I wrote this short story for Earth Day many years ago and I think you will agree that it gives a whole new meaning to the slogan “Go Green.”
EARTHEN REMAINS
By Eric Wilder
The odor of salt and dead fish permeated air near the ocean’s edge. A gull flying overhead screeched, and then plummeted into the water. Its rigid body wafted in the water, then floundered in foamy surf before joining floating garbage already on the beach.
Mahatma sat in the mud of the nearby salt marsh staring at yellowed saw grass withering in the sun. He touched his neck and felt the sting of ripe blisters. The ocean’s stench made him cough, and then gag. His lungs expanded and he almost fainted in the thin atmosphere nearly depleted of oxygen.
He glanced at the cloudless sky streaked with orange and yellow patterns. The purple remnant of a recent chemical disaster billowed in the distance like a noiseless Technicolor explosion. Summoning the remainder of his dwindling strength, he dragged himself up out of the mud. Feeling like a beaten man, he knew if he didn’t move that he would soon join the bone piles bleaching in the sun. Even though frail and light as a wisp of water vapor, he still sank into the stinking mud as he hobbled toward higher ground on spindly legs assisted by his antique oak walking stick.
Mahatma had lived a long and depressing life, and had come to the ocean’s edge to die. He had planned to wade into salty surf and let the steady undertow take him out to sea. Instead, the force of waves continued to push him back toward the bank and he found himself lying in the mud, exhausted. Hours later, he remained alive.
Mahatma felt like a supreme loser. He couldn’t even muster the strength to kill himself. Still, he hadn’t lived to the comparative old age of eighteen by being a weakling. He took the day’s events as a life sign and smiled to himself as he hobbled toward low-lying foothills bordering the salt marsh.
Mahatma had pledged to kill himself before ever becoming so weak that he would succumb to tongue swelling thirst or stomach wrenching hunger. Now, the ordeal in the surf had left him so weak he didn’t know if he had the strength to reach the Great Dump, or the power to dig for nourishment even if he did.
He passed the decaying bodies of a fish and a large bird, and nudged the gull with his toe, seriously contemplating eating it. The nearby bloated body of a dead rat, bloody saliva dribbling from its mouth, warned him it would be a poisonous and deadly mistake. Singh, his lifelong companion, had consumed a dead fish from the
Twelve hours spent in direct sunlight had reopened many of the sores and blisters on his bare head. Bloody pus oozed down his face and into his eyes. He rubbed them with the back of his arm. Getting little relief, he finally gave up, and like his life he simply endured the murky discomfort. Knots on his neck and arms had grown. If he lived to be twenty, there would be nothing left of him by one great tumor. Despite himself, the thought made him laugh.
Many times during Mahatma’s tortured journey he thought he would join the fish, rat, and bird. It didn’t matter. He persevered, eventually reaching the Great Dump’s western flank. The giant feature stretched for hundreds of miles in every direction. Once a veritable storehouse of nourishment, the Great Dump had declined - picked over many times in the last fifty years by countless hungry foragers. Still, Mahatma somehow knew that undiscovered pearls remained.
Not knowing why, he chose a spot on the scattered garbage heap and began digging with his walking stick. Two feet below its desiccated surface he found a treasure - a dozen unopened six ounce cans. Removing the tiny can opener suspended from a chain around his neck, he opened one.
Mahatma had no idea what the can contained so he dabbed his finger into the pasty concoction and touched it to his tongue. The taste was like nothing he had ever experienced and he could think of but a single word - wonderful. He allowed himself to eat only a small portion of the can’s contents, covering the rest with a plastic baggy and storing it in his gunny sack.
An hour or so of sunlight remained before darkness and Mahatma knew he should stay no longer at the dig. Thanking his lucky stars for his good fortune, he headed toward a sheltering ledge in the distance. Halfway there, he realized his good luck had ebbed away. Three withered men traveling together had spotted him and were already closing in for the kill.
Strengthened by the food from the can, he hurried away in the opposite direction with a worried but steady gait. The men followed after him but two were weak and quickly fell behind. The largest man of the group was not so weak and began shortening the distance between them. Mahatma could probably fight off one of the assailants, but knew he had no chance against all three men at once. When he glanced around, he saw the big pursuer was rapidly closing the distance between them. Finally, he raised his walking stick over his head and turned to face the man chasing after him.
Mahatma had never met another ozomute as large as himself - possibly the reason for his longevity. The man he now faced was larger, a head taller and ten pounds heavier. He was also grossly deformed. Mahatma had never seen anyone so large or so ugly and the steely taste of fear filled his mouth and swept over his lips and tongue.
“What is it you want?” Mahatma demanded.
The man didn’t answer but his piggish eyes narrowed even further. Pulling a long knife from his belt, he stepped toward Mahatma. What was worse, the other two men, not quite as ugly as the one staring at him, were catching up to them. With no time to waste, Mahatma attacked the big man, landing a glancing blow to his head. Before jumping back from the non-lethal blow, the man slashed Mahatma with his knife.
Wounded, Mahatma swung away with his cane, laying himself open for another vicious slash to the arm. Sensing his dilemma, he backed away, tripping in a pothole as he did. The ugly ozomute, smelling blood, raised his blade and lunged at him. With little time to react, Mahatma shoved his cane between the man’s spindly legs and gave it a violent twist. Screaming as his leg snapped like a dry stick, the ugly ozomute fell backward in a moaning heap, the other leg also breaking beneath his falling weight.
“Help me,” the man pleaded.
Mahatma stared at the helpless man, guilt cleaving his soul. At that moment, guilt played no role in his decision to turn and run. The other two men closing on their position had already decided that for him. Listening for footsteps and expecting a knife in the back, he experienced neither. Glancing around, he saw why.
The man’s two companions had sliced his throat with his own knife and were now squatting on the ground beside him, happily devouring him. Feeling repulsed, Mahatma started again for the distant sheltering ledge.
Deadened darkness engulfed the Great Dump as Mahatma finally reached the overhang. Falling exhausted to the ground, he lay there without moving, listening for sounds of danger. He heard none and soon sank into a listless stupor, too bone-weary to sleep. Gazing at distant celestial bodies barely visible through swirling dust, he lay there, until sounds disturbed his thoughts. He gazed around, looking nervously for the two men.
Again the sound - a whimpering cry of pain.
Mahatma raised himself to his feet and began searching the expanse of bare rock beneath the overhang. Dim vestiges of light caught his eyes. Blinking away the gloom, he looked again. Something or someone had enlarged a hole beneath the overhang and he saw the flickering of light coming from it. Bending forward for a closer look, he gazed into the hole.
None of his experience prepared Mahatma for what he saw. Sitting with her back to the earthen wall beside a small fire was a frail female, one of less than a dozen, including his own mother that he had ever seen. Even more amazing, she clutched a tiny infant to her shriveled breast. He stepped through the stooped portal and stared.
Recoiling in fear when she finally saw him, the woman placed the infant behind her and grabbed a knife hidden beneath her garments. Mahatma held up a placating palm and shook his head.
“I won’t harm you or your child,” he said softly.
His words didn’t matter. Abject horror had washed across the woman’s face and she began to shake so violently that she could hardly hold the knife. When she finally spoke, her words quivered with emotion.
“Then why are you here?”
“The light made me curious.”
“If that is all, then leave us now.”
Mahatma nodded. Stooping, he started back out of the portal but the woman shrieked and grabbed her chest before he could make his exit. He watched as she slumped over in the dirt, apparently too weak to support herself. When Mahatma tried to assist her, she slashed at him with her knife. Grabbing her wrist, he took it away from her.
“Do what you want with me but spare my child,” she pleaded.
Mahatma raised her, cradling her head against his chest. “When did you eat last?”
The woman didn’t answer but continued to convulse in his arms. As she did, he studied the emaciated female. Like him, she was bald - almost. A single golden lock occupied the top of her head. Her eyes were pale blue, a color he had never seen before in another ozomute. Her right foot lay cocked at an absurd angle. Broken, he knew without asking.
Propping her against the wall, he removed the gunny sack from his shoulder. He placed a glob of food on his finger from the open can and gently poked it into her mouth, holding it there until the food dissolved, and then for a moment longer because the touch of her lips sent inexplicable waves of pure pleasure through his finger and entire body. He continued until she had consumed the can’s entire contents.
“My baby,” she said.
The infant lay asleep beside her. Mahatma touched it, then picked it up and handed it to its mother. Soon, the last flickering ember of the small fire died away and he went to sleep against the cave wall.
* * *
Mahatma awoke to the gentle pressure of the woman cleansing his two knife wounds and the broken blisters on his head. He savored her touch, feeling an emotion he had never experienced during his adult life.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Melinda. And yours?”
“I’m Mahatma. We’re not safe here. Too many ozos roaming this sector.”
A tear appeared in Melinda’s blue eyes. “Where would we go?”
Shrugging, he fished in his gunny sack for a second can of the wonderful concoction. When he held it out to her, she smiled and licked it off his finger.
“Are you thirsty?” she asked.
“You have water?” was his response.
Nodding, she crawled away into the darkness of the cave. Mahatma followed, watching as she filled a vessel with water from a crystal pool.
“Where does it come from?” he asked..
“Artesia,” she answered. “That’s all I know.”
“Is it pure?”
Touching the vessel to his lips, she answered only with her smile.
“If there were just a source of food, this would be paradise,” Mahatma said.
Melinda motioned to a spot behind her. Several scrawny plants grew in a row beneath a small opening in the cave’s roof that provided a little direct light. A stunted red fruit grow on one of the plants.
“How?” he asked.
“Seeds I dug out of the dump. Someone threw them there long ago. I ate some but saved enough to plant.”
“Amazing. Are there more seeds?”
“They are rare. The ozos eat them.”
“You have a broken foot,” he said.
“I haven’t been able to forage for many days.”
“I can set it for you, but it will be painful.”
Touching the broken skin on his forehead, she said, “I trust you.”
Mahatma helped Melinda back into the other chamber. She never winced or cried as he set her foot and then bound it tightly. When the baby awoke and began to cry, she crawled to its side. It was then that Mahatma heard something from outside the mouth of the cavern.
It was the two remaining ozomutes from the previous night. Strengthened by the flesh of their companion, they were moving up the hill toward them, their knives drawn.
Mahatma glanced across the barren expanse of the Great Dump. Food and water had strengthened him and he knew that he could easily outdistance the two ozos. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to run away. Something had strengthened his resolve even more than the taste of pure spring water and sustenance from the can he had only ever dreamed of. Hearing the crying infant behind him and Melinda’s comforting voice, he eased himself out of the cavern’s mouth. He raised his cane and walked toward the two approaching ozos. He was about to live, or perhaps to die. Either way, he had something for which to fight.
END