The arbitrator was designed to resolve some matter. Placing it against the mudrock, he felt the coiled thing within it whir before something inside the pile of slag before him gave way and the face of it fell inward into the rough and readymade path before him then. Besides him, from the light of their own metalsuits, he saw the other laborers trudging through the wet and hoary winding way of slag.
He put his palm back under the grasp and heaved the arbitrator from his other arm to where it hung when he made his slow way forward. The weight of it stretched his arm out straight. It made his bicep burn.
His boots were good. The metal soles were coated with rubber and grip on the outside, and resin hardstuff on the inside. The metal clasps of the exterior were covered in flaps of leather so that accidents would not occur.
What he saw through the visor, over the chatter besides his inner-ear, was that slimmed vision of the world before. The dusted slag reaching out in acrid arms from where it once remained in rest: the thunder channel above them pouring light before their way: and those others which spoke with them from their unbecoming image of the human form murked within the despairing air.
He thought about math while he worked. He had no free hand with which to trace figures. He went further into that space where he was and, through his perception, saw some things resonant with his interior process then: dead trees whose limbs reached out in dead circles flattened by perception.
Even the hum of the arbitrator was nothing if not an application, he thought, of various substrates into that channel of immanence we call an emanant. He pressed the barrel against another pile of slag and matter fell away withered into itself. Emanate, he thought, and then chuckled.
What’re you laughing at? A voice asked over the radio.
You can see me laugh?
Your shoulders heave.
I’m thinking about math.
I’m sorry I asked. The voice said.
I can talk to you about it if you want. There’s a lot to say.
I think I would prefer the occupation of my own silence. The voice said.
He tilted his chin towards the mic. He laughed loudly into it.
The rest of that way went on interminably. When it ended and he saw the others in their ruts turn with the oncoming gloom, he turned as well. The lights of his exterior flood only the few and sparse feet before him. There were stones embedded in the ground, and ash of a black carbon sort filtered through the falling air. He took things one step at a time and had passed the arbitrator into his other hand.
The Anscombe walker was not very far behind them. Its spindling legs shot out and pulled its form forward quickly. Some days he had to walk for miles before he made it home. The leg clamped to the ground and the open vestibule of the lift levered itself down to him.
The first thing he did was take off his suit. The second thing he did was bathe. He had no memories of these events, and he was less sure of how many steps there were in taking off the heavy, metal thing. Washed and beginning his rest he went out into the common promenade of the habitat. Upon that surface of the nested coils of walks of life within this walking vehicle of a habitat were parks and cities, fields and oceans and he found one cafe where he sat and was alone with his thoughts while the sun passed its duty of illumination to the lunar din. He could see, down the road, the bending face of the habitat curving down into more of itself.
***
The next day, Gourmand found me at my usual spot. I heard him before I saw him. His footsteps seemed to announce him and then I heard his quiet voice calling out my name.
Gog, he said, do you mind if I sit with you?
Not at all, I said. And Gourmand went off and procured his drink and then came back to sit there with me. He had a cup of black coffee.
Gourmand, how are you?
He shrugged. Every day is something new. Every day the same.
I smiled.
I’m not like you.
What am I?
A self-made slagger out against the cosmic wind. No, he said as he threw a hand over his shoulder, I’m too delicate for that.
What did you do today?
I watched you slag.
You watched?
Your suit’s camera is a public feed. It’s required by vestibule law.
Huh. I said.
No one ever watches it. I actually only watched yours for a little while.
Why?
Because you are so routine, it gets boring. You don’t even stop to look at the storm.
I don’t want to.
Why?
This close to it, it makes me nervous.
Think it’s going to suck you in?
It couldn’t, even if I weren’t wearing the suit.
Then what?
It just gives me the creeps, I said. I asked him then if he wanted to go and get something to eat. He said he did not. Sometimes, he said, he sat and thought for so long it was like sustenance itself. And that food would bring him back to that gross, bubbling body of his, manifest in everything from which he was trying to escape. The less he needed to use the bathroom, he told me, the better.
Why’s that?
In the end when my life is ledgered, I hope the moments dedicated solely to my body make up only a small portion of that ledger.
You’re always going to be fighting sleep.
I don’t sleep, he said.
I don’t believe you.
Lemme put it another way, he said and leaned forward while he sipped his coffee. It’s like this: I woke up today on my couch. I couldn’t sleep on my bed last night. The first thing I saw was the view from my coffee-table. That close up to it, it looked gargantuan. The book resting on it was a field immense and my watch was a confederate of this reckoning resting above that immense plane like an orbital body hanging low against a horizon. It made me terribly anxious. Then I sat up and I wasn’t anxious anymore. Then I thought about the rest of my day. I envisioned it. And then I left for work. And you know what?
What?
I went a way I normally didn’t go and called in sick. And they said ok. And I took a turn in my workclothes and went to the surface. And I looked out on the fields that you were working in.
Did you see me?
No. But I’m sure I saw members of that crew. They were sitting there on their arbitrators or gesturing exaggeratedly in those big suits. And I watched the storm. Really watched it. And I was struck by it. So, I went to a shadowing room and I watched. I watched workers all day long. I watched them lug the arbitrators and fire and resolve a way forward for the legs of this thing, he stomped his foot, and I saw one of them make an error.
You did? What sort of error.
Maybe error is the wrong word. But I saw someone goof off to be sure.
What did they do? Who was it?
I don’t know. The only name you get is a number for the suit they’re wearing. And I forgot it.
What did they do?
They were bored, I suppose. They were walking towards their next place of indeterminacy and then they stopped walking. And the video buzzed as they stopped suddenly. And the details of the recording could make out the howling winds shrieking on either side of the enclosures. He stepped out into the. . .whatever you call it.
He went off path?
Yes.
And what did he do?
He looked around at the lathering darkstuff for a long time.
How far did he go out?
Only a handful of steps.
What did he do?
The only thing of consequence that I saw was that he put his arbitrator to the ground and he fired it.
Into the ground?
Into the ground. Like he was testing it.
And he was ok?
He walked back and continued on after this like nothing had happened.
I said nothing.
Perhaps he needed a break.
What did the arbitrator resolve?
What?
He must of looked at what he made after he fired the thing.
Oh, he did. He leaned over to get a look into the pit he made.
It went down?
It went down deep. Like it was a drophatch into another existence. One that wasn’t so dark.
What did he see?
A pit filled with stars.
— Jimmy (he/him/his) is a writer from Oregon. He was born in Pocatello, Idaho. He has published pieces with ergot., Indicia Literary Journal, and Eunoia. He lives in New York. Catch him on his website: jimmywrites.com.