I’m licking mala algae off a thin yellow and blue P sheet that says Nutterfinger when I notice the walls in my home are vibrating.
Nothing ever happens in our world surrounded by P. P is what we call the material that makes up our world, and it’s what we call our world. PP, PET, PE, PS. So many Ps. We don’t know what it is or what it means. It’s a material between the living and dying. You can’t eat it, but it can be used for clothing, eating utensils, ropes, and among other things.
But mostly, we use it to help us harvest more algae.
Like I was saying before. Nothing ever happens here to us Gims. Most Gims don’t like change. We harvest the algae, we take it to the core for drying and processing, and then we go home to our little holes in the walls content with our daily contributions to P.
Staring from the entrance of Grandpa’s hole, I think of him. God rest his soul. Five years ago, lost in a floor collapse and swallowed up by the P. Soft P, Hard P, you don’t watch your step, you can kiss your algae-scraping buns good bye.
Grandpa always said, You can’t just let the world run its own course. Sometimes you gotta grab it by the neck and scream in its ears.
I don’t know what he means.
But I do know that I’m not going to let this disturbance, this vibrating hum along the walls sit snug and tight.
The other Gims laugh at me and mock me in the beginning.
“Come here,” I tell Gemla. Gemla is in my mala algae harvest group this year. We are on floor C-1 scraping a fresh bloom and filling a fading blue PE bucket.
“Just a second, Fin.”
Under the glow of the slime light lamp, I see his P wraps are down to his ankles.
“Oh dear god of the Gims.”
He pulls a new wrap up to his crotch and winds it tight against his waist with algae cord.
“Look here.”
Gemla bends over next to me. “Look where?”
I point to a P container sticking out from the wall that says Blorox and below that the letters written Decimates Germs 100%. Voodoo markings that nobody in our world of Gims knows or cares to know about. If it isn’t algae harvesting, it won’t get us up in the morning. Not enough harvest and we’ll be sure as dead come the dry cold season when nothing grows in the P walls.
“Do you see it?” I ask. He’s sniffing the container. Slowly, he swivels his head from left to right, bottom and top, checking all the faces of the container. Then he stops. He is still, save his two eyeballs that turn to meet my gaze.
“It’s…moving,” he says and his cheek twitches.
Immediately, he turns around, swings the bucket of mala on his shoulder, and disappears into another harvest chamber. I only hear his voice. “Strange things are not for me, Fin. Not for me.”
You can’t just let the world run its course. I know Grandpa is on my side. I miss his company. The chamber is lonely and I make my way back to the main collection site where hundreds of Gims line up in front of a giant cylindrical P tank with P hoses running into the floor to other chambers for various processing.
I climb to the top of the stairs and look into the massive collection tank. A bluish tinge indicates it’s the freshest of the season. Normally, the smell coming from the tank would have me drooling down my cheeks.
But the worry that no one is doing anything about the disturbance in the walls makes me ill. At the bottom of the stairs, I talk to the collection leader, but he rejects the idea just as much as Gemla. “You collect. You go home. That is your duty.”
I argue with him and am sentenced to two weeks of harvesting in chamber E-9, the deepest and smelliest harvest zones of P. It also contains the richest mala algae.
So, it is rich, I think on my first day when I apply the thick deep green goop to a festering rash on my back. The itch and burning disappears instantly.
Over the two weeks in E-9, I notice that the grumbling of the walls gets stronger, but my chamber partner Chomla denies this just as Gemla and the collection leader Piz did.
I bring a group of young Gims to a chamber so deep and hidden it hasn’t been recorded by the mala survey team. I keep telling them to look at the various Ps closely. Look at how they vibrate.
“I don’t like what you’re doing, Fin,” a girl with a PS top hat says.
A boy with transparent P sheet wrapped around his legs and crotch is shaking his head in disappointment. “And, so what, Fin? A little movement here and there. It’s none of our business.”
“I wonder what Master Lemla would say to this?” A young girl wearing a white tank top with the letters Save the Ocean on it points a green P bat at my chest.
“Yeah!” They all say in unison. They keep repeating this. “Yeah!”
They get closer, and closer.
I lean into the wall of P expecting a hard surface but instead, it swallows me whole just like Grandpa and I am falling, sliding, and flipping. After what seems like an eternity of crawling, scooping, and pushing, my head breaks free.
The light is blinding but when my eyes adjust, the world I knew is gone. I’m on a P mountain floating in a forever expanding dark blue soup of wonder.
And a monstrosity of metal on the horizon swallows and harvests other P mountains.
I lift my shaking hand from a P sheet.
Made from 100% Recycled Packaging.
