say.
She stops. “So did I?”
Leaning backwards I watch her skin unravel, the thick substance turning into hard scale. A metallic silvery coat latches onto her body like a parasite and she transforms into one of them, the snakes, Morelia Viridis.
“Parasite,” I whisper.
“No,” she says slowly, limbs disintegrating. “You are the parasite, the coward, the monster.”
I shake my head. No more voices. This is all a dream. A nightmare. A plague of my thoughts.
“Go away,” I scream. “Why am I thinking like this?”
She expands and entangles my body. And then stops.
Breathing.
“Florin, let go!” Aster screams, her voice real, her eyes cold and calculative, like an owl. I push away the snakes with my hand for they are nothing but words. Just imagery. Aster grips onto my palms but she is mortal, human, her smile radiant and her skin flawless. My palms loosen. The fear disappears into a whirlwind of isolation.
I awaken, stronger.
Powerful.
Without fear.
DAY THREE
There are buds, forming beneath the fingertips of the ibises, brilliant green domes which had previously blackened and shrivelled due to the toxic Arctic air. I watch the ibises graze between them, working hard so to not disturb the forming flowers. Carefully treading between the lavender petals beginning to shoot.
I am hungry.
The thought of food sends chills up my vertebrae.
I eat breakfast while I continue recording, finishing the song which I have entitled Svalbard. The drum Øyvind left behind serves as a key instrument in its construction. In the distance my senses awaken to the sound of the wind, the deep bass tones of the Seedbank that are hollow and loud. But I ignore it. I am too involved in the song to care. I haven’t constructed anything so beautiful, so real, in a long time.
After a while the tones grow louder and I begin to realise how foolish I have actually been. The Seedbank still needs to be cared for.
I pick up the owl, his eyes empty, and place him upon my shoulder.
“To the Seedbank,” I say.
He hisses.
We follow the winding trail through the fields, pass the Ark which is long and rectangular and decaying. It fell to ruins after she died, for no one could care for it any longer. I knew nothing about such a creation. Most of the animals she cared for where birds. In the end they all released. Except one. A cold and calculative owl with snow white feathers.
The owl on my shoulder. The one who refused to leave.
Her favourite.
We come to the terraces, the valley of which the Seedbank is located. My stomach drops, a sense of estrangement and fear entering my system. The ground shifts beneath my feet, from brilliant buds to bare dust and soil and lichen. Even the fungi does not grow here.
The shadow overwhelms the owl and I, and he hisses, louder than before, struggling on my shoulder and digging his claws into my flesh.
There is a deep sound emancipating from the Seedbank. A bass line with fragmented tones, cold and calculative, but not like that of an owl, that of sadness.
I shudder.
“I am here,” my lips speak.
The owl is restless and I try to push it away, as if not to cut my thin membrane anymore.
It leaves the shadow and returns to the house.
-
[ OWL ]
There is a deep grumble
Bass
What tone is this?
I see them,
Purple flowers
Like my godmother
But they disappear beneath its shadow
The Seedbank
The parasite
“Calm down,” the man tells me.
No.
I won’t.
Don’t – push me away.
You aren’t safe
Something is wrong
-
I enter the code slowly, and enter the obscurity – flicking on the light switch so that a soft hum resounds throughout the emptiness.
The Seedbank is silent. Angry. Disappointed in my ability.
“I’m sorry,” I begin.
No reply. “I said, I was sorry.”
A singular tone appears.
I begin the routine checklist, scrubbing the floors and cataloguing the seeds. The largest vault in the building is the Cryogenic Freezer located at the back of the first level. Inside this containment is a number of seeds who will die if not treated in cold temperatures. They go into hibernation, those seeds. They escape reality until they are needed.
I need to check on the past weeks temperature and graph the results. I can’t possibly send the results off but at least I can be cautious over the seeds survival. Hopefully someone will take my place, after I go.
I check the temperature which is normal and decide to perform a visual observation of the seeds health. Sometimes the stored seeds will not hibernate rot and the containers they are held in change colour to demonstrate this. I open the doorway and a gust of cold air meets my face, colder than any temperature found in Svalbard.
I gasp.
The clipboard in my palm drops and I turn, running. I forget my age and my health and I just run.
All the seeds.
They were all Aster seeds.
I exit the doorway and I don’t care about the disrupting tones escaping the Seedbank. I just follow the winding pathway for the hundredth time, down past the Ark to the Amphitheatre and fall to the floor.
But surrounding me are electrical wires and cables, connecting to amplifiers and other sound equipment. Who set them up? I don’t have any memory of this. It plagues my mind.
Madness has consumed me.
Screaming, I contemplate suicide.
“Aster.” I whisper between chokes. “I’m so confused. I’m not ready to die – I fear for the Seedbank. But a part of me doesn’t car and just wants to sing and perform with you again. I’m not okay. Please come back. I can’t do this by myself.”
The ground beneath my feet is soft.
“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t pretend to be okay with my death. The Seedbank will fall. It needs my protection. Øyvind is naive and dull – he does not understand the concept of working hard to fulfil society’s needs.” I shake my head. “He is a parasite. A coward. A monster. But so am I.”
I pull myself from the floor and stutter for words, my body convulsing with fright. I am compelled back to my house, where the owl greets me with an empty gaze, and all I can think about is his eyes. They are two different colours. Blue and green, the same pattern that give Aster her aquamarine stare. I never even realised.
“I’ve been doing things, haven’t I? In my sleep? In my madness?”
I open the entrance and rush through my home, watching as outside the sky blackens with brontide and silt and I scramble to the music room and find the song. It’s finished. I quickly copy it from my laptop onto two separate USB storage systems. They are like virtual Seedbank’s, storing information, making sure that what you cherish is not destroyed.
Outside the ibises chatter, their eyes wide with amusement as the darkness consumes the light. In the distance I hear thunder, tones, like a Seedbank, but they are worse.
“You are not real,” I say.
No reply.
“Well fuck you then.”
I tread carefully back to the front door, collecting a pen, a piece of parchment and an envelope as I go. I pause at the doorway, not knowing what to write, what to say. How can I explain this? What am I?
My pen hits the paper.
Dear Whomever
I am dead.
I have been consumed the blackened ash of the volcano. My last memories, my madness, is located in this USB. Just play it. Take it outside and just play it loud. Make everyone know our sadness. Our isolation. Our emptiness.
Consider this, our sacrifice,
Florin Natvig
I fold the parchment in two and place in insi
de the envelope, handing it to the owl who takes it between his beak.
“I want you to take this to the mainland. Take it to whoever you want and stay until they read it. Then you are free.” I pause, my cranium pounding. “I never gave you a name, did I?”
He shakes his head.
“Why not?”
He gives me an empty gaze, but I know it is filled with an emotion far too complex for human understanding. I hold his body close.
“Why won’t you take it? Why won’t you take it?” I shake him hard but he doesn’t move. My hand splinters with pain and I let go, my hand spasming.
He turns his gaze and over the terraces, the mountains, the sea, I see it. The ash. A wallowing black pool of death and hatred and grief. The ibises cry for they know they cannot leave. They are trapped, unlike the owl, who can withstand long journeys. They nuzzle their young who are small and lavender coloured.
I leave the owl angrily, and head back towards the Amphitheatre, finding the circuit board that controls the entire sound system. I turn it on and stick in the USB, feeling the energy ripple beneath my fingertips. A few seconds pass.
And then I hear the first note.
It drowns out the sound of the Seedbank and the wallowing ash.
The lyrics begin:
Chauvinistic war cries like baritones accept the ear
And the forefathers of our kind lock away the atmosphere
Above me the clouds begin to shimmer, releasing black residue into the atmosphere.
Oh it’s so cold
Oh it’s so cold
Oh it’s so cold
Darkness overshadows and I brace myself, expecting to drown in its darkness. It is so close to killing. So close. Yet I await my death in the cold.
An owl we spear
In our Seedbank
I rush back towards the owl, the song echoing throughout the land. As I run I close my eyes. My thoughts drift away to the wind and the light and I freeze, the colour fading.
-
Aster’s eyes are like sea foam and diamonds, drifting