to come with her. She said he’s good with a spear.

Ξ

Flavia and Mandy climb the cliff trail at dawn, still shivering and wet but determined not to spend another instant in that wretched cave after their long sleepless night. The strenuous activity warms them in the chill air. The dark cliffside is wreathed in fog and dashed intermittently with rain.

The trail is nearly gone, churned unrecognizable by the cyclone. Small trees and saplings lie across it, hampering their ascent. But soon they arrive at the first shelf above. It’s been a week or more since they were here and the lush meadow has erupted with thick bunches of grass that tower over their heads.

Mandy leads, parting the blades and stepping through to the cliff behind and the scramble to the top. Flavia is close behind. This is where they lost her to Wetchie-ghuy before and this time she is determined to stick right beside Mandy. It is why she came, to erase that bad memory and replace it with a better one.

They climb the fissure and arrive at the top. Where Wetchie-ghuy had crouched last time is nothing now but open sky. They are alone here, at the top of the island, clinging to the edge, the ocean everywhere, swallowing them in its embrace. Vertiginous, Flavia gasps. Sometimes she can forget just how isolated Lisica is. And then she has brain-breaking moments like these…

Mandy slips through the chute and scampers down the sloping face of the cliff leading to the edge, over which is nearly a kilometer drop down to rocks and surf. Mandy is moving much too fast for Flavia. But she forces herself to overcome her fear of heights and move faster. If she trips, there is still enough shallow slope here for her to tumble to a shrieking stop. She is still a good twenty meters from the edge.

Mandy cries out in dismay and hurries to the edge of the cliff on the far side of the concrete shaft. “Oh, drat! All gone…!” Not only her weather station but the platform of old wooden planks she’d affixed it to. Oh no. That thing had survived all the storms that came before. Was it worsening storms? Climate change? Probably. But also clamping a bulky weather station to it couldn’t have helped. Eek. She’ll have to tell Triquet she was responsible for the destruction of a historical site structure. They’ll be so mad at her.

Flavia follows Mandy slowly, stopping at the concrete lip of the shaft and peering down into darkness. “Can’t even see the bottom. But what was this whole thing for?”

“Oh, it was military so they probably had like guns up here. So they built a whole elevator or a lift or something. To like deliver all the ammo I guess.” She lifts her hands and drops them. “Flavia, I got none of that data! The whole station’s just gone! Every bit of it! Like all these broken components will wash up on the coast of Baja California in like two months. You know what? I should have put my address on them! Shit, I’m so stupid! Stupid stupid!”

It’s been a brutal week and Mandy can’t take any more right now. She crumples, hiding her face in her hands, hardly feeling Flavia’s sympathetic embrace. Mandy had gotten into meteorology to understand frightening and world-altering things like hurricanes and floods, so that she might better prepare for them and never be hurt by them. But actually living through one had shaken her to her control-freak core. The sheer power of that cyclone had turned her into a meaningless speck of life. A flea. She and all her friends could have been crushed and drowned and swept out to sea in an instant and the world would have carried on this morning just like nothing had happened. But that is unacceptable. Entirely. She can’t live in such a… crude thoughtless biological place. She has to somehow be more special than that, doesn’t she?

“There, there. We can figure out the data. I hate losing data.” Flavia soothes her, knowing that Mandy’s reaction is out of all proportion to a lost instrument or two. Yet after what they’ve been through, Flavia is surprised that Mandy hasn’t fallen apart entirely. “Poor little bambina. What is it, eh?”

Mandy allows her face to be drawn upward. She blinks her tears away and smiles gratefully at Flavia. “Oh, just a little thing I think they call ego death. That’s all. How about you?”

“I am fine. Counting down the days now. Yes. We are at eleven. Which is a prime number, indivisible. An important day to maths nerds like me. See, every day that comes until seven will be able to be further broken down. Ten days left? Why, we just have to live through five days twice. That’s two work weeks. No trouble. Nine days? That’s three days, three times. Easy. Eight? A month of weekends. Then seven. And seven feels like a lot again because you can’t divide it. A whole week. You see?”

Mandy nods. She likes systems like this. “Okay, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is… I mean, I shouldn’t want to leave this island at all.”

“What are you talking about? That is crazy. Of course everyone wants to leave. This place is trying to kill us.”

“I study weather. That’s my entire career. This is, like… I mean this spot is the nursery for some of the biggest storms on the planet. Shouldn’t I want to be here, experiencing all this weather? It’s like if you woke up one day and realized all those numbers you’ve been studying were an earth-shattering force that could easily kill you. Would you still study them?”

“But mathematics are an earth-shattering force that can easily kill me. What do you think like the entire Industrial Age was?”

“You know what I mean. I’m—I’m just frightened and I want to go home. I don’t want to live through any more catastrophes.”

“You and me both, Mandy. You and me both.”

Ξ

Miriam directs Jay and Katrina and Alonso to bring the pieces of the destroyed village to the central square. They were going to just pass through on their way back to pine camp but the devastation here can’t be ignored.

“I don’t know, Doctor Truitt…” Jay hangs back, fishing in his shirt pocket for his rolling papers and lighter. “I bet we mess it up even more somehow. Like there’s probably a whole system. They probably know which piece of wood belongs where in the whole village. We’ll just make it worse.” He deftly rolls a little morning joint and sparks up.

“We can’t leave it like this. Maybe we just straighten things…” Miriam pulls a collapsed heap of redwood bark panels, soaked through, from where they lay. As she places the pieces in rows on the ground before her, a fresh shower sweeps across the village and up the cliffs. But such modest amounts of weather hardly register any more. They all bow to their task, untangling the wood and laying it out in clean patterns. The four of them work together in silence. The marine layer above nearly breaks apart, but doesn’t. It only shows silver lines of sunlight in the cracks.

“God, I’ve changed,” Miriam mutters, attacking a pile beside Alonso. “Isn’t that the strange thing, Zo? Seeing you and being with you again, I’m not like picking up where I left off as a forty-seven year old field researcher five years ago. No, I feel most like I’m a twenty-three year old rock star again and we’re back in Nevada and San Diego and Reno. And… I’m just such a different person from how I used to be. I was terrible.”

Alonso laughs. “You were the vixen.”

“Which, strangely, also means fox,” Katrina interjects. “Mate, we’re surrounded by them.”

Miriam orders the closest pile. “I was just very much in love with myself. I didn’t have this kind of care of others, you know?”

Alonso nods. “Oh, I know.”

“You were the only one who could actually touch my heart under all those layers and masks and everything.”

“It was my abuela’s cooking.”

Miriam giggles and falls against him. He grunts, pleased, and goes back to sorting large pieces of wood. This redwood bark is amazing. Some of it is as thick as his arm, huge curving sheets taller and wider than himself. Beautiful, black with age.

Esquibel and Triquet exit the cave with the last pair of youths, stepping out into the clear morning air. “What are you doing?” she calls out to the others. “Did you lose something?”

“No. We just… feel bad for them.” Jay heaves on a plank, forcing a nearly-collapsed wall back into position.

“Ha. Feel bad for yourselves. Imagine what pine camp must look like.” And Esquibel stalks through the village alone.

Triquet bends to help. “Oh my god. Some of these places are like entirely gone. These poor people.”

“I wonder…” Alonso grunts, forcing his creaky body to work. “Do they have to rebuild like this a lot? Maybe more than once a year? Because that would get very old very fast.”

“Why ever clean when you can just disassemble and reassemble? Good lord these big ones are heavy. Just like sponges. So much water in them.”

Another figure steps out from the cave mouth. The first of the villagers. It is one of the shy preteen girls of the Mayor’s household. She has the darkest and curliest hair, nearly an afro. No one has ever heard her name. Slowly she emerges from the cave and stares dispassionately at the wreckage of her village.

“Eh, sorry.” Miriam has no words for this. “I know it must look bad but maybe we can help rebuild…” She shrugs at the girl.

“Mirrie…” Alonso’s face grows worried. “Don’t make promises we can’t keep. We still have so much work of our own and we have fallen so far behind…”

Miriam’s face flickers, her composure nearly cracking. It is hard to take Alonso’s continuing dreams of Plexity seriously here in day forty-bloody-seven in the aftermath of a major cyclone. But god forbid ever saying such a thing aloud. “Alonso, I love you,” she says instead, meaning it, and goes back to work.

The girl watches them for a few minutes before turning around and going back into the cave. A few minutes later, Mandy and Flavia re-enter the village by descending from the southern cliff in a small rock slide.

“Aw, what a good idea.” Mandy hurries to help the others. “We can put their houses back together for them. Show some gratitude for once. Or… at least just make it neat?”

“We’re afraid to do any more,” Triquet says.

Flavia only watches. She is fatigued, sore and battered from her night and then this epic climb and descent with Mandy. Now she is supposed to do manual labor? For how long? It would take days to fix this village. There are piles of wood everywhere.

A fox scampers from the cave mouth into the village, sniffing at the arranged pieces of wood. It sniffs the air too, its gleaming eyes taking in the scene. Then it scampers away.

“Wish I had a fox,” Jay grumbles. “Be so cool. Just this rad pet who feeds himself and lives like this parallel life, still a wild creature, you know what I’m saying? Just like, friends.”

Morska Vidra emerges from the cave, followed by the Mayor and Yesiniy and all the others. They gather at the near end of the village, watching the outsiders awkwardly labor with the remains of their houses. But Miriam and the others have the sense to stop, and gently lay down the pieces they hold. They withdraw to the far end of the village, at the trailhead leading down to the creek and meadow and pine camp. Morska Vidra crosses the village to them, his fox scampering ahead. “Bontiik.” He greets each of them, his face deadpan but his eyes smiling. Perhaps he appreciates their gesture after all. They murmur the greeting in turn, chucking him under the chin. The fox on his shoulder chitters at Alonso and they all laugh, releasing tension.

“Ask him if that’s a girl or boy fox.” Jay tugs at Katrina’s sleeve. “Tired of calling a living creature ‘it.’ Feel me?”

“Totally, dude.” Katrina turns to Morska Vidra, composing the question in her head. Then she thinks of a better approach. Yes or no questions only. “Lisica… kʼisáani, gé?”

“Da.” Morska Vidra turns to his fox, pulling it from his shoulder and holding it like a cat, stroking its fur.

“They always answer yes or no like a Slav. So weird.” Katrina turns back to Jay. “His fox is a boy.”

“Does he have a name?”

She shrugs, miming “Katrina,” then, “Morska Vidra,” then, pointing at the fox, she asks, “Saa? Name?”

“Nyet.” Then Morska Vidra laughs, as if the idea is comical. Behind him, the villagers have spread out into the remains of their homes. They pore over the organized rows of wood like shoppers at the market, lifting a certain piece and exclaiming its story. But they all seem to be seeking specific pieces, and some of them begin to find them. They lift the pieces of bark, large or small, and shout out their relief and gratitude, which is echoed by the others.

Morska Vidra returns to his own hut, which remains partially standing. The roof is gone and most of the wall around the door, but the remainder of it still stands.

He doesn’t look very happy about it, though. He searches for his own special piece of wood and when he finds it, it has been split lengthwise by the storm. It is an old, elongated plank of bark worn to roundness at the edges, but something cleaved it perfectly in two. Morska Vidra lifts up both riven pieces, his voice shaking and dolorous. His neighbors all call out to him and many flock to his side, putting a hand on him in sympathy.

“Like the keystone? But it’s wood. The heartwood.” Jay tries to find the meaning in this scene. “The one piece. Maybe like the OG piece, the last one left or something. Put there by his dad. Aw, Morska Vidra! Mad respect, dude! So sorry for your loss!”

His neighbors go back to their own disasters, leaving Morska Vidra alone in the remains of his house. He sits there, heartbroken, for a long time. Even his fox has left him.

“Should we go? We should go.” Triquet thinks a quiet exit is probably for the best.

Then Morska Vidra rises, chanting something roughly. He pushes on the remaining walls of his house, but they stubbornly resist him. His chant grows louder, a list of imprecations and curses from the sound of them, and he uses all his strength. The wall totters and falls, twisting in a heap to the ground.

Morska Vidra pulls the panels of his house apart, scattering them. His neighbors immediately start scavenging the biggest and most useful pieces. He stalks away, under the trees, his head held high and his eyes faraway.

Then another figure exits the cave. It is Pradeep.

He blinks in the bright morning light. “Where…? Where is—?” His voice is so unused, as if it’s coming from somewhere under the ocean. For a moment he can’t remember her name. Then he does. “Maahjabeen. Where…?”

“Prad!” Jay finally sees the tottering figure. He rushes to him, slamming into him with a bear hug. “You’re back!” But he goes gentle almost immediately. Pradeep is so fragile.

“Never left. Where is she?”

“Eh, Mandy? Flavia?” Alonso asks as he hurries with the others to congregate around Pradeep. “Did you leave Maahjabeen up on the cliff this morning?”

“Maahjabeen didn’t come with us,” Flavia answers. “We haven’t seen her.”

Miriam frowns. “Oh, we were sure the three of you were off together. Well then where is she? Was she still in the cave when you left?”

Mandy shrugs. “I have no idea. We didn’t check.”

“Then how long…?” Pradeep forces the words out. “How long has she been gone?”

Alonso shrugs. “I don’t think we can say. Maybe all night.”

Then Miriam remembers that talk of souls and the underworld in the meadow. Oh, no. Maahjabeen has resolved to be a holy warrior, she’s pretty sure. “I just hope she didn’t hurt anyone.”

“Maahjabeen? Why what did she do?” Pradeep shakes his head. With each word, each step forward, each embrace from a friend he is restored to himself. Soon his thoughts might even flow freely again, as they used to. “Never. She couldn’t hurt a fly.”

“To rescue you, though?” Miriam holds Pradeep steady, rubbing his back. He looks anemic. “I think she’d be capable of quite a lot. She’s a tiger, that one. Saving her beloved from the evil wizard. Wait. I know just the thing to fix you up.”

Miriam hurries back into the cave.

“Wait, what is the implication here? How could Maahjabeen have possibly rescued Pradeep?” Flavia’s voice immediately rises in ire. “She disappeared. She wasn’t even here.”

Katrina’s laugh is low and spooky. “That’s what we’re saying, I reckon. She was out stealing his spirit back for him.”

“See, that is what I knew you were saying and I could tell you were all being foolish. Because that is impossible, what you are saying. Maahjabeen did no such thing. The drugs they gave him just finally wore off. Right, Pradeep? Isn’t that what happened?”

“I—I have no idea.”

“Well, what was it like?” Triquet asks. “You said the last one was like drowning in cold mud. Was this the same?”

“No. It was like…” Pradeep tries to grasp the memory of it, the fleeting impressions that single clear present sensation left in him. But he had no ability to reflect on himself during the whole ordeal. He was only a passive witness to all their words and actions. He saw it all, but he couldn’t keep it. “Inside I was hollow. No pain. No… emotion. But then like an hour ago I came back.”

“Smashed your jar, I bet.” Katrina gives Pradeep a long hug, trying to fill him with her warmth and life. “Big strong lad like you, deserves to get his jar smashed every night.” She kisses Pradeep on the jawline, but nothing stirs in him, not even from the teasing.

“I feel… newborn.”

“Whoa. Trippy. What do you mean? Like you have amnesia?” Mandy asks. “You can’t remember anything?”

“No… More like…”

She interrogates him with a laugh. “Quick. What’s your name? Where were you born?”

“Uh… Pradeep Chakrabarti. Hyderabad. No, I still have all the information. I just couldn’t… Just…”

“Had no soul?” Mandy ventures.

Flavia throws her hands into the air. “Now you are putting words into his mouth. Preposterous. Has nobody here done ketamine?”

“Sure,” Katrina responds. “Loads.”

“Well, that will make you feel as if you have no soul. Like that.” Flavia snaps her fingers. “This, ehh, it just lasted longer.”

Miriam returns from the cave with the pigskin bag holding three uneaten pork steaks. She pulls one out of the bag and holds it out to Pradeep. “Here, love. This will cure what ails you.”

“I do try to be a vegetarian.” Pradeep looks at the cube of meat with worry. “But I haven’t eaten in days, have I?”

“Just take what you can stomach,” Miriam counsels him. “You need something, that’s for sure. You’re like a ghost.”

Pradeep nibbles at the flesh of the boar. It is carbon bitter, the rind coated with ash. Then he tastes the gamey, cold steak, greasy and rich. There is something unpalatable and savage in the meat, as if the rage of the boar still sizzles in its blood. It only takes a few bites for him to be overwhelmed by the sensation. Pradeep makes a face and hands the remainder back to Miriam.

His heart suddenly hammers. Testosterone and adrenaline surge through Pradeep’s limbs. As his digestive tract voraciously tears the fibers of the meat apart, he is reset on some primal level. The violence at the heart of this animal’s death terrifies and saddens him. But now he is part of it. Now Pradeep is made of that violence. His eyes snap. He has trouble keeping himself from snarling aloud. Finally he finds his voice again.

“Okay. I’m back now.”

Ξ

Flavia approaches pine camp, fighting her way through the long wet grasses of the meadow to the tree line. It has taken all morning to get back here. First there was the climb with Mandy and then the whole scene at the destroyed village with Pradeep and all the Lisicans and finally a long frustrating interlude with the recently unhoused Morska Vidra.

She’d come upon the old man in the woods beside the trail. He was wandering aimlessly, nearly sightlessly, through a shadowy stand of pines. His fox pounced gaily ahead, chittering and digging for grubs, almost like the little fellow was trying to cheer him up. Boris does that for Flavia when she is sad.

She would have left him alone if he hadn’t stumbled and fallen as she’d passed. It was the first time she had seen that of any Lisican. They were always so sure-footed. Flavia hurried to Morska Vidra’s side and helped him stand. When he faced her he seemed to have visibly aged. In sympathy, she hugged his frail shoulders. He didn’t know what to do with the embrace, though, and only stood before her in silent grief.

Flavia searched for the right words. “My mother’s side of the family. We have an old house in Verona that my second cousins live in. Right downtown. It is over six hundred years old. The walls are so thick you can sit in the windows. It has been in our family for… what, thirty generations? I can’t imagine how I would feel if a storm destroyed it. All my ancestors. All those memories.”

Her voice soothed him and his shoulders dropped. He leaned into her embrace and the fox sniffed gently about her ankles.

Then the practical side of her kicked in. “But where will you live now? Build on the same spot? I didn’t see too many other options right there in the village. Or do you want to come live with us for a while? Eh? We have room, I am sure.”

Morska Vidra sat back on his heels and regarded Flavia gravely. She felt the weight of his judgment and fell silent. This wasn’t just him looking at her, this was… this was a man who was beginning to understand that his entire way of life was about to vanish. And it was all coming at the hands of Flavia and people like her. There was a deep melancholy in his eyes as well as a bitter outrage. It burst against her like a camera’s flash and she turned away, unable to bear what she saw.

When Flavia finally did look back, Morska Vidra had shrunken in on himself again, his fox curled in his lap. As far as she could tell, they were staying there forever. She moved on.

Now, she finds pine camp mostly empty and still in quite a state. The clean room has collapsed and its translucent plastic sheets lie twisted in the mud. The only person Flavia can see is Jay, standing against the only wall of the clean room that has been rebuilt. He is entirely naked, brushing his thick reddish-blond hair back from his brown forehead.

“Oh. Hey.” Jay makes no move to cover himself.

Flavia takes this as a welcome signal that she can, well, not ogle him exactly, but maybe appreciate a male body for what feels like the first time in ages. And he has such a nice one, with wide shoulders and long lean arms, a flat belly and long shapely legs. He is like a coursing hound, built to run.

“Welcome to my sponge bath, Flavia. Feels great, yo.”

“It really does.” Esquibel calls out from the other side of the sheet. Her long dark body can be seen in hazy silhouette through the plastic, her hands running all over her curves. “I may never put clothes on again.”

Flavia plucks at her own shirt and trousers. They are soaked and filthy and they make her skin crawl. Without a thought she peels them off and steps clear of what had always been her favorite clothes. Maybe after a thorough washing they can be again. Her skin prickles in the mild morning air. “Eh, where is the sponge?”

Esquibel steps around the edge of the sheet with a small bucket. She hands it to Flavia and examines her body with professional detachment. “And how are you? You look thin. Like you aren’t eating enough.”

“Are any of us?” Flavia pokes Esquibel’s own ribs, visible beneath her breasts.

Esquibel twitches back and swats Flavia’s hand. “Do not do that. I am ticklish. Otherwise you are fine? Turn around.”

Flavia lets Esquibel spin her slowly, lifting her arms and inspecting her minutely. The care and attention actually feels somewhat nice. She casts a sidelong look at Jay but he is still brushing out his hair, staring at nothing. Flavia is affronted.

She elbows him. “Hey. I am glad you are not like staring at me like a jackal but we are still two naked women standing here in front of you. I mean, you can at least say something nice.”

“Uh. Yeah, for sure.” Jay breaks his reverie, the violent rush of jagged images and sounds from the night before finally receding. “You guys look great. Molto bene. Is that how you say it?”

Esquibel frowns. “I do not need a man’s approval to feel good about my body. So how are you, Jay? All your contusions and incisions. Show me your ribs.”

“It is all about the ribs today.” Flavia runs her hands up and down her own. Yes, there is very little cushion beneath this skin. She can’t recall ever being so thin. And yet, she doesn’t want to feast and regain her lost padding. She likes how she feels. Food is something she only needs in spare mouthfuls throughout the day.

Esquibel traces the red line of Jay’s spear wound. It is healing well. “No infection. At least we can be thankful for that. How are the deeper layers…” She palpates the scar and he winces.

“Yeah, still pretty sore, Doc. Am I gonna get full range back? Got some big surfing plans coming up.”

“I think so. But you will feel it, certainly, the rest of your life.”

“Damn. Already damaged goods. And only twenty-two.”

“Here. Look at this one.” Esquibel raises her arms and turns her backside to them. She has a neat puncture wound above her right hip, an indentation that appears quite old. “Leaned against a broken fence post when I was eight. Almost died of tetanus. The time I spent in the hospital is what made me want to be a doctor. I still feel it, twenty years later.”

“Oh, I got no shortage of scars.” Jay proceeds to proudly point out the biggest ones, on his chest, on his shoulder, on his hip, on his shin. “Fell off a cliff, motorcycle, motorcycle, and sharp rock in the shallows at the end of a wave. Broke my fucking leg.”

Esquibel appraises him coolly. “And I am quite certain you are nowhere near done.” She shakes her head. “Human bodies. They are all so different. Look at us. All the colors and shapes. But we all still run the same.”

Alonso and Miriam arrive, stepping under the trees. They stop and regard the ruins of their camp. Not a platform still remains standing. Their own tent is a twisted heap covered in mud. The clean room is just a single wall of plastic, in front of which stand three naked members of their crew.

Without a word, Alonso and Miriam take off their clothes and join them. Flavia scrubs Alonso’s back with the soapy sponge she finds in the bucket and then Miriam does hers.

Nobody speaks. Alonso’s body is totally littered with scars, some broad and angry welts, some puncture wounds like Esquibel’s. All down his legs to his crooked feet. The words they just shared about their own scars ring shamefully in their ears.

Beside Alonso, Miriam is a pale and slender nymph. She piles her auburn hair on her head and lets her husband scrub her shoulders and the back of her neck. She purrs, closing her eyes.

“The family that bathes together,” Alonso laughs, “stays together. What is wrong, Doctor Daine? Have you never seen a torture victim before?”

“I am very surprised, Doctor Alonso,” she answers in a quiet voice, affronted by what was done to his body, “that you are as healthy as you are and not heavily addicted to opiates.”

“Yes, in large part that is what this trip is about. Learning to live with the pain. Otherwise I will be a junkie like that.” He snaps his fingers. “And the Fentanyl on the street kills people these days. So I would not last very long. No. My drug is Plexity. And all you beautiful children. You are what keep me here.”

Flavia turns outward peering through the trees at the far ridge. She imagines her vision telescoping even further, across the water back to the mainland, then spanning the whole continent. There is madness and torture everywhere. “This crazy world. Why does it have so many monsters in it?”

Alonso shakes his head. “They are everywhere. Sadists and evil bullies. Even here, in utopia…”

“Ha!” Flavia turns back, scorn in her face. “This can’t be utopia. It doesn’t have enough sunshine. Or hot water.”

“Yes, I would not call it utopia,” Esquibel agrees. “That implies perfection. And does anything about this camp look perfect to you? It is more a nice vacation.”

“Well…” Alonso shrugs. The sponge bath is over, but like the others he has no desire to get back into his clothes. “Here are my thoughts about utopia. First, it is impossible. Think of how different everyone is. What would be utopia for me, with lots of naked men and fully-funded science missions, would not be utopia for others.”

“I’m with you on the naked men!” Flavia grabs the muscles of Jay’s arm and he smiles indulgently at her. “But not here. Maybe Monaco. Or one of the Greek islands.”

“Plenty of naked men there,” Alonso agrees. “But I doubt they would all like my idea of utopia. And I wouldn’t care much for theirs. But utopias still do exist. It is only that they are fleeting. They last only a single moment and everyone thinks, whoa, that was a perfect little jewel of an experience, like this wonderful bath we all shared. But by the time you think it, it is already over. When you are outside the moment, appreciating it, you are no longer living in it and the spell is broken. Have you ever had that, yes?”

Jay nods slowly. “Dude. That’s so deep. Yeah, like every time I catch a wave. Those are my own little utopias for sure.”

“Uhhh, hi?” Mandy steps under the pine trees and approaches the knot of naked people. “Like what’s even going on here, guys?”

“Sponge bath,” Esquibel answers. “Then we just kind of… forgot it was over. Forgot we were naked, I guess. It feels so good to be out of those hideous clothes. Come on, you should try.”

“Well… isn’t it a party.” Katrina approaches with Pradeep, her arm around his shoulder. They took it nice and easy down the trail and across the meadow. He may be returned to them but he is still at the tail-end of an ordeal that lasted days. Now Katrina can’t stop goggling at all the skin, while Pradeep keeps his own eyes averted. “Don’t mind if I do.” Katrina shucks off her clothes.

The others welcome her into their circle, pouring soapy water on her blonde hair and scrubbing her skin with the sponge. Katrina moans in pleasure. “Ohh… I had no idea how much I needed group bathing in my life. Fantastic.”

“Mandy. Pradeep.” Esquibel orders them. “Come on. You need to get cleaned up.”

Mandy and Pradeep share a bashful gaze. They both step back in reflexive refusal. Mandy holds up a hand. “Uhh… No, thanks… We’re good.”