Vacui originally ran in Tales of the Unreal Volume 1. Ogden Nesmer is the author of Silkworm, which can be purchased in either paperback or digital format here The wind drives a sharp cold, barreling up the slopes as fast as a boulder might tumble down. Bending the blades of grass and tattered shrubs towards the same subject like reverent onlookers. All pointing to the ridge, all crusted with frost and locked in accusation at an empty edge and the vacuum beyond. Standing there, looking straight into the roar and trying to assemble the village below from the golden pinpoints that shimmer through the murk, it feels as if you've been placed in the way of impending punishment. Someone is coming to get you. Melner marks this down in his log-- the small one, for personal notes, not to be produced at the end of the assignment. It's lonely, he writes, but it feels crowded too. His pants are tucked into his socks, but the cold air still finds a way to slip up past his ankles, his knees, his crotch, chilling him under his thick coat. He scratches three thick lines over his entry. The measurements for the day are filed; the 22 km hike between vantage points, completed. Dobrick is down there already, nursing a whiskey and keeping a seat free. But Melner has to put something down, lest he should forget. The days would be lost if not for vigilant observation. The vibrations of a foghorn, inaudible under the sustained blasts of frigid air, resonate in Melner's chest. It's the boat, invisible, but unmistakeable. He jots two words ("Oxbow back") then scoots uneasily into the misty flow, looking away as he stumbles with care, trying to keep the ice out of his eyes. A block away from the harbor and the boat phases into view. Its main deck is still too high to see from the cobblestone streets, but Melner can hear a crew laughing and cursing, the only human sounds to be heard in otherwise empty streets. Inside the tavern, Dobrick and Oxbow are already conversing. They speak low, but it doesn't matter. Sailors and locals, equally drunk and raucous. Nothing can be heard in the bar this soon after a landing, unless someone's shouting it in your face. But Oxbow is calm, and Dobrick is listening politely, both of them grinning. Melner walks past them and sits at the bar, waiting for his turn. Oxbow is a code name. He told Melner and Dobrick this on the day he brought them to the bay, making it clear that, although there were things being kept from them, their employers would be transparent in their obfuscation. That was a long time ago now, hard for Melner to remember how he felt about it then, but it set the tone for the entire expedition. They didn't know where they were stationed. They weren't to stray too far from their observation points to collect measurements, and the village was their only respite for shelter and essentials. Perpetual cloud coverage made determining location effectively impossible. Government jobs could be like this, enforcing a level of secrecy that seemed to precede any real goals. Neither of them spoke the language of the locals, and Melner wasn't even sure what language it was. He couldn't say if Dobrick knew, as they didn't speak much when they shared a drink at the end of the day. They weren't allowed. They weren't even allowed to talk about their lives before the assignment. Melner didn't know what Dobrick's responsibilities were, and Dobrick never asked about his. Naturally, Oxbow's infrequent visits always involved a lot of precision misinformation, a mix of delaying, misrepresenting and perfectly timed silences. And, of course, every so often he had to feed them a little something to keep their hopes up. "We're South," he confided one quiet night, either a little too drunk or just putting on an incredibly convincing act. "What do you mean?" Melner had asked, knowing damn well what Oxbow had meant but hoping he could squeeze some more out of him (he couldn't). What he meant was that they'd already been lied to: the mission to collect data from key points in a certain radius from the North Pole had been a front, and they were actually somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, something Melner had been suspicious of since the first time he pulled his compass out. It felt good to hear his suspicions vindicated, but that was all Oxbow said, and then it was Dobrick's turn. Melner watches them through the mirror behind the bar and sips his gin. Dobrick laughs at something likely unfunny. Dobrick is an excellent kiss-ass. He would thrive anywhere, in any field, so long as someone were above him. It's somewhat impressive, Melner can't deny, considering the brutal, unabating cold and the hours of enforced loneliness. Melner can barely muster a smile. He couldn't socialize if he wanted to-- but Melner was convinced Dobrick didn't want to, he was that committed to his sycophancy. He smiles, stands up and shakes Oxbow's large hand, turning to Melner to salute ironically before departing for wherever he slept (Melner didn't know). "You'll have a drink?" Oxbow asks. He has the same accent as the villagers. Melner jingles his half-full glass in the air and takes a seat. "So, what's new?" "Nothing good." Melner has come to expect this response. It will be followed by a brief list of not-good things (for example: 'project's off-schedule,' 'money is running out,' 'some nameless higher-up is being transferred,' etc.) of which, Oxbow will select one to enumerate upon, drawing out the description to somewhere around fifteen minutes. He will allow a follow-up question (which, naturally, must be confined to the appropriate, already proffered subject matter), then respond vaguely for approximately twelve more minutes. He will then check the clock 'subtly,' and explain that unless there are no other issues he needs to be back on the ship. And if there are other issues, you really ought to be sending all of these questions to the aformentioned nameless higher-ups, and also you knew about the classified nature of the assignment before you took it, and other such s**t. But it's different this time: Oxbow leans back and speaks to the waitress in her (their?) language, asking for another drink. Wasting precious minutes. He leans back in slowly. "Say your goodbyes to Dobrick tonight, he will be gone by tomorrow morning." Melner can't speak, afraid to ask the wrong question whose answer is classified and yields a quick departure. "You don't have to tell me," Oxbow continues, "I know you must be jealous." "At least you know," Melner can't resist. "But chin up; you are next," that perfectly timed glimmer of hope. "Once we find someone to replace Dobrick, we will come for you. So be happy." He swallows his drink in one gulp, and leaves with a quick excuse. Not bothering to try and find Dobrick's dwelling for a feigned farewell, Melner makes his way home after a few more gins. By this hour the wind is thick with slush, smears of white that criss-cross the air and melt into gray sludge in the road. Melner heads to the boardwalk and travels the span of Oxbow's boat from bow to stern. The gang plank must be drawn up, Melner can't find it. He kicks a pebble over the edge and into the water but doesn't hear it splash. At home, up the stairs of a creaking building that groans in protest, past the always-locked doors of other boarders, Melner makes an entry in his personal log. Leaving out the jealousy and the fear, the blind rage and visceral hatred of Dobrick, who in actuality was only mildly annoying. Keeping the entry as brief and factual as possible (ultimately just "Dobrick leaving, me next hopefully") to save space on the paper. He throws the notebook down on a stack of already-filled logs, his stomach sinking. Before he'd learned brevity, he was filling pages a day. The three full logs amounted to just a few months, within what he'd signed up for at the start. Melner tried to remind himself for the sake of his own sanity. He was not lost, not forgotten. Everything was moving along as planned. The village was so bleak and cold and isolating, it was making a bad thing unbearable. Melner would make it, and he'd have a few pages to spare. He remembers Dobrick asking him about the personal logs. He called them "diaries." "Can I read them sometime?" Melner scoffed, but Dobrick was apparently serious. "I won't judge," he assured. Finding himself surprisingly livid at the potential violation, Melner shook his head and tried to compose himself. "First of all, No. Second, what is the point of a personal log if I go around sharing it with other people?" "I wouldn't know, you're the one keeping track of empty days." "Consider it classified." "Don't let Oxbow find out.” "What's that supposed to mean?" "Well, they sent us here for our observations. If you're logging observations, Oxbow will want to know." "How is he going to find out?" "I don't know the substance of your conversations." "No, but it sounds like you're describing to me the substance of yours." "Excuse me?" "Can't you just leave me my one pleasure on this s****y island?" "I wouldn't say this is your one pleasure," glancing hard at the drink rising to Melner's lips, "and this isn't an island." "Figure of speech: we're stuck here, trapped, a deserted island," Melner feigned and the conversation moved on, but as soon as the night was finished he rushed home to make his entry for the night: "not an island." As Oxbow had promised, Dobrick is not in the village the next morning. Although normally avoiding the encounter, Melner makes it a point to be in the tavern for coffee where he knows Dobrick likes to start his day and finds no Dobrick. He starts his daily trek, and soon discovers he is whistling. He moves briskly, despite the wind splashing up over the ridge and threatening to send him careening into the muddy valley. The angelic smudge of the sun behind clouds feels uncharacteristically warm on his face. He feels some guilt, of course. Dobrick wasn't all that bad, Melner scolds him
