The town had never never seen the sun. If you don’t know it exists, you can’t miss it. It was so.
They saw pressure, and smelt darkness, and the soft rain of little fragmented things from above. They moved ponderously, and with great care. Ooze squelched under their heavy metal feet.
They were the anchorpeople, and they lived at rock bottom. It was a good place to be because it was the only place to be.
***
Manners came easily to the anchorpeople. Their lives were tightly interwoven in their little community, and their pace could neither slow nor speed itself. Neighbours would pass each other by over the course of many hours, and there were invisible layers of courtesy that they put on like clothing every time they had company.
They did not put on clothing. Anchorpeople did not have clothing.
“Hello,” they would signal through waves of pressure and charm. “Greetings,” they would say. “How are you? I myself am fine. I have been fine recently. All is well. All is good. It is a fine thing to be, at rock bottom. Do you believe so as well? Yes, that’s what I thought, what I thought, what I knew.”
And so on and so forth.
All the anchorpeople had these conversations very carefully enmeshed in their heads from beginning to end, because you never knew when you would be talking to someone and they would be lifted away forever and you would have to finish the conversation by yourself. It was very embarrassing to lose track of yourself when you were talking to yourself. Embarrassment was unpleasant, and to be avoided.
“Why do people get lifted away forever?” asked the newest anchorperson, who was very small still and had just seen that happen in person for the first time.
“It just happens,” said her mother.
“Will it happen to me?”
“Oh, probably not for a while.”
“Oh,” said the newest anchorperson. She looked up out of rock bottom and wondered where ‘away’ was, and if her friend was enjoying himself there, and so she asked about it.
“Pardon?”
“What’s ‘away’ like?” repeated the newest anchorperson.
“I’m not sure I understand,” said her mother, who was very much telling the truth.
“Is it different from rock bottom?”
“I’m not sure I understand,” said her mother. “I’m not sure I understand at all.”
***
A while later the newest anchorperson’s mother was lifted away forever and she had to get a new mother again.
“It happens,” said her mother.
“Yes,” said the newest anchorperson. “Do you think she’s happy in ‘away’?”
“I’m not sure I understand,” said her mother. And she too was very much telling the truth.
This distressed the newest anchorperson, because she didn’t understand either and she wanted answers that nobody seemed to have. It was confusing and uncertain and frightening.
So she did what all anchorpeople did and fidgeted with her cable. It spun and knitted and twined in her fingers into the many many patterns that a cable could form; half-knots and maybe-twirls and loops and loops and whoops.
The newest anchorperson had been a bit too nervous, and had made a real knot. She swore some anchorpeople swears and untangled it until she’d stuck her fingers in it too and had to call her mother for help.
Her mother helped. And while she watched, the newest anchorperson thought about how vexing it was to be stuck fast.
That wasn’t the idea. The idea popped into her head later, when she was about to fall asleep. But it was probably where it had come from.
***
“Help,” the newest anchorperson told her mother. “I’ve tied myself up again.”
“Oh dear,” said her mother. And she helped her out, though it took a bit.
“Help,” the newest anchorperson told her mother. “I’ve tied myself up again.”
“Oh dear,” said her mother. And she helped her out, though it took a bit longer.
“Help,” the newest anchorperson told her mother. “I’ve tied myself up again.”
“Oh dear,” said her mother. And she helped her out, though it took a bit longer still.
“Help,” the newest anchorperson told her mother. “I’ve tied myself up again.”
“Oh dear,” said her mother. And she helped her out, though it took a good long time to fix.
“You really should be more careful, dear,” she told the newest anchorperson reproachfully.
“Sorry,” said the newest anchorperson. And this was her first lie, which was a very important part of growing up that nobody ever talked about and was to be admired.
The newest anchorperson had a plan. She had a plan and a cable, and that was all she needed. And a good thing too, because she didn’t have time to test her sixth knot before she felt something she’d never imagined before.
A tug. A long, slow tug on her cable.
***
The newest anchorperson’s fingers were greased lightning these days. And she was so rushed, she didn’t even have time to worry before the knot was done.
She took a deep, long breath of cold smooth water.
“Help!” she called. “I’ve tied myself up again!”
“Oh dear,” said her mother. And she hurried over at her anchorperson’s pace and she helped out. Which, unfortunately, involved helping in.
“Oh dear,” said her mother. “How did you manage this?” The two of them were quite tied together now, in an awkward sort of meshed mush that tangled their cables.
“I’m not quite sure,” said the newest anchorperson, which was either her second lie or just part of the first one depending on how you counted them. “Help!” she called to their neighbour. “We’re tied together!”
“Oh dear,” said the neighbour. And she hurried over as fast as she could and tugged and pulled and carefully tied herself to them. “Oh very very dear.”
“Help!” called the newest anchorperson.
“Help!” called her mother.
“Help!” called their neighbour.
“Help!”
“Help!”
“Help!”
“Please!”
Manners came easily to the anchorpeople of rock bottom. And one by one, so they came, and one by one, so it went. It brought the whole place closer together than ever before.
“Help!” called the oldest anchorperson. “That’s funny. No one is helping.”
“I think we’re all here,” said the newest anchorperson’s mother.
“So we are,” said the newest anchorperson. The tug had grown stronger and stronger with every addition to the knot, and now all of rock bottom was there, stuck fast. Her cable was singing through the water now, tension pulsing like a deep current.
“What can we do about this now?” asked their neighbour.
The newest anchorperson’s cable twanged three times, each impossibly stronger than the last, and went slack.
“Oh!” she said.
“What happened?” asked her mother.
“I’m not sure,” she said.
They were still trying to figure out the knot four hours later when the boat fell on them.
***
“What is this?” asked the oldest anchorperson.
“I’m not sure I understand,” confessed the newest anchorperson’s mother.
“I’m not sure I understand,” admitted her neighbour.
“I understand,” said the newest anchorperson. “It’s from ‘away.’ This is something from ‘away.’ It’s not from rock bottom.”
“Oh,” said the anchorpeople. “Oh. Oh!”
And they thought about what that meant.
“There are other places?” someone asked.
“There must be,” said another.
“And other people,” concluded a third.
“Could we see them?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Why did we stay here?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Oh!”
“What was that?”
“My cable. It tugged.”
“Well, there’s no sense in letting it take you. Let’s go now.”
“Yes. Let’s.”
***
The town had never never seen the sun. It had been rock bottom, once upon a time.
Now it was empty.
The anchorpeople did not live there anymore. They didn’t know where to live anymore.
But they were figuring out how to live, so they didn’t mind.