The Mariner by Ade Grant

din. Loud gravelly footsteps thudded towards him.
    “Keep back Hendrick!” the hero warned. “He didn’t start it.”
    “Bullshit! He broke in, stole my booze, and set the place alight!”
    Was that it? Was he to blame? The Mariner couldn’t remember doing any such thing, but then again, he didn’t even remember being there in the first place. He remembered watching ghosts locked in a macabre dance. He remembered shame. And then? Had he broken into a bar? Had he set it alight? Had his alcoholism really made him do that?
    “I’m going to break his fucking neck!”
    “Wait!” The Mariner heard the hero step between him and the angry landlord. There was still plenty of activity around them, alarmed villagers trying to prevent a catastrophe, but by the sound of it they were having little luck. “He didn’t set the fire, I saw someone else do it!”
    “Who?”
    “I don’t know, I saw them light it from the outside and they ran off. I was looking for this man, he’s a patient of mine. An alcoholic!”
    “So he did break in?” The furious Hendrick sounded unconvinced.
    “Yes, but it’s irrelevant! Someone else has burnt it down and this man’s in treatment and couldn’t possibly do it again.” The Mariner doubted the man could ever be convinced, but did not hear any further protest. The hero spoke with authority and staggering aplomb. “Now get away from this place, before it gets worse!”
    Once again the Mariner felt the hero’s hands under his arms as he was dragged further from the burning building, cold gravel under his back rather than hot floorboards. The owner, Hendrick, shouted some half-hearted objections, but soon his voice faded, lost in the commotion. Eventually the din died away, the hero was taking him far from the blaze and recriminations. Finally the Mariner was dropped in a patch of wet grass. It cooled his back (he thought he even heard it hiss) and his rescuer fell beside him, panting.
    The Mariner croaked, his throat was sore from both drink and smoke. He tried to speak, but could not, and the Mariner’s neck slumped slack upon his shoulders.
    “I lied to that man,” the hero whispered. “Though I am a doctor, that much is true. My surgery is at the top of the hill, you can’t miss it.”
    The doctor’s face swam in and out of focus in amorphous benevolence, but the Mariner managed to grasp his words, tenuous as that grasp may have been.
    “You didn’t start the fire, and I
did
see someone else set it, a patient of mine. Most unfortunate.” The doctor placed his hands on the Mariner’s shoulders, bringing his face in close so the inebriated sailor could understand. “My friend, you clearly have a problem. I’m not surprised, the sea always brings those in need of salvation to my shore. I can rid you of this addiction. I’ve done it before, many times over. I can set you free.”
    The hero removed his hands from the Mariner and stood up, glancing about nervously, as if concerned some might have overheard his confession of omitting the arsonist’s identity when asked.
    “Like I said, I live at the top of the hill, the highest point in Sighisoara. Come to me if you decide you need help.”
    The Mariner struggled to hear the hero’s final words amongst the din, but to him it sounded something like, “My name is Doctor Tetrazzini, and I would like save you with my life-affirming theory.”

    And then great sadness fell upon Christ for the Shattering came. The world turned on itself, land drifted from land, countries tore themselves asunder. The sin of our world so great, the very ground couldn’t tolerate it.
    As brother turned on brother and mother forgot son, Jesus tried to maintain. He gathered his disciples about him for a final supper, a sharing of food and ideas. But there was one who did not join them. Judas. He had strayed far from Jesus’ teachings of peace and forgiveness. He had found himself his own set of disciples who followed their ungodly master across the