(The complete story is available in the collection Seven True Lies, or as its own volume, which you can buy, either in trade paperback or as an Acrobat download, from my bookstore.)
The ocean extended in all directions like a blue-green sheet of undulating glass; in long, slow swells here where he hovered, vanishing into finer and finer motions toward the horizon where the water finally dropped away to form a perfect circle. The sun not so much glittered upon as glowed within this surface and the long slow waves spoke of recent truce between wind and water.
Yet, though the surface seemed at ease, the wind was not, perhaps heralding another storm, as it steadily poured through him from a distant west.
As he took this in, Lance thought nothing of it at first. This was as it should be. Ocean all around, pale circular horizon far off in every direction. Then it slowly caught up with him, this new perspective, this new sight. He saw all directions at once, and not only horizontally through all points of the compass, but globally too. He was wholly surrounded by watery, airy, weathery world, and as far as he could see: this undulating, windy stillness.
The clear blue sky above held only the occasional tatter of white cloud—busy little remnants not quite sure which way the pack had gone, looking here and there, chased by wind and curiosity—and directly below, the watery side of vast surface, the dark movement reached down and down.
Thoughts began to arrive, one by one, and in no hurry whatever. This was ocean. This was sky. This was wind. These were waves. This was him. Seeing. Thinking. Alive. Still alive. Still alive.
Yet dead.
Dead. He was dead then? He had finally let go, lungs full of salty, unbreathable water?
As if fanned by these questions his thoughts, images really, began arriving with more urgency. And he remembered the raft, yellow, slippery, set on leaving him behind, and wondered was it still around. He scanned the surface for it. Again, his vision both curious and familiar, spreading out in all directions like air after an explosion, racing for the circular horizon. But there was no trace of the raft. No yellow anywhere to disrupt the windy stillness.
Nor was there any sign of the boat, of course not—he had seen it go down, had in fact gone down with it. Nor were there any signs of the storm, the rage that now flooded memory with violent spray and brutal wind. Only echo still lingering in these swells.
And of the others? No, no sign, of course not. And he remembered: they didn't even make it off the boat, trapped below when the mast broke and crushed the entryway, Adam with a broken ankle, he had slipped earlier in the day, unable now to move, and Tom with a severed thumb, trying to stanch the bleeding, crying openly from the pain, looking for the morphine with his good hand.
Lance had been at the helm when that final mountain of sea bore down upon them. He had seen it coming from some distance, taller, steeper than its brothers, and had in fact known: this was it, this was definitely it. He had yelled at them to hold on, this one looked bad, had yelled at the top of his lungs, but even so, in that wind he had barely heard himself.
What was left of the heavily reefed sail abandoned him, as if it knew what was coming, then the mast simply snapped, unbendable metal made bendable by weather, crushing the cabin along with its entryway. He knew there was no hope of getting them out, but still he had tried to shift the mast to make escape possible. No use. It was firmly lodged, as if planted there, then held in place by invisible hands set on murder. He lunged then for the raft, and was tearing at its moorings with fingers already numb from gripping the helm, when the boat simply fell away from under his feet and into the liquid greed below. Still gripping the raft’s mooring, he went down with it.
Twenty, thirty feet below, the yellow inflatable tore itself loose from the final strapping and he almost lost his grasp as it buoyed for the surface. They both exploded into frothy air to see the next wave bearing down. He did not have a good hold on the raft, and what hold he did have was slipping. He searched for firmer purchase, found some, shifted, then tried, with all of his strength, to heave himself onto the raft, for the safety of its harness. Failed. He could no longer feel his fingers, numbing further now from the strain and the cold. The wave arrived, submerged them both, but he managed to hold on. Up into air again. Then another, and another, mountain after mountain of uncaring water. He lost the feeling of his hands and arms. Then his right hand slipped, torn and bleeding. He looked at his fingers with surprise. At his arm, his hand. They were his? He forced them back over the raft’s edge, groping, unable to grasp. A final heaving: it was as if the sea decided to vary her attack with a push from below. The disloyal raft squirted out of his grip, to soar—like some yellow, escaping spirit—thirty or forty feet above him into the jaws of the next wave, and that was the last he saw of it. Now there was only him, in waterlogged clothes, willing arms and legs to fight for surface and one more breath, watching the precipice of sea break and rush down upon him. And he knew.
And now: Nothing but sun and windy stillness. And water pretending it never happened.
Despite the breeze, he hovered above the same spot, moving up and down with it, as if attached to the surface by an invisible string. Perhaps five feet up. Rocking with the swell, slowly up, slowly down, wondering still. Below him, no longer any legs fighting to keep mouth and nostrils undrowned. To his sides, no longer any arms too exhausted to serve. Nor was there a chest too numb to hurt. This, then, was death. So, how come he was still alive?
He tried to remember the moment. Of, of what? Of leaving. Of separation.
He remembered the raft escaping, vanishing above him, abandoning him, and then there was only fury. Fury around him with every murderous wave; fury within him with every breath; the fury of not giving up, of not giving in. The fury of simply refusing. Refusing to sink. Refusing to drown. Refusing to accept. Still, surrounding him, above him, below him, throughout him, he knew the inevitable.
And he remembered: as every kick of his legs became a feat not of muscle but of will, then of desperation, and as the flailing of his arms first grew slower and heavier, then turned gestures, then wishes, he drew his first lungful of water.
And he remembered: no longer thrashing, sinking, at rest now. Arms of no use, legs retired. Was he still breathing at this point? No, no he wasn't. Just sinking, though still refusing. To what? Leave? Sinking through a stiller and stiller wetness, darker and darker, his perceptions swelling with death to outgrow blind eyes, to outhear deaf ears, to outfeel a body now mimicking the temperature surrounding. There were fish, lots of them, at mysterious battle stations, but enjoying the wrenching currents, by all accounts, some wondering: who is he?
And he remembered: still sinking, into the colder and darker. Then into not much to see, and not so much sinking anymore as being tossed about by a deeper, prodding and examining sea. But still refusing. It just wasn't supposed to have happened. Not to Tom and Adam and him. They had come too well prepared, the boat had been too well equipped. This should not, could not have happened.
And still not letting go, in the near dark of how deep could this possibly be, he had thought of Faith, who should have come instead of Adam. Who, too, would have drowned by now. Would have been dead.
And then, too briefly to be sure, in the near black, but close, was it the boat? Mastless now, had she let go of Adam and Tom, finally? A white hull being turned like him this way and that by curious water, but then he wasn't sure he had seen anything at all. Still refusing.
Why refuse? He could think of no reason. Perhaps it was just that he had grown so used to himself, to his right leg slightly longer than his left, to his missing molars, to his keen eyesight. To his canvases and paints, to his navigational skills. Together, they spelled his person, who he was, all these things, now sinking and surveyed by wet and cruel fingers.
Then he could no longer tell what good they would do, all these things that made of him the him he knew, especially down here among the now bigger and slower fishes, little mountains when near, soon lost to the dark again with a slow wave of tail. So, he let go. Bubbled up to the surface like so much air. Up into sky and wind and this vast watery stillness.
How long had he remained below? Days, perhaps, for here there was no trace of storm. Blown far beyond the horizon.
Only silence. Despite the wind, which he could feel, there was no sound. He listened harder. There was the velvety hiss of wind sweeping water, but that was more a feeling than a sound. Still he listened hard. There was no ripping of spray to hiss and argue. No rumble of crashing waves. No thing upon the ocean surface to catch the wind to make her sing. There were no sounds from below. And there was no ear for the wind to seize and whisper in. So silent he could almost hear the sunlight—like him, pervious to wind—striking, then leaving again the surface and back into the air, off to some other ocean on some other Earth.
A line from a song, out of nowhere: “I don’t know where the sunbeams end and the starlight begins.”
Strange thing to remember. Who sang that? Though he tried, he could not remember, and let it go.
Just nothing, just the stillness. Timeless but for the slow movement of the sun climbing as the whole of the sea turned in his direction.
The Flaming Lips. That’s who it was. Who sang, “I don’t know where the sunbeams end and the starlight begins.” Great concept. Something to think about.
Then: at first there was nothing, then a thingless ripple—a distant flaw in the blue stillness above, then a speck, then a movement, then an angel, faintly aglow, then a bird upon spread wings. A solitary glider, upon the higher winds, glowing still, faintly.
Coming his way, though still far off. Then closer. Now and then diving for the surface, gaining speed with the long fall, then banking to near vertical—wingtip almost brushing the ocean surface—and turning back into the wind, rising again, trading speed for altitude to then veer back on his original course. Closer still. He could make out long, narrow wings, white but for the dark tips, spanned and still, resting upon wind. A small, efficient, feathered craft.
Or not so small. Closer still, descending now through layers of breeze, wings still spread and near motionless. Almost directly above him now, still descending. He could make out a head, eyes looking down to see nothing but water. No raft. No boat. No him to see.
It was an albatross, spiraling down through wide and windy circles, lower and lower, into clearer and clearer view. Those giant wings. Now he was sure, definitely, and what a sight: the Wandering Albatross.
A school of silvery fish he could not name suddenly caught the sunlight and exploded the water below him, then streamed off toward the horizon. The albatross saw them too and turned its head with interest to follow the path of this glittery highway, but it did not break his landing pattern. And that, Lance realized, was exactly what it was: a landing pattern. The bird was coming for him. As if it could see him.
And lower still.
The landing was less than graceful. Large webbed feet touched, then ran—ungainly, as with little desperations—upon the surface, while the bird reined in and stowed away his large wings—and now Lance could see that they were very large, they must have spanned fifteen feet or close to it. Then in a kind of lively discussion with the water it settled with a final splash, not ten feet from where Lance hovered, curious now, if not stunned. The bird—no mistaking the faint aura now, radiating from his head—looked directly at him.
The complete story is available in trade paperback and as an Acrobat download, at my bookstore.
The complete story is also available in the collection Seven True Lies, which you can buy, either in trade paperback or as an Acrobat download, from my bookstore.
