Some Less Than Delicate Groping 

"If only the strength of the love that people feel when it is reciprocated could be as intense and obsessive as the love we feel when it is not, then marriages would be truly made in heaven." 

- Ben Elton

"How is it that your people can build such wonders?" 

Denmark was lying naked on his back, lifting his new leg up in the air and admiring the craftsmanship. Mayotte lay beside him, resting on her side and propping herself up with an elbow. To say that she had been underwhelmed by the coital experience she had just endured would be an understatement. Putting her clothes on that morning had been more enjoyable. 

Denmark's technique consisted of some less than delicate groping, being shoved face-first onto the bed, a rough mounting, some aggressive thrusting (she counted about eight thrusts in total) and finally being shoved aside so he could collapse onto the bed, spent. She was tempted to ask him to masturbate into a cup so that she could impregnate herself without having to feel like a used side of meat. Unfortunately, that would entail a conversation to explain why it was she was attempting to become pregnant by him. 

She swallowed her pride and smiled warmly at him. 

"Well, how much do you know about the time before the Purge?" she asked, gently tracing a finger across the network of scars on his chest. This was her favorite thing about him. 

"I don't know what you mean?" he replied, lowering his leg and turning to look at her. 

"You know, 'The Purge,' when all the earth was laid to waste by the great storm of fire?" she asked, a hint of incredulity entering her voice. 

This was met with a blank expression. 

"Really? You don't know what I'm talking about?" 

"You're talking about the Skyforge?" he replied tentatively. 

"Well yes, sort of," she said, "We call it the Firewall, but yes, it was part of 'The Purge.' The Firewall is what remains. We've been monitoring it for thousands of years now." 

"Anyway," she continued, "the people that we Northlanders are descended from were part of a great civilization that existed before 'The Purge.' Most of the wonders you refer to are things they invented." 

"What do you mean 'before?'" Denmark interjected. "The Skyforge is eternal. It is home to the Elementals that forged man from the iron of the scorched Earth. There is no 'before' the Skyforge. It has always been and always will be." 

This belief, common to the Southland tribes stems from the fact that human flesh appears to melt after prolonged exposure to the heat and radiation of the Firewall. According to Poan mythology, when man was newly forged, he was instructed by the elemental smith that he would need a servant. So, the primordial man created a female effigy from soft river clay. When man was satisfied with the appearance of his servant he placed it as close to the skyforge as he dared, using its radiant heat like a kiln to fire the effigy to hardness. The porcelain skin that women of the Southland are blessed with was the result. 

"I don't know what to say, Denmark." Mayotte said soothingly, "Maybe you will understand if I teach you what my people understand to be the history of our planet?" 

She pushed herself up into a sitting position and leaned against the bed's headboard. 

"What you call the Skyforge is actually the remnants of a disaster that happened many thousands of years ago. Our entire planet was swallowed by a wave of fire the killed almost everything." 

Denmark's expression was a picture of perplexity.  

"You don't know what a planet is do you?" Mayotte sighed. 

"Tell me, Denmark, have you ever considered what the earth is?" 

Denmark was back on familiar ground now. 

"Of course," he replied, nodding furiously, "The earth is the anvil upon which the elementals of the Skyforge forged the Poan tribes." 

"That's... that's an interesting creation story," Mayotte said, smiling, "let's run with that then." 

She knew that it would be futile to attempt to explain the concept of a giant ball floating in space, especially since he would have no idea what space was either. In fairness to him, she only knew what space was because of the archives of scientific data that the Northland kingdoms had managed to recover from the ruined cities of the scorched earth. 

"Imagine my fist is the anvil," she held up her right fist and traced a line across her knuckles, "now imagine the line of my knuckles is the Skyforge. The fingers are the lands you come from. The back of my hand is where we are now, my land, the other side of the Firewall." 

This was a transcendent moment for Denmark. The world he had known was a mere shadow upon the wall. Suddenly the Skyforge was no longer an end but rather a wall in the most literal sense. It seemed so obvious now, why had nobody ever thought to ask what lay beyond it?  

"I don't understand," he muttered, shaking his head, "If what you say is true and we have crossed over this 'wall,' how am I still alive? I have seen what happens to men who venture too close to the Skyforge." 

"Well, my people have built a tunnel. Actually, it's more like a bridge. We did try a tunnel, but it turns out that the earth beneath the Firewall is like an ocean of lava. It moves around too much so no tunnel can go through it." 

Denmark was starting to lose her again. An ocean was something he had never heard of, but he was perfectly aware of what lava was. 

"Anyway, we call it the Gateway. It's a very special creation that is designed to transport people and things safely from one side to the other. You were brought here through this gateway." she explained. 

Denmark was still skeptical, so she reached across to her bedside table, picked up her visor, and stuck it on his head. 

"Why didn't I think of this before," she said to herself, slightly annoyed.  

"I can show you." 

She accessed the database that held the historical archive of pre 'Purge' records. All the material that had been recovered over the centuries of archaeological exploration of the badlands was carefully cataloged and referenced. Over the course of many hours, she showed him many of the detailed accounts of the events prior to and during 'The Purge.' 

The prevailing theory amongst the Northland historians was that the ancient civilizations were attacked by another more advanced civilization, but there is little agreement on who exactly the antagonists were. Many accounts lay the blame on a race called the Chinese. Some accounts, specifically those from the Chinese, place the blame firmly on a loose affiliation of peoples known as NATO. 

The most important account though, and the one Mayotte spent the most time showing Denmark, was one found in a place known as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. A single female held out in the vault and survived the purge. The discovery of this cache of seeds is what helped the survivors ensure that the Northland civilization could recover very quickly from the purge. The account from the Svalbard vault made up of the female's audio logs and closed-circuit video implied that the attack may have been extra-terrestrial as she had been able to intercept a garbled communication from the Chinese that appeared to be referring to spaceships. The woman appears to have lived alone in the vault for several days, eventually succumbing to suffocation. She kept detailed logs of her life in the vault. The most important of these are timestamped as taking place in the year 2122.  

There is no way for the Northland scientists to identify exactly how far back in time this date was, as it appeared to be an arbitrary date based on a calendar that the ancient civilizations had used. Since the 'The Purge' the earth had been cut off from the stars and they were thus unable to deduce how much time had since elapsed. Their best guess was that it was in the order of four to five thousand light cycles ago. 

Art by Daniel Sheldon https://www.facebook.com/speednperspective & https://twitter.com/Beatroute

Chapter 36