Dopecentury XXXIX --- Sand Sub 1
This short fiction is part of Dopecentury, an experimental project where I attempt to channel the aural aesthetics of Dopesmoker into written text. (Dopesmoker is the legendary stoner-doom metal masterpiece by the band Sleep, of which it is said: “the monotony rarely becomes tedious.”) My plan is to listen to the single hour-long track of Dopesmoker while writing each of these “Dopecentury” entries. And repeat that 100 times. See the Dopecentury project page for more details.
Digging in the dark. Under the desert moon, stained and blackened in places, but still providing light for us to work by. My leather gloves, cracked, and caked with sand. The shovel heavier with each scoop.
We fill buckets. There’s no other way to move sand out of the hole. We lift and load. Shovelful after shovelful of sand. Where we put the spade into the sand, it falls away below us, slipping down from each shovel strike in a small avalanche. We try to catch the falling sand and add it to the bucket. Eventually it all has to go into the buckets.
Full buckets are hauled up the slope by the young people. Their desert boots, tightly bound against the intruding sand, sink to the ankles with every step. And every step sets off more avalanches, of course. But upward they stagger with their load, the strong ones with a bucket in each hand, over the lip of the hole to deposit the material out there in the world.
For soon the hole is deep enough that it is my whole world: just me and the other diggers, down here below the surface level of the Earth, with our small patch of sky above us, lit by the dirty moon. Does anyone really live in a larger world than that anyway?
Stroke after stroke, we dig down through the sand. The sand piles up to our calves as we dig, above our boots and making it difficult to free ourselves. But we dig ourselves out, adding that sand to the buckets. The hold grows deeper.
And then, a clang of steel against steel. One of the diggers has found what we are digging for. We are on our knees, clearing away the sand with swipes of our hands, trying to find the edges the shape of the thing buried in the sand.
And there it is: the hatch of a submarine.
How it came to be buried in this desert waste, I do not know. Nor do I know how our Director knew where to dig for it. But here it was, as promised.
A brave fellow spun the hatch locking wheel, and pulled the hatch up, sand sliding off it into the open hole. He climbed down the steel ladder.
“A light, a light!” shouted the man from down in the hole. Someone brought a lit torch and dropped it down to him. We who peered over the side into the hole could see the light moving back and forth below. “I do not see anything wrong with it! Come down!” More lit torches were brought and we took turns clambering down the ladder to join him.
Without the filthy moon above, we could feel the blackness about us, enveloping us the way the earth envelopes the roots of a plant. Holding torches we wandered back and forth, looking over equipment, trying out levers and switches, turning the wheels that moved the control planes. Nothing worked, of course. The sub had been buried in the sand for years. It was, so to speak, out of its element.
Still, the Director took a torch and located the main power. She instructed everyone to be quiet, and then, dramatically, flipped the switch for the main power.
Nothing happened.
“Well, that’s to be expected. Where’s the Engineer?”
“She went further below decks, she wanted to see the engine.”
“Go find her and bring her up here.”
A few minutes more, and the torches were beginning to go out. The Engineer returned to the control room.
“Well,” demanded the Director, “could it be started?”
“Are you kidding, seriously, you think this thing would start? And to what purpose?”
“Look,” said the Director, “a submarine is a sealed vehicle. It could be anywhere: underwater, underground in space; if you gave it wings large enough, it could fly. And the desert environment — with its desiccating dryness — should have done an excellent job of preserving the machinery. I do now see why it should not start.”
“It might! But why? What would we do with it even if the engine did start?” the Engineer asked.
The Director grinned. “Just start it.”
“Well, first we need to get air down to the engine. You there, see if that wheel over there still moves.”
I grabbed a small steel wheel, and turned it.
“Good, that will raise the snorkel… keep turning until, yes, it is all the way up, up above the surface of the sand, And…” The Engineer looked over the gauges arrayed on the wall. She brushed sandy dust off the glass of the gauges with the thumb of her leather gloves. “And… looks like, through some miracle, there’s still pressure in the tanks. And… fuel… so… barring any broken hoses…” The Engineer turned a small wheel and there was a hiss through the pipes that curled through the control room.
And a moment later a mechanical giant was having a coughing fit far below. And then the diesel engines of the sub roared to life. At the same time as the engines spun up to speed, the lights in the control room flickered on dimly, and quickly gained confidence in their ability to glow. Soon we were bathed in the yellow-white light of the bulbs scattered through the sub, and stubbing out our torches on the steel grating of the deck.
With the lights, the instrument panels glowed to life too.
“See!” cried the Director, “I told you it would start!”
“Amazing, really. But to what purpose?” the Engineer asked loudly, over the noise of the churning engines.
“Well…” said the Director, “dreams sometimes manifest.” She pushed the throttle lever slowly up.
We all felt it, the machine shook, vibrated with vitality, and it stirred, and then we could all feel it moving, forward through the sand.
“Close the hatch above!” shouted the Director.
“But it is impossible!” said the Engineer.
“Sand, when fine enough, can behave like a liquid! Why not!” the Director shouted gleefully, and poured on more throttle. She look over at me and another digger standing near by: “you two, sit in the control chairs.” We did as we were told. “What speed are we showing?”
I read the dusty gauge, “Um… something like an old man’s walking pace,” I said.
“Well,” said the Director, “I guess that’s to be expected. Still, forward!” She turned around, “Scope up!” she commanded, but then found the lever that controlled the hydraulics to lift the scope herself. The slick steel shaft of the scope slid up before her eyes.
“…I cannot believe the hydraulic system is still functioning…” said the Engineer.
“I am sure it could use some tuning up!” said the Director, “why don’t you go below and look it over?”
The Director scanned around with the periscope. She whistled through her teeth. “Can’t see much with the dunes as high as they are. Push us forward and see if we can’t get into a more clear sand plain.
I looked over the dials, gauges, and controls before me, but did not do anything. I realized that if we pushed the engines any harder, they would surely overheat with the effort of screwing us forward through the sand.
The Director was still looking through the periscope. “There! Smoke arising off over the horizon to the East. We go in that direction.” She leaned over and turned the rudder control, and the submarine leaned gently to one side.