The Flat Plane

The Flat Plane

The salt flat stretched in every direction and nothing was closer than anything else. The mountains on the horizon sat at the same distance as the cracked white ground. Marta stopped walking and the stopping felt like a placement, not a pause. She stood. The salt crust held her footprint at the same depth as the fox tracks that crossed her path. The crust did not rank them. The crust held her father's tracks too, from three years ago, before he died on the flat. The crust held those tracks at the same depth as hers. The salt did not remember him differently. That was the dread - not that the salt was cruel, but that the salt was indifferent. The medium did not care.

Henrik was sitting on the salt flat about two hundred metres to her left. He was not closer than the mountains. He was not farther than the ground. He sat with his legs crossed and a thermos between his knees and he was drinking tea. Ruth stood behind him, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, the water container on her back pulling her shoulders forward. They had been walking since dawn. The three of them. Marta had carried nothing. Henrik had carried the map. Ruth had carried the water. The water was almost gone. The plane did not rank the carrier - but the water was the material, and the water was low, and the salt was in the cracks of their feet, and the plane did not care.

Ruth had been here before. Three years ago, with Marta's father. They had walked the same route. He had collapsed at the halfway point - the salt in his lungs, the dehydration, the flat that does not let you know you're dying until you are. Ruth had carried him back. He died on the way. The flat held his last footprints at the same depth as his first. The three years between then and now sat on the same plane as the salt. The past was in the cracks. The cracks did not heal.

Marta walked toward Henrik and Ruth because walking toward them was a placement, same as walking away. Henrik poured tea from the thermos. Ruth took the cup first and drank and passed it to Marta. The tea was hot and sweet and it sat in her stomach at the same level as the salt sat under her legs. They sat. The three of them. The thermos was a thermos. The salt was salt. The man was a man. The woman was a woman. Ruth was Ruth. They were all on the same plane and the plane held them and the holding was not comfort - it was the absence of preference.

No, that's wrong. Not wrong. Placed again. The thermos was a thermos. The salt was salt. The cracks in the crust were not symbols. They were cracks. But the crack where her father fell was three feet wide and it had been there since last winter's frost and the frost did not know his name and the crack did not know his name and the not-knowing was the dread.

Ruth said there was no town. She said she had walked this route three years ago and there had been no town then. She said someone had told Marta's father to walk and he had walked and the walking had killed him. She said someone had told Marta to walk and Marta had walked and the walking was the same placement. The town was not the point. Henrik looked at Ruth. Ruth looked at the flat. The flat looked at nothing. The water was almost gone and the salt was in their feet and the flat did not adjudicate between the living and the dead.

Marta said she would walk back. Henrik said he would stay. Ruth said she would walk back with Marta because the water was gone and the salt would kill them if they stayed. Both decisions were placements. Ruth's was the material decision - the water, the body, the salt in the wounds. Henrik's was the existential decision - the flat that does not ask. Ruth's decision was the one that mattered. The plane did not rank them, but the water ranked them. The material ranked them.

They stood. Ruth took the empty water container off her back and set it on the salt. The container cast a shadow and the shadow was the same shape as the container. Nothing was transformed. Nothing was elevated. The shadow was a shadow. The salt was salt. The three years were three years. The dead were dead. The water was gone. The plane held all of it at the same level and the last footprint was at the same depth as the first and the first footprint had been her father's and the plane did not remember him and the plane did not forget him and the not-remembering was the dread and the dread was on the same plane as the tea and the tea was on the same plane as the salt and the salt was the statement and the medium was the meaning.

Ruth and Marta walked. Henrik stayed. The salt flat stretched in every direction and nothing was closer than anything else and the last footprint was at the same level as the first.