/ finally
785 words
The waters are restless, and they stir my soul. A voice calls my name. There is breathless cold in the air, and it anchors itself within me, trying to draw me out.
I resist.
My mother's arms are warm around me, the sound of her heartbeat soothing but distant, almost drowned out as the ocean weeps my name.
Night after night, I have fallen asleep at her side, fearful that should I leave her grounding presence, I will be betrayed by my own dreams and swept away.
Night after night, the calling grows more unbearable, restlessness taking hold of me.
Tonight sleep eludes me, slithering away, an insect in the grass. Every beat of my heart is a swelling of the waves; every exhale of breath the salt-laden air.
It seems the ocean is at the very window, threatening to beat down the house if I do not come out.
The sound of the call is relentless, a haunting ghost that hovers and wails, ever louder the longer I resist. I struggle even to lay still.
I should not have gone to the attic.
I should not have opened that chest.
There will be no peace. There will be no quiet. Not until the sea claims what belongs to it. Not until I relinquish my own will. And my will is crumbling.
Four days and four nights I have resisted, and no longer do I have the strength to continue.
Either I will go mad, or I will go down to the water.
Carefully I slip out of the bed and across the room I go, pausing long enough to glance back at my mother.
She sleeps, far sounder than I over the past days, but as I look, she stirs slightly, clutching at the blanket.
For a second, I am almost strong enough, I almost can throw off the pull of the currents, and I almost rush back to her side.
But the ocean overwhelms me. Drowns my desire beneath a phantom icy wave and drags me down the stairs and out the door.
My mouth is dry, even as the air around me is rank with mist. I am cold, even as the ground is warm under my bare feet.
I don't...
I don't want to go.
I don't think I'll be able to come back.
I'm afraid I won't want to.
This will break my mother in ways I dare not tally up.
I should not have touched the coat.
I should not have put it on.
The waters care not of what I want nor the damage their erosion brings.
The sea senses a lost piece and demands it be returned. Nothing that belongs to the depths can ever really escape. Not forever.
So down I go, the call rising ever louder, ever stronger, ever more beautiful and unbearable with every step. With every breath.
I don't want to.
I don't want to.
But something does. Something wants with a deeper longing than I could have ever conceived of. The edges of this lost shard are raw and aching and the reunion promises only relief.
Every breath comes as a fight.
Every thought is tinged with a dreamy glow. If I just let go, the calling voice promises, I'll be alright.
After all these days, after all these wide-eyed nights, I can barely piece together an argument against it anymore.
My mother is all I can fathom; my mother, like an anchor, like roots of a tree, ties me here. Ties me to the land.
But something sharp is working away at those ties, and my mind is too clouded for me to protest.
I should have closed the lid.
I should have taken the chest and burned it.
There is water around my ankles.
It's up to my knees now.
My waist, my shoulders, my neck, my mouth.
Cold. So cold, I want to cry as it freezes my heart.
Deeper, deeper, the sea welcomes me with open arms.
The waves sing as they lap at my ears. It burns at my eyes, and my tears mingle with the waters.
I don't...
I do want this.
Terror rushes through me as I acknowledge that it isn't as simple as blaming the sea.
I am complicit.
One more step, I am beckoned further. The coat, the cursed coat, billows in the pull.
The calling swells to a deafening crescendo, roaring like a beast, its claws sunk deep into me.
One more step.
I shouldn't have, but I did.
I am pulled to pieces and reassembled.
The lost piece rejoins the whole, its voice joining in once more with the vast harmony.
I was called.
I have answered.
I am no more.
