randomk extra pieces of writing etc that i thought would be cool to put on the zuiyo maru page (welcome to zuiyomaru world!)
'thinking ahead'
It wasn't instantaneous... I distinctly remember being closed up in the sleep chamber, and losing consciousness, but it wasn't instantaneous like a normal sleep. There was a space... it feels like it was a long time. Everything foggy, and maybe I dreamt as well, but if so I don't remember it. But those last memories felt far away, long ago. I felt the gap. It's strange to think that that was 400,000 years.
Well, I was quite foggy when I woke up. I don't remember that very well either. But obviously I was on Seaplanet by then. The city was just beginning to be built. But the landing had actually happened 3 years ago. The bulk of the population was kept in storage like me until there were places ready for them to live.
On my first day, they took me into a submarine to witness the beauty of Seaplanet. Through the portholes I saw countless colourful seaweed type plants, and many strange and mysterious creatures. I was overjoyed. Then there was a big fish-like thing, that looked ready to bite the submarine in half. 'Oops, one of the bitesharks... let's get out of here', said the submarine pilot. On hearing this, I felt somewhat alarmed. Then a large group of spiked submarines approached from behind us and began attacking the angry-looking creature. When this happened, I let out a scream of dismay. 'It's just living its life!', I cried.
'in this world, it's eat or be eaten,' said a passenger next to me.
That afternoon, we were served our firs t meals. A sumptuous feast of seaweeds of every colour, and a large variety of fish and squid-like creatures. The head chef of the district stood at the end of the tables, brought up a powerpoint presentation, and gave us a presentation about the local fisheries industry.
'within our first 6 months, we had tested and catalogued over 100 species fit for consumption, and within another year full fishing operations began, taking in a catch of over 100,000 tonnes annually, which has now been going on for almost 2 years.' A diagram showing a biteshark, with cuts of meat labelled, then appeared on the projector. Using a laser pointer, the chef indicated the long tail muscles of the fish. 'A single biteshark tail can feed a whole subdistrict cabin of people for 2 days'.
Shaking with anger, I raised my hand. Adjusting his chef hat, the chef told me to speak.
'Um... are you doing population measurements? How do you know if this is sustainable?'
The room fell silent. All six tables of people turned to stare at me. In the silence, someone coughed. The chef laughed awkwardly, and said, 'hmmm... well any OTHER questions?'
And before I knew it, 4 bulky security guards, with the insignia of the Seaplanet Public Security Bureau, surrouded me and shoved me from my seat. Before I had time to overcome my shock and utter a shout of anger, they had lifted me under the arms and started for the door. The next thing I remember I was in an interrogation chamber, with a lamp shining brightly into my eyes. Beyond the lamp, a calm voice asked,
'are you on the side of humanity, or the side of the monstruous creatures?'
I couldn't answer. I love humanity, but these creatures... I could tell they were not monstruous. In their eyes, I could tell they had hearts.
'I don't think humans and fish should fight. I don't think we should be fishing the planet to extinction'.
A fist slammed on the table.
'It's one way or the other, idiot child! If they live, we die.'
'They were here first, though'.
The interrogator fell silent. 'You're not making it easy for yourself... Ugh, I can't be bothered with this. You have quite flagrantly demonstrated you are inimical to the survival of this colony. In times like these we do not have enough resources to support the likes of you. You are sentenced to death by drowning'.
I was gobsmacked. This is the 'brand new start', the 'last hope of humanity'?? All this swam in my head as I was led to the airlock. As it filled with water, I tried to remember the best moments of my life back on earth. Soon, I was sucked into the deep, dark ocean. I sank to the bottom, but somehow was not drowning. I looked down... Attached to my mouth was some kind of glowing squid like creature puffed up with air, feeding my oxygen through a tube. What on earth?
Next, a diver riding a gigantic seahorse approached. They grabbed hold of me and brought me to a sea cave, where lights hung from the staligtites. I looked around. Everywhere there were creatures... intelligent fish, cultured isopods. One of them came up to me.
'You're safe here', it said.
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I didn't walk, just stood still in empty clothes. Hollow, concave, empty with smooth hard walls on the inside. That said, I still found myself going from one place to another. First it was my house, with my yellow, tick-tocking room in it, then it was a wide peri-urban street with other people's houses and lush rectangles of grasses and weeds to roll my eyes in, then later it was a bigger road, and a building with a lift, and by the end I was in the seat. The guy said 'that's a lot of money', and a few other things, but it ended after a while. I decided afterwards to live out the remaining day at the shopping centre, having walked all that way. The stuff on the shelves at the supermarket was the same as always, but I looked up and down them anyway. I thought that in wandering a little chocolate bar or cute drink or something would fill me with desires and I would take one to walk with, but everthing was the same as always and I wondered why I even came in. Worse, come the miserable retreat, I couldn't even walk back out because the robotic gate wouldn't open--I hadn't bought anything--so I had to walk suspiciously through the self checkout area with my hands in my pockets, and saw a few people I wished I knew and could talk to normally, but we were all trapped in a horrible systematic torture machine and it would be strange to interrupt and pretend it wasn't a torture machine. And for my part I hadn't been getting tortured that much lately, it seemed like, so to jostle cheerfully with someone more constrained than me then----it would just be like gloating, and I really didn't feel that way. So I tried not to notice everyone's little physical charms or quirks, everyone's breathing-out hearts dripping with private musics, everyone's happy or sad eyelids drooping to see tile dirt or rising to remember or imagine in tube lights and pipe maze ceilings. I didn't feel like knowing so viscerally my disconnection from everyone in the world, and the richness I was cut out of. As you can tell, I didn't fully succeed in ignoring it. But what mattered-- I was out, the sweat and breath evaporated from me, and after all, I was no criminal. Probably looking away from everyone and walking fast in my grey trousers made me look more, and not less, evil. Oh well. The library is a place anyone can sit, so I went there. It would have been nice to become an inhabitant of a book's fantastic or interesting world, or to know the hearts of fictional lovers so well as to hear them talk spontaneously in my head at quiet moments. But that all takes time, and crazy effort. I picked up something that made me think 'this looks amazing, I'm definitely going to enjoy this', found a good chair in front of the window, and then immediately, even though this window displayed nothing but a car park and some trees, set about dozingly stare-daydreaming there for many open minutes while I unlookingly grasped the solid book, content with my certainty that I was firmly holding future pleasure. I think I was pretty cheerful at that point, but soon enough the daydream-thoughts became all tangled (systems connected the lampposts and the alignment of the parked cars, but a ballooning of complex regulations made the whole contradictory formulation collapse), and when I shook my head I remembered I was here to read that book, so I tried it for a while and fouund I didn't have any energy to cathect into its world... it was just like staying too long at an unhappy party and having people introduced to you for politeness' sake that you knew you wouldn't likely see again.