If Rubbish Can Cross

"It's remarkable what passes for hope when you're desperate enough—for me, it was watching a bag of tent packaging successfully emigrate to another dimension."

The aftermath of violence has a particular texture. It lingers in the air like smoke from a fire you can't quite extinguish—visible, acrid, impossible to ignore. After what I'd done to Paul, after the shoves and the accusations and the tears, the idea of simply existing in the same space felt like attempting to breathe underwater.

But Clivilius offered no escape. The landscape stretched endlessly in every direction, and Paul was the only other human being within whatever distance constituted this alien world. Isolation wasn't an option. So I did the only thing I could think of—I joined him in the task of setting up our shelter.

The tent box sat between us like a diplomatic barrier. Paul knelt in the dust, his attention fixed on the image printed on the cardboard—a ten-man tent, photographed in some idealised campsite that bore no resemblance to our current reality. The picture showed happy campers, green grass, probably a barbecue happening just out of frame. Here, we had dust and silence and the weight of everything unsaid.

I'd found the instruction booklet wedged beneath a flap of cardboard. The discovery felt like a small victory—petty, perhaps, but victories were in short supply. As I watched Paul squint at the box image, clearly trying to reverse-engineer the assembly process through sheer determination, a smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth.

This is going to be fun to watch.

The thought was mean-spirited, and I knew it. But after the day I'd had—after everything Luke had done, after everything I'd said and done in response—a moment of petty entertainment felt like the least the universe owed me. I held the booklet loosely in my hands, its pages containing the answers Paul was so clearly struggling to find, and allowed myself to enjoy his confusion for just a moment longer.

Then reality reasserted itself. We needed shelter. Night would come eventually, and we had no idea what that meant in this place. Personal satisfaction had to yield to practical necessity.

I opened the booklet to the first page and read the initial instruction: Check that all components are present.

The directive was almost laughably straightforward given the complexity of our circumstances. But it was a starting point—a single, manageable task in a situation that felt otherwise overwhelming. I surveyed the boxes we'd arranged, mentally accounting for each one. The logic was sound enough: if all the boxes were present, there was no need to unpack everything just to verify contents.

Step one complete.

"Step two," I announced, my voice cutting through the silence that had settled between us. As I prepared to read the next instruction aloud, the act took on a symbolic weight I hadn't anticipated. We were building something together—not just a tent, but perhaps the fragile beginning of a truce.

The sound of footsteps through dust announced Luke's return before I saw him. My hands continued their work—snapping tent poles together, threading fabric through grommets—but my attention had shifted entirely to the figure approaching Paul.

Luke walked past me without acknowledgment. Not a glance, not a word, not even the briefest recognition that I existed. The snub landed harder than I'd expected, tightening something in my stomach that might have been anxiety or might have been guilt.

It's not my fault, I told myself, the justification arriving with practised ease. Luke's the one that brought us here.

The reasoning was solid. Logically unassailable. And yet it did nothing to ease the discomfort of being treated as invisible by the man I'd shared a bed with for ten years.

"What are you doing?" Paul's question to Luke was simple on the surface, but I could hear the layers beneath it—the confusion, the concern, the desperate need for something to make sense.

Luke's response involved pulling his mobile phone from his pocket. The sight of it—that familiar rectangle of glass and metal, that portal to the world we'd lost—sent a jolt through my chest. He punched in a number, held the device to his ear, waited.

"Did your phone ring?"

The question was directed at Paul, but I found myself checking my own pocket, confirming the weight of my phone against my thigh. The hope that flickered through me was irrational—we were in another dimension, for fuck's sake—but hope doesn't answer to logic.

I pulled another tent pole from its box, pretending absorption in the task while every part of me strained to hear the exchange.

Paul's response came slowly, uncertainly. "No, should it have?"

Luke explained that he'd tried calling—a test, an experiment, an attempt to establish whether our devices retained any functionality in this place. The answer, apparently, was no. The phones were useless here. Dead weight. Artefacts from a world that had become unreachable.

Then came the request that made my blood run cold.

Luke wanted our phones. Wanted the passcodes. Claimed he could use them to "sort stuff out on the other side"—whatever that meant. The request was delivered with the casual confidence of someone who expected compliance, who assumed that of course we would hand over our last tangible connection to everything we'd lost.

Luke really is an arsehole.

The thought crystallised with perfect clarity. Those phones weren't just devices. They were lifelines—or at least the illusion of lifelines. They contained photos, messages, contacts. They held the digital ghosts of the lives we'd been living before Luke had decided to play god with a piece of alien technology. Surrendering them felt like admitting defeat, like signing the final paperwork on our own imprisonment.

I watched Paul fumble with his phone, panic flickering across his features as he tried—and failed—to connect a call. The sight of him confronting the same futility I'd been dreading was no comfort. When he threw the phone at Luke's feet, the gesture was so uncharacteristic, so completely at odds with the level-headed Paul I knew, that it underscored just how badly this situation was affecting all of us.

What a pushover.

The judgment was harsh, but watching Paul scribble his passcode on the paper Luke provided, watching him capitulate without argument, stirred something ugly in my chest. Maybe for Paul, the phone held less significance. Maybe he was simply more pragmatic about lost causes. But I couldn't stomach the thought of handing over that last piece of my former life quite so easily.

"Your turn, Jamie." Paul's voice broke through my thoughts, an unwelcome summons.

I didn't look at him. Couldn't. Instead, I focused on driving a tent peg into the ground, channelling my frustration into the physical task. Each push of the peg was a refusal. Each stab into the dust was a declaration of resistance.

"Jamie!" Luke's voice, more insistent now.

I lifted my gaze to meet his, letting him see the anger that had been building since the moment he'd walked past me without acknowledgment. "You're not having my fucking phone, Luke."

The words hung in the air, a line drawn in the dust. I returned to my task, driving another peg with more force than necessary. Let them make of that what they would.

"In the meantime," Luke said, his tone shifting to something more businesslike, his gaze finding mine with deliberate intent, "you should both consider what your immediate needs are. Write them down and I'll get busy keeping you both alive, okay?"

The suggestion was practical. Reasonable. Exactly the kind of sensible approach that made me want to scream. Write down our needs? As if we were children making Christmas lists? As if our survival could be reduced to a grocery run?

Paul agreed readily, because of course he did.

Show some balls, would you, Paul?

"Good. So, Paul wants to stay alive. Jamie?" Luke's attempt to include me in the discussion felt like mockery dressed up as consideration.

"Fuck off." The response was automatic, stripped of any pretence at civility.

Luke's eye roll was visible even from my position by the tent. "I have a few things to take care of back on Earth. I'll come back for your list soon."

"What things have you got to take care of?" The question escaped before I could stop it, a mix of genuine curiosity and reflexive challenge.

"Oh, you know. Just things that will keep you alive. I could just not bother if you'd prefer...?" The retort was sharp, a reminder of our dependence on him that I resented even as I acknowledged its truth.

"Just fuck off already, Luke." The words came out as a snarl, the veneer of control I'd been clinging to cracking under the weight of my barely contained rage.

"Fine." Luke's voice carried resignation rather than anger. He gave Paul a final shrug—apology or farewell, I couldn't tell—before turning toward the Portal.

"And put some bloody clothes on while you're there!" I yelled after his retreating figure. The parting shot was petty, born from frustration and the need to assert some form of dominance in a situation where I felt increasingly powerless.

As Luke disappeared, a wave of something darker washed over me. The questions that had been circling at the edge of my consciousness rushed in to fill the silence.

Am I ever going to escape? Is this my punishment for my indiscretions with Ben?

The rational part of my brain recognised the absurdity. There was no cosmic justice at play here—no divine punishment being meted out for a mistake made in a bathroom at Vaucluse. We were trapped because of Luke's recklessness, not because of my infidelity. And yet the guilt that had been festering since that afternoon with Ben refused to quiet entirely. It coloured my thoughts with shades of self-blame that logic couldn't dispel.

"Why do you have to be so bloody nasty all the time?"

Paul's outburst cut through my reverie with the force of a slap. I turned to find him staring at me, his face flushed with anger, his eyes bright with an intensity I'd never seen in him before. The words hung between us, an accusation that demanded response.

So, Paul does have buttons.

The realisation landed somewhere between surprise and calculation. The perpetually optimistic, endlessly patient Paul had limits after all. I'd found them. Whether that was an advantage or a warning sign remained to be seen.

I held his gaze for a moment, letting the silence stretch. Then, without responding, I returned my attention to the tent pegs. Some questions didn't deserve answers.

Paul's scrutiny felt like a physical weight on my back, but eventually he turned and walked toward the riverbank. His departure was a relief—a chance to breathe without the pressure of his judgment.

"Good riddance," I whispered to myself.

I'll make quicker work of the tent without him anyway.

Time in Clivilius moved like honey through a strainer—slow, viscous, impossible to quantify. The habit of checking my phone had become reflexive back on Earth, a constant anchor to schedules and deadlines and the structured rhythm of civilised life. Here, each glance at the device served only to remind me of our disconnection. The screen had gone dark hours ago—battery dead, drained by my own negligence in failing to charge it before this nightmare began.

The irony wasn't lost on me. In a place where time seemed to hold no meaning, I was obsessing over a dead phone.

I tried using the sun as a makeshift clock, the way people must have done before technology made such skills obsolete. But the sky above Clivilius, though familiar in its vastness, offered no useful reference points. The sun hung in a position I couldn't decode, its arc following rules I hadn't learned. Whether an hour had passed since we'd started on the tent, or several, remained a mystery that the landscape had no interest in solving.

Does it matter?

The question surfaced with uncomfortable clarity. There were no appointments to keep. No deadlines to meet. No schedules to maintain. Just the endless, uncharted hours stretching before us, filled with challenges we were only beginning to comprehend.

The tent was taking shape despite my inexperience. Poles connected, fabric stretched, the skeleton of shelter emerging from the chaos of components. It wasn't pretty—the whole structure listed slightly to one side, and I suspected at least one section had been assembled incorrectly—but it was progress. Tangible, visible progress in a situation that otherwise offered none.

Paul's return interrupted my contemplation. He emerged from the direction of the river, his movements slower than before, his posture carrying a weight that hadn't been there when he'd left. I watched him approach through the dust, noting the changes without comment.

The anger that had been consuming me felt suddenly exhausting. It was a fire that burned resources without providing warmth—destructive, wasteful, accomplishing nothing except my own depletion. Perhaps it was time to consider a ceasefire. Not forgiveness, not reconciliation, but at least a temporary suspension of hostilities. We would need our strength for whatever came next.

Then Paul got close enough for me to notice the details.

His eyes were red—not the red of dust irritation, but something deeper. His face carried an expression I couldn't immediately place. And there was an odour accompanying him, faint but unmistakable, that told a story I really didn't want to hear.

"You stink like shit."

The words left my mouth before I could stop them, blunt and cruel. It was only after they'd landed, after I saw Paul's face crumble with embarrassment, that the full implications registered.

Fuck.

The practicalities of existence in Clivilius were making themselves known. The basics we'd taken for granted—toilets, privacy, the infrastructure of bodily functions—had been stripped away along with everything else. Paul had been forced to confront one of the most fundamental human needs in a landscape that offered no accommodation for dignity.

A shiver of dread ran through me as I processed the implications. Will I be next? The question carried a weight of anxiety that surprised me. The certainty of my own eventual need loomed like an approaching storm, and I found my hands trembling with something I couldn't quite name.

Paul's response, when it came, was quiet but firm. "I'm getting in the river. Don't come over."

The flat tone left no room for negotiation. He was drawing a boundary, establishing privacy in a place that offered precious little of it. I nodded, the gesture meant to convey understanding—and perhaps an unspoken apology for my earlier cruelty.

The moment stretched between us, awkward and humbling. We were both grappling with the same fears, the same indignities, the same forced intimacy that Clivilius imposed on its prisoners. The barriers of privacy and decorum that had defined our separate lives on Earth were dissolving, leaving us exposed in ways we'd never anticipated.

As Paul made his way toward the river, I was left to contemplate the harsh truths of our new existence. The tent frame rose behind me, a skeleton of shelter that couldn't protect us from the real vulnerabilities we faced.

Sitting beside Paul on the riverbank, the tension between us had eased into something almost companionable. We weren't friends—not yet, possibly not ever—but we were no longer combatants. The shared experience of humiliation and survival had worn down the sharpest edges of our conflict.

Luke's approach broke the fragile peace.

"What now?" I called out, my voice carrying across the distance between us. The question was partly genuine curiosity, partly defensive posturing. Every interaction with Luke felt like navigating a minefield.

"I've got clothes on," he announced, as if this were an accomplishment worth celebrating. Then, to my complete bewilderment, he executed a playful twirl—his jeans sweeping through the dust, sending up a small spiral of particles around him.

The gesture was so absurdly, quintessentially Luke that I didn't know whether to laugh or scream. Here we were, trapped in an alien dimension, our lives upended beyond recognition, and he was performing like he was on a fashion runway.

"You're such a dork," Paul laughed, the sound genuine and warm. It was a reminder of the relationship between the brothers—the affection that existed beneath the tension, the history that predated this disaster.

"I know." Luke's smile was unrepentant, his shrug soft and accepting. He had always embraced his peculiarities, treated them as features rather than flaws. It was one of the things I'd loved about him, once.

Then he held up a roll of garbage bags, and the absurdity shifted into something more practical.

"I figured rather than dirty a beautiful, clean world, you can put all your rubbish in these and I can take them back to Earth."

The words landed with unexpected impact. Earth? We can take rubbish back to Earth? The thought sparked something in my chest—not quite hope, but the precursor to it. A question that demanded asking.

"But how is that possible? I thought we couldn't leave?"

"You can't." Luke's confirmation was matter-of-fact, almost casual. "But it seems that items can. I took Paul's phone, remember?"

The revelation hung in the air between us, its implications spreading like ripples through still water. Objects could traverse the barrier. Things could move between worlds even when people could not. The rules of our imprisonment were more complex than I'd understood.

"You might want to keep anything combustible," Luke added, his tone shifting to practical concern. "We have no idea what the conditions are like here at night, remember."

I glanced at Paul, who seemed to accept this advice without question. My eye roll was automatic—a reflexive response to anything that sounded too much like preparation for an extended stay. I am going to find a way home, I reminded myself, clinging to the hope of escape rather than accepting the prospect of enduring nights in this wasteland.

But even as I resisted, my hands began gathering the rubbish from our tent assembly. The cardboard, the plastic wrapping, the detritus of civilisation that had accompanied Luke's supplies—all of it went into the garbage bag. The work was mindless, almost soothing in its simplicity.

"So..." Luke's elongated syllable announced an incoming topic I probably didn't want to address.

"So, what?" My voice carried a defensive edge even before I knew what he was asking.

"So... Why is it that you can make such a big deal about me, your partner, having no shirt on, yet you seem to be perfectly comfortable with my brother flashing himself around?"

Whoa!

The accusation caught me completely off guard. Where the hell did that come from? The idea that Luke might be jealous—of Paul, of all people—was something I hadn't remotely considered. The absurdity of it, given everything else happening, almost made me laugh.

Paul's hands fumbled with the garbage bag, the corner slipping from his grip and spilling its contents back into the dust.

A heavy sigh escaped me. The question didn't deserve an answer—not because it wasn't valid, but because the circumstances that had led to Paul's state of undress were hardly recreational. The reality of our basic needs, now starkly highlighted, pushed me toward practicality instead.

"I think you better bring us a couple of towels, a few rolls of toilet paper and a shovel," I stated, keeping my voice as neutral as possible despite the embarrassment threading through the request.

Paul added his own item—his bag of clothes, left behind in the chaos of their departure from Earth. Luke nodded, his silence acknowledging the discomfort wrapped up in these necessary requests.

We busied ourselves with repacking the spilled rubbish, the task offering a convenient escape from the awkwardness of the conversation. When Luke pocketed Paul's list with a promise to fulfil our needs, a small measure of comfort settled over me.

Then the Portal awakened.

The colours burst to life, swirling into their mesmerising display. The sight sent a rush of adrenaline through my veins—not the hope of escape this time, but something else. An experiment. A test.

Luke stepped toward the shimmering screen, garbage bags in hand. The moment felt weighted with significance, as if the universe itself was holding its breath.

He stepped through.

The garbage bags went with him.

The gasp that escaped Paul and me was simultaneous, involuntary. We'd just witnessed something impossible—objects from Clivilius returning to Earth, carried through the barrier that had so thoroughly rejected our own attempts at passage.

I turned to Paul, my face breaking into an involuntary grin despite everything that had passed between us. The words came out before I could stop them.

"There may be hope for us yet."

The successful transfer represented more than logistics. It was a crack in the wall of our imprisonment, a hint that the rules governing this place might have exceptions, loopholes, possibilities we hadn't yet explored.

If garbage could go through, what else might follow?

And more importantly—could a message?