Free Filaria by Brent Hayward Page B

lights, outlines shifted, dark against dark. He strove to reach these amorphous forms but could not, for they receded at the same pace he swam.
    Kicking with all the strength remaining to him, clawing his way through the water, Tran so dragged himself farther and farther down. Tiny explosions of white, set off in his mind, shook his entire musculature. His ears popped. The water had become cold, his body, colder still.
    Was that a voice, calling softly?
    His body pounded with the pressure.
    Adjacent to him now was a smooth, vertical surface. He had not seen this appear from the gloom and could make out few distinctions: ridges on paneling; clusters of black mussels and barnacles; two parallel pipes? Was this the tank in which the lake god lived?
    Either way, there would be no returning to the surface now; Tran so knew he would expire long before reaching the air. He heard the voice that had called to him previously, and he welcomed it. He imagined his baby son down here, at the bottom of the lake, smiling his first smile as he watched his father approach. Tran so Phengh’s dead friends were here, too, the boys and girls he had once played with in the alleys and schoolyards of Hoffmann City, long before notions of mortality or disease ever clouded their perceptions and polluted their young bodies. Eternal and youthful, his friends swayed, side by side in the same peaceful currents that stroked the lining of the lake floor and the weeds that grew there. Minnie sue would soon join him, firm and pretty, uniting their family forever.
    Now light filled his head. He fought an urge to draw water into his lungs, tried hard to stay focused, but liquid fists clenched him, and to suck in lake water would surely bring unity, peace, and silence.
    Travelling through a tunnel now. Pulled along, in a current, hardly moving his limbs —
    To spit, suddenly, out of foul water, coughing and rasping, puking up bile, sliding to a stop on a gently sloping floor. He lay in a shallow puddle, gasping. There was air here, the smell of mildew. Stagnant water all around. This air was charged with the scent of gods. His head hammered. His lungs were like two stones in his chest. He coughed more and water ran from his nose and mouth. Retching, he tried to sit up.
    A low ceiling provided greenish light, and musty breezes chilled Tran so’s wet skin. He knuckled his eyes. Too much pain and sensation for this to be the after-life; the deities had spared him. For what purpose?
    When his stomach and lungs and sinuses had emptied most that he had ingested, he felt marginally better and, though he still could not see properly, and had no idea what the full extent of this underwater chamber might be, he could tell by the echoes of the lapping waves that he was in a confined area. A constant hum rang in his ears. The dim coloured lights he had seen while swimming — the lights that had offered him an image of his dead son — moved slowly through the air and swirled about his head.
    A quiet voice called out, “Visitor? Visitor?”
    Tran so gingerly shook his head to clear it — unsuccessfully — and did not respond.
    “Visitor? Have you come to help me? Are you a man in uniform? Are you staff? Are you guest? By that, I mean, do you represent the engineer?”
    Hugging himself, Tran so tried to stand. “My name,” he said, grating out his words, “is Tran so Phengh. I am here on my wife’s behalf.” His teeth chattered. “She has the Red Plague and soon will be dead. Your remedy is not helping her.”
    “You did not come here to repair the damage done to me? I have been plundered , man. Pil fered.”
    “Are you the lake god?”
    The reply might have been a chuckle. “It seems we are both disappointed. I am no god, and you claim to be something other than a maintenance worker. My title, Tran so Phengh, is supervisor of the seventh reservoir. I’ve been waiting many years to return to full service.”
    Tran so did not understand this. He said, “A crab