Contract Null & Void

Walpurgisnacht III

Danny Marenne was singing:

Danny thought, Mais le chorus était terrible. Ils chants comme les oiseaux de mer.

As if to emphasize his thought, another California gull swooped above him, crying raucously, black-tipped wings fully spread, so low that Danny’s squinting salt-rimed eyes caught the greenish legs and even the tiny red drop like blood on the lower mandible. Then it was gone, its cries fading.

Il faut chanter encore. He started to sing again:

Danny stopped singing to mutter aloud, “Vraiment pour I’amour de Dieu. Bon Dieu, quelle mal de tête...”

A wave thudded down so close to him that the sand shook and froth swirled around him, stinging the dozens of bruises and abrasions on his body.

Monsieur Parnell, his English teacher at the little stoneblock Algerian schoolhouse, snapped at him, “Parlez en anglais. En anglais, monsieur Marenne!”

Okay. He was starting to come out of it. Slightly. Enough to start thinking in the English that had been his native tongue for a brace of decades now.

He said aloud, “Shit, it hurts like the death of a thousand cuts. Okay, Mr. Parnell?”

But what hurts like the death of a thousand cuts?

Salt water in open cuts and scrapes, of course.

And his head...

He put up a cautious hand. Knot the size of a large plum on one side. Ear ripped open. Part of his scalp folded back.

Hell of a whack into the rocks, probably thrown there by the waves. Concussion. How? Where? When? Why? Who?

He knew who he was, all right. Jacques Daniel Marenne.

But why was he here? And where was here?

Foot of a California bluff, obviously. Probably along the Coast Highway north of San Francisco. On the way to Stinson Beach? Something tremored in his memory, was gone.

Okay, forget that for the moment. How had he gotten here? Fallen down the cliff? He moved his head cautiously. Tide must be coming in: another unusually big wave might come right over him. He’d survive that one, but how many?

Had to move. Worry about how you got here later.

Danny made cautious inventory. He was at the base of black rocks rising from the sand. Must have been in the water, thrown up here by a big wave of a high tide. Judging from his truly astounding headache, he had a concussion. How bad? No way to see whether one pupil was dilated, the other not, almost always the sign of bleeding in the tissue around the brain...

Nothing you can do about it, don’t think about it.

He moved his torso slightly, yelped. Another wave foamed around him. Yes. Rising tide. Had to move. But two, maybe three ribs cracked, maybe broken. He’d had those before, lot of pain but nothing to worry about unless they were broken right through: then a splinter of bone might puncture a lung with his moving. But he could do nothing about them, so forget them.

Worse, a terribly sprained or badly fractured left ankle. Looked like a grapefruit.

Couldn’t even hobble on it without a cane or a crutch. Okay, driftwood; he was sure he could find something suitable.

Until then, he could crawl.

Danny ever so slowly twisted, breathing shallowly, yipping every now and then with the pain, until he was in a crawling stance. Waves were sloshing up and around him now regularly. Had to crawl north, find a little triangle of sand above high-tide line. Maybe a little water-hollowed cave cut back into the rocks. Why a cave? Build a fire. Rest. Sleep. Until he could find a way up the bluffs to the road.

He crawled. The Big Bang occurred, our sun was formed, still he crawled.

Liabilities: Ribs, head, ankle. Disorientation, memory loss, but those would pass if the concussion was just that and nothing worse.

The earth spun itself into a recognizable shape, but still Danny crawled. No more waves splashing over him now. Progress.

Needs: Fresh water to drink — food would be no problem, always plenty to eat on a wave-washed beach. Dry driftwood, one piece suitable for a cane or crutch. The rest for a fire to dry his clothes, keep him warm so he wouldn’t go into hypothermia or get pneumonia.

Life appeared on earth. Danny Marenne crawled. He knew what turtles knew. That crawling is a damn tough way to get around. No wonder they took it so slow.

Try to remember: don’t take off the left shoe. He’d never get it back on again, not with that ankle.

Assets: Still had his jacket on. In a Velcro’d pocket, dry matches wrapped in plastic. Also, in his hip pocket, his knife. And just ahead, two good-sized large-mouth glass jars, half-buried in sand. And...

He paused in his laborious inching forward, rested, raised his head. Could see some grasses growing from ancient fissures in the tumbled rocks of the cliffs. And still four hours of blessed golden light from the westering spring sun.

Things were looking up.

Enough time to strip down and dry his clothes over rocks or driftwood. Hump dry driftwood to a sheltered spot for a fire. Light it with his matches when the time came. What else?

With the plastic that wrapped the matches, some of the clumps of grass from the cliffside, and the glass jars, he could fashion miniature greenhouses for the sun’s heat to create water vapor from the wilting plants. In four hours, perhaps as much as a cup... He’d make it. Dammit, Danny Marenne was a survivor.

Meanwhile, amphibians were crawling up out of the ooze. Soon the therapsids and the thecodonts would appear, terrestrial life would be on its way.

Jesus, though, what a long time until man appeared to screw it all up...

Danny Marenne crawled.