choking on debris. The water's knee-deep, lapping at photos of her family that smile from the walls. They’re far away, dependent on the wads of notes she mails from frost-bitten ports. She keeps the engine room spotless, but in the crew bar she takes shots and swears, and shows off the grease-spots on her good white blouse.
A girl in pajamas is being carried in the arms of a woman who’s not her mother. Her father is in front, with her brother over his shoulder like a fireman. She’s eleven, just old enough to know things, and her eyes dart between them and the stream of passengers taking small, quick steps down the corridor that runs the length of the ship. The track of red lights on the floor makes them look like they’re on fire. It’s hard to focus through welling tears, so she shuts her eyes, tight enough to see fractals bloom on the insides of her eyelids.
One of my last lifeboats lowers to leave me, and a cellist is looking for someone. She can’t recognize anyone without their instruments: they’re just rows of identical tuxedos and black dresses. She sees others, a dark-haired woman in dirty overalls, and a woman whose gold dress is covered by a sailor’s jacket, who sobs and rests her head untenderly on the shoulder of a paunchy man. The cellist is looking for the trombone player that slept in her cot last night. She needs to tell him.
I’m getting heavier, sitting deeper. I wonder if I’ll lodge on some crag as a place for fish to breed and for sharks to hunt, or whether I’ll topple off the cliff face, down to where nameless translucent species dangle glowing beads as bait. I hope I go far, and go fast—that I swim like the dolphins, like I’m falling through air.
The lights are out in the casino, so the blue-haired woman just sits and stares into the black depths of the screen and listens to the distant sounds of the lifeboats and waits for the ocean, cold and clear. ♦
Sam Averis | 9