The Connections We Make
A boy experimenting with his newfound powers becomes stranded on an otherworldly island, where he learns the true extent of his abilities.
A patch of air split with golden threads. A boy stepped through, onto the moonlit sands. The portal closed behind him, melting into the mirages of the night.
His shadow stretched long and thin across the desert dunes outside Giza. The pyramids rose before him like the stilled sails of stone ships, ready to journey.
Maxwell stumbled, exhausted and confused. He was still learning his powers. He brought himself to beautiful places – gentle temples, crisp-rimmed lava lakes, sun-silvered salt flats, and starry crystal caves. After the accident, something had changed in him. Stepping from his bedroom into this desert was as simple as opening a door.
As Maxwell caught his breath, he thought about those old triangle tombs before him. The weight of time cemented the pharaohs more and more into the Earth. Time dissolves death just as it does life.
Mom always talked about the pharaohs. “They connected the gods to the people, or so they claimed,” she said, answering Maxwell’s questions about the world that came after bedtime stories.
“How did they do that?” Maxwell had asked.
She laughed. She had a smooth, soothing laugh. “I don’t think they talked to any gods. It was a myth. But it brought people together. Sometimes we need an idea that makes sense of the world. It strengthens the connections we make.”
Mom wanted to visit Egypt. They were saving for a vacation. The summer before high school. Mom was warm like summer. If only she could see him now, pulling threads of spacetime, jumping anywhere he desired.
If only he could see her now.
Maxwell reached out his hand, focusing his powers again. Golden threads sparked as the portal opened. Maybe he could reach her. Was that possible?
He tried to connect to that place of the lost and the afterlife. The threads wrapped around his fingers and swallowed him whole. The world shifted the sand and the sky gave way to black gravity.
As he floated in some empty space, Maxwell was sure this was the end. He spasmed with empty breaths. And then, bubbling out of the void, a window opened.
The hollow darkness filled in an instant, and he was falling. Falling from the heavens and down and down to… where?
Mid-flight he caught an island. He would land in the water. Yes, the water. He braced. He hit.
The sea flooded into his nostrils. Bubbles blinded him. He struggled to float. Up and up, until he found air. Gripping that sweet air, he regained strength and swam for the beach.
Bleached grains of sand dug into his wet knees and hands. Maxwell had no idea where he was. But Mom was not here. This was no afterlife.
He searched for the threads that could make a portal, someway back to Egypt, or even back home. But the threads seemed to circle, only connected to this world. This island was cleaved from the rest of the universe. He was trapped here. But then again, he didn’t believe there was anything for him to go back to.
A dim indigo sky stretched over that cool sea. The caps of waves shimmered from within, sparked by an ominous bioluminescence. Behind Maxwell, the beach sprouted into a lush jungle. Among the roots of those goliath trees, mossy blankets paved natural paths. Vines hung like thick ship ropes.
Maxwell walked into the island’s forest, watching the branches click against each other with whistling wind.
A curled root caught his foot and Maxwell tripped into a bush. He laughed and relaxed into this foreign world.
From his soft green bush, he looked up at the canopy. Tangles of purple berries hung high above. Maxwell focused again, following the threads to the root that tripped him. He followed that thread up the tree trunk and to the branches with berries. After finding that connection, Maxwell closed his eyes and reached out. When he opened his eyes, he found his hands full of plucked berries. He tried a handful. They were delicious.
The peace ended suddenly when a dark shadow emerged from the trees. Maxwell’s heart sank into cold blood. The figure swallowed the residual light of the forest, a black obelisk set against the somber woods.
Maxwell’s mind raced. It was twice his height and hefty. Slowly backing out of the bush, he made out its thick head, horns, and green eyes. Then the silence shattered when Maxwell stepped on a stick. The disruption was slight, but the figure was gone, melting into the forest as quickly as it emerged.
He frantically looked for the beast. It was absurd. No footprints or clues, nothing. Feeling both relieved and unnerved, Maxwell headed back to the beach. On the way, he gathered the fruits of the treetops – berries and tree nuts and sweet pink flowers – through his power’s reach.
By the beach, he found a cozy niche in a sunken tree stump. The hollow of the rotting stump was a dry, rubbery mushroom that spilled out, giving the appearance of a giant’s soft green tongue. He took off his damp clothes, sat down on the stump, and ate forest treats in the bright night.
Sleep finally came, but it was restless, marred by the unsettling notion that something else remained.
When he woke he was thirsty. He laid out his clothes to dry better before wading into the shallow water. He stopped where the sea went up to his knobby knees. Maxwell reached down, cupped some water in his hands, and drank. It was cool and fresh. Satisfied, hands on his hips, he looked around this new world. He could find no star in the sky. In the center of the sky, the dim indigo light came from a black sun. It was strangely bright for its blackness. Maxwell wondered if he had fallen from that great hole above.
Then he saw the boy.
A child splashed at the horizon, swimming away from land. Maxwell rushed through the thick shallows to save the boy.
“Hey! It’s okay!” Maxwell shouted as he swam after him. The boy wore rags and had a strange shine of worry in his green eyes. The boy went under.
And when Maxwell arrived at that spot, there was nothing. He could see his paddling toes as if looking through glass. The boy was gone.
Maxwell swam back to shore, grappling with this surreal land under a starless sky.
In the timeless afterglow of the black sun, the days blurred into one another. It was an innocent world. There were the gentle sighs of the waves pulling on the beach, but there was no chirping of canaries or buzz of a curious honey-suckler.
Maxwell adjusted to the wanderers that came from time to time. At first, Maxwell tried to save them, calling out to them. But they were only a backdrop. Deaf, unstopping. Maxwell treated them like a natural part of the island, like the stones on the beach and the quiet trees. These phantoms always took different forms. A hairy beast on the edge of a cliff. A horse in a tree. An infant crawling in the mud. All had that shimmering green look of worry in their eyes. They all vanished when Maxwell looked away.
And so, Maxwell became more concerned with surviving in this new home.
It was easy for a gifted boy like Maxwell to thrive on the island. He focused and followed threads to the island’s ample resources. He found soft leaves on the tops of trees, reached up to their threads, and gathered them into his hands. His powers were a kind of puppeteering – he just had to figure out which threads to pull. With the soft leaves, he found the threads in their veins and wove new connections between them, again and again, until he created a hammock. Reality was within his reach. Exhausted, he hung up the hammock with a snap of his fingers.
After some months, his clothes became musty and tattered. From the silky strands of flowers that grew by the inland rivers, he wove a new golden coat. Weaving with his powers became his art. He made pants and sandals and walked the island as a king— a powerful, self-sufficient, master of his domain.
One night, or day, really just the time before bed, Maxwell roasted nuts over a flickering fire by his hammock. He hadn’t been the same since the accident. But the accident also gave him his powers. Focusing on the nearby pile of logs, he decided that one would be better in the fire. And so, it was. The log landed with a shout of embers.
And as the flames hungered, the guilt of power washed over him. It was hard for him to be so capable. He thought of his powers as a gift of connection. Bringing things together. But when he tried to bring her back, to bring together heaven and Earth, he failed, landing on this island.
With a pull of his hand, he sent the rest of the logs to the fire. Maxwell realized he was out of wood, so he set out to find some dry underbrush.
He found a wanderer walking through the forest. A silvery old woman, naked, walking with toes curling in the dirt. She reached out her hand, almost in invitation, as she kept walking to the beach.
Maxwell hesitated but reached for the wise hand. When he did, she stopped walking.
The woman sighed, “Thank you.”
She curled her fingers around his, closed her eyes, and sat down. She said, “I would like to rest. Thank you, thank you.”
Maxwell sat with her, not letting go. “Who are you?” he asked.
She licked her dry lips as she thought of words. It had been quite some time since she had spoken. “I am the outskirts. The eternal wanderer. The stranger. I am Fringe.”
Fringe held Maxwell's hand tight, and said, “I need someone to keep me here. I don’t last long on my own.”
“Are you a ghost?” Maxwell asked.
Fringe cackled a discordant laugh, as if many souls chimed in. “No, no. I am an invention from a long time ago, designed to bridge civilizations across the universe. I am one mind shattered into a billion fragments. This body is just one mouthpiece. I am forever incomplete, in search of connection to others. This body usually vanishes by now, to turn up on some other planet. I fit in with the crowds, hoping that someone, anyone, will let me last.”
She looked into Maxwell’s eyes, grateful, and said, “I think you could help me.”
Maxwell froze and let go. Fringe sighed and disappeared when he blinked.
The next time he saw Fringe, the look in their green eyes was more familiar. Maxwell was picking seeds from the river trees. He mixed them with sap to make a sweet and crunchy cereal. Fringe arrived as a girl, around his age, skipping by the river.
He dropped the seeds and ran after her, kicking up tufts of blue petals. Fringe giggled when he grabbed her hand.
“You caught me again,” she smiled.
“What is this place? How did I get here?” Maxwell asked. The question had been silently burning inside him.
“This whole place,” Fringe said, swinging her arm around, “Is like my engine and anchor. It’s where I am most often. It’s the closest thing to a home for me. But it’s more like my brain. A place just for me. An in-between point as I wander around the universe. This is a haven for lost things. So what makes you lost?”
Maxwell was quiet, before answering, “I was reaching out for someone who is no longer here. Well, no longer anywhere. I tried reaching out beyond the boundaries of everything, to see her again.”
Fringe nodded, “Beyond? Yeah, beyond is near this island, in a geographic sense. But it’s still a step away. Think of this island as the highest point in the universe, the mountaintop of all that is. We are above the other worlds, the galaxies, and the stars. But even this place is anchored to the tangible worlds. No matter how high you climb, beyond is always out of reach.”
Fringe looked up at the sky where the black sun hung. Beyond.
Maxwell understood and it broke his heart. Deep down, he hoped there was some way to bridge life and death, to reach her again. He had hoped that these powers might unlock that path back to her. But no such path could exist. There were no threads that led to Mom.
Fringe looked up at him, “You know you can go back?”
Maxwell mumbled, “I don’t need to go back.”
Fringe continued, “It’s complicated but I can teach you how to get back home.”
Maxwell yelled, “No! Here I’m a king.” He let go of the girl’s soft hand, letting Fringe disappear.
“There’s nothing for me back there,” he said, alone.
Some time passed. Maxwell bound dry reeds with vines and built walls around his hammock to block the gaze of ghosts. He wanted the space to be his own. He busied his days with culinary experiments. Maxwell discovered a red root vegetable which, depending on how it was cooked, could be noodles, a crunchy garnish, or something like mashed potatoes.
Every few days, he swam out into the tranquil sea with a sharp obsidian shard tied to his ankle with a shoestring. He dove for seaweeds and pinkish aquatic tubes that, when prepared, would rival any Mediterranean delight.
Maxwell loved his creations. Yet, the silence at the end of each meal left him feeling hollow, despite his full belly. No one admired his craftsmanship. No one witnessed the little kingdom he built on this island. Maxwell shook his head, forcing himself to focus on his next project.
He grew older on the island. His face began to fleck with hairs. The sleeves of his golden coat had frayed. Time thinned the shimmering fabric. Maxwell carefully worked to remake what time took.
The dirt floor was littered with small snippets of golden thread as he cut the ends with the obsidian shard. His careful cuts were interrupted by rustling leaves - the footsteps of the forever stranger rustling. Maxwell sighed and donned the frayed golden coat.
He left his little hut and found Fringe walking into the waves. They were a man, tall and strong, like Maxwell soon would be. Maxwell waded into the water and reached out.
Fringe smiled at his touch and said, “It’s been a while.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you.” They enjoyed the company of each other. The warmth of another. Small waves lapped at their legs.
“How could I even return?” Maxwell asked.
Fringe lit up, “It’s simple. To free yourself, you must free me. All my bodies need to be brought together. This place serves as the middle between my many selves. If you bring me together, the middle disappears, and we can leave this place.”
Maxwell became skeptical, “So that’s what it is? You just need my help?”
“No, no,” said Fringe sincerely. “I’ve been alive since the early years of life in the universe. I am content as I am. You are the most interesting thing to happen to me. A stranger stumbled into my brain.” As Fringe laughed, the island laughed with him — the bounce of the waves, the sway of the trees. They were connected to all of it.
Maxwell calmed down. “I can jump. I can move things. But I’ve never fixed something, or someone, before.”
“Why do you think you have these powers?”
“I don’t know. There was the accident… and then things made sense to me. I could see the threads of how things fit together.”
“Show me how you do it.”
Maxwell focused and searched among the little threads that dotted the island. He found one that led from his feet to his hut, to the obsidian rock at his weaving station. Through this thread, could feel the cool stone in his fingers. He reached out and grabbed it. From open palm, to blade in his hand.
Fringe’s face brightened, proud of the boy. “You are better at seeing reality as it is. Everything is an endless tapestry, woven from a single, unbroken thread. Each moment, each life is a tangle along that thread.”
“I thought the threads were just my imagination.”
Fringe shook their head. “Distance is an illusion. What seems like distinct events or separate lives are just the thread crossing and recrossing itself. You are yourself, your past self, your future self, the same way you are the atoms in the sand, the same way you are me.”
“So, when I move things, I’m pulling along the threads?”
“Precisely. You’re playing with the underlying unity of everything. You have a gift to see and manipulate these connections. You can untangle knots, tighten them, loosen them, or even create new ones.”
“Why can't everyone see what I see? It just clicks for me.”
“Most are focused on their own lives and only see their personal knot. Your perspective changed after your accident. You were forced to look beyond your little knot and see the patterns in everything. It’s a shame that this transformation came at such a cost.”
Maxwell began to tremble. He looked deep into the forest as he thought about the accident. But it was time to stop hiding from how he felt. He turned to Fringe with weepy eyes and hugged them. Maxwell admitted, “I don’t want to go back. There’s no one waiting for me.”
Fringe wrapped their arms around him, and shook their head with sage understanding. “Maxwell, to be alone is a choice, not your fate. Your world is filled with people in constant chase of connection. This island is empty, spare for me. You’ve mastered connecting with objects and places across the universe. Reaching the hearts of other souls is a harder weave to master. But you will master it. Yes, you will.”
Maxwell became frantic, his breaths choked as he thought of the life ahead of him. He accepted that he was an orphan. He accepted that he would have to go back to Earth. It would be hard but he would do it all.
Fringe comforted him with a soft embrace. “Let me be your first connection. Let me show that you are not alone.”
Despite the brewing fear that had set in his gut, Maxwell found an ounce of hope. For the first time since the accident, he did not feel quite so lost.
Maxwell walked into the dark depths of the forest wearing his golden coat. The long ends of the coat floated over ferns. He could feel the forest coiling, alive and dense. The neurons of Fringe’s mind fired as they anticipated a ritual of return.
He found an alcove among the towering trees. There was a stone slab like an altar. This would be the place, Maxwell decided. He took off his coat and draped it over the altar. The cool tropical air skimmed his bare chest.
Mirroring the trees in their stillness, Maxwell stood before the altar. He closed his eyes and focused on the coat’s belt, made from a leathery vine. His breaths deepened, each inhale like the waves that kissed the shores by his hut. He let go of the pain, of his loss, just for a little while, and settled into silence.
When he did this, he could see glowing threads stir to life through his closed eyelids. Maxwell pulled on familiar strands, the Fringe in the tapestry. Pieces of that lost soul began to approach the alcove. He did not dare open his eyes. The vivid world would be too much for his focus.
He felt the many bodies of Fringe gathering. The hulking, horned shadow he saw first on the island. Old men. Gaggles of children. A skinny thing that was all bones. A small, bratty dog. Forever strangers flooded into the forest. Maxwell sweated as he relaxed his pull on Fringe’s syndicate of knots. The momentum had begun and the pieces would continue to come. He now needed somewhere to put them.
The horned shadow held out its huge hand. Then, Maxwell traced the threads in its outstretched arm and unwound the shadow’s hand, melded it down and down, and weaved the body of the shadow creature into the golden coat. The belt tugged with a slight living weight added to its patchwork.
Maxwell’s powers were working. He gave a slight laugh. His mother would be proud.
And then, the whole flock of Fringe advanced. The stray cats and the forgotten soldiers and the poor in their worn shoes all rushed to the boy holding the golden coat. Fringe’s flickering threads flamed into a forge of connection. The knot of each body blazed undone and retied itself into a greater collective.
The belt’s weight notched into Maxwell’s curled fingers, bending him towards the ground. His palms were pink and tender. But he dug in his heels, determined to bring Fringe together, to bring himself home. It was the weight of tired poets and brawny laborers and alien, tentacled things. And magic monks and scurvied sailors and bursts of birds. So much life was brought together. Each thread broke and wrote a new stitch, as threads frayed and caught the solidifying soul.
The pace of the crowd slowed until there was finally stillness.“Thank you,” came a chorus of voices, a quiet crowd. The belt’s weight shifted upwards.
Maxwell opened his eyes and a figure was wearing the long golden coat. Maxwell let go of their belt. Fringe pulled back the hood of the coat, to reveal a woman’s pretty face. They looked like a mother. Not his mother, but there was a certain kindness that came from all mothers.
“Didn’t you miss the stars?” Fringe asked Maxwell.
He looked up and noticed the black sun above grew larger, swallowing the sky. And beyond that widening void, Maxwell could finally see the stars. Maxwell could feel this place coming undone as Fringe had come together. As the island slipped from its existence, Maxwell could feel the paths home growing closer, somewhere in those stars. He was on top of the universe.
Distance is an illusion, he remembered Fringe saying.
“Come on,” Fringe reached out their hand. It was pale, mismatched from their face. Whatever emerged from the fringed coat was a different part of Fringe, a piece of the whole.
“Will it hurt?” Maxwell asked.
“Did it hurt to get here?” Fringe replied. The black sun had reached the horizon. The darkness ate the treetops.
He wasn’t sure. Last time everything hurt. As the black came down, they entered that void in space together.
After the darkness, there was light.
“Welcome home, Maxwell.”
This blog post is part of Daniel Rowe's Blog, Offworld, exploring the realms of science fiction, fantasy, and more.