Still Water
By Vincent Triveri
I sauntered along the derelict beachfront, bereft of any life that had once inhabited it. A discarded soda can crunched underneath my foot, a familiar sound that has continuously crossed my ears every time I came to this place. Scattered across the sand was a carpet of unkempt and unusable deposits of filth left here to further rot as the years slowly passed by. The ocean laid still, aside from the melancholy sound of benign waves crashing against the shore, waves that took on a sanguine shade of red, unfit for any living creature other than the invasive algae that had made itself manifest here. But who’s fault was that?
In the past, I remember when this place was beautiful. Dark clouds never perpetually blanketed the skies, and the waters were always a pristine blue whenever I visited. Happy memories were made here, making sandcastles using the rich sand, to picking up scuttling Hermit Crabs during low-tide. Those were pleasurable days, but this place has been robbed of those effervescent memories.
I gazed upon the endless sea, multiple large rigs out in the horizon, squeezing out any last modicum of oil that they can get their hands on. They never held a shred of care for these seas, for the people and animals that relied on them to survive. I felt another weak wave hit my feet, washing up a half-fish skeleton as it rested on shore, the tide not even able to pull it back in. At that moment, I felt a strange conviction take over me.
“..Go into the water…dive underneath the surface, see what lays below..”
Against better judgement, I would let myself be subsumed by the sanguine sea, not even bothering to change into more fitting raiment for it. It was like I was entranced by an outside force, but I knew that deep down it was my own curiosity getting the better of me.
“What did I expect to find down here?”
The water was warm, a gross, muggy warmth that was not at all pleasing to take in. Even when submerged, my body felt like sweating as I bobbed up and down, routinely plunging myself below the surface. I was so keen on trying to find something, that I hardly noticed that I was going way-out, more than I expected. I saw no sand beneath my feet, there was only an abyss resting below me. My consciousness continued to ring out.
“..Go deeper..GO deeper..”
I had nothing to lose anyway, I took a deep breath, and would dive back down, this time descending further than I have before. I could barely see where I was going, all I could spot in front of me was a murky mix of red and orange swirling around my vision. Rationale was out the window, my mind was screaming at me to just keep swimming lower and lower
“..lower…Lower…LOWER!”
Until, things became less opaque. I was girdled by a pronounced void, how far had I swam down..? I tried for a moment to take in this sight, before something else caught my attention. A gargantuan jellyfish idly passed by. Its Bell alone was larger than me, as the creature's long tentacles extended far behind it, being cast by the darkness of the abyss. It was the first sign of life that I’ve seen in ages. Somehow, someway, this organism was able to outlast the others; suppose it wasn’t surprising.
Before long, I got the sudden urge to take another breath. Trying to take one last look at the jellyfish, I realized that it had vanished into the darkness. I began to rise back up towards the surface, kicking my legs as fast as I could to expedite my ascent upwards. I opened my mouth, air bubbles came pouring out as I was met with a nauseating taste hitting my tongue. My mind was screaming at me to stay down there, but my instincts told me otherwise. I finally breached the surface, taking in one deep breath, as it was followed by a subsequent coughing fit, as I tried to fruitlessly spit out any salty aftertaste that I felt festering inside my mouth.
Turning back to shore, I saw that there was no shoreline to return to. I was encircled by a never-ending seascape, even if I swore to myself I didn’t venture that far out. My mind however had remained traced back onto the massive jellyfish. Was it truly there? Or a byproduct of my deep descent?
I floated haplessly in an ocean of blood, the waves that had weakly struck the shores had disappeared completely. No life, no energy, nothing at all. Suspended in still water.
