1. Crammed in a Crevice
The deadly collection of spikes swept terribly close to Mrs. Smith. Too petrified to exclaim, she pressed in closer to Mr. Smith, pushing with all her might to wedge both of them farther into their crevice.
Mr. Smith looked on stoically, doing his best to inspire his wife. That was the fourth pass of the spikes, so he estimated that they should be letting up soon. The couple would then likely have to face the great flush and vortex, but if they survived that, they were almost certainly safe - for a while.
Mr. Smith had experienced four of these cleansings in his life. His first experience with forced removal had been as a young child when an even bigger, sharper spike tool was used (at least it seemed so at the time). The experience had left him permanently unsettled and on-edge for life - try as he did to conceal these feelings.
The second time he had been a teenager in a different place - a place with his family. The great tragedy of the second time was that his whole family - mother, father, sister, and aunt - were all discovered and fell victim to the spikes. Bur for the randomness of the spikes, Mr. Smith would have fallen too - and he used to wish he had - but somehow he was saved, even as his poor sister was snagged and torn brutally from his arms.
The third storm came soon after that and was in some ways less severe. There were no spikes this time, only a chemical flush, which stung and burned and lapped up, over and around Mr. Smith’s body, but ultimately left him relatively undamaged. The chemical flush was followed by a vortex, which turned out to be a blessing, for within the vortex, flailing out of control, was Mrs. Smith (at the time, Miss Brown). Mr. Smith, ever the humanitarian, snatched Miss Brown from the vortex and hung on tight. When it finally subsided, they could hardly separate, having held each other so tightly, but it was not to matter. Mr. Smith pulled far enough away to look Miss Brown in the eye and, without breaking their embrace, asked her to marry him. Miss Brown pulled far enough away to look once over Mr. Smith and, deciding she liked what she saw, said yes. Now, having been married for nearly 9 hours, they were the 4th longest married couple in the region.
This brings us to the present in which the great vortex, furiously spewing and railing against everything tries, but fails, to dislodge Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Many of their neighbors were not so lucky: the Kahn’s, the Fry’s, and Mrs. Hornstauper all fell victim to the removal. All had been worthy and reasonable neighbors; they would be missed.
“To move on to what is next” was the ultimate fate of everyone, but that of course made it no easier to accept. No one really knew what was next, and the uncertainty could be brutal. In general, one moved toward either The Dark or The Light. Most remember coming from The Light, but most were also aware of the staggering number that were destined daily for The Dark - a great many of them young, no less.
There was some debate among those in the region over the better end - if it even was the end (that was another topic of conversation altogether). Most seemed to agree that whatever was next included some type of existence, although potentially in a completely different form. The question then became whether it was better to move toward The Dark, where so many others ended up, or to move toward The Light.
Mr. Smith had heard stories from time to time of anomalies in both directions. Chez Jones, who had fallen victim to the same storm that wiped out the majority of the Smith family, claimed to have grown up in a different region entirely - a place with different colors, different odors, and different topography. One day, he said, he had been dislodged - a horribly stressful experience for anyone - but he was immediately plucked from the ether by a rolling topographical feature that had suddenly appeared in the region. The next minute or so was kind of a blur, but Chez maintained that he was pulled from the land of his birth, passed through the light, and ended up in our current region. Mr. Smith felt that Chez had a very vivid imagination.
Ultimately, Mr. Smith decided, he wasn’t going to care where he ended up - a valiant lie that, as long as he didn’t think about it, he was able to make himself believe. If nothing else, his courageous airs inspired Mrs. Smith, who had just now commented that it looked like they had survived another cleansing.
Yet unfortunately for all involved, today was to be the day that Mrs. Smith spoke too soon, for no faster had the words come out of her mouth than a great synthetic cord, taut and bristling, crashed into the Smith’s little crevice and plucked Mrs. Smith away. Mr. Smith made a desperate lunging attempt to save his wife, but to no avail. The cord was simply too mean and efficient. As Mr. Smith peered up after his wife, he saw she was already gone.
The cleansing of Mrs. Smith was sad, but it is hard to argue that it was objectively sadder than any of the other losses routinely sustained by the community. Loss was, after all, a part of life. The fact that Mr. Smith had already lost his entire family may seem to lend some support to the argument for extraordinary sadness, but even the number of Mr. Smith’s losses was not so rare.
Old Chewy, who lived off on his own in a remote corner of the region, took the cake when it came to enumerating losses. Poor Chewy had been married five times and widowed four, the one wife not counting towards the total having run off with someone else before being quickly swept away into the dark. Chewy was appropriately morose owing to his hardship, and anyone who got close enough to him to interact came away in a subdued mood.
Chewy’s residence was his one point of pride. He had inhabited his location for so long that he had actually drilled in and created what looked to be a permanent burrow for himself. Protected by geography on 3 sides, Chewy was effectively immune to spike and cord attacks, especially since his home’s one exposed side was rarely touched. No one knew exactly how old he was, but Chewy’s own estimate was that he was somewhere near 2.5 months old - practically unheard-of longevity.
Mr. Smith, not feeling particularly chipper himself, decided to visit the old curmudgeon. It was somewhat impulsive, as Mr. Smith had rarely set foot outside his own protective crevice in his entire life. Reaching Chewy would require an unknown and dangerous journey. Chewy lived on the other side of the Great Heath. No one crossed the Great Heath. Yet once Mr. Smith had the idea in his mind, he found it difficult to dislodge. He would leave as soon as the current storm was over.
After a period, satisfied that he had made good on his half of the late Mrs. Smith’s comment that they had survived the last storm (poor Mrs. Smith!), Mr. Smith set out. He paused to survey the ridge on which he had spent so much of his life, but which he had never really seen. It was a strange and forbidding landscape. Great craggy formations pierced the air. High above, he could see - what was up there? He could barely make it out.
“Mr. Smith!” An urgent hiss shot out from a crevice near his foot. Mr. Smith looked down and saw Mrs. Perez, his neighbor, peering up at him. “What are you doing? Get down here!”
“I’m going to go see Chewy,” said Mr. Smith.
“Chewy? Do you have a death wish?”
“We lost Mrs. Smith,” Mr. Smith returned sadly.
Mrs. Perez’ eyes softened. “May the winds be with you,” she said stoically, and disappeared from sight.
Mr. Smith surveyed his surroundings again. The edge of the ridge was nearby. Mr. Smith moved to the edge and peered over it and out. There it was, beginning far below, but climbing well above the ridge farther out: the Great Heath. Mr. Smith could barely make out its surface. It seemed to undulate with its rolling hills and contours. Mr. Smith began to grasp the challenge and danger that awaited him. The Great Heath would take ages to cross. If an attack came while he was out there - well, it would be ‘on to what is next’.
Directly in front of him, the edge of the ridge dropped off sharply. The ground was slick and wet. Farther up, the edge of the ridge didn’t look to be quite so far from the surface of The Great Heath, but moving in that direction would take time. Mr. Smith paused.
Attacks came in waves: explosions of spikes, cords and chemicals for an intense interval, then the periods in between tended to be calm. Inhabitants of the region developed an instinct for the general timing of the next attack, but the exact moment was never known.
Mr. Smith didn’t know how long it would take to cross The Great Heath. He knew that, although it wasn’t routinely done, it could be done, or at least it had been done. His plan, he supposed, was to move straight out into the middle of it, climbing higher and higher, toward the dusky horizon. If he continued to move away from his ridge, he had to move closer to Chewy.
Mr. Smith’s reflection was cut short as the formation beneath him trembled. A huge gust of wind from his right roared across The Heath and lapped up onto the ridge. Mr. Smith, caught completely unawares, lost his placement and slipped forward, off the edge of the ridge, and down, down, down.
