GETHSEMANE

CHAPTER FIVE

‘Here’ the head appeared, accompanied by a rope.

The rope dangled, as Fanta tried catching it. If she stretched any, further she would fall to her death. There was definitely something ominous crawling up. She decided to take a leap of faith, letting go of the oily walls of the pit and flying for the rope.

She nearly got it.

She was falling right into the approaching dirt. She made one last effort despite the heavy push of gravity and gripped the rope. The person above had attached the rope to the tractor and seeing she had grabbed it started pulling.

The dirt had reached closer to her feet than she anticipated. It lurched up in sickening gurgling, and grabbed her boot. It did not deter the movement of the machine above, but the dirt was really sticky and strong. She kept kicking it away and it kept lurching and missing. As soon as she hit solid ground, she took to her heels seeing the amorphous mud like dirt snaking its way.

The girl in the mud saw it too and leapt out of the tractor. The dirt settled for the tractor, pulling it in with the netted rock and rope, belching and descending back into its bottomlessness. The two girls would not stop running until they thought they should be far enough.

‘That was a close call.’ The girl said, looking at Fanta. I lost my tractor because of you.’ She was trying to catch her breath.

‘Thank you for saving me.’

‘You need to pay for my tractor. I own a farm and tractors are hard to come by. I practically use her for everything.’ The bottom of her lips shook. ‘Why did I do it?’

‘To save a fellow human being’ Fanta reminded, feeling irate about everything. ‘What are you here for anyway?’

‘Don’t believe you can survive long here. You couldn’t even save yourself from a pit.’

‘That was the weirdest pit I have ever seen.’ She shuddered, not wanting to think about it.

‘You bet? That’s not the weirdest thing you could find here.’ The girl said.

‘What could be worse than that?’ Fanta exclaimed.

The girl chuckled darkly, clearly amused.

‘Please do not tell me you are not normal.’ Fanta pleaded.

The girl scoffed. ‘Don’t be silly. I see you have a wild imagination.’ The girl noted. ‘I quiet understand the feeling. You get used to it after sometime, but first things first –’ she stared expectantly at Fanta.

‘Why the look’ Fanta’s voice shook.

‘Why not, I saved you at the expense of my means of livelihood.’

‘Well thank you.’ Fanta replied.’

‘Not enough kiddo, I need another one.’ The girl frowned.

‘Sure,’ she shrugged, ‘– any suggestions?’ Fanta felt exasperated. All she needed right now was plain sleep, but she would be God knows where if this girl did not save her in time.

Fanta’s eyes fleeted at the clearing surrounded by robust, trees hugged by bushes and crawling plants. There was not much to look at and she was already feeling anxious. She did not know what next to do. The idea of living here forever felt nothing less than appalling and if what her companion said, was true it meant she might survive by a hair’s breath. The thought seemed bleak.

‘Um – er – your stuck with me right now if that’s kay by you…’ She winced, watching the girl closely.

‘Not okay –’

‘Let me finish!’ Fanta exclaimed. ‘What am trying to say is I’m new so you could fill me in and we could work something out – you know, about the tractor.’ Fanta said.

The girl thought about this for a while. ‘It gets lonely. Fine with me, but you owe me.’

‘I know, but I’m not taking the place of your tractor.’ She warned.

‘Of course not!’ The girl picked up into a hike through the vegetation barrier; ahead was a path and light greenery shimmering with dew and yellow warm from the sun. ‘My thought was that we could steal one, you know –’

‘Ugh’ Fanta’s brows marred. ‘How many people live here? Please tell me they are people.’

‘They are people.’ The girl smirked, returning her attention ahead.

‘That’s relieving.’ Fanta released a deep breath.

‘Would have been great if they weren’t if you know what I mean.’ The girl glanced behind once more.

Fanta had no idea what she meant. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Why do you think your government disposes of criminals here? You’ll be staring at another damned state, but of course structured, I think – anyway that’s besides the issue.’ She girl stopped as if to catch her breath and pulled out a tin can of something, unscrewed the metal cover and gulped carefully. ‘Want some?’

‘Yeah, I’m dying of thirst.’ Fanta collected the can gratefully. ‘You are my angel.’

The girl snickered. ‘I wish.’ She beamed, collecting it back from Fanta as soon as Fanta finished drinking, returning it to the catch attached to her knees.