The Pole Shift

Janet and Mnem Find Land

Janet and Mnem moved through the rumbling and dead seas, seas that were more like an upset bath where two terrible children pounded and banged the surface, their toys dark and broken. The cabin - now boat, snagged often and at night their movement dulled prompting Janet to conclude it’s power was drawn from the Sun. Mnem followed Janet’s enthusiasm and it was tempting for Janet to think her an utter tool but Mnem’s demeanor was changing as they made a course to the nearest Island. She looked to the horizon, singing soft tunes, was she some kind of witch?

        At night they ate the pale paste and sipped desalinated water, they were both beginning to get sick and the corners of their mouths were cracked. They kept clean as best they could, and when they slept they slept with their legs touching. On the third day of travel Janet had forgotten her hate of Mnem, it had been erased and it’s place was affection and protectiveness. She didn’t know if it was the action of travel with purpose or Mnem herself. Some spell she had cast? The thought of Mnem having hidden arcane powers had been blooming in Janet.

        They sat in the hatch, their legs dangling into the cabin, their bodies breathing the oily brine outside. The boat was traveling North East, the stick matching markings indicating that direction. Around them the old world floated, even though there seemed less flotsam the ocean was still dark with the topsoil of the continents.

        “Prophet says the first Island will be visible late in the day, we should see it, there.” Janet pointed, she had been plaiting Mnem’s jet hair and the sudden movement of her arm and Mnem’s twisting body set her hair free.

        “Home?”

        “Yes, our home.” Mnem beamed, she said:

        “See it was like the fire opal, we had to find the thing that meant home.”

        “What was the thing?”

        “Being friends.” Janet considered the comment, it was more that she had figured out the cabin was navigable, but she wondered. The day wound across the skies and neared the last hours of light, they were both excited, a future was opening arms to them and it was a way to let slip the past, at least for Janet.

        “Look!” Said Mnem, ahead a hump of land rose, as they got closer they saw towering trees, stripped of leaf fringing a black cliff. Janet circumnavigated the island at a distance. The Island was small, a few acres. At the front a mass of wreckage formed a  bizarre wall, and the tapering cliff met the carnage like a horseshoe. There was the glimpse of a tin roof behind the wall, a home. “Why don’t we get there?” Janet took a deep breath, biting her lip curling her fingers before answering Mnem.

        “Because, there's others.”