Above Another Ocean
Cielo lee
To: anthonyhexton@strocshireinstitute.org
Subject: Found Documents for the Event Exhibit (Hauser-Macruder Digital Gallery)
Hello Anthony,
I have attached some found documents to this email ranging from right as the Event was happening all the way up to three years later. As this will be part of the digital exhibit, I’ve typed them up, and I’ve indicated where the physical documents have been tampered with and when each document was published. Something infected my software last week and the order of the documents has been randomized, so I apologize for that. I have included some reports from the time period as well for context for the viewers.
I’m excited to see the reaction that the public has to this powerful exhibit!
Sincerely,
Ollie Faulkner
Literary Conservator
oliverfaulkner@strocshireinstitute.org
Political Report to President Ramaphosa of the Southern African Republic
Written May 28, 3 AE
The Saharan Islamic States (SIS), Saudi Arabia, Persiastan, and the Indian Islands have made a trade agreement allowing marine trade throughout the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and its accompanying Reed Channel and Mediterranean Channel, and the Mediterranean Sea itself. Our trade agreement with SIS is not currently against this new agreement.
The Alaskan-Canadian Democratic Republic (the AC) has requested more aid against the spread of ash northward, as well as protection against the increasingly violent Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The latter has attempted some raids on certain exposed waterfront towns in the AC. This is unacceptable behavior. Unfortunately, any aid we give the AC will tie us into a war, either as a direct result of an agreement or because of the insistence of our people.
Brazil and Chile are preparing for the founding of the first working airport after the Event, situated in the neutral island of Guyana off of Chile’s east coast. A Boeing 737 will be the inaugural flyer, because it was one of the few planes to survive the Event as a result of its grounding back in 4 BE. Though some have protested this new development in post-Event transportation, the mandated reduction of the use of gasoline across the globe has greatly reduced global warming, and the Boeing’s cooling system has been upgraded as a safety measure.
The Commonwealth of Australia is beginning to spread their territory northward, incorporating locations including Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, after their successful acceptance of New Zealand into the Commonwealth. Australia is not approaching violently— rather, they speak with each government and organize personal protection from the Indian Islands, China, and Japan (though less so), who are also looking in that region for protectorates that they can use as general resources and bargaining chips, though in a more violent fashion than Australia.
Hawaii's boat, the S.S. Hopeful, which was promised to be sent as soon as possible once they regained their footing, has finally reached its destination: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. This town is barely clear of Yellowstone ash, but it should provide a safe space for the messengers on the S.S. Hopeful to explain what has happened in Hawaii since the Event and ensuing, years-long separation. We should hear the news in about three days by courier boat.
My dear one
Published on September 8, 2 AE
In another age, a storm began.
Swept in another current of being,
slit throats dripping honey
over old wounds still smarting,
facilitate them crashing airships into oceans
like houseflies into window panes—
and yet for a moment we ignored
that this society of vinegar
tore away a fraction of our humanity.
Our hope turns to desperation because no one
can do anything to help, give us some sign
that you’re alive — my dear, breathe a little for me,
if for no one else, just remind me of that moment
when the world around you broke
but only because I couldn’t pass you my love
right then like the salt across a tense dinner table.
Forgive us as we faced a creature
who had lost themselves in a cloud of smoke,
who roared like that one time it echoed
when you slammed the apartment door. Forgive
our lungs for wanting to breathe in ash
still white-gray with heat — pneumoconiosis spreading
like the mold on the challah bread you brought home
from the supermarket, which you fed to the bats
that lived in our walls, letting them thrive
even as we were coughing up rock dust —
kept purity and innocence: a rarity. Give me a smoke,
not a licorice stick smelling like burnt
rubber trees in the new country
down south. My dear: palm me a revolver,
if you have one; let me smoke
rolled up moss or dandelion fluff,
if you have some; pull a beignet out
of an oven made of charcoal,
if you have one. Sigh a little deeper,
my dear one.
Climate Report to President Ramaphosa of the Southern African Republic
Written May 30, 3 AE
Yellowstone ash is continuing to circulate in North America. No one can enter the ash zone without extreme and expensive protection gear, and so far getting in contact with volunteers has been unsuccessful: as such, no investigation into the continuation of the existence of human beings in North America has been conducted yet.
Meanwhile, the water level seems to have slowed its progress up our banks. The Saharan Islamic States (SIS) scientists are still monitoring the progress. Imported seeds from former Egypt, now part of SIS, have allowed the sand in their land to not interfere with the survival of their citizens, and the spread of the flood is encouraging crops to grow. Mexico and the northern end of Chile are also reporting of the continuation of rising water levels, but reports from China, Japan, and the Indian Islands have yet to arrive.
Nutshell : an essay
Published on March 27, 2 AE
NEWS FLASH: Another plane drops from the sky, lands in the Atlantic: flight number is 6057 going from Paris, France (CDG) to Houston, Texas (IAH).
A wailing like a siren’s call fills the living room, a manifestation of primal protection sliced open like a mango. She crouches on the floor in the middle of a house party, her pastel floral dress flowing around her in waves. Her mouth is open like a fish, and if you look up into her eyes you will see right through her.
NEWS FLASH: The ash from the Yellowstone volcano has spread down to Houston, Texas. Millions are affected. All three Houston airports are unavailable because of engine explosions.
No one reaches down to pat her on the shoulder and then hug and wrongly whisper, “it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s all going to be okay”. Someone asks her what is wrong — isn’t that something, isn’t that generous — but her throat is held in a vice grip, her vocal cords knotted together in her larynx.
NEWS FLASH: The flooding of Texas sparks outrage. Millions of bodies have washed up against abandoned houses that are soon to be beach property. We request a moment of silence after our list of sponsors.
The woman hears the quiet rustling of people trying to mute themselves but all she can think of is why is my mouth still open and why are these people still here, why are they taking their hats off, wiping their eyes on stained shirtsleeves or paper napkins, holding their hands to their chests and why did it have to happen all at once but most of all, most of all…
END OF NEWS FLASH: Welcome back to Global Eulogies. We will be listing the dead that have been identified, today all the dead from the recently affected Houston, Texas. We will give their approximate age and if they were a veteran or were active in government forces, and if they served their community in first aid, fire emergencies, or were a member of a police squadron.
Sergeant Jacob Smithing, 41
Judge Harry Iacona, 83
Georgina Lisson, 36
James Lisson, 35
Officer Olivia Moore, 39
Mia Wilson, 17
Elijah Karel, 8
Excerpt from “Report on Causes of the Event: Airplanes and Airports”
Published on June 11, 2 AE
Certain kinds of fuel, such as Jet A-1 fuel, were more prone to the risk than others. However, they functioned on similar principles. Most jet fuel works by dripping it into heated air. Global warming resulted in very heated air on the day of the Event. The explosions seemed to have been provoked by gaseous leaks from tanks. The leaks were likely caused by the recent water damage that affected many coastline airports.
The temperature on the day of the Event was nearing 55 degrees Celsius in some places along the Equator. While this is not hot enough for the fuel to ignite on its own, already boiling or being prepared to be boiling fuel will be at 60 degrees or higher, the ignition temperature for the fuel. This meant that when the fuel leaked out, it ignited.
A possible explanation for the corrosion of the aluminum hulls on the planes, which caused the subsequent leakage and combustion, was exposure to mercury waste from sewage. The sewage likely had mercury in it as a result of batteries people didn’t know how to be rid of, old thermometers that had broken, and most prominently, soaps with mercury salts. A rarer occurrence would be a disposal of old medical supplies that came into contact with mercury, but this likely had little effect on the overall outcome of many planes’ engines exploding while in the air.
Balconies, Knives, and Blackberries
Published on January 3, 2 AE
In a life other than my own, and long before the floods began, the world ate people. It did so voraciously, without a loss of appetite, not controlled by humans except for rare exceptions like smallpox. Sometimes the world would swallow people in large groups, throwing houses on them and nearby electrical wires because those were the easiest to pick up.
Only later did I realize that the world also forces down individuals. Slowly, agonizingly, with no reservations.
This was my mother’s world.
Her father died in a car crash; it was someone else’s fault: they’re in prison now, not long enough. My mother told me, sitting my six-year-old self down in the living room, on that old, dusty, Arabian-inspired carpet, that her father — my Baba — used to go out in the mornings to collect blackberries still draped with white frost. He would heat them on the stove with some sugar and make pancakes, so that when my mother and her siblings rushed downstairs, they would be greeted with a steaming stack of three pancakes that shone in the morning light like they were leafed in burnished gold, and running down their sides would be that blackberry glaze.
I tried to make pancakes with blackberry syrup on Mother’s day once, naively allowing my mother to suffer through a mouthful of her childhood overlaid with pain from that driver’s mistake.
My grandmother lived for a little longer, until I was seven, but it was worse: a handful of strokes and a heart attack left her partially paralyzed and terrified of what the world could do to her. She met my grandfather on a hiking trip in college, when he was leading the group and she had been dragged along by some acquaintances. It was a day hike, and soon they were walking far ahead of everyone else, talking amongst themselves, oblivious to the world.
That obliviousness could not last.
So my grandmother, grieving from the fresh loss of her husband, not understanding that she could still try to live a life, took a carving knife and plunged it into her sternum. She did it in front of my mother. Mom didn’t talk about my oma after that. On the day my mother witnessed Grandma brush her heart with steel, I heard her call emergency services in an attempt to preserve one parent’s life.
They could get there in an hour, they said. I rolled a wooden train along its track, up until a letter block. I heard my mother screech from a back room off of one of the lavender-scented hallways.
I pushed the little plywood-carved engine car over, and the rest of the train followed, the thump muffled by the carpet.
That was not the end of my mother, though. She could recognize the futility of her position, the way that the world washed over her, so she gritted her teeth and swallowed any feelings she may have had beyond grief. So I lived a normal life.
When I was a teenager, my neighbor down the street, an old gentleman with a stooped back and rheumy eyes, fell off of his balcony and died. He might have jumped instead of fallen. I didn’t know him that well, but my mother was a friend of his. My mother didn’t speak to me for a week after she heard the news.
At the dinner that I didn’t know about his death but she did, we had macaroni soup, a recipe invented by my grandmother when they hadn’t had much money. I scooped cracked pepper out of my spoon with a finger. My mother kept lifting and setting down her spoon and her napkin, shifting her ancient wooden chair. She told me about the death like her words were vomit, and left the room for me to stare into the translucent white broth, at the oily curves hiding beneath the filter.
Then on Saturday she brought me in for a sudden hug. She whispered behind my ear.
“I can’t think of anything besides you.” I pulled us apart and held her shoulders, stared into her eyes. They were old eyes. Dark circles hung under them like curtains, and crow’s feet stabbed the corners. They were kind eyes, but they had seen too much not to be worried. I wanted to cry for her, in that moment that I stared into her soul.
My mother was a steady heartbeat in a flame-licked body. Even as the world that she knew burned down around her, she stayed alive. When I left for college, I promised I would come back, because she had such wrinkles marring her brow that I couldn’t ignore the fact that I was yet another person leaving her behind.
So when I heard that the floods hit in my hometown, all I could think of were:
Balconies. Knives. Blackberries.
[ floods ]
Published on October 18, 1 AE
Listen to [ silence ]
rushing down the drain.
Yesterday you [ sliced ]
your [ people ] on candied orange peel.
You found that sugar had [ crystallized ]
your [ blood ]. You laughed—
[ it didn’t matter ].
Today you paralyze your [ madness ],
you crush [ the world ]. You cry,
“It hurt me.” I [ drown you ]
until you stop.
I whisper. “[ it’s ] your fault.”
Tomorrow I [ forget remorse ]
when I think about you. I [ hold your head down ]
until you forget that [ air ] exists.
Listen to [ silence ].
Diary Entry Found in Rubble of Shanghai Airport (PVG)
By Anonymous
[page is ripped] and now Mami is trying to get me to go to sleep. We get to go on a plane tomorrow, so we’re supposed to be awake. I see her point, though. END.
Dear Diary,
Today I woke up and the curtains were parted just enough for the sun to hit me right in the eyes. This is in the hotel room, by the way. At least we didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night again. That was aweful. We’re going to go see Dadi in California. He’s going to be meeting us there, but there’s a long plane ride between now and then. I hope [page is ripped]
says he learned how to tie knots from a coworker and that he’ll teach me. He says his favorite knot is the sheet bend because of the way that the strings help each other. I think he was saying that I need him, but I don’t think I do. He works on the other side of the world. I wouldn’t say that I know him or love him like I do with Mami. But it’s aweful he can’t live with us.
The TVs with the news around here are boring. We all know about the flooding in other places. We don’t care; that’s why we’re here. (Did I use that semicolon correctly?) Also, did you know that airports can actually have fancy food? It’s so strange. We passed a place that had ads for Hong Kong style BBQ. It sounds good, but Mami said she only packed enough money for “esenchels”. A drink or snack on the plane, she said, that’s it. If [page is ripped]
miss Manchu already. It was hard to fall asleep in the hotel room without Manchu curled up with me and purring. I asked Mami if we could bring Manchu with us to go see Dadi but she said it takes too much money. We saw a man trying to get his dog into a carrier. The dog was super sleepy. Mami said that if we were to bring Manchu, we would have to buy him a carrier like that, as well as sleeping pills so he’s not meowing in the hold the entire time. I didn’t know they put traveling pets in the hold! I thought you could just bring them with you in the normal part of the plane. Then I guess it would be kinda noisy, but Manchu is quiet when he’s with me. Manchu [page is ripped]
water on the runway now. All the planes are going SPLOOSH when they touch down, then they go wiggling. Our plane was going really slowly when it was driving up to that tunnel we get to walk through to get on the plane. They said that they would have to “restock on fuel” before they can let us on. I wonder if it’ll smell like gas, like Mami’s old car that caught [page is ripped]