/lit/ - Literature

The date from which the tale is set forth matters little; to begin with the awakening of its protagonist is a mere convenience for the telling. Still, he had awakened just slightly later than usual this morning.

Clinging to the edge of a rusted metal deck one hundred meters above the surface of the sea was a row of tear-shaped sleepsacs, their gnarled and withered hind legs dangling from their underside.

Nearly all of them were shriveled and dried, and only one, at the rightmost end of the row, yet retained its original form, swelling outward in the shape of a ripened fig. From the muscular tightgate that protruded from its upper tip there sprouted the rather dimwitted-looking face of a worker. Borne forward by the action of lickstrings connected to the sleepsac's inner membrane, the worker's slender, naked form was vomited out onto the deck, trailing behind it sticky threads of secretion.

The name of the worker was GyoVuReU'UNN. Although he had no memory of himself of having ever been called by that name, there were no other freewalking subordinates at his workplace, so this was not a problem for him.

The worker's shoulders quivered, and when he raised up his body, it was with movements similar to the curling of burning piece of paper. His feet were dripping with amnesiotic fluid, and taking care not to let himself slip on it, he stood erect on a deck that lacked so much as a single guardrail. In his ears, he could still hear the indistinct voices of countless unknown colleagues whispering to one another.

"Stand up on the deck"/ "I don't want to remember anymore" / "That was an awful sight" / "What's awful is that it's just like everyone says" / "It's what they call collective unconsciousness" / "Like they had before" / "I don't remember that" / "I never seen it" / "Maybe you were just delirious" / "We've been horribly oppressed" / "By the way, I hear the next town over is closed off..."

The worker came fully awake as peeling, rusted iron bit into the soles of his feet. A sweetness and a grainy, figlike texture was spreading into every corner of his mouth. This was the flavor he always tasted whenever he came out of the sleepsac.Although the concentrated sweetness of dried figs was his favorite, the worker had never actually eaten one.

The last of the amnesiotic fluid dribbled out of his ears, a strong cold wind brushed against his eardrums, and the muffled sound of waves came to him. The worker frowned at the creaking of iron that could occasionally be heard between their crashes.

Death awaited should he lose his footing. And yet it was always after the danger had passed that he felt most conscious of it. Seeking to ease the stiffness in his neck, he turned his head southward to look across the dark, steel-blue of the sea and into the blur of mists in the distance.