A Semi-Untitled
Story
Across and around the world from us, in a
mostly calm, entirely forgotten sea, bordered by jagged rocks and atolls of
plastic bottles, there is an island. But there is something different about
this island. This island has no features. Yes, it has some sand covering it,
and it has edges where the water laps up now and then just a little bit, but it
has no palm trees, or an oasis, or hills, or even any pebbles on its flat,
plain surface.
The only thing you can hope to see sometimes on
this island is a figure, fully developed, always different, and always from
somewhere new in the world. The figure will appear, express itself, and look
around in despair for its lack of an audience, before breaking down and
collapsing, dissolving into the nothingness.
These figures are the suppressed emotions of
the peoples of the world. Every time you supress an emotion, it will eventually
sink lower and lower into your core, and eventually be exiled to the island,
where it will anthropomorphise and go through the aforementioned process.
There are less suppressed emotions in the world
than you would think. After all, humans are a pretty emotional race of beings,
and cannot usually keep their feelings down. Therefore, it is actually quite
rare on a day to see two apparitions appear at the same time, and usually
they paid the other no heed. But one day turned out to not be such a normal day
for the island.
After noon had just passed, in almost the same
second, two figures began to form close to each other. The first was that of a
white woman, in her mid-forties, with long brown hair tied in a ponytail, and
with tear-stained eyes. She was wearing a blue pantsuit and open flat heeled
shoes. The second was an East Asian man, with short thick black hair, almost forty,
and with a face full of rage. He wore a grey embossed boiler suit and scuffed
black boots. The apparitions were always very much like their originators, but
never too much the same. They were only emotions of course, not full
people.
The two figures faced each other. They ignored
the other briefly, staring at the sand, before raising their heads and meeting
eye to eye. There was no surprise, only their respective emotion.
“I am the suppressed anger of Li Wei, Shangrao,
Jiangxi Province,” said the male apparition sternly, before involuntarily
gritting his teeth.
“I am the suppressed sadness of Connie Wales,
Raleigh, North Carolina,” replied the female apparition, through her sniffling
and wiping at her cheeks.
They stood looking at the other for a moment, before
the female asked, “Why is Li Wei so angry?”
The male apparition started to walk around,
thrashing about.
“His daughter Yin is leaving the family!” he
shouted. “Going up north to Shanghai, studying to be a doctor! She can study in
Shangrao! She’s only doing this to punish me, punish her mother, dishonour her
family, abandon her brothers!”
The female apparition burst out crying. The
male apparition stopped thrashing about and turned to her: “And what is Connie
Wales so sad about?! How can she be as emotional as Li Wei about
something?!”
The female apparition continued to wipe away
the onslaught of tears as she replied, “Connie Wales is sad for the same
reason. Her daughter is leaving Raleigh to go to Chapel Hill to study English
and Drama. It’s breaking her heart, although she doesn’t show it!”
She broke down again, crying ever more deeply.
The male apparition did not let off with his
anger. He went over to the female, grabbed her, and shook her by the shoulders.
“That is nothing!” he shouted. “Connie Wales’
daughter shall be but a short drive away! Li Wei’s shall be a day’s journey by
train! Maybe more! Li Wei’s family is too poor for such things!”
The female apparition did not tell him to stop,
but instead cried even harder and louder.
“That’s really sad for Li Wei!” she almost
squealed.
“Stop it!” he shouted. “Stop it now!”
He shook her even harder, and she put her hands
on his chest. They almost fell to the ground, but their eyes met again. He
stopped shaking her.
They saw in each other’s eyes that they had now
existed for so long that they had managed to gain souls, and therefore their
independence for themselves from their originators. They understood that they
had both been birthed from the same base emotion: the fear of loss. They got
each other completely, and recognised that through understanding themselves,
they had conquered the emotion that had so disturbed their originators that
they had had to push it so far down into their psyches that the apparitions had
materialised on the island in the first place.
They embraced. They kissed. They were in love,
for as newly created souls, they were two of an exclusive kind. They were made
for and by each other. Their love was spontaneous, genuine, unique,
eternally theirs. They could give themselves or each other real names and go on
to live full lives.
The island did not like this, but it knew what
to do, as it had done it several times before. It groaned and tremored, and
began to sink beneath the water as the two continued to embrace.
“Do you think we have honoured our
originators?” asked the male apparition, pulling back a little.
“To be honest, I don’t care at all,” replied
the female, and they kissed again.
For the island that was the ultimate insult,
and it crashed itself into the sea, drowning the apparitions in an instant.
When it slowly rose back up, their two forms lay briefly on the wet sand,
before dissolving into the nothingness, never to be seen again.
The sand dried out quickly under the hot sun.
There was to be another apparition along shortly, and, for the island’s
benefit, he or she would remain alone.
Harris Coverley has had more than seventy short stories
published across dozens of periodicals, including Curiosities, Hypnos,
and Rivanna Review. A former Rhysling nominee, he has also had over two
hundred poems published in journals around the world. He lives in Manchester,
England.
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