Chapter 12 - The Abyssal Desert
Time baked until crispy and gold…
Tom sprawled atop the plodding cowsowhorse. His belly and cheek sagged like comforter and pillow over the bumpy mattress of the beast’s back. With effort, he heaved up one cumbersome eyelid. His eye, foggy steel, roamed lazily around its socket. It settled on the statuary shape of Mr. Grey, walking steady at his side.
In a cracked whisper, from between chapped lips, Tom asked, “Your favorite dish?”
Mr. Grey turned his head; a slow turn, like the hand of a ticker in desperate need of winding. His eyes, murky grey, regarded Tom from below his own half-mast lids. He said, “You mean food, I take? Rather than serveware.”
Tom blinked his open eye slowly, as if nodding. “Which has the greatest flavor? The finest texture? The best aroma?”
Mr. Grey brought a thumb and finger to his chin for a musing pinch. He stumbled on a rock in the sand, and instead smacked his cheek. He dropped his hand, shrugged, and said, “A major question. One best not answered lightly. Let me consider. What would be your dish?”
Tom dropped his lid. Mr. Grey moved his head through a slow turn forward. Silence fell; not awkward, just tired. The cowsowhorse trudged through wet sand and plodded over wet rock. Mr. Grey stumbled beside it. Together, they left two sets of prints - pencil-pushers’ and pig’s - behind them on the Abyssal Desert.
Tom spoke with closed eyes. “There’s an argument for worms. The gummy species, with the sour veneer. The way they tingle the tongue! And with a dense chew; like a mouth workout, pleasantly aching the jaw.”
“You make it sound like battle. Like fighting Woe Worms.” Mr. Grey tried keeping his words light. But his voice faded at the end. He stared ahead.
Beyond their cowsowhorse’s personal bubble, the sea floor stretched rugged and bright. The bubble membrane, the watery warping, and the Sun Fish’s baking rays made a triple haze on the plain. Mr. Grey’s vision, and thoughts, swam. He wool-gathered on a flat stone shelf directly ahead. One of many stone shelves. He counted mushy steps.
“But then there’s bonbons,” Tom went on, still with shut eyes. He sighed mournfully. “That rich chocolate coating; the sweet seductress, with special-dark eyes, and the milk-pale arms and legs. And that’s the surface, only the facade. They’ve got mystery insides! You just never know. Ganache or nougat? Fudge, brittle, or caramel? A vanilla splash? Doubled chocolate? Bonbons are like treasure chests, with secret treasure.”
They reached the large stone slab. Mr. Grey had lost track of his step count. He gratefully pulled his shoes from the sticky sand. Their cowsowhorse, with its bubble, scuttled like a ladybug over the stone’s glossy, wet surface. “Where’s Honeydew now?” Mr. Grey asked suddenly. “I hope she’s okay. What do you think she’s eating?”
“More dishes than us,” said Tom. With another strain, he lifted his lid. He studied Mr. Grey with the steel eye. “What’s her favorite?”
“Again, you mean food? Not plates and glasses?”
“Again, I mean food.”
“Well, I’m not quite sure. I can ask her about it - and tell her my dish - when I’m by her side.”
Tom closed the eye. “It’s probably different. From your dish, I mean.”
“We won’t know till we meet up. Ours could be the same. So could yours and hers.”
“No, mine’s different. That’s a certainty.” Tom sighed. He turned his head the other way, to give his other pale cheek an equal share of baking light. He went on, “Maybe licorice is mine. There’s something to it; pulling the strings off, untangling the ruby rope, sticky with sugar. You can make a bowl, and slurp it down like noodles.”
Mr. Grey forced his lids wide, trying to stay wakeful. Far beyond their little bubble, a school of regular salmon swam; streaking through the sea-sky like shooting stars. Mr. Grey said, “You know something, Tom; it’s not so much what we share. Honeydew and me. We just get along. She and I and now you too. After everything, we’re still together. Through Toscamo and the koi; back in the prison, and The Lost City. We just make a splendid team. Honeydew and I…”
A dizzy wave struck Mr. Grey. He walked sideways, and leaned at a good angle against the cowsowhorse. He kept moving forward. Tom turned his cheek back to look at Mr. Grey with his open eye. Mr. Grey said, “What do you think, Tom?”
Tom brought a heavy, flaking hand from where it dangled, and stroked his long whiskers. He said, “I think Candy bars. Just so much variety. Have you decided?”
Mr. Grey sighed, heavily, through his nose. He said, “I do like a nice cream bean.”
“I wonder how it got here,” said Mr. Grey. “Do they just wander? Roaming the desert; chewing kelp, mating, nursing?”
Tom lifted his head off their ride’s neck. “Now we have some breathing room,” he said as he arced his eyes over their new, extra-wide bubble.
The two stood on a pallet of rock over a dimple in the Abyssal Desert. The blindingly-pearl bones of an ancient coral reef - long bereft of existence - jostled up from the sea floor as a ridged backdrop. The dimple’s sand was powder and dry; at odds with the soaked sea floor they’d thus far trod. Their bubble of air too, while still oppressively hot, was now thrice the volume, and half as humid. The dimple sloped gradually to its basin, where dry driftwood and seaweed lay in a heap. A snowy cowsowhorse mare rustled around this cozy bowl, nursing a fillycalflet.
The silence which passed this time was both tired and awkward. Mr. Grey twisted a heel against the stone. He said, “We don’t have a choice here Tom. You need nutrients.”
“You think I don’t know?” said Tom. He laid his head on the spine with a sulking look. “You’re starving just like I am.”
“You’ve been sick for a while, Tom.”
“I’ve felt just fine until now. Or since this long trek. That doesn’t matter. How should we, um, set about?”
Mr. Grey smoothed his robe. Then he stuffed a hand in a pocket and checked his ticker. Tom scratched his head. They stared down the bowl’s sandy slope at the mare and young foal. Mr. Grey thought of a mashed-bean cutlet with a cream-bean drizzle. Tom thought of candy.
Mr. Grey said, “Will this be disrespectful? These cowsowhorses, they’re venerated.”
“What do you suggest?” asked Tom.
“Maybe we take them with us; the mother and child. We walk on a bit, and think it over some more.”
Tom’s relieved sigh rustled the back fur of his cowsowhorse. He nestled his bristly cheek on the shoulder fur. “Go prod the mother,” he suggested.
Mr. Grey left the ledge and descended the slope. Each even footstep made tiny sand landslides. Reaching the base, he crunched over the tangled nest of wood and weeds. He looked between the tired, round eyes of the mother and the wet, bright ones of the calf. Mr. Grey set a tentative hand against the flank of the mother and gave a light shove. She snorted. He did the same with the calf. It let out a high moosquealwhinny. The mother looked at Mr. Grey with danger-eyes and made an un-herbivore-ly lowing noise; more like the growl of a bear. Mr. Grey edged slowly back. He trudged up the slope to Tom.
“I don’t think she’ll move,” said Mr. Grey. He folded his arms and tapped his foot against the stone.
Tom released a flaky, disappointed breath. “Dang, I was hoping.”
“Well, it’s for the best. We’re too-long deprived of food.”
“I guess lead this plodder down.”
Mr. Grey took their animal’s bridle in an extra-dry hand. He led their cowsowhorse, with Tom lying atop, into the bowl. Neither mare nor calf distressed over the bull’s company, and the bull carried himself with gentlemanly deportment. Their animal nuzzled at the nest, then crunched a withered seaweed leaf; a sound like cereal without milk.
“Well, now we’re down here,” said Mr. Grey. He consulted his ticker as if verifying the statement.
Tom slid off the cowsowhorse’s back. He landed on his feet. He wobbled and squeezed Mr. Grey’s shoulder for support.
Mr. Grey tried avoiding everything with his eyes - and ended by settling them on the bulby protrusion of the dry coral backdrop - as he spoke on. “So just to be clear; when we… speak of ‘it’ - doing ‘it’ for nourishment - what does ‘it’ entail?”
Tom pulled his hand from Mr. Grey and braced himself on the cowsowhorse instead. He said, “I think we’re on the same page.”
“Not… not the calf, right?”
Tom shook his head. “We’re speaking of milk?”
Mr. Grey nodded. Neither looked at the other. Mr. Grey eventually said, “One of us has to go first. You need the milk more.”
“Ahhh… but isn’t that risky? What if I get worse? You should test it first, to make sure it’s safe to drink.”
Mr. Grey writhed internally. “You know I’m not that hungry, now I think of it,” Mr. Grey - a strict observer of King’s Law - had his stomach rumble at that precise moment. Tom managed a small lift of his leaden, fuzzy brow.
Mr. Grey said, “Oh alright then, I’ll go first. But how exactly?”
Tom tried shaking his head; the motion made his whole body wobble. “I’m having trouble thinking.”
Mr. Grey bent at an acute angle and looked beneath the mare. “Do you have a bowl?”
“No, but you could use your hands. Cup them together.”
“Would you be willing to squeeze? Since I’m going first.”
Tom nodded. He set a pithless palm on Mr. Grey’s shoulder. Together they walked astride the nursing mare. The foal retreated a few wobbly, short, pig-leg steps. It sat in the crumbly brush and watched them with its wet, inquisitive eyes. Mr. Grey and Tom crouched beside the snowy cowsowhorse. Mr. Grey cupped his hands and held them beneath the udders, while Tom reached out and squeezed. They looked anxiously on the mare’s face; she only looked tired.
Tom tried a few squeezes. He found a working method by wrapping his large hand around all the teats at once and compressing his fingers sequentially, from the middle to the pinky. Eventually, Quad-streams of cowsowhorse milk splashed into Mr. Grey’s bowled hands. Then it splashed right back out. After a few tocks, Mr. Grey and Tom stepped back. Mr. Grey hands were - abnormally - wet, but held no drinkable amount of milk.
Mr. Grey said, “You’d think there’d be shells nearby… What do we do now?” He wiped his hands on his robe, and the Sun Fish baked them instantly dry.
“You’ll just need to, well you know,” began Tom. He blinked woozily. “Get your head beneath. Then open your mouth.”
“Should we think of something else? This seaweed, foinstance. I’ve heard it’s wholesome.”
“It’s also salty. Remember the seawater? The milk’s not just food; it’s also fluid.”
Mr. Grey went for his ticker again, but Tom grabbed his wrist. The big man’s hand - normally warm and sweaty - felt cold and dry as Mr. Grey’s. Tom said, “We’ve come this far already.”
In a tone of admitted defeat, Mr. Grey said, “Well then I suppose… If it keeps us existing.”
Mr. Grey got beneath the udder. Tom squeezed the mare’s milk into his mouth. It was warm, and the best thing Mr. Grey ever tasted.
“What are you doing with my cowsowhorse?” asked a voice from the ridge.