Maritime Melancholy (Open)

[Gum]

thread notes

• i'm just gonna finish this jawn off as a solo since i didn't get any interest!
• if you want some music to set the mood, try this
• if you're reading this garbage thread, i apologise for stealing your time with something so terrible!

thx

Boggy and black, the thin mud covering the stone beneath was composed of the decomposed. What had decomposed had taken centuries to do so. The bacteria required to break down plant and animal matter faltered in the wind bitten rockscape of Berevar's bleakest island outpost, Enklecay. In the thin layer of mud something grew, an equally anemic crop of short yellow grass clung to the end-of-the-world outpost with dour resolution. A cliff's edge set the lonesome land against a harsh horizon of yellow meeting grey. In the summer it was warm enough for the water to cling to the air like a thoroughly soaked sleeping bag, that was how the miserable clouds clung to the lost island. The low cover seeped drizzle day and night for weeks at a time. The sea had fish and so the cliffs had birds, their feathers and feces covered the island's steepest face almost entirely. Beyond that avian endeavour to devour fish by the tonne, there was little life present on Enklecay Island.

A run of planks, shining wet with the delicate rain, were laid across the dampened landscape some decades prior. While untreated, the wood had not rotten, but had become worn and ugly. Continued expeditions along the grim boardwalk loosened the rusty nails and made the route precariously uneven. The pathway wound through the peaty bumps and squelchy patches in the island's limited layer of soil. Each plank was set on wooden rails below, it mirrored precisely the method used to permit tourists access to hot beaches. However, this boardwalk was not linking a hotel with a sandy beach via a gap in the sand dunes. Instead, it was the island's only lifeline. A solitary cove possessed a jetty made with the same humble lumber as the boardwalk. From the barnacle crusted posts up to the salt stained mooring, the modest structure communicated well its barely lingering presence waged against its vital importance. Row boats would dock in the cove after venturing from their larger ships anchored further out to sea.

These infrequent arrivals of supplies could be wheeled back along the path to the opposing terminus. Few people came back with the supplies, they were usually dropped off with the island's sole custodian to struggle back alone. Following the boardwalk inward consumed the few willing visitors with exponential anxiety. The path went along a slight incline. The yellow vegetation disappeared in the fog to either side, and the planked route drowned in the mist fore and aft. As though haunting its guests with sentient malice, the island's fog parted at the very point of hopelessness. What was revealed was the only humanmade building lost in the dreadful desolation. The whitewashed walls were weathered down to the red brick underneath. The structure's tin roof was home to weather vanes and lightning rods. Next to the familiar weather measuring apparatus was a curious sphere with a steel walkway mounted around it. Meanwhile, rain gauges filled the space at the foot of the building. It was a scientific research station. At the end of the boardwalk were a pair of rusted double doors ready to welcome the visitors inside. Despite it offering relief from the exposure, no visitor ever felt comfortable placing their hands on the orange oxide knobs and closing the door behind them.

[Gum]

Alas, the old tropical shaman had arrived and approached alone. It had been his intention to travel with company, but his hopes had been dashed by a chronic lack of enthusiasm amongst his peers. After reaching the building, Gum rattled his thin skinned knuckles across the door and waited for the scientific station's lonely custodian to welcome him out of the weather.

"Oh, Shaman Gum, thank the gods you made it here!" the voice came bursting through the bitterness as the door swung open with an aching iron creak.

"I'm alone, unfortunately," apologised Gum sheepishly, "it'll just be the two of us."

"That's fine, that's fine--it was you I called for after all."

The scientist stood in the doorway, fully bearded and wrapped in fur lined layers of excessive proportions. His eyes were small and squinting behind the nose edged glasses a scientist was obliged to display.

"I'm a bit underdressed," Gum winked.

"Oh, dear. My manners. Inside, inside , inside , inside," said the host rushing the shivering shaman into the warmth within.

The metal entrance slammed behind them. Gum had the nagging feeling that with the door closed, the world outside had ceased to exist.

[Gum]

Together, they sat at a simple metal table in the bottom of the building. An oil lamp light flickered over them, gently encouraging the comfortable warmth of kind conversation. Against the wall there was a slowly boiling kettle warming water over a blue flamed burner. Two mugs with dry teabags were waiting. The ceiling was low. Black tiles made the floor colder than it had to be.

"Karde, I am proud for our people that you are here," the shaman complimented his host on his academic accomplishments.

"Yeah," laughed Dr. Yug Karde, "there weren't many other people from Dheathain at the University of Radasanth."

"So your education hasn't dulled your enthusiasm for our shared religion?" the shaman directed the conversation pointedly.

"When you get to be as old as I am, you start to wonder if this is going to the flu that gets you," Dr. Karde smiled, purposefully wrinkling the lines in his wise old face. He was easily twice the age of Gum, putting the scientist in his eighties.

"So old age makes you wonder about Oxxad and Atataratzu," it was an accusation of opportunism.

"No, no--not at all," Karde was quick to assure his guest, "I've seen Oxxad in my nightmares. I dread it. He visits me before he comes for my loved ones."

"You want to make sure?" asked Gum.

"Right."

[Gum]

The kettle started to bubble a little on the stove.

"How do you feel?" wondered Gum delicately.

"I barely get showered any more. I haven't brushed my teeth in months," Karde grinned at him, "what's left of my teeth."

Gum lowered his naturally narrow eyes, his was the body language of sympathetic respect.

"But the research continues," Karde spoke again before Gum could say anything, "I want to make sure I finish my work here before I die."

"Enklecay is like no other place I've visited," Gum conceded.

"It's not the end of the world. But you can see it from here," the old scientist chuckled happily at his own joke.

Gum struggled to imagine a place less hospitable than Enklecay Island.

[Gum]

"There's a different kind of danger here," mused Gum. "I almost choked on the cold outside. It filled my lungs so quickly, I could barely breathe. And that is different. Did you ever imagine when you were looking over your shoulder for predators stalking you in the jungle that one day all that dangerous life around you would be gone? And instead you'd be here, surrounded by such a lack of life. I would be afraid to step out..."

Swwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwoooooooooooooo!

The whisle of the kettle boiling interrupted Gum entirely.

"It's different, alright," said Karde while getting up from his chair and heading for the stove. "It never really got to either of us. We just worked together to get on with the research. It's just preparation, that's all. Layers and layers before you go outside, that's all. Boots, hoods, scarves, gloves, hot water bottles at night. That's all." Every time the ailing doctor insisted "that's all" he believed it a little less himself.

"Ah, tea. What a treat!" Gum was excited by the rare treat of a drink brewed from an exotic alien leaf. Dr. Karde poured the boiling water a little shakily. Gum watched and wondered how accurate the scientific readings of such an infirm individual could be. While they waited for the tea to fully infuse, Gum began to press the purpose of his visit, "How was it? In the end I mean. How did it happen?"

"How does it ever happen?" replied the scientist, harmlessly guarding his feelings with amiable regret. "It happens and you do your best," he said placing a mug on each side of the small square table. "But no, it wasn't the cold if that's what you were wondering."

The oil lamp flickered and faltered.

The warm air rising from Gum's mug steamed up his nostrils and loosened his sinuses. A healthy sigh of satisfaction rose from Gum's lungs and out into the chill of the research outpost's poorly heated air. With belly warmed vigour Gum pushed the issue again, "The things I requested in my letter, do you have them ready?"

Dr. Karde's head drooped, his glasses slipped to the tip of his bulbous nose. He pushed them up and nodded. Solemn and silent, his sip from the mug was drawn out. Another a sigh, Karde's sigh was the heavy maritime melancholy they had both skirted in conversation. "I have them here," he was afraid to admit it.

Scientific and military outposts shared a penchant for metal furniture. The facility on Enklecay Island failed to buck the trend. Yug Karde walked from the table to an upright steel cabinet. From within he pulled out a soft fabric sack. The bag was small enough to be held in one hand and it was closed with the loose familiarity of a drawstring. It was the kind of bag a kid would keep their precious marbles in. "Okay," smiled the old man, "ready when you are, old bean."

[Gum]

"We can wait if you want," Gum knew when to push and when to slip into the background of the moment. "But, we have the items, we can continue with the process," pushing, a little.

"She's outside," admitted the doctor while fighting against his grim sentiment, "I felt like it made sense to keep her in the cold."

"That luxury was never available to us back home," Gum was, of course, talking about the tropical temperatures in the Xangu Basin.

"Yes, of course. The cold feels right for this though."

"Enklecay has a sadness to it, I feel it too. You should not let that melancholy sentiment take control of you."

"It's hard."

"Tell me how you feel," Gum's offer was sincere, he had the sombre sparkle of tear drops pooling in his eyes.

"I took her away from her garden," sobbed Dr. Karde, "she tried so hard to grow things here on the island but not much of anything would grow here. The gods can damn me, I deserve it all. I should never have taken this post. It's been twenty years out here. I watched the last bit of youth drain out of her, here on this fucking rock. And what for? Peer reviews? So lazy students can mis reference my work in their poorly written papers. What a waste."

Gum was a shaman of the Xangu basin. By the letter of the law, his job was to shepherd the souls of the recently dead from the Overworld to the Underworld. Once on the other side, Gum would shake the hand of Oxxad and the transaction would be complete. The soul was no longer his charge, the dead were delivered to the afterlife. There was more to Gum's job than that though. In reality, he was a grief mop. The dead left the living in pieces, Gum had heart enough to try to mend those pieces whenever he could. After all, Gum was always the last person alive to see their loved ones.

"She wanted to be with you," the words were honest and slow.

"With me in Dheathain!"

"No," said Gum dismissively, "that is not how it works. When you love somebody, making sacrifices for them brings you joy."

"And what sacrifices did I make for her?" the doctor made a good point, Gum didn't know.

"I know that you know the answer to that question if you think hard enough."

The doctor smiled, "We'll have to get going."

Their chatter provided nature's interim, outside the weather went from rain to snow, damp to ice. When Dr. Karde pushed the door open, a wind whipped lash of cold struck his cheek. Gum followed his friend out into the wild and looked up to gauge the bitter storm. The seagulls were cawing at the growing gale that was spinning them in circles. They both shielded their brows with their wrists and crunched into the sleety ground outside. Their destination was an unheated outbuilding a few minutes' walk from the main structure.

"Okay," Yug Karde jangled the key into the keyhole and opened the door into a shadowy blackness from which neither could recover. The mood sank. There were no lights in the old shed. The wind rattled the corrugated iron siding. A section of the roof facing the oncoming gusts threatened to peel away. "Come on inside," while Karde's advice was wise, Gum wondered what shelter this ramshackle shed could provide. The Xangu shaman went inside anyway, the day's obligations required it.

[Gum]

Yug centred himself in the room while Gum stood back. For a moment only, Gum pulled in his lower lip to temper his own feelings in the presence of the truly bereaved. Karde stood at the foot a table, it was half as wide as it was long. The table was home to something that had to be hidden. A sheet stretched over the table's secret. The cloth was once white, but had since garnered grime and stains. With a stifled clearance of his dry old throat, Karde slid the sheet back from what it was covering. He dropped the fabric in a muddled heap over his winter boots.

Karde broke down again.

Gum looked at the woman on the table. She was Joelle Karde. Her skin was cold and blue, eyes shut and lips cracked. She was dressed like her husband, wrapped up for the weather.

"She just didn't wake up," his whimper spilled between his words.

"I am sorry," the shaman offered a simple truth.

"The soil is too shallow here, on the whole island; we'll have to put her in the ocean."

"The water is full of life. The gods would approve of us returning her body to the ocean. There it can be put back to purpose. I will take care of her spirit, I promise you. Do not spend a moment more concerning yourself with the flesh and bones her spirit once lived in."

[Gum]

Working together, the two tired men had carried Joelle's corpse to the edge of a storm worn cliff. It was her favourite cliff, a place she came to gorge on the performance of life. The doctor's late wife believed the way the waves sloshed across the rocks was analogous to their savage beginnings in the distant Dheathain jungles. The seals, the seagulls and the squalls; for Joelle, this spot was alive more than any other on the island. Yug brought her back for the last time.

The delicate motion with which they laid her on the cold ground jarred against the jagged infliction of the weather's brutality. Gum set to work on the funerary customs of their people. First, the shaman bent her knees to her chest. This was to mimic the fetal position. To the Xangu people, birth and death were opposite poles of the same journey. Drawing from a pile of pebbles, the holyman circled the deceased for the ceremony. Gum worked against a wild wind. Every step around the body was a chance to be blown over and off the cliff. Intricate paper foldings in the shapes of butterflies, birds and flowers were attached with ribbons at Joelle's wrists, elbows, knees and ankles.

Yug and Joelle were people of science, but both had managed to maintain reverence for their childhood gods. It was roundly comforting for Yug to watch Gum peform the same death rights that had been performed for his mother when she had died decades before. His mother's funeral had been administered by a shaman named Do U, that was Gum's master.

Gum reached out to Dr. Karde and asked, "The items?"

"Of course, yes," the doctor sniffled as he handed over the drawstring sack.

Pawing around the bag, Gum began to pull out one trinket after another. A wedding ring, he placed that amongst the stone circle. There was a photograph--a rare technological treat--of the two together with the red brick of the University of Radasanth's clock tower in the background. The picture went with the stones. More items came from the bag: a brooch, a lock of hair, a crumpled love letter and a charm laden bracelet. The ceremonial layout was complete.

"It is time for us to remember Joelle," explained Gum with a solemn smile.

Yug sighed harshly, "I just can't. I can't, I just, I can't."

"She is here with us now," Gum daren't tell a lie.

"I'm sorry," the widower winced.

"It will be okay. This is not the end for either of you, I promise you."

For Dr. Karde, grief came as a returning jolt to an already injured heart. The return was always when he remembered that she was gone. Gum's promised that she wasn't gone worked quickly. The old man was soothed and released. Karde could fill his role in the ceremony. He licked his lips and began to tell his shaman visitor tales of their youth together. Everything was a fresh morning or a cool sunset. Everything was special: there were places, objects, people and moments. It was a life well lived and a past well remembered.

A tangerine tear on a cold grey evening, the sun was about to set. Gum was forced to intervene in the old man's newly forthcoming stories.

"It is time, Yug."

"I know, I know."

"I set with the sun, it's the only way I can take Joelle's spirit to Oxxad. We have to go together."

"I wish I could go with you two."

Gum sighed, "One day you will be together again, let it happen as fate wishes."

"I know."

"I will see you at dawn, old man!"

[Gum]

Awash with the palette of sunset, the day was about to die. The sun slipping below the horizon gave something to Gum, it empowered in him an ancient shamanic skill. He was able to follow the sun, follow it into the Underworld. His master warned him not to be afraid, the denizens of the Underworld were Gum's colleagues in shepherding souls to their rightful realm. For all his poise, Gum could never see their gruesome horror through the filter of ambivalence. He was afraid, but not for a second could he let his broken friend see the fear in his eyes.

Gum smiled and said, "Say goodbye to her, Yug."

"Goodbye, Joelle."

Gum picked up Joelle Karde's corpse and flung her over his shoulder. Dr. Karde gasped, covering his mouth with the palm of his thickly gloved hand to hide his grief. The shaman stepped off the cliff and took the lamb with him. Dr. Karde rushed to the cliff to watch them fall, but it was only the body of his wife he saw falling. Her body smashed the rocks on the way down, repeatedly. By the time she hit the water she was shattered into blood and bone.

"No, oh no," the old man cried, he was facing a long night alone. He long to stay and wait. He knew there was no point in doing so. "What can I expect to happen here in the freezing cold tonight?" he asked himself aloud. With logic as his accomplice, Dr. Karde left the scene. He tugged his coat and scarf closer and headed out for home, all he could do was wait until the morning.

~

Gum's sticky eyes struggled open to see the death god before him. Gum had arrived in the Underworld's proudest castle, the rock and shadow of Atataratzu and Oxxad's dreadful seat of power. Oxxad's awful form leered over Gum's prone body. Oxxad's ribs gripped his torso from the outside. The demon god's organs dangled from his inexplicably open gut, they were numerous and unrecognisable to those versed with human anatomy. Between the legs of Oxxad were the shredded remnants of both male and female genitalia, the mutilation had been carried out in a pattern of sorts; it seemed ritualistic. Both hands had digits numbering in the twenties, each finger crept like a spider's leg. From the base of his rear protruded a waving monkey's tail. Beneath the guts were the spindly legs holding Oxxad at his lofty height. He was the tallest being in the Underworld. Looking up at Oxxad's face was to look upon peeled lips and jagged teeth, the skin of his face was pulled tight over a deformed skull and his eyes were gone, but obsidian lumps had been shoved into the sockets instead. A flock of white doves circled over him for all eternity. Beside Oxxad stood his totem of rotting corpses, the freshly dead were stacked at the top and the old bones were slowly turning to dust at the bottom.

"Ah, Gum, my friend," Oxxad's voice was a hissing horrorshow.

"I have a new soul for you."

"I see that," rasped Oxxad with delight.

As Gum struggled to his feet he saw the frightened spirit of Joelle Karde shivering on the stone floor beside him.

"Do not be afraid, Joelle. I am Yug's friend, I am your shaman, we are taking you to paradise."

"Paradise?" the death god laughed hysterically.

"Yes, that is her rightful place here," Gum was stern in his words, just as Master Do U had advised him to be.

"And what of her paradise?" asked Oxxad, "She seems far from ready to accept her fate. Where should we start?"

"Give her gardens."

"Gardens?"

"Yes, she enjoyed gardening in her life above," explained Gum with the memory of Yug's words fresh in his mind. Gum continued while Oxxad scratched his chin with his awful fingers, "Once she's at ease she will be able to shape her own heaven, but I want to give her a starting point. I do not want her to suffer while she realises her new reality."

"And why should my workers go to the trouble of making an exception for this woman?"

Gum stood silent, firm. He said nothing.

"What of a payment perhaps?" the death god begged the scales be balanced.

"Shorten my life by one year. Take it as payment," the shaman's offer was a fair one.

"Done."

Joelle's soul was immediately trapped by a shaft of sunlight shooting in from a hole in the awful fort's roof. The light was the pathway to paradise.

"Next time you bring me some dead, try not to be so demanding!" Oxxad's unpleasant laughter made his pendulous guts jiggle.

Instead of listening, Gum watched. He wanted to fulfill his promise to Yug and make sure that Joelle's soul reached its destination. The ghostly representation of her body in the Underworld gradually evaporated in the shaft of sunlight from above.

"Would you like to stay for dinner? Mother's a wonderful cook!" Oxxad was speaking of the Underworld's supreme ruler, Queen Atataratzu.

Gum fought against the will to wince by smiling insincerely, "Maybe next time. I have to get back to the Overworld."

"So be it," the death god conceded.

The Xangu shaman stood upright as Oxxad's grotesque fingers came down to cover his eyes. "Don't peak," he warned while he wrapped his elongated fingers tightly around all of Gum's skull. With his vision obscured the Underworld was gone and Gum was suddenly sleeping. The night's grim obligation had come to an end.

~

Morning followed the night before. A crisp frost edged the grass and rock of Enklecay Island. The sun was coming from beneath the horizon, its peachy glow eased away the deathly grey of the sky's misery. That distant warmth flushed through the windows of Yug Karde's facility. The light on his eyelids woke him up. He looked across he bed, he was alone. That shock of grief still affected him.

His concern switched to Gum. Yug Karde, worried for Gum's fate, rushed down the stairs and was readying himself to search the island. "He should have been back by now," he thought to himself. When he opened the door to his facility to leave, he was relieved to see his shaman. Gum was shivering, sprawled on the doorstep.

"Inside, inside," said Karde while he used the remnant's of his strength to drag Gum across the threshold.

"She is in paradise."

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Gum recieves 795 EXP and 100 GP!