Pym_ A Novel - Mat Johnson [133]
Garth shivers all the time, wrapped in many blankets though he is. Still, he barely talks to me.
March 4
The highlight of our day was when, after a black blanket was laid over Arthur Pym’s face in order to keep his hanging tongue from freezing, he woke with a horrific scream. “Tsalal. Tsalal,” he kept murmuring in a drowsy stupor, falling back asleep without removing the thing.
March 5
The polar cold is retreating as the current pushes us on, squeezing us out and up. Garth, at the front of the boat, is inscrutable to me, as quiet as the waters we sit on. I don’t know if he’s mourning our lost compatriots or his life’s art collection more, but I assume both weigh significantly on his thick shoulders. As it becomes warmer, the dread I have long been feeling begins to abandon me, along with the numbness I realize I had become so accustomed to. The closer we get to the heat, the more I feel my existence. The more I am ready to feel. To see color, to feel the dark earth, to be alive.
March 6
In the morning, I saw the darkest cloud I have ever witnessed coming from the distance. But it could not be a cloud, because it took up the whole sky, coming in a line and pulling over it like a blanket until it was directly above us. Then it started snowing. Except, this wasn’t snow. It was not white, it was gray. It was not cold, rather it was warm to the touch. It was ash. Volcanic ash. We are near land, and land where there is a volcano that can produce this. Although for the moment this ash blocked the very sun, I was elated about this fact, and shared this across the boat with Garth Frierson. Garth just nodded, and asked me to pass the Cheetos, of which we still have many. Arthur Pym, for his part, threw himself on his face in the bottom of the boat, and no persuasions could induce him to get up.
March 7
To quiet his squealing, I offered Pym more food from our supply. The only thing I could reach at that moment, packed as it all was, happened to be a bag of Oreo cookies. These Pym accepted only after great protest, and then only eating the creme filling and dropping the cookies to the boat’s bottom like they were feces. I found this extremely wasteful, and shared my thoughts with the man. When I did so, he screamed, “Your teeth!” cringing away from me in horror. Admittedly, my smile was darkened by my own Oreo indulgence, but I still found this further outburst very rude and told him that.
March 8
This afternoon I was woken by the screams of the lately mute Garth Frierson, who was yelling “Dog! Dog!” as he pointed off into the water. As it was his habit to preface much of what he had to say to me using the canine diminutive, I thought he was merely calling me. This, however, was not the case. Garth continued with “It’s a dog, in the water.” My first thought was that our journey was affecting the former bus driver’s mental health. Following his finger, however, I did see something. What I at first took to be a log came closer to reveal a snout, eyes, and whiskers. It looked like a Labrador retriever, soaking and in search of dry land, just like the three of us were. But it wasn’t bobbing in the water as it should, it was gliding, and within seconds I realized that it was in fact a seal of some kind, equally caught in this tepid current. For the next few minutes we watched the beautiful black creature circle our boat, inching closer with every cycle until he came close enough so that I could almost reach a hand out to pet his shining forehead. It was then that Arthur Pym, who had again drifted off, came back to consciousness. Turning listlessly to the side, Pym caught a glimpse of the black creature coming toward him, and this vision caused the man to begin a pattern of deep