My Brother Ernest

Illustration : Jun Li

Contribution : Yina Dong, Me

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At some point, the dust had just never settled. Some deliberated for a while about its origin, but it was clear – the dust simply had no intention of returning to the surface it had once called home-many other elements would follow suit. A Fried Sun Tomato filled with a warm orange colored liquid floats motionless between the clouds. A sucklet bathes in its round belly, he is the keeper of sun and it’s warm tomato soup. Friends had felt similar effects, feeling light afoot, gravity now seemingly on their side. The change was gradual, pleasant at worst, and for many the change was welcome, even if meant living upside down.
For a while, a few years, everything, even the ocean in large slowly undulating bubbles, floated. The ground was mostly gone, consumed, ground up and eaten as a paste on sandwiches, that soon too would run out. Eventually, everything was gone, consumed, with the exception of a few animals, some unwanted – but all needed. What wildlife remained were a variety of mutations and transformations – all very selfish genetic modifications, made before the dust never settled. Creatures and objects lost and gained new meaning and purpose, lines were blurred and tales were stretched. With all the weight of the world removed, new gravity allowed the oceans to lift, first in parts, then all at once. The new ocean that would form against the stratosphere – The Upsideup Sea, was filled with young siglets, shark purses and asparagus shoots. A Pigshark and his sucklets swim slowly between the ventricles of the sweetheart trees, sharing close intimacies beneath the calm surface of the ocean. Things were considerably close to normal, a little far fetched, at times, a little stretched. Right before the dust never settled, the human form had taken a true form of efficiency, a long neck for shameless voyeurism- specifically for peering at other’s phones, a single large eye for low light conditions and a blue skin, perfect for absorbing warmth from the tomato sun.

Before the dust never settled, the earth was a solemn place, the land was covered in pig farms and the oceans filled with albino sharks and jellyfish. So much so that when the dust began to rise, there was a mass migration of creatures, unthinkable acts of crossbreeding and untold romance between the creatures. As time shifted sweetheart trees would form as the last remaining octopi would rip the hearts out from their lovers, holding them tight whilst dangling their tentacles on the ground – often tickling passers by. And now, the oceans are filled with pigsharks, who suckle the sweetheart nectars and the skies with jellyfish, who glimmer in the sunlight.

My brother Ernest (pronounced Ear-Nest), oh he was so smart, had invented all these practical methods for survival in the new world. He built antigravity groundhogs, jellyfish houses and fished upside-up for siglets – shark piglets. He was a seamstress, proudly wearing his own handiwork, he never went to bed without his pajamas on. Ernest was a realist – practical and focused, he would later tell me that it was his uncanny disdain for frivolity that helped him survive the floating years. Beneath it all, I believed he was devoutly spiritual. My mother always worried that he would be alone in life – in hindsight, that was almost inevitable.

Creating the jellyfish home was an artful act, it was both practical and beautiful at the same time. Ernest would pause for a moment once the Jelly had been tethered to the ground, staring wide eyed into the sky. He told me that during the night time the houses glowed and flickered like stars when he was up on The Upsideup Sea looking down. Usually found floating around between the Upsideup Sea and the earth, unaffected by the gravitational shift. The jellyfish would descend toward the earth as they approached death and if done properly, Ernest would catch the jellyfish just as they began to fall upwards. He had struck up a deal with them, exchanging their life for his gravity. And when the warmth of the juicy red sun left us for the evening, the jellyfish houses would glow, their yellow tentacles lighting up the warm, soft groundhog floor.

In his spare time, his asparagus drill would take him down through the hard earth surface deep into the gene pool, mother once said he was an excellent swimmer. Ernest realized that the subtle internal vibrations of the asparagus would slowly chisel its way through the body of the earth. At the center he would exchange used genes for new genes, and, collect and deposit his collection of stones – which he sometimes found in the kidneys of his fishing pig Bert. What confounded me is that he would feverously cover up his excavation when he was complete and then proceed to fling his asparagus drill up over his head, grinning wildly at the sight of it spinning uncontrollably through the air.
“The asparagus grows among the sweetheart trees and can be best harvested at midday, when the tomato sun is at its warmest.”