Lucius’s boots dragged across the grey earth, pushing ash into the air with each step. The dirt around him was nothing but ash at this point, filtered through a layer of dried mud stuck to his goggles. He adjusted his gas mask, considering the risk of taking it off completely to drink from his canteen. Breathable air was sparse in this area, as it had been choked out by the smog of a bygone city, then thrown away by Vesuvian soot. He looked to his right, noting the noir clouds of smoke still pouring from distant mountains. One half of a skyscraper stood as a lone, broken pillar in front of the volcanoes. The maroon sky had been sagging down for years with no pillars left to keep it up.
Lucius then heard a soft fluttering ahead of him. He stopped in his tracks, looking forward through the fog. Not much was visible ahead, but a loud rustling could be heard from the distance.
Nothing else to see around here, he thought to himself, Might as well look.
As Lucius trudged on, the fluttering became more clear to him for what it was: A flag billowing in the distance, its rustlings amplified by the high winds above him. Although he still couldn’t see it, he knew it was close. He stopped again as a few melodic pluckings met his ears. It was hard to pick them out below the sound of the flag, but once Lucius strode forth again, he could hear a somber story being told through song. It was definitely familiar to him, although he couldn’t make out how.
It wasn’t long before he came to two metal poles standing side-by-side, each one holding a cloth banner to the sky. Lucius couldn’t exactly make out the flags’ designs, especially since the poles were so tall, but they didn’t seem to be American. He didn’t care for the flags as much as he did for the strumming, however. At this point, he could see an orange glow wavering beyond the poles. The solemn hums of two voices joined the strums as Lucius kept his stride. The moment he passed between the poles, the strumming stopped abruptly.
“No, no,” came a voice from the glow, “You’re a key too high, the song was lower than that.”
“I’m playin’ off the sheet,” came another voice.
“That’s bullshit, hand it over,” said the first.
Lucius halted, this time considering who the voices might belong to. Had he wandered into an encampment of highwaymen?
“This isn't the right sheet,” the first voice spoke again.
“It came from gnosis, I dunno what to tell you,” the other voice said, “Not my fault if you don’t remember how the song went.”
“Christ, I would kill someone to get a working signal out here,” the first voice complained, “If I hadn’t joined the guard…”
The complaining went on until the other voice asked the first voice if he wanted to sing or not. The first voice just said “all right,” and the strumming began again. So, too, did Lucius’s stride. The orange glow soon came into view as a campfire, with two figures sitting at either side.
Just as Lucius saw the fire for what it was, the first voice rang out again: “Through early morning fog, I see... visions of the things to be…”
Lucius kept his stride steady, careful not to be too loud or too silent. If he was too loud, he might be seen as an aggressor, but being too silent would be nothing short of suspicious.
“...The pains that are withheld for me. I realize and I can see…”
Lucius arrived at the campfire, still unnoticed by the two men sitting beside it. The one on the left had a guitar in his hands, and his eyes were glued to a clipboard on his lap. The clamp held down a sheet of paper with notes lined up in rows. The man on the other side of the fire had his eyes closed, apparently reciting the song from memory.
Lucius wasn’t exactly sure of what to do, so he let the song play out.
“...That suicide is painless. It brings on many changes…” the first voice continued.
The second voice joined in: “...And I could take or leave it if I could.”
Johnny Mandel’s “Suicide is Painless.” Lucius now remembered why the notes felt so familiar. He watched the two men sing as the fire lit up their charred, ashen faces. Neither one wore a respirator, and while Lucius took this as a sign of good air in this spot, he decided to keep wearing his own. The one with the guitar was bald and wore a tank top to give his muscular figure some room to breathe. His hands were like slabs of meat, with fingers so wide that Lucius was surprised that the man could even play. The singer, meanwhile, seemed to be much more lean under his jacket. His thick outerwear was covered in patches, almost as if the coat was meant to cushion him from the outside. His black hair came down to his shoulders, and his clean-shaven face was a contrast to the guitarist’s emerging beard. The singer’s voice was lighter than the guitarist’s, as Lucius would have expected, but there was a sort of coarseness to it that the guitarist lacked completely.
Their song carried on to the end, in spite of the occasional wrong note followed by a “dammit.” Had the mistakes not been there, Lucius may have been guided away by his own memories. The ghost of his grandfather may have taken his hand and sat him down on the couch to spend another night in front of the TV. Lucius may have fallen asleep with one hand on a box of Fig Newtons, hearing his grandfather chuckle softly as sleep took over.
Lucius cleared his throat once the song approached its end. The fireside men looked in his direction as he shifted awkwardly, unsure of whether he should look at the guitarist, the singer, or the fire.
“You here for gnosis?” the guitarist asked.
“Er…” Lucius’s voice was muffled beneath the mask, “What, exactly?”
“Gnosis,” the guitarist repeated, “Are ya here for gnosis?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t-” Lucius started.
“You don’t need to wear a mask, by the way,” the singer interrupted, “At this distance from the mountains, the air is safe.”
“I’ll keep it on,” Lucius said, “What’s gnosis?”
The fireside men looked at each other, then back at Lucius.
“If you ain’t lookin’ for gnosis, then why the hell are you out here?” The guitarist asked.
“I lived here as a kid. Before all of… this,” Lucius gestured to the volcanoes in the distance, “When I heard about the full evacuation, I decided to check it out once the dust settled.”
“Well,” the singer laughed as he used his foot to draw a circle in the ash, “It certainly has settled.”
“Yeah. So what’s gnosis?” Lucius asked again.
“This guy definitely isn’t from any city or suburb,” the singer said to the guitarist, “Those people use their cars to get here, and the first thing they always do when they arrive is ask for Gnosis.”
“You ain’t lookin’ for Gnosis, are you?” The guitarist raised an eyebrow as he spoke to Lucius.
“No. I don’t know. What?” Lucius pinched the bridge of his nose – or at least he tried to, through the mask, “What the Hell is gnosis?”
“If you aren’t looking for Gnosis, then why do you keep asking?” the singer asked.
“Because you’re the ones who keep fucking talking about it!” Lucius snapped.
“‘Cause there are people out there who can abuse Gnosis!” the guitarist stood up, “So if you’re lookin’ for Gnosis, then you ain’t gonna get gnosis!”
“Look, okay, that’s fine and all,” Lucius stepped back and held his hands in front of him, “But how the Hell do I look for something if I don’t know about it?”
“How do we know you don’t know about Gnosis?” the singer stood up as well, reaching into his jacket.
“Woah, hey, come on,” Lucius raised his hands higher above his head, “If you want me to leave, I can leave. I thought I could pass through here, but I’m fine with going around.”
The guitarist and the singer exchanged glances again.
“Nah,” the guitarist replied, his eyes still on the singer, “You can pass through.”
The singer pulled a card from his jacket and held it out to Lucius.
“Take this first,” the singer said, “You’ll need it.”
Lucius pulled his hands back down, but they still wavered above his hips. His hand inched towards the singer’s card. Slowly… slowly…
“For fuck’s sake, just take the ticket,” the singer stepped forward, grabbed Lucius’s wrist with his free hand, and forced the card into his palm. He then sat back down next to the fire, reached into his pants pocket, and drew out an embroidered patch. The guitarist picked up his instrument and sat down as well.
Lucius simply looked at the card that he was just handed.
It was blank.
Only a white flashcard with nothing written on either side. Lucius sighed, slipped it into his pocket, and circled around the campfire. He was only a few paces past it when the guitarist called out to him.
“Where you goin’?” the guitarist asked.
“I’m just passing through,” Lucius turned to face the guitarist, “And I’d like to do that as soon as I can.”
“You don’t want to see Gnosis?” the singer asked.
“What the fuck is gnosis‽” Lucius screamed.
The fireside men didn’t look at each other this time. They simply pointed towards a spot on the ground about two yards away from the fire. Lucius sighed and looked at the area where the two were pointing. A circular hatch was just barely poking out of the ash. It looked like something was written on it. Lucius approached the hatch and took a few moments to make out the faded red letters. Chuck’s Feed and Seed was written on the top, with an arrow pointing to the handle.
“Used to be for storage,” said the guitarist, “When I sold the shop, he said there was more space than he needed down there, so he let me keep it.”
Not wanting to get into a teeth-pulling conversation about the “he” who bought the guitarist’s store – assuming the guitarist ever even owned one – Lucius twisted the handle and lifted the hatch. He peered down to see a ladder embedded into the walls of the shaft’s interior. The walls themselves were white and smooth, as if they had just been installed and buffed out. The singer called to Lucius about wiping his boots, but Lucius didn’t want to listen to another word. He shook his shoes halfheartedly before climbing down the shaft. He closed the hatch above him, as one of the fireside men called out for him to do, and descended to see Gnosis.
Each rung felt cool to the touch as Lucius made his way down. The choking dryness of the upper world gave way to a thin layer of humidity wrapped around the bunker’s cool air. A white glow could be seen from below, creeping up Lucius’s body until his feet finally touched the square of marble flooring at the ladder’s bottom. He turned to face the room, and immediately had to shield his eyes from its sheer whiteness. LED lights were strewn across the whole ceiling, illuminating the pale walls. A bleached carpet stretched beyond the marble tile that Lucius had just touched down upon, and the room was wide enough to house five rows of bookshelves. Being unable to see what was on the other side of those bookshelves, Lucius took a step to the side to peer down an aisle.
“Shoes off!” a girl’s voice came from the other side of the room. Lucius looked down at the small pile of ash that had fallen from his boots. He knelt down to untie them, noticing a few more flakes slipping off his shoulders. He rose to his feet, brushed off his jacket, then knelt back down to remove his boots. He could feel his feet stretching out to enjoy the open space as soon as they were drawn from each shoe. Lucius’s tattered socks sank into the carpet as he moved between the center bookshelf and the one to its right. He walked down the aisle, taking note of a giant screen covering the wall beyond the bookshelves. The screen was displaying the city above, but as it was before the fall. The lone half-pillar from before was shown as its former, more complete self: a skyscraper surrounded by dozens of other buildings. Other skyscrapers reached to the sky, bringing the city’s people to Heaven while the towers below propped them up. Stout warehouses kept the other buildings firmly in place while an adjacent river graced the city with a reflection of the heavens. The sky was blue, and the buildings white.
“Hey!” the girl spoke again, “Are you coming up here or not?”
“Uh, yeah. Sorry,” Lucius said, his words still muffled through his gas mask.
“You can take that off, you know,” the girl said, “If the air’s bad topside, it’s still good down here. We have a whole filtration system.”
Lucius stopped yet again and reached behind his head. He slowly unstrapped his mask before continuing. After reaching the end of the aisle, he stopped to see a young girl, no older than twelve, sitting at a desk in front of the monitor. A pair of large, circular glasses were perched atop her nose as she held a book open with her left hand and a pencil in her right. Her writing hand rested on a notebook full of sketches and writings, apparently taken from the book. A stack of notebooks rose from the floor beside her desk, with coloured tabs pouring out form between their pages.
“Who are you?” Lucius asked.
“Gnosis,” she replied.
Lucius let out a groan, and the girl’s only reply was a chuckle.
“Again with this gnosis,” Lucius sighed, “Are you trying to mess with people?”
“My name is Gnosis,” the girl said, etching something into her notebook, “And this is gnosis.”
“Yeah, that’s a satisfying answer,” Lucius said as he crossed his arms.
“I’m the capital-G Gnosis,” the girl continued, “I’m in charge of keeping the lowercase-g gnosis.”
“All right,” Lucius said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “And what’s lowercase-g gnosis?”
“You’re looking at it,” she responded.
“Great, so that’s also you. I’m glad to have it all cleared up,” Lucius’s words bled with sarcasm.
“No,” Gnosis tapped her notebook, “It’s in here.”
“Look,” Lucius said as he strode to the table and leaned against it, “There are these nifty little things called ‘complete sentences.’ They make use of nouns – not vague pronouns like ‘it’ or ‘here.’ I would really, really appreciate it if just one thing you said was a complete sentence. It would make me so very, very happy.”
Gnosis sighed and flipped through her notebook to the very first page, then showed it to Lucius.
gnosis, read the notebook, Science; knowledge; knowledge of the highest kind.
“All right,” Lucius sighed, “So your name is Gnosis, and this… this library is where you store knowledge.”
“Exactly,” Gnosis replied, “I am Gnosis, and this is gnosis.”
“Beautiful!” Lucius clapped his hands and spun away from the table, “Now we’re actually getting somewhere!”
“That’s your concern?” she asked, “Getting somewhere?”
“Yeah, I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t really come to these Babelian ruins to get in arguments with musicians and talk to kids in bunker-libraries.”
“Why are you here?” Gnosis asked. Lucius opened his mouth to answer, but Gnosis held up a hand before he could speak. She pushed her notebook to the side, then leaned over to the stack of notebooks beside her desk. She scanned the stack up and down before carefully pulling one out from the center and dropping it on the table. Lucius could see the word “Guestbook” on the front cover before Gnosis flipped to an empty page, picked up her pencil, then gave a thumbs-up.
“Are you really going to write it?” Lucius asked.
“If it’s gnosis, I keep it,” she replied.
“I just came here to see the house I grew up in,” said Lucius, “That’s pretty much it.”
“Why?” asked Gnosis.
“I said I came here to see the-”
“Yes, but why?” Gnosis’s words cut through the air.
“Why?” Lucius echoed.
"Yes..." Gnosis said, "Why?"
"Why..." Lucius hummed.
“Listen, I put those two up there so that they’d frustrate people and drive them away,” Gnosis sighed, “Not for the sake of having people repeat the whole ‘comedy sketch’ upon coming down here.”
Lucius bit his lip and cast his eyes on the bookshelves to his left.
“Well… I guess you could say I have a history with that house,” he finally said.
“Go on,” Gnosis said as her pencil moved across her notebook.
Lucius chewed his lip a bit.
“I understand if the story’s painful,” Gnosis assured him, “But the truth often is.”
“I mean, I already paid my respects at his funeral…” Lucius said to himself. Gnosis discreetly wrote his words into her notebook.
“I already left her behind…” Lucius’s voice shrank with every word.
“Hey,” Gnosis said, her voice nudging Lucius. He looked over to her.
“Don’t hint at something if you aren’t going to come forward,” she said. Lucius nodded, finally deciding to replay the events of life since he lived in the city.
Lucius was raised by his grandfather in this city. He lived closer to the limits, but it seemed that even the edge wasn’t safe from whatever happened. Everything about his granddad’s house was big, Lucius remembered. The sofa, the TV, the backyard… Hell, even those little gummies that he would get after passing a test. Every dinner was a feast, and of course Granddad ate most of it. Actually, it was funny how he always set the table as though a whole family would be eating, even though it was just the two of them. Every Friday, they'd both bring a box of Fig Newtons to the TV room and watch reruns of M*A*S*H. Lucius was definitely too young for the show, but he was only ever focused on daydreaming and munching down on fig bars. Maybe Granddad knew that, and maybe that was why he’d sit Lucius in front of it.
Lucius was still young when Granddad died. Probably around Gnosis’s age. Lucius wasn’t sure why, but for some reason his mother’s house always felt incomplete. Maybe it was the total absence of a father, maybe it was the lack of his mother’s presence, or maybe it was both. No, it was definitely both. The shrinking world was definitely no consolation to it all. With every inch he grew, the world’s shelter shrank. With every learned fact, an imagined possibility was dashed away. Lucius eventually got into survivalism. There were plenty of forums online, plenty of suburban scraps to live off of, and a few years after running away from home, plenty of experience built.
Lucius didn’t know it, but as he was talking to Gnosis, his eyes started leaking at some point. He apparently paused a moment too long once he got to the “plenty of experience” bit; a moment just long enough to break him away from his past.
“Shit,” Lucius huffed between a couple sobs, “I…”
Gnosis waited patiently.
“I don’t know why I came here,” Lucius admitted, “I just heard the news about the city, and remembered that I grew up here. I figured I’d just take a look.”
“The mountains erupted three years ago,” Gnosis noted, “What took you so long?”
“I thought the eruptions would stop,” Lucius responded, “Didn’t you?”
Gnosis shook her head.
“Nobody knew those mountains were volcanoes. Not geologists, not seismologists, not volcanologists. I haven’t even found any paranoid schizophrenics who thought this would happen,” she said, “There was never a single shred of evidence to prove that those mountains were anything other than mountains. If lava can pop up anywhere without notice, who’s to say it’ll stop?”
Lucius chewed on his lip.
“Is that why the air isn’t breathable?” he asked.
“Who knows?” she shrugged, “Volcanoes aren’t meant to act like this, and neither is their smog. Sure, the smoke is corrosive, but not by the measure we see out here.”
Lucius nodded, pretending to understand, and looked at the monitor on the wall.
“Why the Hell did I come here?” he thought aloud.
Gnosis flipped a few pages towards the beginning of her notebook.
“Vincent,” she read aloud, “68W Health Care specialist in the Army National Guard. Came to the city on the day of the eruptions, tasked with administering emergency care to civilians. Seeked gnosis of the cause for this disaster.”
“The singer?” Lucius asked. Gnosis nodded.
“Gabriel” she continued, “Accumulated $98,000 in debt to loan sharks. Came to the city one year after the day of eruptions, looking to find salvaged parts or goods to sell online. Seeked gnosis of how to live a better, happier life. Continues to be a compulsive liar.”
Gnosis looked up at Lucius.
“Your name?” she inquired.
“Oh, Lucius,” he answered.
“Came to the city three years and four months after the day of eruptions, wanting to rediscover his childhood home,” Gnosis went on, “Seeked gnosis of?”
She looked back at Lucius, who only looked back at her.
“I guess…” Lucius started, pausing to collect his thoughts, “No, wait, why should I have to come here seeking gnosis?”
“What else would you be seeking?” she asked, “You’ve entered a place where all that exists is ash. You could be anywhere else on Earth right now, safe away from this God-forsaken hellscape, yet you chose to come here.”
“Yeah, I… I know,” Lucius sighed, “Honestly, I never expected to see anything besides a grey lump in the ground. I just… I just thought that maybe I would have some profound epiphany come to me once I put my eyes on that lump. Something that would suddenly make the whole world make sense. I don’t know, some cosmic truth or… or…”
“Gnosis,” the girl finished.
Lucius looked at Gnosis. He studied the freckles on her face, connecting each dot as if they were constellations. Her point was hard to deny. He’d come all this way aimlessly. He packed everything he needed and made all the preparations for the journey, all without keeping his destination in mind. He had the memories of that home, but didn’t expect to relive them. He knew why it was important to who he was now, but would a pile of ash really be important to who he would be in the future? He had no expectations outside of seeing a grey lump, having some profound thought come to mind, then turning around and going back to civilization.
“I guess so,” he admitted.
“And?” she asked.
“And here it is.”
And now we have Gnosis. I really didn’t want to write a piece that took place in a pseudo-post-apocalyptic world, especially considering the fact that A Vacant Earth already takes place in a post-apocalypse, but as the deadline approached and my ideas ran short, I had to come up with something. Still, I fought the desire for an actual post-apocalypse by simply setting it in a world where only one city was ransacked by volcanoes that came out of nowhere. Having one area affected by it seemed to be a natural way to bring the protagonist to such a setting, as he'd be drawn to a childhood home that was destroyed. When conceptualizing the story, I wanted Gnosis to pose something of a philosophical question, although I couldn’t figure out what the question should be. It ultimately just became an absurdist piece that asks countless questions and refuses to answer any one of them. Out of the few it does answer... Well, they’re not exactly satisfactory.