Atop Land, Under Sea

Flight to Nowhere, by S.M. Raza. Image courtesy ArtChowk Gallery

“Would you—bzzzz—rather crash in—bzzzzzz—sea or—bzzz—land?”

Aogu asked amid intermittent lip-buzzes, which he paused every time he ran out of breath but quickly resumed so the plane engines didn’t stall for too long. He couldn’t afford to crash; he was on an important mission. He plummeted into a nosedive as he gasped in rehearsed dramatisation, deftly pulling up at the last minute. His lips smacked together, pulsating and spouting a shower of spit-fire. Miki watched him guide his makeshift plane—a handful of crudely snapped twigs, bundled together with several red and orange rubber bands which had lost their elasticity, and larva-tunnelled dead leaves serving as its frail, wilted wings.

“Well?”

“Chotto matte, I’m thinking,” she replied.

In her own hand, she held a lavender origami battleship which had already cockled due to the occasional sea spray. Sailing over coarse grains of sand had rubbed it into a seasoned vessel, its torpedo-holed and dented hull attesting to a long militant history. And its fighting days were nearly over. Fingering the fine fibres of the disintegrating washi, Miki listlessly steered it over a green island in the middle of the Pacific: a comic sounding three-syllable name, O-a-hu, next to an even more absurd four, Ho-no-lu-lu.

“Kuso kurae, Pearl Harbor!” The wooden plane swooped down with spirited gurgling. Falling stones—jagged ones not close enough to the sea to have been washed over and polished smooth—crashed onto Miki’s ship, flimsy sheets crumbling, paper losing to rock. She shielded her face and scowled amid booms and bangs. “Aogu-kun, stop spitting! It’s my turn to be the plane. This time I get to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

Aogu stuck out his tongue.

They began to grapple atop a huge world map they had found discarded and flapping around on the concrete seawall last week—someone had likely put it out with their rubbish, not knowing it would soon be at the playful wind’s mercy—which they chased after, caught, and crumpled. Skittering down the sloping square-patterned seawall, they meticulously swept the area clean of sticks, shells and shards of emerald glass, before delicately spreading the map out on the beach and pinning it down with fist-sized rocks on each corner. It had provided a week’s worth of entertainment, and would continue to amuse them. They relished having the world at their feet.

They soon tired of tussling for the plane and plopped back down—he on Russia, she on Brazil, Argentina, and other weird-sounding countries.”You didn’t answer my question,” said Aogu, hugging his knees as he rocked back and forth. Miki raised an eyebrow, arms splayed behind her. “You know, the one… Ä“to, crash in sea or land?”

Miki thought for a moment. “Sea.”

“What! You’re crazy!” he shrieked in disbelief. “It’s gotta be land! Why sea?”

“Why land?” she returned.

He smirked. “Simple. There’s nothing in the sea! If you crash on land, there’ll be people and cars and internet and stuff.”

“If you crash on land, the plane will explode when it hits the ground. Boom! A huge fire. Everything crushed to pieces, everyone’s dead,” said Miki. “But if you crash in the sea, you’ll survive. It’ll sink in the water and float back up. Like Titanic.” Aogu clicked his tongue in annoyance, but his silence endorsed her argument.

Without warning, he stood up and cleared his throat. Microphone in hand, he made an announcement: “Ä’to, attention, attention, this is your Captain speaking. Can you hear me?”

Miki jumped up and responded with a microphone of her own: “I can hear you clearly, Captain.”

“Wait,” hissed Aogu away from his microphone, “who are you?”

“The other Captain,” replied Miki.

“Why aren’t you in the cockpit with me?” muttered Aogu.

“I went to the toilet.”

“Ah, sokka.” He moved the microphone back to his mouth.”Captain Miki, we have a problem. Our engines died and we’re gonna crash. Prepare for an emergency landing.”

“But where will we land? Are we going to die?!” wailed Miki. She paused, then whispered: “Someone needs to be the passengers.”

They hurtled across the beach, buzzing violently, unswerving wingspans, their nimble feet desperately grasping for traction upon the elusive sand. The wind intensified, rustling their hair and thin hoodies. “Aogu-kun!” shouted Miki over the whipping gusts. “Did you hear that Yuki-chan kissed Yoshiya-kun behind the gym last Thursday?”

“Majide! I can’t believe it!” He threw his arms up into the air and whooped, “Yoshiyaaaa, you did it! Good job!”

“I heard he blushed so hard, he looked like a cherry tomato! Yuki-chan said he looked sooo cute!”

“We’re gonna crash!”

“SAN, NI, ICHI, ZERO!” they counted down, collapsing onto the bumpy but snug coastal blanket. Small chests heaving, up, down, up, down. In the sky, black silhouettes flapped their pointed wings and charted paths of soaring destiny.

“Miki-chan, are you alive?”

“Captain!”

‘Captain Miki, are you—”

“Yes! There’s a small island nearby, let’s swim over!” She quickly took charge.”Captain Aogu, we need a search party. First, we need to find food and shelter and water.”

“Why do you always get to be the boss?” whined Aogu.”And anyway, we have water. This is the ocean, stupid.”

“One: because I’ve read more than you. Two: you—”

“Hey, I read too! In fact, I’m an expert on island survival. It was in a book about Robinson nanchara-kanchara that Misato-sensei told me I’d like.”

“Oh, about the family from Switzerland? Of course I’ve read that. Like, years ago.”

“No, it had something to do with croissants—”

“Baka! Crusoe!” Miki slapped her forehead. “Did you even read it?”

“I looked at the pictures…”

“Anyway, back to what I was saying before you interrupted me. Two: you can’t drink ocean water because it’s full of salt. Your throat gets clogged with salt and you choke and can’t breathe and die. Baka.”

“I knew that,” Aogu sulked. But this was no time to mope. “I’ll go looking for wild boars and I’ll hunt them down and spear them. Whoosh!” He flung his arm in javelin-like motion. “We can have fresh inoshishi for dinner!”

“I’ll start the fire,” said Miki. They began working in focused silence. Aogu stealthily crouched like an osumō-san and trailed the sand dunes-turned-mountain peaks, navigating the arid jungle with a spear in hand. Miki began rubbing sticks together, determined to create enough friction to set off a spark. “Aogu-kun, you like Nozomi-chan, don’t you?” she remarked, nonchalantly.

He spluttered and stood up: “N-n-no, of c-course not! You too, Miki-chan, don’t you like Makoto-kun?”

“No.”

“…oh, sōnanda.”

“HÄ“, so you do like Nozomi-chan. Sokka.” Miki’s hands never stopped, her eyes fixed on the sticks. He opened his mouth but could only let out a pitiful guttural sound. “If you stand up like that, the wild boar will notice you. You won’t even be able to get close.” She paused. “Baka.” Aogu’s glowing crimson cheeks juxtaposed with the grey clouds of evening. Nothing was as pure as the emanating bashfulness. In the background, squawking seagull treble complemented the bass of waves in a raucous tune that rang across the sky.

“Captain Aogu,” Miki said into her walkie-talkie, “do you copy, over?”

“Ä’to, oh, yeah, loud and clear, over,” he responded, relieved that the conversation had moved on.

“Report your current location and findings, over.”

Aogu glanced around. “There’s a huge waterfall, 100 metres high! And also a small cave behind it. Actually, some natives are living here, over.”

“You made contact with other humans! Did you talk with them?… over.”

“Yeah, but they told us to leave since this is their territory.” His brow furrowed. “They challenged us to a fight to the death if we refused, over.”

She grimaced. “We have nowhere to go! No choice, we’ll have to fight them then. Come back to camp, we’ll gather up our forces.”

“What forces?”

“All the plane’s passengers, of course!” cried Miki triumphantly. A strong gust of wind caused them to stagger, and suddenly the earth quaked. They sat down on the sand and waited patiently, watching each other rock back and forth like bobbleheads. “It’s longer than usual,” she said.

Then it stopped.

“Gather the guns!” cried Miki. They scrambled around the beach, gathering rocks and shells and dead sea cucumbers. Releasing a war cry, they brandished their weapons in the air. “Sergeant Aogu! We’ll creep up on them in the night and take them by surprise!”

He saluted.”Sir, yes, sir! I follow you, Sergeant Miki!”

“That’s Officer to you!”

They hugged a signpost. 2.4 metres above sea level: the pole was rusting, its lacklustre fern green paint peeling off in uneven fragments. Someone had sprayed graffiti over the sign, black stripes spelling out English words they couldn’t read. She whispered: “See that sand dune? We’ll hide behind it. The enemy’s just over there. If we grab that pile of seaweed, we win and claim the cave and island. Got it?” He didn’t, but he nodded. “Wait for my signal… i-sse-no-SE!” They made a dash for the hill, dodging bullets left and right. “They have lousy aim!” shouted Miki. Safe behind cover, she quickly gave commands: “Sergeant Aogu, cover me as I run and grab the seaweed. Shoot every person that tries to shoot me!”

His eyes blazed. “I’ll protect you, Officer Miki!” They stared at each other and saluted. And she was off. He watched in awe as she made sharp and swift turns to the right, to the left, to the left again. Aogu beamed, knowing the enemy had no chance against his unstoppable, invincible comrade. It wasn’t long before the seaweed rose into the air, clenched by a small, victorious fist.

“Where’d you learn how to fight?” asked Aogu afterwards, as they sipped lukewarm mugicha from their flasks. The smell of dried fish and seaweed wafted from a nearby port, making their stomachs rumble. “I’m hungry.”

“My brother. He’s in the Self-Defense Force. He’s off fighting somewhere in the Middle East where there are a lot of deserts and camels and it’s really hot.” They knelt on the rustling map, Miki hesitantly tracing coasts and jabbing haphazardly at various land masses. “Let’s see… that’s India, I think… and that’s Africa… he’s somewhere in the middle.”

“It’s so far away,” Aogu said in fear and awe.

“I haven’t seen him in so long, it’s been almost a year,” said Miki wistfully.

“When is he coming back to visit?”

“Oshōgatsu. But we don’t know for sure. I hope he comes home soon. Yukiko-obasan told mama our leaders care more about other countries than Japan. Well, they better take care of my brother.”

Aogu went silent, looking pensive. Then he burst out: “Let’s bring him back!”

“How?”

“He’s fighting in a war, right? And war’s when people fight each other. But if… wait, why are they fighting?”

“There’s a group called the terrorists and they’re trying to kill another group called the immigrants and they all want oil. It’s complicated, you wouldn’t understand.”

“How about this? If we have the same enemy, we’d all unite. We’ll have world peace! Then your brother can come home.”

They mused for a bit before their faces drooped.”I can’t think of anything,” said Miki.

“Aliens?”

“Honto baka dane. Why are you so stupid? They don’t have the technology to reach us. Baka.”

“Oh yeah.”

The sea was quiet, the waves receded. Even the seagulls had disappeared. Dusk had fallen and stillness pervaded. “We should probably head back, it’s almost dinnertime,” said Aogu.

“Why, scared of the dark?” taunted Miki, but her voice lacked conviction. She began dusting herself off and picked up her flattened ship. “We’ll come back tomorrow. And remember, it’s my turn to be the plane.”

They trudged up the seawall and shook the sand from their shoes, leaving behind a trace of thrills ready to be recollected and revived tomorrow. It had been a full day of play with no regrets. Mechanical whirring as the street lamps switched on, an electric murmur haunting the path home. And if they had listened closely, they would have heard a deep rumbling—far off in the distance, beneath the fading horizon—like the whirling of the wind and the rushing of the waves.

Justin YW Lau is a writer and musician born in Singapore and raised in Japan. He studied English Literature at Durham University and currently resides in Tokyo working on his first novel. He has been published in Nanoism, Inkapture, The Bubble, and elsewhere, and is Editor-In-Chief of Transect Magazine.