Flautist's Green: One

I never imagined myself moving to Cornwall. I never imagined myself moving anywhere—fuck, most days I didn’t even move around the apartment I was renting.

I grew up in the rotting corpse of a never-great empire, and when the logos of oppression went up without a fight, I knew it was time to leave.

It doesn’t really matter what part of that corpse I came from—just know it was one of the cold parts. Not the cold parts that smile and say hello, but one of the cold parts where no one looks you in the eye, even if you pay them.

My region of birth didn’t offer much in the way of comfort, but it taught me how to take a punch and fend for myself.

So despite my relative inertia, I moved to a new country without fear.

Come get me, I thought.

What was the worst that could happen? I get a Cornish pasty tossed at my head for being a “tourist”? Beats getting stabbed with a screwdriver on the Green Line.

I moved to Saint Just in Cornwall.

So, Why Saint Just? Because why not? It was funny to me, like the etymology of it all.

Just as in justice? Just as in Just because.

Who was this Saint Just? Damned if I know.

Shit, the people who live there don’t even know. History is like that sometimes; names get so up their own ass nobody remembers even where the whole thing started.

I left America with a duffel bag, heading to a place I’ve never been to start something new. I had some shirts, some socks, and some boxers. Two pairs of jeans, a sweatshirt, and a jacket. That’s all I brought. I left the rest of my shit on the scummy curb.

It was a long flight, followed by a long cab ride, followed by a long night at the local pub. The pub is called “Flautist’s Green” which was evocative if not bizarre and specific. I met a few of the locals, they were friendly enough, but kept calling me septic, which I guess is rhyming slang for Yank or Yankee

—septic tank—

yank.

It would be clever if I didn’t feel a certain kind of English mockery behind it. Regardless, I am home now, and I’ll take septic as a nickname.

I’ve never been a journal guy, but I started one. I got a little brown moleskin number and a good pen. I wrote things down. I didn’t know shit was gonna be so weird. I didn’t know I was gonna crack up. I figured this septic was too tough to die and too stupid to go crazy. You won’t believe me, but what follows are some of the bullet points. I made an earnest attempt to document my experiences, and although I was a novice at writing things, I tried to capture as much as I could.

I’ll say this: what I present here, I have no concept of the temporality of these entries. I weave in and out of things, and I use odd language.

At times, I think I was journaling, and at other times, I don’t remember what I was doing. I would review what I had written regularly, and even after only a few hours or minutes, I didn’t recognize what I had done.

I have not “fixed” any of this.

Now, with hindsight, it is plain to see that something very strange happened to me.

Day 1:

Hi God, it’s me, septic…who’s that joke for? This is gonna suck.

So this place is an abandoned mining town.

Tin.

It’s somewhere between King Arthur and a post-industrial Dante. The people are weird, and I can barely make out what they are saying. I won’t do the dialect too much, but here is a taste: “If you’re after a walk, mind, head up over Kenidjack way—old waterworks is still there. Pools are full up now, like little lakes. That place, Good air. You can fish it, sure. Long as you’re fine catchin’ Pandos.”

I figured it out. I love a language game. I ain’t gonna speak it, but I’ll know what’s being said. Cornish is a bit sing-song. It’s lyrical.

To translate, I was told in one way or another to check out the waterworks; the old tin mines are flooded now, and some people fish in those pools. I have no idea what a Pando is, I mean, it’s a fish, but fuck if I know. Maybe I’ll get a pole and see what they are talking about.

Day 2:

I bought a little cheesy fishing pole from one of the town shops, which also sold earthworms in a little tub. I packed them up along with some water and a bacon sandwich. I’ll walk a ways out, sit by those old tin mines, and cast my line.

The landscape and vistas on that path are something utterly foreign to me.

I mean, of course, they would be, but this landscape feels foreign to Earth. The post-industrial collapse attempting to mix with the English countryside feels at loggerheads with itself.

Delapitated wooden towers and lush green fields blend, aided by seams of rocky ridge-like intrusions and small huddling boulder formations.

Nothing about the unearthly surroundings prepared me for what I saw in those old tin mines. The pools were simultaneously cloudy and clear.

They were completely green and also entirely brown.

The land that collapsed beneath these aquatic voids seems to welcome these dents and divots with a near personified resignation. There was an apology to them, like a face that tried to excuse its pockmarks through a knowing smirk. The thin strips of land that ran between the man-made pools were covered in black or grey stone.

The skyline folded into the land, and an almost alkaline, salty haze enveloped the entire scene, adding to its alien quality.

—What am I writing at this point? Sounds like a goddamn poetic travel guide—

There must have been something disorienting to all this alien scenery. I was viewing it from a distance at one perspective, and then in a breath, I was right down in it. I blinked, and somehow I was standing next to one of those medieval industrial follies. A wooden catapult-looking construct leans against a stone smokestack.

Black stone beneath my feet, and a crater filled with calm water directly in front of me. Behind me, I traced the path of my seeming descent, and the trails were clearly worn, so fuck my memory lapse. I must have stumbled down to this pool.

The sun was approaching dead center, and although I was fascinated by the landscape. I wanted to try out the whole fishing thing. I buckled down, impaled a fat crawler on my hook, and made my first cast. The plonk on that still pool was oddly satisfying. It made me feel, for a moment, like Saint Just was really my home.

I forgot the patience needed to fish.

After having my lunch and casting multiple times, I was ready to pack up for the day. The sun was beginning to fall.

I figured I would head back to town and stop by the Flautist for a few drinks and dinner. Almost as soon as that thought crossed my mind. I hooked something. I could feel the weight, but there wasn’t the usual fight. I assumed it was a twig or stick, but as I reeled it in, I could see the outline of a fish. It was quite docile. It seemed almost to glide toward me, ahead of the pace at which I was reeling it in.

I pulled the fish onto that rocky parcel of land.

It barely flopped.

It rested just on the land. It was fat and about a foot long. Its skin was purple and silver. It looked like a catfish or carp, but with all the features exaggerated to a grotesque level. The most active part of the fish was its underbite.

A deformed jaw.

It smacked its lips in a strange, nearly human way, and the sound those smacks made was sonorous and clear. It was talking.

PAH PAH PAH.

I’ve never heard anything like it before. If it weren’t for the...I don’t know...robust intentionality of the fish, I would have believed it diseased. I picked it up to remove the hook and get it out of my sight before I vomited or laughed.

The fish’s skin was soft and pliable like a wet paper towel. The hook just slid out; The fish’s flesh barely registered the barbs. I held my breath. There was a murky musk. I went to throw it back, but I saw its eyes.

A goat’s eyes. The pupil ran horizontally across the lens in a perfectly straight, thick black line.

I was stone stiff staring at it, but when it made its call again—PAH PAH PAH—I chucked that fuckery back in disgust. Was this what they meant by Pando? The word didn’t do justice to the thing.

Day 2—night.

I must have sunstroke or something. I read what I wrote...what the shit? Perhaps I will avoid fishing for a while.

End Part 1 of 4