The n-Body Problem

I feel solved now. There are two sumps in the floor. One has a pump the other not. The sump was designed hundreds of years ago and dedicated as a tomb. I roll. I approach the sump at an angle so my bottom enters first. Skin is gone in places and seared tough in others. I decide not to feel pain for a sec. My bottom hits crumpled chicken wire that compresses under my weight. I slide in. I am a nematode in a grub’s back. What I am doing is repeated in nature. I fill the sump. The floor is level with my chin. It is warmer in here, close as I can be to the hot centre of the earth. I feel colossal. I think that in the moments before you die, your body assumes things. I fit perfectly in this hole.

all good things.

Stone in water. Corner in water. Joists in water. Kids in water. Sub-basement in water. Water in water. Stone in ash. Corner in ash. Joists in ash. Kids in ash. Sub-basement in ash. Ash in ash.

Plastics bent. Stone in plastic. Corner in plastic water. Kids in ash. Sub-basement in plastic. Plastic in plastic. Joists. Water. Water. Stone. Plastic. Kids. Ash. Window is Q. Stairs are ash. Window.

I can’t say this story right now.

Brick is over. Water is over. Window is Q. Ash is ash. Kids are ash. Sub-basement is ash. Water is ash. Plastic is black. Ash is black. Sub-basement is black. Window is black. Black in water. Water in black water. Brick is over. Brick is over. Water is plastic. Water is black plastic. Puddle in plastic. Water in ash. Ash is over. Puddle in brick. Kids in puddle. Sub-basement in puddle. Window is Q. Ash is Q. Q is over.

Some minutes in.

The man is a maggot with no arms or legs or genitals wrapped in a sopping foul rag. He has risen on flood waters from a sump in a burned-out basement. A single lung is emptied of water and filled with air for ballast. The man is a bandaged toe. He is conveyed on slow-moving ash. It is enough to call trees by name. Birch. Ash. Maple. Poplar. Cedar. White Pine. Blue Spruce.

More minutes in.

Jackson Pine. An entire cloud. Sand in ash. If the water recedes it will leave a wide gasket of brackish gel. The bandaged toe is turned by a rock. There is a thing called a bunny. Not here. Not now. But there is. The water isn’t revealing its vertical face. Its pirate hat. But there it is. Half in and half out. An entire cloud.

Not minutes. Not right now.

The culverts clear the water from the land and the graded roads breach like whales. The trucks are all in pots of ash and the silos are upright. The deer are a carcass and the coyote are alone. There are things that people made by hand and what they are. Pollen is picked from bark and sound is watching this spread. There is no rhythm to things. Not right now.

I am lying on a flat stone. The ash flow moves around it. I have lost all sensation. My nerve endings have been cut by bleach. I have to share my lung with my septic heart. My brain. Oh, well.

The sky is mighty blue. So blue it looks like sky. The sun is fire. Burning gas. I feel this on my flat rock. The ultra violet light. The radiation reaching my sides by bouncing off the flat rock. I have to turn my face from the direct rays. I am a bean from a can. I am sniffing the sun as it lands. This is a real sky. I turn on the rock to pull my robes off. I am a bean from a can. Is this the real sky? I turn to the east. A dark cloud. I smell rainwater.

It is the thing we haven’t seen in ten long years. It is the thing we were told might never return. Our bodies in the sky prevented it. The red takes up the orange and they curve. A yellow path lined with green. Blue. Indigo. Violet. We have left the sky. Returned its flags. Apologized.

Rainbow.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For Rachel Jones, my true love.

Thanks to Charlie Baker for constructing and implementing the n-Body Code.

Derek McCormack for his fine eyes and ears on these pages. Thanks also to his hardships—they are exploited here.

Great thanks to the family ChiZine—Savory, Kasturi, Beiko, Morris.

Erik Mohr for the boss cover and Jason Brown for the interior illustrations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tony Burgess writes fiction and for film. He lives in Stayner with his wife, Rachel, and their two children, Griffin and Camille.

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