Food a novel by Arto Nieminen - www.dailymotion.com/art0
The chef had been preparing the meal already for three hours and the kitchen was steaming out from the dark doorway, between the steel frames. The helper was watching him move with quick moves between table, filled with messy left-over food and mash, and stove, picking up pots and lids and small pinches of powders and spices. Odour was spread from the pots rising up and along the ceiling out to windy dark night. “Is it starting to be ready?” In his mind he rephrased the question, but then looked into the dark to waves white tops, knowing he wouldn’t ever have the courage to ask it out loud. He looked at his cigarettes glowing end and flipped it which made it glow even more red. The chef would not fit in there with him. Not any more, it was almost ready and the fine finishing touches were only to be done. Then it would be ready and he had to serve it, carry it up and serve and the chef would sit on the deck, sat quietly, and he should not be touched before the morning started to dawn and then he would go to bed being so drunk that he could not be waken before evening, when new meat was to be collected from the cooler downstairs. He dread that moment, that visit down there, where nobody moved and where path's were silent and empty and electric lights burned so bright whirring in the silence. That room, that space Those terrible eyes white and blue looking up to ceiling and when you touched them and... He inhaled the last drag and flipped the cigarette to the scum's of the ocean, whilst the ship was rushing over the rolling waves big and alive. Chef turned to see him and his bloody eyes watched for a moment staring and intense. “What the Hell are you looking at?” Man turned to look at the sea and then came inside. “Is it ready?” “Yeah Satan, and you better take them quick, we’re nearly late already.” He started to pour the liquid seeing in kettles and plumbing bits to bowls which were side by side on the table. They filled up and man watched beside smelling the odour and hated himself because he was pleased to sense it. And knew that if he had to do the same what the chef did, he would have probably already drank himself to death. He left carrying two bowls up to the deck and up the stairs to the dining room, which was cleared to the highest viewing deck where a great big table was and filled up the room with windows as walls. Through the window he could saw the dark room and the dark figures and the wind was blowing his hair to his eyes and all he could saw was the door which had to be opened and face those burning eyes, open mouths. He manages to open the door and enters in by holding he’s feet against the door and steps to the table. Closing door behind takes all the noise with it and the bowls are already on the table before he notices the attention of all those dark figures sitting around the table. Eyes and mouths, pleased sound, from nowhere. “There is a proposition. 50 000 for an living limb, if somebody is willing...” Someone says it, one of them. Man turns around and opens the door against the wind, forcing, and he hears nothing else, the wind covers it all and slam’s the door shut. . . . . He watches to the rising sun and the waves change into a Wave, which is smooth and which the ship splits with sharp fore ahead. A bottle switches from hand to hand and they keep on looking into different directions, bent and very tired. That probably is the intention too, man thinks, no need to think. Just to fall asleep and wake up still drunk, do quick task and again forget. “Listen” man says looking at the stooped figure which has lost its worst irritation, unattainable it still is but he is used to it. “I heard an offer today, suppose it was the first time ever they talk whilst I’am around.” Figure stays still and keeps on watching away ”Said to one another and everybody,“ man quiets down ” probably they knew that I’d tell, obvious it is, it is so weird. That if we find somebody willing, they have an offer; 50 000 for a living limb. I mean to a man who allows to cook a meal from himself.” Chef spits and gets up to lean on the railing. “What the hell are you talking about?” He glances towards the prow switching legs and spitting again. “From an arm or a leg. Suppose everybody would sooner give an arm, I don’t know." Man remains thinking. “I would. Anyway for a limb to make it a meal.” Chef keeps on looking the sea in front of him “Who said that to you?” “One of them today when I was serving the soup. Not so much to me but to everybody. They meant it, they are waiting.” “For an arm, huh?” The Chef turns around and looks at him. “Oh, loniless” He lifts his hands in front of his face and looks at the man sitting on the deck through them. “Ha, ha, ha, oh ten years, doesn't that stinking meat no longer be enough for them? Beast's, that’s what they are!” Man watches the chefs sweaty, dirty shirt and bearded face turned towards the sea. Remembers the meat hanging in the cooler. Monkeys, gorillas or what they are? Already skinned when they were brought aboard and who know's about them? But hell singing how much that one of them seemed… Always when he looked at it and there was an another too. Hell sing, who knows and separate skinned gorilla from native? Such of giant flat-faced negro? And tooth it has like humans too, grinning and scull blue without the skin. But for an arm? God sake for your own arm, hell sing! Chef turns against the railing and grinning feeling starts to rice from mans chest towards the face. “Not serious for sure they were, just bragging..” “Who would bind it up? Stitch?” Chef looks at the man in a way he has never seen before such… well has anyone ever… has ? “I dont know” man says quietly and looks at the chef. “There is nobody here. Nobody else than us and those six from crew and engineer and helper and… skipper, fresh meat…” Slips out of his mouth and it feels like something else loosens with it, spurts out and it can’t be put back again. “Fresh meat, yes, yes of course. There's in downstairs that negro meat as much as hell and don’t you try to tell me you don’t know what there is hell!” Chef looks at the man challengingly and eyes are tormented and something tears him up even much more than could ever tear me, man thinks and looks away. He turns the top open from the bottle. “50 000! You know how to make the food” He looks up and gazes to chefs burning serious eyes.“Hell no!” “I’ll show you how to flavour it and you look closely and I’ll show you how it should be sewed, it has to been stitched and…” Chef start explaining and he takes a sip so he would not hear, and when the gulp has gone and the burn from his mouth and throat, he starts to realize and hears even he dont want to and everything starts to appear incoherent and it has some kind of crazy burning sense, something that is burning in chefs eyes and in his own chest simultaneously with the booze. . . . . Chef is standing beside the dirty pots and stares him over the steaming full pots “Do you remember now? And tell them and say” Chef nods waiting for agreement and man looks at the sweaty, dirty forehead and lowers his glance. Chef pushes the cutting board closed and picks the knife up to the table. “Tomorrow they’ll get soup.” Man picks the bowls off the table and turns behind the table towards the door. The wind hits him and the warm steam touches him gently and makes him sick. Chef stands leaning on his hands and the tattoo on his left arm seems blue and old, like a stamp on a side of the Satan’s pig. “God sakes!” The voice flutters through the door and grasps the wind and man hears it like a seagulls scream and that he is thinking what it is and it, maybe it is too. Bows go down on the table and benevolent mumble, like a wall of voice, growl, from stomachs and white tooth. Man feels sick again and fingers stick to bowls and everything rotates in his eyes and I’ll throw up. Feast on Satan that then. “I have a proposition” Heads turn and the cold wall keeps on rising, night gets stronger. He starts walking towards the door, forget about it. “Related to what?” loud, tempting voice. “An arm, an white arm, tomorrow evening.” Man says “But pay first and in cash, do you got it?” Silent, white tooth exposure in the dark and mouths open. “Do you have it?” “Of course. At three and in my cabin, do you know?” Man looks at the faces in the dark and directly turns his glance away. Outside there is fresh air and you can breath. “I know, at three and 50 000” Man turns around to head to the door. “And” that hard voice says. “Prove, guarantee, the skin You bring it to me right afterwards. Ok?” Man gazes outside and everything gets black and hate and chunk that nearly makes him vomit tickles in his stomach. “Ok, Emptiness” He steps outside and the door flings shut and he runs down the stairs and vomits. He does not stop before the bottom deck where nobody can see him and watches with his eyes filled with tears and mouth open and that mouth eats also and it flies shut so that something would not get in and taste sweet and smell familiar. Sweat in his underarms freezes and flesh gets stiff and he starts to laugh like crazy. The thought that has been came from somewhere deep down, clear and certain, as serious as death itself, rises to his mind. His own flesh and own tooth, while he bites into it well-done, hot mouth dripping crease, his own steaming arm holding it up with his only left arm. And he laughs and laughs when he stumbles and falls and keeps on laughing while laying on the steel deck watching the sky twirling around. . . . . Chef is standing with his back towards him, late in the evening, very late, at night, when man goes to the kitchen to get some sack-fabric to sew. Something to upholster the cabin, yes, that’s what he had thought about. Chef is standing watching down to his hands while he walks by to the sack-box in the corner of the room. “DO NOT DARE TO TAKE ALL” “What’s wrong” Man looks from below, slowly picking up the sack. “Skipper” Chef says quietly rising his glance up to the the wall. “He has sold his arms… and legs ” Man gets up staring at the chef “Ye-es” Chef says glancing at him. “That crazy, Satan's crazy” Chef turns towards the door and goes to the dark windy opening and spits into the night. “It’ll die straight away. They’ll have time to eat it’s leg but that’s what it’ll die from.” Chef leans to the steel frame “Then it has to be carried down with the others.” Chef turns around with his eyes flashing and laughs with stony and grate voice. “Hangs there eyes pointing to the ceiling, Skipper hangs and it has no skin!" Chef attacks towards man and at the last moment steps away in front of the table. “ Dont…dont hell. What… what was the price?” Sweat is on the face, and that he would not feel it unless it is’nt dripping down along the nape and the neck. “What was the price?” Chef picks up the knife and does something with it on the empty table. “Not a thing” “No….?” “Nothing.” Chef looks at the man and then up the wall and the ceiling seeing something else. “He redeems himself. That satan will soon be sitting without his other leg and looks that empty spot, and there will be no payment for that, nothing.” “Then it stands the other leg being loosed, yes he’ll bear that too, for some hellish reason I know that too, and he knows that it’ll be carried up there for them to eat, and it sits…” “SHUT UP!” Man leaves marching to the door with the sack in his hand and the chef stands in front of he table and keeps on doing some motion with the knife. Maybe it is just cutting the vegetables, maybe he’s cutting the celery, and won’t cut his finger, never. . . . . In the cabin, tiny tiny, tight the roof is brown without colour. Outside behind the round window sea is far away, as far as ever. In mans hand the knife is cutting the skin without scratching the skin. Tomorrow the first leg. Chef promised to cook it, said so. Promised to cook a meal. Chef told up on the deck and in the kitchen this morning, when they as from an old habit had gone to kitchen, were about to go pick up the meat from freezer downstairs and… “Not today!” Had the cabin cleaner shouted from up the overpass bridge. “No food today, not until tomorrow!” And then the chef had turned to look far away to the sea looking weird; before finally turned back and started to talk away again, slowly first before he got going. “… So that they are old and there are some young too, but they are all fond of human flesh for some reason. Wealthy you ought to be. This has been going on already for five years and who knows what they have been doing before that. These are, you see, international waters. Here are no laws, no others than the heavenly law and that does not ban man eating, not as far I know, as long as there is no murder." "Captain took them aboard already five years ago, when I weren’t even involved. They bought the ship, at least a part of it, captain sold. Until then it had been shipping, loads and such stuff. He is in compy with them. Do you get it? With them up there.” Chef shows with his face in mans mind up to the viewing deck and in mans hand the knife makes a silent cut touching the skin. “He started to use cocaine then, then he just drank. When I came aboard it was in Bahamas. Machinist was keeping charge and hired me to work and we did a little trip then too, freight to Sydney about half a hold. Then the skipper returned and he was tanned, in a handsome Bahamas-shorts and with him was a big group. That was my first trip. I started drinking then… I used to have one of those black kids as a helper but I send him off the boat as soon as I realized there was something going on. It didn’t have time to know anything yet. As the time went by… I started to drink more. We had been sailing out on the ocean only for two weeks until I started to suspect something… Slowly first and faster as a series of thoughts flashing, occurring to my mind and totally clearly all at once when I, one evening while cooking dinner, was pulled out those veins and I saw them there front of me finally right everything and… and…” Chef pours shot down his throat. “That’s when I went to the cupboard, took out a bottle and started drinking. I drank until I passed out. I don’t remember a thing. In the morning I was sitting in the kitchen with a hang-over and tried to think about that matter but nothing felt reasonable in this boat anymore and so I decided to go down there once more just to be totally sure about it. I went down the stairs and walked through the hall to the deepfreezes door and opened it. And the captain was there… He was standing there all alone, watching the meats hanging from the hooks and he turned around to look at me and that’s when I left there. I ran quickly through the halls up to the kitchen and started drinking. I drank four bottles of whiskey that day and I were stone cold sober in the evening when I went to look for the captain to quit the job. …Then I fell. I don’t remember how, but the boat was already far away going further when I realized I was in the waves of the water, in the sea. And when the captain was standing on the rear deck and shouting, it seemed like the whole boat has burst into fire in the sun setting behind it. . . Chef made a new deal with me straight away after that and he looked me into my eyes and do you know what?” Chef says looking at man and the tatters are in sight, tear and claw in its eyes. “It looked like a human being, it in it's eyes. I made a new deal, ten times bigger and I made it with a human being.” Chef looks at the man in a dark room. “That was the thing with what…” Then it’s quiet and everything is far away, messy, noise out in the sea and the wind. “ It intends to end, that’s what it’s intends , and hell sings if its gona drag me into its redemption, hell sings that...” Everything vanishes to a messy confusion of sounds and the knife stands still against the deck, the bottom of the upper bed. It dies. The man knows how much the chef is scared that the captain’s death is going to drag him too along to the depth. He pulls off the knife and watches its blade, how it shines.
He fell overboard, from some boat for some reason.
He drifted on the sea and lost his hope, without food only living of miracle
That day he got flushed to the shore
When he opened his eyes he saw the land, luxuriant and common. He quickly found some food and water there, but not a single human nowhere, could have told the news that he started to think strange thoughts. Human can live there forever more
Just not to leave its safe shore and that spell lasted.
Sixteen years and five thousand times
Were repeated those unspeaked rimes
But not once. He needed a companion and left again
But broke the spell and lost all the gain opening was only shoreles sea
Further… further again… human being, mortal …finally found his way home
Old friends… searching glances Hasn’t changed at all during these years of ages What a curse has overcome him?
Found a family
Talked again
Gave everything... to his friend… Separated finally
Just walked the streets in town And told everyone of the land and how, Human can live there forevermore, Again and again… Finally he packed his pack's and left the shore. Sailed to the sea and never returned anymore
We don’t know for sure but that’s how was born, the ballad of the land of living forevermore . . . .
Lonely light switches on in a room. Naked silhouette stands up against the light in front of the night-table. Suddely it awakens, turns to see Glowing eyes watch surprised. Shadow swings on the wall and slowly comes towards, lock snaps and door besides opens a little. Eyes watch from the slit Slowly the door opens more. He stands in front in the dim light naked. He takes a step closer …Gently hands stretch out. Closer, closer… He pants climbing up the stairs. Rushes towards jumping many steps at a time. And on the last deck before the highest viewing-deck he sees that there are no more stairs going up. But it's impossible. This … is after all a dream. Because they are here in real. He looks up. Eyes telling about the unknown things are looking damp, alive. He couches to a jump exerting fiercely upwards against the wall, trying to get a hold from up by his hand but falls immediately back down to the deck. He looks up panting, eyes big and black gaping, widening quickly from excitement, growing terror, desire, loathing face tightens and man starts shouting. And he shouts all the time, shouts his terrible fight-hoot in a language that only he knows and he is still shouting when he wakes up in the morning in his own bed staring eyes frantic to the ceiling and looks for a long time, without understanding where he is, everything that is around him. Before slowly sinks back on the bed lieing on his back. He lies quietly for a long time looking to the ceiling and listening the sounds of the ship. And the reality has begun. He hears it as clings and bangs from further away and he knows there are men at their work already. He feels it on a morning sunlight through a fine cover of clouds when he goes down the stairs to the mess having breakfast. And reality has begun cold and hard edged while men closer are speaking with despise and merciless about the captain, about him as to be slaughtered and only then it start's to feel completely clearly what all the others too are already feeling, reality is here, just here and now. In the day, after breakfast he starts climbing up the steps along the flank of the ship. The decks are bathing deserted in the hot sun and nobody can be seen to move around there. Only the cabin-cleaner is smoking in front of one open door and even he goes in at once, after seeing the man. He climbs higher and higher the steps taking a glance one and awhile down at the sea and the ship. And up below the viewing-deck he sees that the stairs are still there and after taking a closer look he notices they really can’t be taken off, they’ve been welded tight. And up on the highest viewing-deck wind sweeps smoothly, softly the expressionless steel deck and there is no marks for him to see that anybody has even been there. And he doesnt even remember well his dream anymore like this in bright day light. He only senses that feeling that has been left. It touches something in him ragely, intense and then it too slowly vanish from his mind when the sun warms as he leans on the railing. And there he stays. Watching on the sunny sea feeling the wind mild and warm on his face. He stands there the endless sky above him and remembers.* he wander...gets forgotten far away into some moments long time ago, those forgotten, almost untouched have been left safe in the smooth waters of memories. And he smiles to those feelings they bring without realising that the dream has awakened them in him. Day goes by glowing in the sunlight and he is in the smooth waters, safe without knowing, here in the upper deck. As the day goes by down elsewhere on the chip, on the heat decks radiating weak bad air. From deep somewhere from the cabins suddenly as an inconceivable raw, damp, blood stenching air floating from the ventilation hole up to the deck. It floats for a moment as a thick cloud in the air, before slowly starting to vanish away with the wind. Whilst the boat ploughs forward smoothly on the open sea. But man does not notice it, he is watching over it to the ocean. He is on a field with a girl who is becoming woman, in the summer, in memories a long time ago. They are feeding cows and walk touching their stomachs. He feels the touches on his hands. Touches on their moist muzzles, hairy sides, touches on wet lips, without clothes on a naked skin. It is completely natural, you are allowed to touch, after all it is summer. He turns his eyes suddenly, just for a blink of an eye but he has time to realise it has happened. And he walks in his dreams today to a another direction. And on the boats deck the wind blows gentle and the sea glows far blue With eyes half shut he wanders, trying to reach some feeling that is slowly moving away and changing deeper. Changing to something gloomy that he had pushed away, but which he discovers being fully out, fully in sight and clearly starting to change to something scary. And he gets frightened of his observation and watches the sea and the sky and explore the horizon for a long time to all the directions, as far as he possibly can rendering the signs, but there is no storm coming. And on the boat nobody seems to be moving, on the empty decks nobody is in sight whom to tell that allready now, in the midday sun, something has happened, something on the boat feels to have changed faulty permanently. He glance down over the railing to the boat and there on the empty decks, where nobody moves, he feels the atmosphere has started to change hostile. He sits finally on a deck chair in front of his own cabin watching the ship, observing the traffic from between his eyelids but nothing can be seen. Sun starts to warm up and he starts to relax slowly... finally closing his eyes and thoughts again run away. He remembers yesterday again and when the chef was telling about the captain “Are you allright?” It asked. In cabin straight after chef had been lifted up from the sea. “It told me something...” “Do you know that ballad about Nobody’s land? That there really exists a land of eternal life... That it is easy to find by being brave, by throwing yourself into the sea and surrendering to be lead by it and so...on the time of worst distress you'll be driven to its shore “I want to tell you, that land can also be found by looking if you follow the right tracks." "I heard that ballad first time when I was buying this ship. It was left in my mind for a long time. I started to think is it true. I started to look it from the maps and then it came to my mind that maybe ocean current had been carrying that man and took him to that island, but I didnt knew where to look." When I was traveling the seas of the world I started to perform that ballad to people. Ask them if they know it. Some didn't knew it and some didn’t knew what it meant, is it true or not, but they listened to it gladly. But when I kept on going, as the time went by, a bit by bit, while the months went by I slowly travelled deeper. On some areas I meet people who after I had performed the ballad just nodded seriously and then quieten. They invited me into their homes and showed me wooden pictures full of engravings, different signs and drawings on pillars, dishes and every-day objects that I’d never seen before. And when I was circulating in the villages I saw their life more deeper. I noticed lot of more sings about it, just like it would be true. No longer just as a story but in peoples actions and habits, in the subjects they talked and sang about. Small cemeteries, just a couple of stones on a small hills even if there were hundreds, thousands of people living in small houses builded on the hillsides. People always happy… In a sunlight something dark bright and full of life. And one thing, animals were not being killed around there at all. They were allowed to live freely all around and not just before they had first died naturally were they be aten and used as advantage, similarly as trees and many plants. So their lifetime maybe had become longer during hundreds, thousands of years. Even for the humans. They lead me to it. All the time closer until I didn’t have to search it anymore, it just emerged all by itself… It appeared from the fog one day and as soon as I saw it there I knew that is the land. That ballad was true. I saw those bays of gulf and white sands and when I waded to the beach, all I felt was deep joy and relief that I had the courage to search and found there. I felt the enormous pleasure feeling all around and I fell in love like that sailor a long time ago. I felt the life running through the veins. I’ll live forever! was all I thought and that indescribable feeling of joy overwhelmed me then and it had been stayed from there on all years and I have noticed that I'am not getting older anymore! Tears were in eyes “You can find it too! For that you’ll never! Never! are allowed to try it again You can go there for visit. You can go there and experience it yourself! It is miraculous... You can if you like, then stay there yourself too” Face was blushing of embarrassed and eyes were measuring the floor. “…so that whats happened..*.............. The chef says ..........*...… I stayed on the ship then… ...two weeks…” heard from further away …and we were already close to the big coast… You can smell it, it’s always like that. Gulls are flocking around like clouds and screaming all the time” mouth bites an apple “… never as many as with the fishing boats but there are plenty for our share too. Rocky coast comes closer and town continuing everywhere behind it. Long huge pier is full of ships and when we sailed even closer, men were shouting from the decks of giant tankers asking how things are and we kept on shouting back, that’s the way it always is. We left in the evening when the sun had already set and had ‘come a bit cooler. Me and Captain. Cold container had been loaded into a big car that was waiting for us on the pier and we jumped in. Out from the harbour and through the city. The landscape started to change to more deserted after the city when we had turned to a big highway. Captain said that the first dumping areas start a lot further in the south; there is no permission to dump close to the town forbidden by the towners themselves. In between there are ten’s of kilometers of old desert through which the wide asphalt road leads there. We drove forward in the falling darkness and stars had lit bright on the sky. “All this sand” Captain says showing out to the desert “is from the moon. In the beam of the moon its white dust is floating in the air and the dampness accumulate around the particles. Them drops formulate into clouds, million tonnes of water mass sails in the sky like being hold up by an invisible force. It is a powerful force of the nature. When these kind of masses hit into each other, such a heat and pressure is being born that the gas that is holding them up explodes and burst to all directions lightning and that’s when the rain falls. Here in the desert when the moist rising from the ground is very slight, dust lands straight on the ground. Wind carries it collecting it to a bigger accumulations and these accumulations move forming by time to deserts. This land has already changed to very difficult to live in. This sand is similar like on the moon and it won’t start growing easily here. Life have to be very strong and vital before it can survive here. Thats why blank has been started to drive in here. Sewer systems are allready stretching from here through the land and seas to big cities and every day, every single moment those pipes flow massive amount of worlds waste waters back here to the desert. All the possible bacteria, blank, piss, all that we call useless and dead flows here. It is very vital, the only thing that manage in there and is able to alter even the desert blooming. The only thing that can create new life. Those dump sites are growing up so vigorously and wide area that it has already altered the climate. They spread themselves. Such deals are now made of these lands that never on anywhere else. From totally worthless areas they are changing to worlds most profitable region. I" Captain said "own some land too over here. It is near the coast, from a similar area that has given profit of thousand times comparing to its purchase price when it was nothing but desert. We are heading there.” "In the morning we started heading back to the coast. We drove first back to the big highway and continued that for about three hours until we arrived back to the harbour-town. At the same night we were already leaving again. Ship left the pier at sunset and soon we were already sailing towards the open sea. One night I saw Captain high on the viewing-deck looking into the sky. I climbed up to him. "When those desserts have started growing. When those dumpsters have spread even wider, slowly the globe has been started to rise. I’ve been watching it for a long time and noticed it while watching the stars. They keep on moving all the time slowly by more below. We are rising upward Look... Those stars and dark. It is like the womb of a enormous creature... ...And now we are ready to be born...” It slaps on the shoulder weird, half laughing and grinning It staggers and picks it’s pockets “…I’ll smoke a cigar…” We lid cigars and looked up to the sky again. We are heading there… To an eternal life... Aren’t we? The ship was then sailing for third week north when we arrived to the island shore. The sun was shining when we anchored on its bay. People started to cater on the beach to watch and captain started to row with the boat to the shore. It had said that wait in the ship he’d be back soon. He started walking up the hill with them people and quickly disappeared behind it. In the afternoon it happened so that three passengers let down a boat and started to row towards the shore. When they got up from the boat onto the sand, quail went through the whole crowd who had catered there to see. I saw how fear went through them. It travelled like a wave and all become quiet. While the silence prevailed those mens walked on the beach forward, towards the people and even that far I could see islanders were freezed immobilised by horror. The movements of the three men kind of slowed down and their outlines dim and some kind of thought, that even I could read, arose that they are going to KILL KILL AGAIN AND AGAIN KILL ‘EM ALL AND LEAVE NOBODY ALIVE I started to shout towards the shore as loud as I could hoping somebody will hear me.Then one of them awaikened and started to ran up the hillside and disappeared behind it. Few minutes later the captain came out behind the hill shouting like a madman and ran to the beach. People started to speak hectic over there and the captain and them passengers got quickly into the boat and rowed back to the ship. At the same night we were already leaving from there. Captain still went back to the beach and talked la long time with people but came back then. Darkness started to come when we drove out of the bay and on the sand beaches tens of bonfires were burning. We sail from there straight to the harbour of the Marquax. I then heard from the radist that he has been sent a message that said that the travels are going to be ended but we still had meat in the ice-room so I thought that anything could happen and so it happened, you were engaged then. “ Man awakes when he sees movement from between his eyelids, chef far down under going into the engineer's cabin with him and chef have a bottle in his hand waving the liquid half drank. He sits up but don’t have time to shout and he can’t see chef anymore. Slowly he sinks down on his back and closes his eyes. In the evening when the air already starts to cool he finally stands up and leaves to go to the kitchen and sees chef enter there. He sees when chef opens the top drawer of the table and sets the knife in there. “That crazy” Man hears chef say and then it is quiet, sits in the terrible drunkenness leaning to his knees, with his head hanging and how is it going to make the food? A terrible thought about he himself standing by the table peeling potatoes, skinnig the meat, for the soup…”Hey, chef hey, wake up!” Man goes to the chef and starts to shake him from the shoulder and chef collapses on the floor staying there and man starts to feel cold ice rising in his chest. “Wake up!” He picks the chef up on a chair by the wall and it falls lieing in there. A leg is being brought through the door and man lays it on the table and leaves without looking to anywhere. “Chef, damn you!” He feels weepy anguish feeling like in childhood expanding within and the leg on the table tumble when the meat gets softer and instep bangs on the wood " Hell noo … He stands stiffened staring in front of him and the feeling that has been somewhere in the background for the whole day, it has expanded unnoticed, secretly. It is larger. Now when it starts to come out visible, he starts finally understand how enormous it is. He looks out of the open door to the bridge and walks slowly to the door and steps on the deck. Wind hits him wet flying drops of water from the dark on his face. He looks up on the ship and sees lights from the cabins but can’t see anybody moving anywhere. He glimpses back to the kitchen. Fluorescent lamps chirp bright and under their light a leg is on the table. Slowly he starts walking forward on the bridge wiping his face every once and awhile . He climbs up the stairs and comes on the open deck. Far away a door is open and light shines from there on the deck. He walks towards it and sees inside and there the skipper is lieing, blood is everywhere, on the bed and on the sheets, hasn’t it been tied at all! Flashes in his mind and then he sees that it is but badly and in reality it is already running dry. On skippers face a moist sweat is glimmering. A small, weak tune of life is still to be seen on them. Man bows next to the bed and reaches out his hand to wipe the forehead and something rises out of captains death, streams into him through the hand radiating feeling, enormous suffering. Changing weaker all the time... weaker... In the silence of the cabin man sits bend over the bed. Chef sits up on the bench. Everything rises up on the light of the chirping lamp above and a terrible feeling of sickness comes over and then the kitchen suddenly clears up. The piece of meat on the table gets him into thinking of the ice down on the deepfreeze. He stand up no thoughts at all, just stand up and feet take him and hands grab the leg. That it is. It in his arms he walks out the door to the deck. Wind on the sea. Clouds black and grey whirling past. Up on the deck of the viewing-cabin somebody is standing. It’s Him… He is in the ship. These eyes can’t be cheated, with them anything can be seen, anywhere. He walks straight towards the stairs in front that lead down to the ice-room (stitches, sewings, end of nerves, just there among the others, captains leg) yes … that’s what it is… Then a silent moment follows. Just the movement of the waves on the sea behind the edge. Then a bad lipo, like the one rabbi’s have, like a black cap is pressed on his head and he steps aside, staggers towards the edge and throws up. And high above the bend steel-flank he still feels it in his hands, still a feel about it alltought it’s not there anymore. And he holds out his hands empty and free and throws up and a black cap covers the sky whirling over rampant. Chef stands shirt hanging leaning on railing and hears somewhere someone shouting death And everything is loose in the head, terrible pandemonium in the middle of wich the sea is still, waves going as trains on their tracks. He would leave too. He has done enough for its part, yes he has done enough for its part. He feels how the ship is swinging and swaying and then in the head something really starts to get loose. All he sees is green swelling sea boiling in front of him and he vomits. And it talks at the same time. He just vomits and It shoves into his head making him feel sick with all those words “Chef.” “Now it is time to come, chef, now its time”...... Yes it is , he sobs And the time to come is now. He climbs to the edge like crawling and now when the sea is in front he remembers how it happened then. Just the captain is missing and the Voice that started to come from somewhere. They had been standing on the deck talking, looking each other when he heard it starting to come “ TIME COMESCOMES TIME !” echoing thousand times that hideous Voice and it seemed like the captain too... and the chef had heard how the captain had shouted after him, when he had turned and went overboard. “Chef” quiet voice behind him. It’s Him... I'am coming “CHEF!!” It’s Martin, Martin God help! He turns to see. NO... I can’t handle this I go now He loosens his grip (Unless I’ll make food...proper food not the same) Hell I won't handle it in my senses! (I’ll make food)... he speaks tenderly and hands go down griping the pole (I’ll cut seller, milk, cheese) Yes, I’ll put milk, warm... I’ll make it, hell he sobs He stands with legs shaking and whole body like in torpor, and he is not able to say anything anymore. He loosens his grip suddenly and jump and even while falling grabs onto the lowest railing and smash onto the side. The hand holds and he swings, sways while the ship is whining, staring the sea storming below. The machinist runs already close on the deck, when chef hears and sees in front of him captain shouting mad, when it swings and struggles tied on the bed while he is cutting off the leg with force. The whole satan's knife bouncing slippery in his hands, its body shaking and struggling with sudden movements on the bed frantically tossing. He pushes with all his weigh and the scream bursts straight out of its mouth, hideous mindless voice that is His, His who influences through us humans without us being able to prevent it. It shouts all the time when machinist is holding on to the upper body trying to prevent it from swinging and he presses down, down satan loosening its leg and the stump bleeds awfully lot of blood on the mattress “CHEF GOD SAKES!” Machinist grabs between the railings on to the hand, ice cold fist that is squeezing the rod of the railing while the body is swinging in the emptiness “Chef come up from there, I...I’ll..* you” The machinist Rohme is lying on his stomach grabbing with his both hands onto the woollen jumper covered arm. “Chef try to get your other hand here” The machinist lies with his head outside, tightly holding on to the woollen jumper. Chefs hand has turned totally white, he is hitting himself over again hard on the side of the ship. The ship is loose, either the wind has turned or there nobody on the helm anymore, anyway chef swings far on a wide curve every time the ship heels over, hitting himself on the side of the ship coming back “Chef...try in hell....” That’s when chef turns his glance for a moment up and says something incomprehe*e Then he suddenly goes all slack and only hangs on the grip of the machinist. Machinist strains suddenly all his strengths and enormously exerting with a quick movement pulls the slack body half on the deck and is able to pull it totally from there to lie on the deck. He looks at it panting for a while. It is breathing and its eyes are open but... Its all slack and... (spiritless) Men are running to the place and that’s when Rohme gets up and leaves running back along the deck and up the stairs to the helm which is now twirling madly, so that the whole ship wouldn’t tip over now when it’s free hold back by nobody Men start to pick up chef and start to carry him, the slack body that stares with its eyes open and they hate it. Something deeply disgusting in its living dead weight and dull swaying head. And ship keeps on sailing When a lifeboat unfastens from its side, Quickly starting to stay behind while the ship keeps on going, following the night, towards the dark horizon and the heart of the darkness . . Morning starts to shine through the foggy sky. Just a lonely boat on the waves of the sea, endless movement of water. And there is nothing to eat, just a canfood and it’s meat. He won’t eat immediately. Not for a long time, not even then when the hunger is enormous, not until later. And thoughts, wandering, hot, hazy fade away then when he is eating. Gorillas meat, sheep's meat, even the pig has intelligence and it gets to be eaten. Bovine gives birth and its calf dies. It is so old, it is so old, only eats grass anymore and the sun is shining, it's summer on the field.
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