The Pole Shift

Sean lays down in Melbourne

Sean strode with legs of rock. Enormous legs that crushed as he passed. He waded through oceans. His Island, the basalt flow that had been part of Mt Dandenong, was his body. A moving mountain, a giant castle, configurable through thought. He paced across suburbs, Box Hill, Kew, Richmond. He strode to where Melbourne's CBD once stood. He knelt down submerging the giant, a megalith causing whirlpools and rushes of water as the rock head dipped below the surface.

He created around his immediate body a stone room. With the authority if his thought, the whispers responded, emitting his will through the small gold wand. The face of the giant peeled away forming a large window, but water did not rush in. Water was subject to the technology of the ancients, and Sean closed the cave slightly, forming a shelf where he could lay down on the Aboriginal rock smoothed to a shine, and observe the ruined city as if watching an enormous TV. He would visit Melbourne often, laying himself down and habitually sleeping. The streets were collapsed, but here and there a building stood, The Port Authority building, its Hellenic pillars strangely apt, stood, and the Rialto tower was a shard along Collins Street.

Fish occasionally passed his window and it always made him smile, they were rare but a sign that life had endured. He would lure them in with torches, and watch them flip flop on the stone head floor. Sean was constantly hungry and with a small pan he would heat up the flathead and relish them, even if he wished for pepper and lemon.

He would stay until the air he had stored in hollows of the giant ran out. Or when the thought of Mnem depressed his sense of self , causing him to take sudden action. Sometimes, his sleep ran deep, and the whispers would form into words:

"Travel to our ancient home. Perez will show you." Or:

"Find more gold, increase the size of the wand. If the wand is lost the rocks will tumble and whirl."

Sean would listen to the whispers as he watched the submerged city. He would detach the head of the basalt giant and guide the sphere up and down the crushed streets of Melbourne. He had a memory of his wife, they had been at 'Cookie' in Swanston Street, the hip bar and restaurant was where he had proposed. He had got drunk on cocktails and he thought he had probably ruined it, she married him anyway. Now seventy years later, Sean an impossible old man held together through ancient and lost powers, regarded the shadowy cavern that had been the cool restaurant.

Abruptly a light lit up Swanston Street from the river end, and slowly it brightened until his cave was bathed in orange light. He turned off his torches, and shortly Perez steeped from his orb and into Sean's cave head.

"Found you." Perez muttered.

"As you do." Sean whispered. Perez looked him over, fingers passed across his body as if Perez were a Doctor.

"Eat these." He was handed mushrooms that Sean couldn't identify, eagerly he chewed at them, tasting forest and dew, and his mood lifted, as did his strength.

"Got any more?"

"Always more Sean, you always want more. It is good to just want and not have. It is good to be hungry." Sean looked away like a child. They sat in silence, watching the watery scene.

"I proposed to my wife in there."

"So?"

"I didn't love her yet I proposed."

"You were most likely drunk." Perez didn't give him a chance to respond, instead he continued, "I have found Mnem." Instantly Sean was on his feet, the rock head wobbled and Perez warned him to be careful.

"Where?"

"On the Island, the one she was taken to after the battle. She hasn't been there since, but I have been watching." The rock head was already returning to the body of the giant, Perez's orange Orb trailing like a firefly. "Don't rush it, she will reason with you, but for the love of every Pole Shift that ever was, don't try and make her fall in love with you."

Sean ignored him, his heart fluttering as if that was exactly what was going to happen. he had rehearsed a dozen lines, she would see. Perez continued:

"Reason with her, be good to her. Genuinely kind, be authentic Sean. Imagine what she feels , what her heart wants, not yours. " There was a pause as the giant was one once again, the remains of Mt Dandenong rose in enormous hominid form and its head erupted from the ocean. Perez spoke finally, "You know what I want."

'The shitty carving." Perez rose to the open window, as if it were a cave mouth. His face dangerous and dark. "Get me The Little Lo and the sow is yours." There was a long pause where Perez tried to gather Sean's eye but could not. "One more thing, Giant Sean. There is an Old World fleet heading to the New Islands. Chinese. Just men and weapons but avoid them, wont you? The Lord Jimmy is cast to meet them. " Perez stepped away and seemed to fall, but Sean knew he was in his orb. With enormous strides, Sean headed to Mnem's Island, thinking I would smash a fucking million Chinese fleets and their men and weapons for her.