🦺 Inside the sarcophagus

Welcome to the 22nd edition of Safe For Work. Today we explore the world beyond brownfields. Those areas beyond reclamation.

Today a story inspired by the Chernobyl disaster.

The air’s singin’-- can you hear her?

Take a geiger-county’ and tune it, and then you can hear it too. I keep the one on my dashboard tuned to C# Major. It sings for me as I drive along used-to-be-Route 9, between used-to-be-Boston and used-to-be-Framingham. Truth is, it don’t play much, and that’s good; the detector is on the inside of my RV, not on the outs’, after all-- not much good knowin’ about how things are where I ain’t goin’, now is there? Figure not.

It don’t play much cuz not much of the music makes it through the lead linin’ of the vehicle chassis, or the lead-lined glass of the windshield-- gives it a nice green tint, yeah?-- like I’m livin’ and drivin’ around in an old-fashy’ pop-bottle. But I do get to hearin’ it sometimes, and it’s real nice, real nice-- like when I’m toppin’ up the gas-tank, or pickin’ up some bread or water or whatnot. I’m lookin’ forward to it while I’m buttonin’ on my suit, ship-shape, slidin’ down the faceplate’n lockin’; when the door slides op’n, and that outside air come rollin’ in, and she sings for me-- through the dashboard county’, chirpin’ and hummin’ and buzzin’ like “Don’t you go breathin’ me” and “Don’t you go standin’ in me” and “Don’t you stay out in me too long, darlin’ even in that suit of yours… we can only go lovin’ each other for a little at a time, sweetiepie. Happy little bites.”

Happy little bites, me and the air, through my suit. Never tasted her lips. Stuff in my suit recycles and recycles, but I like to pretend it’s her. I’ve never heard her singin’ right into my ears-- it crackles with the rest of the noise through the radio in my helmet. But I like to imagine her at night, singin’ me to sleep as I lay in my blankets and stare at the dark ceiling and think about all the bits and fiddly pieces of the undercarriage that have rusted out at this point and I’m gonna have to replace in the mornin’. The little crackles that make it through the lead, tickin’ the county every few secon’s, just one or two-- or the flashes of light behind my closed eyes-- beta-particles or alpha-particles or whichever, I don’t know, strikin’ my optic nerve… I like to imagine that it’s the air, tryin’ to get somethin’ through to me, like she’s tryin’ to slip into my dreams.

And now…

I reckon I’d’ve let her before, if I could.

…you ever seen a deer?

No you haven’t. Don’t bother tellin’ me you have. Ain’t no one has-- no one but me. Ain’t no more than anybody’s seen a tree or some shitty grass or nothin’-- a whole-hog deer?-- no. Sometimes you’ll see a little square-toothed somethin’ pokin’ its head up through some stupid-and-a-half-deep hole in the dirt-- and they always dart back down’n there before you can grab ‘em. Slippery lil’ things. But a deer…?

I done seen a deer. No foolin’. Really-- that’s how I got here. Like this.

I was out drillin’ for water, no more’n thirty minutes ago. Just standin’ there-- you know how it is, just standin’, waitin’ for it to hit twenty so it’s safe t’start pullin’ up, and I glance over, and there it is. Real thing. Antlers and all-- like lightnin’-bolt bones comin’ out the top of its head, I’m tellin’ you. Starin’ right at me-- like I was the deer, actually, naked to the air, and it was the man in the suit-- like I was the crazy impossible thing and it was actually perfectly normal, that’s how it was starin’ at me, I’m tellin’ you. And then it turned, and-- yeah, off it went, just like that.

Well, what do you think I did? What’d you’ve done? I followed it.

Lost my footin’, yeah. Right down into the gorge.

A branch-- long dead, duh. Real pokey-- dried to almost dust, but only almost. Still enough backbone in it to dig lil’ hole through me, ha! Managed to do some nursery-level crawlin’ though, you shoulda seen me. One-year-old woulda been proud. Managed to make all the way back here, on my belly. Slip’n’slide’f my own blood helped a bit, I reckon.

You can’t imagine it-- the lights I’m seein’, kid. I mean… I close my eyes-- or nah, even with ‘em wide open, starin’ at you, I can see…

Man, oh man.

You just can’t imagine it, what she’s showin’ to me. And whatever it is, hell, I’m still not understandin’ it. Ha! That’s just me, ain’t it-- my way of bein’.

I’ll understand it soon enough. We both know that. Don’t go pretendin’ to be. I been alive a long time, out here. I know a lot about bein’ alive-- and I know a lot about not bein’ alive, too. I know wounds like this; I seen how these end.

And hey, maybe I’m wrong, sure. Maybe this’d close up real nice and clean after all, and I didn’t need all this blood here anyhow… but my helmet’s already been off ‘least fifteen min’, kid. Took it off soon as I crawled in here. You know what that means. Ain’t no point puttin’ it back on again.

Just wasted calories.

Because I wanted to see, that’s why-- these lights-- what they’re really like, not just the bits and pieces that manage to get through, ya know? And I wanted to taste her-- the fresh air. Ain’t I got a right to know? We all got a right to know, at least once.

And… I wanted to hear.

You can hear her too, can’t you?-- I mean, through your own helmet-radio, like I used to-- you ain’t hearin’ her like I’m finally hearin’ her, but my county’ is sure a nice way for her to sing, yeah? You can imagine. But also… you can’t imagine. Believe me that when I tell you.

Sure, you can take that. I don’t need that. Don’t feel bad about askin’-- you’re a good kid, I can see. Ain’t nobody better’n you that I’d want with all this. Whatever you want-- yours-- no questions asked. Give yourself a lil’ more time before it’s your turn to see… to hear. Just leave me my dashboard county’, yeah?-- sure you’ve got one of your own, anyhow, don’t be needin’ mine. Leave me that.

…and leave the door open when you go. Let her sing me to sleep. The air, she’s kind that way. She’s a real sweetiepie.

After a brief hiatus, we’re back to film-making. Now in an anime inspired style.

SFW Films presents Beyond the Circuit

A film inspired by the story of Ellie in issue 14.

See you next week as we continue the safety regulation theme, attempting to separate fact from fiction. Stay safe.