A New Civilisation

"I tried to sell Jamie on building a new civilisation whilst sitting on a mattress with burnt feet in a half-collapsed tent—turns out that's not the ideal pitch environment."

The tent felt smaller in daylight. Or perhaps I had simply become more aware of its limitations — the way the canvas walls pressed close, the inadequate shelter it had proven against the night's assault, the uncomfortable intimacy of sharing such cramped quarters with a man I barely knew. I had returned from the river with my foot still throbbing but somewhat soothed, and now Jamie and I occupied the same space with the awkwardness of strangers forced into proximity by circumstance rather than choice.

I watched him move about the tent, gathering clothes, checking supplies, doing the small practical tasks that I should have been doing but couldn't quite manage with my injured foot. The resolve that had crystallised by the river — the determination to bring my children here, to build something worth bringing them to — still burned inside me. But resolve without action was just wishful thinking. And action required help.

It required Jamie.

"Hey, Jamie?"

My voice came out casual, an attempt to bridge the gap that had formed between us with a question that seemed, even as I spoke it, trivial and poorly timed. But I had to start somewhere. The businessman in me knew that every negotiation began with small talk, with finding common ground, with making the other person feel heard before you asked them to hear you.

Jamie paused in the act of pulling a fresh t-shirt over his head, a soft gasp marking his surprise at the sudden address. There was a moment of adjustment — arms through sleeves, fabric settling over shoulders, the transformation from vulnerable to clothed that we all performed a dozen times a day without thinking. When he turned, his expression held curiosity rather than the irritation I had half-expected.

"Yeah?"

His voice carried a willingness to engage despite the suddenness of my inquiry. I took it as encouragement, though in hindsight I should have recognised it as simple politeness — the reflexive response of someone who hadn't yet learned to be wary of my questions.

"What did you like least about life back on Earth?"

As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. The question, intended to spark a meaningful conversation — to find the dissatisfaction in Jamie that I could work with, build upon, redirect toward my nascent vision — felt flat and poorly considered in the moment. It was the kind of question a manager might ask in a performance review, not a fellow survivor might ask after a night of shared terror.

"Hmm." Jamie mused, his reply coming after a pause that lasted just long enough to make me uncomfortable. "Not sure. Life is pretty good."

The answer took me by surprise. It contradicted everything I had expected, everything Luke's descriptions over the years had led me to believe. Jamie the melancholic. Jamie the perpetually dissatisfied. Jamie who found little joy in anything and dragged Luke down with his negativity. That was the picture my brother had painted, whether intentionally or through the filter of his own frustrations with the relationship.

Yet here was Jamie, offering a perspective that challenged every assumption I had built my approach upon. Life is pretty good. Four words that dismantled my carefully prepared argument before I had even begun to make it.

Jamie's gaze met mine, a cautious evaluation that slowly morphed into a slight grin. He had seen my surprise, I realised. Had perhaps even enjoyed it.

"Were you expecting something different?" He prodded, the amusement in his voice unmistakable. I felt the heat of embarrassment flush my face, a physical betrayal of my discomfort that I couldn't hide.

"I... uh… that's not what I meant." I stammered, the words tumbling out without grace or coherence. So much for the smooth negotiator.

"Really?" Jamie pressed, his interest seemingly piqued by myfumbling. "Then what did you mean?"

His question was straightforward yet laden with the potential for deeper exploration. A trap or an opportunity — I couldn't tell which. I realised the importance of my next words, the need to carefully construct my reply if I hoped to guide Jamie toward understanding what I was really asking. What I really wanted. The vision that had taken root in my mind by the river and was now growing with the desperate urgency of a weed through concrete.

I wanted to build something here. Something that could accommodate my children. Something worth bringing them to.

But I couldn't say that. Not yet. Not directly. Jamie would think I was mad — more mad than the night's events had already suggested. I needed to approach this sideways, to let him arrive at the conclusion himself, to make him feel like a partner rather than a recruit.

"I mean—" I started, then halted mid-sentence as I sought the right approach.

"Hmm." Jamie teased, the lightness in his tone offering a reprieve from the tension I had created. He crossed the small space between us and seated himself beside me on the mattress.

His presence beside me felt like both a challenge and an invitation. I had one chance to make this pitch. One chance to plant the seed that might eventually grow into the partnership I needed.

My mind raced, teetering on the edge of persuasion and honesty. When I spoke again, the excitement in my voice was genuine — a surprise even to me. Somewhere in the process of trying to convince Jamie, I had begun convincing myself.

"We get to leave all of the dramas of earth life behind and start fresh."

The words hung between us, a loaded statement that invited scrutiny. I paused, watching Jamie closely for any sign of agreement or scepticism, any crack in his armour that I might exploit.

Jamie's eyebrow arched — a silent, visual prompt that urged me to continue. A prompt that revealed nothing of his own thoughts.

"Go on." He said, and I couldn't tell if he was interested or merely humouring me.

Encouraged — or desperate enough to interpret neutrality as encouragement — I plunged ahead.

"Think about it. We don't have to go to work. I mean, yeah, we may need to work here so that we don't die, but it's not the same thing as having set hours to be working for someone else."

The distinction felt important as I said it. The difference between survival labour and wage slavery. Between building something for yourself and building someone else's dream while they paid you just enough to keep showing up. I had run my own businesses, yes, but even then I had been beholden to suppliers and customers and banks and a thousand invisible obligations that dictated how I spent my days.

Here, there were no such obligations. Here, there was only the raw imperative to survive — and beyond that, the freedom to create whatever world we chose.

"And?" Jamie prompted. His face remained maddeningly neutral.

"And." I continued, my thoughts gathering momentum like a boulder rolling downhill — unstoppable now, for better or worse. "And we get to leave all the annoying, stupid people behind. All the politics. All the dumb rules."

The words spilled out, a mixture of frustration with our old lives and a burgeoning hope for what lay ahead. It was an appeal to the part of us that yearned for simplicity, for a life unencumbered by the societal expectations we had unknowingly chafed against. The customers who complained about nothing. The suppliers who promised much and delivered little. The neighbours who gossiped and the church members who judged and the endless parade of human disappointment that comprised modern social existence.

All of it — gone. Wiped clean by a Portal that had delivered us to a blank slate.

"And family?"

Jamie had located the heart of my internal conflict without even trying — or perhaps with more insight than I had credited him.

His observation of my greatest vulnerability shouldn’t have surprised me. I had probably telegraphed it with every mention of Rose's name, every reference to the children I had left behind. But recognising his insight didn't make it any easier to deflect.

"Not necessarily." I countered, my voice a blend of defiance and wishful thinking that even I recognised as transparent.

"How so?" Jamie wasn't letting me off easy.

"What if we created a new civilisation here?" The words tumbled out of me, a mixture of hope and desperation that I could no longer contain. "One where we could bring only the family we wanted? Only the people who would participate and contribute productively to the society?"

There it was. The vision laid bare. No more careful positioning, no more sideways approaches. I had shown my hand because I couldn't hold the cards any longer — the weight of them was too much, the need to share the burden too pressing.

I watched Jamie closely, searching for any sign of agreement. Any flicker of intrigue. Any indication that the seed I had planted might find purchase in soil less barren than I feared.

His face was a study in contemplation, the thoughts moving behind his eyes like fish beneath ice — visible in their movement but impossible to identify. He was weighing what I had presented, measuring it against something I couldn't see.

"Don't you think that's even just a little exciting?" I pressed, unable to bear the silence, desperate to ignite in him the spark of enthusiasm that had begun to warm the cold terror in my own chest. "Don't you get it? We can create our own rules. Our own culture. Our own society."

The words felt powerful as I spoke them. Transformative. Even if they had been born from a place of sheer necessity — the need to believe that this exile had meaning, that my children could be part of whatever came next, that I hadn't lost everything the moment the Portal refused to let me return — they carried a weight of possibility that I desperately wanted Jamie to feel.

Jamie's gaze met mine, and for a moment something passed between us. A moment of unspoken communication that seemed to acknowledge the magnitude of what I was proposing, even if it couldn't accept it.

Then he spoke, and his words were a bucket of ice water poured over the small fire I had been nurturing.

"After last night, do you really believe any of that is true?"

The question was a reminder of everything I was trying to push past. The absolute darkness. The terror. The dust that had tried to strip me to bone. The voice that had called me out into the storm — Rose's voice, so real I had burned my feet chasing it. The complete psychological collapse that had left me sobbing naked in Jamie’s arms.

After all of that, did I really believe we could build a civilisation here? That this hostile world could become a home? That I could bring my children to a place that had nearly broken me in a single night?

"I do." I replied, the words firm, imbued with every ounce of conviction I could summon. I had to believe it. I had to believe in the possibility of a better future, not just for my sake but for the sake of Mack and Rose, for the sanity that teetered on the edge of despair.

The alternative was unthinkable. The alternative was accepting that I would never see my children again, that the darkness and the dust and the emptiness would be my existence until it killed me. I couldn't accept that. I wouldn't.

But Jamie's scepticism remained written across his face, as clear as the burns on my feet.

"As soon as Luke returns, I'm going to try and leave Clivilius again." He declared, and the words fell between us like a door closing. His decision was clear — a rejection not just of my vision but of our shared predicament. He still believed escape was possible. He still believed the Portal might change its mind, might release him back to the life he had apparently found "pretty good."

With a resigned gesture, Jamie let himself fall back onto the mattress. His eyes closed, his arms came to rest behind his head, and just like that he withdrew from the conversation. From me. From the future I was trying to build.

I was left to sit in silence, contemplating the enormity of the task ahead.

Persuading Jamie. Convincing myself of the feasibility of this nascent dream. They seemed like insurmountable obstacles on a path already fraught with uncertainty. I had pitched my vision with all the passion I possessed, and it had bounced off Jamie like water off stone.

A sudden pain shot through my foot as I accidentally shifted my weight onto the burn. The sharp reminder of immediate physical reality cut through my grander concerns, bringing me back to the present moment with jarring clarity. My foot. My burns. My body, damaged and vulnerable, sitting in a half-collapsed tent in an alien world with a man who wanted nothing more than to leave.

The river's cool embrace called to me, a temporary relief from both the physical and emotional turmoil that defined my existence in Clivilius. It was a small comfort — the thought of submerging my wounded feet in water that didn't judge, didn't doubt, didn't ask hard questions about whether any of my dreams were possible.

Yet in that moment, small comfort was everything.