Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. It is a draft; there are mistakes, many misspellings and sometimes long periods of no updates. copyright: ion fyr 2025
The ship #9837 departed. He had no time piece, but he was certain the promised hour was cut short. It seemed as if he had been standing by the gangway for only 15 or so minutes.
His adjacent fellow travellers, whose foulness he found tolerable, only because of his habit of finding himself in less tolerable situations, it seems with a regularity that was indicative of a great curse on him. Others, however, were new to his eyes. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed them before.
Despite the grating, constant bombardment of mechanical voices making demands (and hawking unwanted merchandise–things he could not picture or had never heard of), and ignoring the hollowness of his stomach, Pool managed to drift off for a time. He dreamed of a trainstation in the Baltics and steaming perogies.
He was jostled awake by his fellow cargo on both sides, all around him, standling and bustling. A bag smacked him on the back of the head, not heavily by enough to jolt him to attention.
Pool reached for his hat, which it took his sluggish brain a moment to remember was no longer with him, probably long ago rotted on that island. Instead, as he patted down his chest, as if to check the breast pockets of his equally absent jacket, he remembered he was still wearing Nila’s raincoat.
He stood, half to ready himself, remembering that he was to disembark, but also to get above the fray.
The ship disgourged passengers as fanatics from an arena after a vigorous match. Suddenly alive again after their journey through the underworld, they all had a much more cheerful demeanor. Pool could sympathize.
The loading dock…unloading dock…he wasn’t sure of the correct term. The recieving platform of the station flowed in one direction. The herd moving along at a shuffling pace, all hurried, but stimied by the press. He followed along, hoping that he would be reunited with his guide.
Before long he was. The other gangway, that had sucked cargo up into the hold, now regurgitated it back, spewing it out in a tumble at the end of its probiscus.
Crates and luggage tumbled out of the end of the tube in a great heap as passengers clambored over the pile pushing each other and each other’s bags out of the way, digging for their own.
Pool laughed to himself at the sight. He saw the passengers and luggage as one and the same, all spewing out into the same pile. Some men and women were actually fighting over some mistaken object. The constable in him felt the pull to intervene, but he was distinctly aware of his situation and focused getting Philoctetes back.
He mechanical companion rolled out, tumbling head over curled legs, like a wheel, down the plank and into the pile, bouncing over two women and a child (who was bowled over), coming to rest next to a massive support column for the distant ceiling.
Philoctetes unfolded himself, standing to his full two meter height. Lights behind his eyes pulsed several times, then his head swivelled.
Uncannily, he looked directly toward Pool, who was amazed at the speed with whcih he could look over every face in the crowd.
Pool pushed through the crowd toward him, through puddles on the concrete floor (despite the ceiling).
The air was humid, of the kind of atmosphere found in the tropics or equatorial regions and beyond the funk and sweat of the mob, it had an almost floral quality.
“Constable Pool, How was your journey?” Philoctetese asked when Pool had come to him.
“It was quite the adventure,” Pool responded. He had found it a mixture of unpleasant and interesting in its novelty, but didn’t want to dwell on the experience. Changing the subject, “I’m famished. Is there a place to get some grub and, perhaps following that, a place were I could refresh myself.
Ion Fyr 