“I think a line has been crossed sir” – me to Warchalking, earlier this morning.
I write this journal by the light of the silvery moon, close to the summit of a volcano, on a tropical island that is literally nowhere, wearing a sweat drenched pink cotton t-shirt and matching pink sweaty hot pants. Everyone else on the ship seems to keep a journal, so I thought that I would try too.
My life in the last two weeks has been something of a blur, and gets blurrier with every passing day. From my scientific research on the trash island, to the position of Company Secretary, from a kickball match I instigated, that ended with us escaping into the jungle, to yesterday morning seeing my two ex-colleagues shot dead before my very eyes. It seems like only a few days ago that for the first time ever I actually felt “useful”. Now I just feel very, very scared.
Every time I close my eyes I see Hilary and Harrison and replay the incident in my mind, wondering if there was something I could have done differently. They are standing in the grove, pulling brightly coloured fruit from a tree at the edge of the volcano, both dressed in the same black uniforms as the little Tharkey kid. They smile when they see me and laugh about the hot pants. We shake hands. And then a small black bloody hole appears in Hilary’s forehead and he collapses to the floor. I hear the gunshot, like my brain is playing catch up with my eyes. Harrison’s face turns to me, contorted with confusion and he drops to his knees as a second shot is fired. The bullet exits his head above his right eye shooting a bright red tear of blood across his face, and he folds like a rag doll. I turn on my heels and run.
It’s hard to know what to say about them. We didn’t work together long, assigned by the same organization from different branches to carry out the tests. Two weeks camping in amongst the trash beneath the Pacific stars. I wish I’d gotten to know them better, stopped and asked them more questions about their lives instead of being so busy all the time. But I can’t help myself. I wonder if they have wives and children back home. I wonder if I’ll make it out of this alive so as I can call our head office and tell them what has happened, even though I don’t really know what has happened.
Darkness fell at the end of our second day walking and we stopped an hour from the lip of the volcano’s crater. After splitting from “Team Fifeclub” at the edge of the jungle, our “Team America” doubled back through the trees in search of Flowpoetry, but he was nowhere to be seen. The idea that one of our crew is missing in the jungle on this mysterious island, while a psychotic rifle-toting madman is on the prowl, and a posse of machete-wielding islanders are hunting us down, seems to bother me a lot more than the rest of our group. For all the Flower Company are generally pleasant and without question the most interesting people I have ever met, their flagrant disregard for one another’s safety is something that appals me. Personally, I thought locating Flowpoetry should have been top of our list of priorities, but the rest of them insisted that we press on with the mission to steal this map and find the Plum Necklace. I find it strange the bizarre collective belief in this story that Smally has spun about a magical artefact that is somehow going to miraculously right everything that is so wrong. Even if such a necklace existed, and we somehow survive to find it, it won’t bring back Hilary and Harrison. And if it doesn’t exist, what then? A war against the Plum Islanders? I played paint ball once at a stag-do and spent the entire afternoon hiding in a hole until someone found me and shot me repeatedly.
I worry as well about Warchalking. He smokes so much that he even made us take a detour yesterday that set us back hours to visit a section of jungle where towering grass plants grew. He chain smokes these pure grass joints and the Tharkey boy seems to hang on his every wasted word. The fourth member of Team America is this Jon of the Atom fellow. I find him to be quite the precocious individual. Sullen and withdrawn one minute, and then full of beans the next, niggling me while we climb by singing lines from a Doors song “Five to one baby, one in five, no one here gets out alive…” If I’d had my way I’d have gone with Team Fifeclub. I’m sure they’ll be at the top by now.
The east face climb has been treacherous to say the least, and damn hard work. Several times we’ve had to turn back on ourselves after finding precarious ledges that wither to impossible dead ends. Free climbing has never appeared on any list of things I’d like to do before I die, and at this rate there is every chance that I’m never going to get a chance to do the things I would like to do. If I live to see the other side of this misadventure then I promise the first thing I’ll be doing is enrolling myself for trumpet lessons.
The thing that is bothering me the most though, is the feeling that we’re being watched. Thankfully there has been no sign of old McLymont and his rifle, but every now and then I get the horrible sensation that something, or someone knows exactly where we are and is crawling along in our footsteps. And yet whenever I look back down the steep rocky slopes we are climbing, all I see is emptiness and chalk it up to a combination of hot sun and paranoia. There is no doubt that if Vink really has gotten a posse together then they’ll already be scaling the volcano in pursuit. Real or not though, the sensation persists.
So perilous has the climb become, that we have stopped for a second night. The air is much cooler this high up and we huddle together in the crevice of jagged ledges. Even Jon seems subdued, picking at the leftover husks of fruit that we brought and have already consumed. Warchalking has told us that at first light we’ll be making the final push for the top. Who or what awaits us is anyone’s guess, but I suspect that whatever it is, it’s not going to be much fun. Nights like this you find yourself wishing that people like Becky and Simon had come along – they at least have a sensibility about them that drags the feet of madness making it impossible to fully topple over the edge. But with Smally and Warchalking spearheading this mission, I cannot help but feel like we are doomed. With the best of intentions, our Not Captain seems to be leading us from disaster to disaster, always trying to unpick a previous knot while getting more and more tangled in insanity. And as for Warchalking, well, the word “unpredictable” doesn’t even come close to explaining how unpredictable he actually is.
I sleep tonight with a heavy heart, wondering if this journal entry in a paper notebook might very well be my last.
S. O’Flanahanaman
The Utica Flower Company 