The Mariner

As they wound further towards the zoo’s centre they spotted many of Pryce’s fellow islanders dressed in similar garb and each with the same serene expressions. These, however, were the only similarities shared. Age, sex and ethnicity varied widely and, like the monkeys, they watched from a distance, content with their idle curiosity without any motivation to intrude. They merely observed and then got back to tending crops.

The zoo felt more like an ancient kingdom than a centre for conservation. Plants had grown up around the dilapidated structures and rusty bars. Some had been preserved, though now converted for the monks’ use. McConnell peered inside what used to be an aquarium and saw the tanks drained and filled with candles. The floor was littered with rugs which monks sat upon in quiet contemplation. Other buildings hadn’t fared so well and had fallen under the thrall of the forest. Crumbled walls teemed with insects and fungi.

Finally, at the centre of the zoo, they came to an enormous pool. Straddling it was a wooden bridge leading to a small central platform supporting two enormous statues of dolphins, elongated faces majestic and noble. Under their shade sat a woman upon a wooden throne. She was large and imposing, and although she dressed in the same way as her followers, in simple grey cloth, she wore them as if they were the gowns of royalty.

“I was expecting you. Come!” she commanded, and the three were led across the bridge until they stood before her. The devils remained behind, unwilling to get near the clear pool, pacing back and forth nervously, faint mewing sounds in their throats.

Pryce bowed deeply. “Priestess, allow me to present the Reverend McConnell, Grace Tetrazzini and their guide, the Captain of the mighty Neptune!”

“Do you have a name?” the Priestess asked the Mariner with a smile.

“No. Do you?”

At this she laughed. “Very well. Thank you Pryce, that will be all.” Pryce nodded and departed, retreating back across the bridge and sitting with the devils who watched anxiously. “I am Diane Thyre, and it is my divine duty to guide the Monks of Déjà vu to their destiny.”

“The Monks of what?” McConnell, despite his earlier conciliatory nature, was becoming agitated by the culture about them. “That’s not a religion I’ve heard of.”

“We transcend religion, Reverend. This is about truth, not faith.”

“Christianity is the truth. We live in the end of days, the Shattering, God’s punishment for our sins!”

Diane suddenly burst into laughter, raising a hand to stifle her giggles. Her mockery sent McConnell bright red. “Is that what you think? Oh you poor man, what God would do this? Oh no. It were no God.”

“Then what did?” he growled.

“My good sir, a demon of course! A demon did this. Our world’s in the clasp of a creature not native to our own. It exists beyond our sight, beyond comprehension, taking us one by one. Destroying all we hold dear.”

“The Wasp?”

Her superior laughter stopped dead in her throat and Diane turned her attention to the Mariner. His studious expression held and did not waiver.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Demons do not have a need for names, names are things of man. Yet this one sounds… familiar.” Her thoughts congregated into a deep frown, but then a moment later she shrugged them off with ease. “What am I saying? Of course it would! We have met many times and you have told me this before. Please, sit, and I shall explain.”

The day was warm and pleasant and the three found no problem at all sitting in the grass and listening to the lady speak. Even McConnell, who’d taken exception to his own faith being discounted so quickly, listened in silence.

“Imagine the tale of your life as a wheel,” she began. “It is written from conception to death along the entire circumference. It contains all your achievements, all your failures. Hopes and dreams are painted there, just as your betrayals, travels, loves and losses. It seems so important to you, this journey you make as the wheel turns, but it is not. For the wheel continues turning, playing your life over and over. You’re born, you die, you’re born again, and with each revolution, you forget all that has come before, only to play out the exact same life, over and over, down to the precise thought.

“Except, we don’t quite forget everything,” she said, eyes lighting up. “Sometimes memories of these past cycles creep in, they seep through into our consciousness. These are the experiences known as Déjà vu. As Déjà vu unfolds, you remember the exact experience, the movements you make, the thoughts you think, the moment in its entirety.”

The Mariner nodded along with her story. He’d observed such moments before, the feeling of experiencing something for a second time, not any particularly important event, just going about his duties upon the Neptune. It was curious to learn the name for such a thing.