Status: Re-uploaded 20/09/12.
The Sea Breathes
Drown
The sea takes my wrist, practicing the mischief of envy-coloured tendrils snagging nets and oars.
A comb of delicate fish bones, embellished with pearls, shells and tiny starfish, lies nearby. It is enshrined on a natural pedestal. The sea takes this also, placing it behind an ear that is my conch’s twin and opposite. She runs it through a stream of rivulets, patting it secure, and smiles with the dazzle of sunlight falling through spray.
The sea flops, arcing gracefully into herself. She slithers serpentine among the clear pools, rocking as the tide sweeps in like a spill of polish over glass; swimming away from the reef. Two dimples dent her back where muscles fold into her strong tail, and her waist curves out like a bell, or the smooth, chestnut roundness of a cello.
I follow her. I can see every grain of sand and every broken stem or jigsaw piece of coral as we sweep over a mosaic floor. I slide my bulky mask over my nose and mouth, shielding my eyes with goggles. Then, the dappled light of the shore fades into the timeless aquamarine of the ocean.
We sink.
Past the fairy-tale castles for fairies with tales, we drop off the ledge of the bay. We are in free fall in the open ocean.
Dark caves loom ahead, life-sized compared to the ones the sea wrought for her fishes. My imagination fills them with chimeras of fin and flipper, scale and blowhole, torso and tentacle. Ruffs of filament like cellophane skirt the floating heads of cephalopods. They have suckered trunks for noses, and hard beaks that curl devilishly. Eels swallow the currents with hinged jaws, trailing banners of lace.
They are monstrous– I am monstrous.
I encounter myself in the deep, proffered reflections by the sea’s fathomless wisdom. My glazed eyes stare, huge and lantern-like, from the faces of fish pressed flat like collection specimens. The surprised bubbles that escape their jaws spiral upwards, intertwining with my own. Their hides are leathery, like my wetsuit, liquid black as the sea herself.
There is no foam or froth here to churn my fear. There is only the drowning void below us, and the sea’s terrifying omnipotence. It is too much. I cry.
We surface.
A comb of delicate fish bones, embellished with pearls, shells and tiny starfish, lies nearby. It is enshrined on a natural pedestal. The sea takes this also, placing it behind an ear that is my conch’s twin and opposite. She runs it through a stream of rivulets, patting it secure, and smiles with the dazzle of sunlight falling through spray.
The sea flops, arcing gracefully into herself. She slithers serpentine among the clear pools, rocking as the tide sweeps in like a spill of polish over glass; swimming away from the reef. Two dimples dent her back where muscles fold into her strong tail, and her waist curves out like a bell, or the smooth, chestnut roundness of a cello.
I follow her. I can see every grain of sand and every broken stem or jigsaw piece of coral as we sweep over a mosaic floor. I slide my bulky mask over my nose and mouth, shielding my eyes with goggles. Then, the dappled light of the shore fades into the timeless aquamarine of the ocean.
We sink.
Past the fairy-tale castles for fairies with tales, we drop off the ledge of the bay. We are in free fall in the open ocean.
Dark caves loom ahead, life-sized compared to the ones the sea wrought for her fishes. My imagination fills them with chimeras of fin and flipper, scale and blowhole, torso and tentacle. Ruffs of filament like cellophane skirt the floating heads of cephalopods. They have suckered trunks for noses, and hard beaks that curl devilishly. Eels swallow the currents with hinged jaws, trailing banners of lace.
They are monstrous– I am monstrous.
I encounter myself in the deep, proffered reflections by the sea’s fathomless wisdom. My glazed eyes stare, huge and lantern-like, from the faces of fish pressed flat like collection specimens. The surprised bubbles that escape their jaws spiral upwards, intertwining with my own. Their hides are leathery, like my wetsuit, liquid black as the sea herself.
There is no foam or froth here to churn my fear. There is only the drowning void below us, and the sea’s terrifying omnipotence. It is too much. I cry.
We surface.