The Snake of Continuity -

[Swagbag2]

Snake of Continuity

Titus Shaner, 2642, Martian-Solarian Cooperative Refugee Holding Center

Prologue

Papers shredded, glass turned from shards to speckles and dust, plates thrown, towns transmuted into vestiges of emptiness and anarchy. Identities taken, transformed, forgotten. Days long gone.

Shaner was one of those afflicted. His shaky hands were the first thing he saw upon awaking in the underbelly of an apartments staircase. Every so often, one of the red emergency lights would splutter as if clinging to life, some transmissions of power still miraculously sending the last gasps of grid power to it. Titus, like those others, was shredded, turned into shards, transmuted into a constant state of flight or fight – or death.

After some contemplation, Shaner pushed himself up, dust and glass shards sticking to his palms. He wiped his hands against black pants, sighing as he wiped a hand across his palm. His eyes revealed the scenery he had largely forgotten about. Neo Deco Martian scenery, burnt palm trees, and LED panels with no light or advertisement. The apartment pool floors below were devoid of water, courtesy of thirsty survivors with no qualms for drinking chlorine and algae.  The staircase held some bottles, empty rations, and what was left of his dignity. He grabbed his few remaining belongings and hastily retreated down the stairs, passing wrappers, syringes, and the odd bullet casing.

He landed his feet at the entrance lobby, scanning the horizon carefully, listening to the noises. A hellish orange-black horizon and an occasional storm echo wailing like a gods wail. He nods, and sulks to the broken gates. Years prior, this was a complex for the Martian upper class; he found it strange that a junkie now walked amok the empty halls, doing as he pleased. Every so often he’d find the scraps of the inhabitants room, coffee pots, the occasional stash, plates, silverware.

He could remember sitting in one of the room’s living spaces, he did a ritual of laying out plates, imported silverware, even a cup with but an ounce of filtered water. As he stared at his own plate, the plate juxtaposed to him, he meditated on what that life must have been before the fires. What was their day like? Perhaps their coffee was their reason for getting out of bed, perhaps their reason was to work for a better home. He smiled weakly, of course – such thoughts were too simple. People had more aspirations, hate, love, desires even, for waking up. His was more than just survival, and his plate and mind were both empty, devoid of but a crumble of identity or existence. 

[Swagbag2]

Grinded bones, soils replenished, dirt of flowers. A beggar’s tale.

The reflections in the concrete jungle pathways were beautiful. As captivating as the swirly oils of expressionist paintings, Titus Shaner could lose his mind here. His eyes slowly tracked over the flashy LED reflections in the water, tracing each pulse and flicker with an ecstatic euphoria. It was nice, it felt nice, the absolute captivation of some unknown research chemical searing his veins, and melting his brain, if only for the time being.  His eyes managed to move, iris flickering, his fanciful escape returning home to a desolate ruin of concrete, metal, and ruins six feet tall and stories high, decorated with flags of skull and cap, orange and white, independence and banditry alike.

Hands revealed themselves, hooded figures, and marauders cloaked with ragged wares and abhorrent weaponry that’d make an insurgent feel fortunate creeped out nearby alleyways. He swore he could hear a shout, a yell – but Shaner could only register strange echoes that brushed against the wind. Eyes followed him, ghastly in appearance, and gaunt around the jaw contour – starved off food, morality, and care. The bandits had no qualm with Titus, and drunkenly sulked back into the twists and turns of bricked alleyways with a manner of a burrowing spider.

An echo scrapped and battled against whirls of wind, a flag wave accompanying the noise.

“You’re back?”

The eyes he could attribute to his face to frantically switched from side to side. Ever so often he’d make out the shape of a figure, sometimes hooded in a black cape, holding a staffed scythe taller than it, other times, a woman with the same tenacity of a Queen, wearing horns and a skull, sulking her gaze with red irises. He liked to think these were companions, comrades, of some sort, rather than signs of his brain devolving into a reboot of psychosis. What was stranger was the odd feeling he lingered for. A feeling of being without being. As if an automation of a human, without thought or existence.

He'd occasionally reflect on the feeling when alone. It was something he could worry about when, if, he survived Mars. A byproduct, a damage that was sustainable for now, and only worth mitigating if by some miracle, he was both unfortunate and blessed enough to live to the day he could understand the extent of such a detaching damage. For now, he continues to sally forth, in the footsteps of Cain, both cursed and blessed with his continuous existence among the deserts, bushes, and cloaked marauders.