Flotinn

Meaning works until tomorrow shows up.

Raft

He read it at night.

Not because it hooked him —
nights just make it easier to tolerate other people’s certainty.

The screen glowed steady.
Clean.

Like the faces of people
whose mornings don’t start with counting change.

There were a lot of words.

Transitions.
Unfinishedness.
Ships.
Silence deeper than sound.

All that stuff about how
if you look the right way,
things eventually line up.

He smirked and kept scrolling.

Good writing, he thought.
Clean writing.

Written like the world exists
to be understood,
not survived.

Not a word about tomorrow.
About waking up broke
but still having to get up.

About the moment when all those transitions
run straight into an empty pocket
and yesterday’s shirt that still smells like you.

Unfinishedness.
Cute.

His life always finished on time.

Food.
Jobs.
People.

He shut the screen before the end.

Texts like it better
when nobody tests them.

He didn’t take his jacket off.

It stayed on —
sweat-soaked, stale rooms,
cheap smoke, street grime.

A reminder
that it’s too early to relax.

Home starts where
you stop being ready to leave.

He wasn’t headed there.

The Prelude was waiting downstairs.

He never called it Honda.

That word’s for people
whose machines don’t talk back
through coughing, lag,
and that pause before the engine catches.

Second try.

That counted as normal today.

He was heading to the dealers
and already knew the script.

They’re always the same.

Other-world salesmen.
Exit brokers.
Asgard, sold retail.

As-gard, he thought.
Ass-guard.

A place designed to keep your ass covered
while the rest of you goes under.

He thought of them as people
who’d never stood at the point
where the future ends in three days.

They always had somewhere to go.

Nobody ever shoved them off the edge.

Driving, he thought about the texts again.

Ships.
Direction.
Meaning.

Ships, my ass.

You don’t have ships.
You’ve got furniture floating.

You’re still afloat
because nobody’s stress-tested you yet.

The place was warm and sticky.

The floor soft with filth.

The air smelled sweet and rotten —
like a promise
nobody plans to keep.

They watched him closely.
Too closely.

“What do you want?”

He shrugged.

“You know.”

He didn’t say names.

Names are for people
who plan to remember.

They started right away.
Couldn’t help it.

“It’s different now.”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s an experience.”

The last guy said it
and fucked it up instantly.

He laughed.

Sharp.
Dry.

That laugh you get
when your teeth are rattling
and it’s not from the cold.

“Other worlds, huh?”
“Experience?”
“You got a bridge for that,
or we just teleport?”

They stiffened.

He felt it
and kept pushing,
because stopping
was already too late.

“You all talk the same,” he said.
“Clean.”
“Careful.”
“Like time’s free.”

“Why you getting smart?”

“I’m not getting smart,” he said.
“I’m checking.”

“Where do you put someone
when tomorrow hits zero?”

They went quiet.

Bad sign.

“You’ve built Asgard out of words,” he said.
“Gods out of quotes.”
“You sell the end as a perk.”

He knew he was pushing it.
That was exactly
why he didn’t stop.

“I live where the end doesn’t get announced.
It just shows up.”

The silence got thick.
Like air before a hit.

“Nothing’s happening tonight,” they said.
“Go.”
“While you still can.”

He shrugged.

“That’s the whole trick,” he said.
“Works fine
until someone asks questions.”

He walked out pissed.

Not at them.

At himself —
for needing to prove the obvious again.

The Honda jerked
when he hit the gas.

He pressed harder than needed.

The crash was dull.
Short.

No meaning.
No myth.

After that it went fast.
Ugly.

The body made calls
before the head caught up.

Shouting.
Blows.
Hands that smelled like sweat and metal.

Someone explained the rules
without words.

He tried to laugh.
Out of habit.

It came out wet.
With blood.

They shoved him into a car
and drove.

No talking.

The way you move
something that’s in the way.

The shore was dark.
Cold.
Honest.

They pushed him,
and the car went under immediately,
like it knew the route.

The water hit hard.
Ice-cold.
No questions.

He came back to himself
when pain kicked in.

When air became an issue.

He smashed the window
with whatever worked.

Hands.
Elbows.
Head.

Not pretty.
Not right.

When it gave,
water rushed in
and the world got simple.

Live
or don’t.

He got out somehow
and swam.

Underwater there were no texts.
No levels.

Just burn and motion.

He swam
as long as anger lasted.

Then just because
his body didn’t know another option.

He felt the nets late.

Legs first.
Then hands.

Rough.
Slimy.

“No,” he thought.
“Not like this.”

He thrashed.
Cursed.
Laughed into the water.

The net went up.

Slow.
Relentless.

He thought it was people again.

Another grab.
Another shore.

When he rose higher,
he saw the light was wrong.

The water changed.

He broke the surface
and sucked in air.

Dry.
Clean.
Too real.

He looked up
and knew instantly
where he was.

Asgard.

Not the storybook one.

Working.
Functional.
No bullshit.

They looked at him calmly.
Like they’d been waiting.

He rasped a laugh.

“So you’re real after all,” he said.
“Thought you were just for essays.”

“An ass-guard
for people who can afford not to drown.”

They were pulling him out already.

Hands steady.
No anger.

That’s when it clicked.

Not fast.
Not pretty.

He’d never been looking for shore.

He’d been building a raft.

Out of jokes.
Out of spite.
Out of refusing
to take any ending seriously.

He stayed in the middle.

Because anywhere else
you stop breathing.

That’s why
they couldn’t leave him in the water.

When they tied him to the stone,
he didn’t fight.

Not because he gave in.

Because everything
finally lined up.

The net wasn’t a mistake.

It was the raft’s ending.

He looked at them
and for the first time
had nothing to say.

Loki.

Not a god.
Not a hero.

The last thing that still floats
when floating is no longer allowed.

Asgard stayed silent.

This piece was originally conceived as a collaboration with Hawtorn V. Rabot

I used his ideas here as a starting point, and I’m grateful to him for that.