WATER BABY, STORM KING

Webster University

The tide stopped on August 24th. I was not in Florida yet. Before we left for family vacation, I watched it happen on our television screen. It was stillness at first, the vast, grey beach. The uncanny valley where water should have been — people noticed in Miami first, then Alabama, the Carolinas. By the end of the day, the entire American coastline had gone still. I packed my bags and watched from the carpet in our living room. My parents called our condo and asked if the beach was still open. But this was all in the Midwest, in the remains of a great grey city, where blue water was little more than myth. In Tennessee, one day later, the air was just starting to smell like the ancient salt funk of the sea. In Tennessee, at this diner, on this TV, the ocean had started to fill an invisible tank. In the last twenty-four hours, one mile of Florida coastline had become a foot of green water pressed up against what must have been glass. A pretty reporter stood beside this “water wall,” displaying how the line now reached the middle of her calf, but the waitresses paid her no mind. The diner was small and standardized, full of gleaming fifties chrome. My parents and I sat at a red booth in the back corner, mostly done with food. The walls were large windows, revealing a borderline sky, caught between early morning and late night. Our only company was a trucker and an old woman. Both sat on opposite sides of the building and kept their eyes down. My mother held her coffee in both hands and watched the black box on the wall. My father worked his plate of hashbrowns and eggs, mashing the brown and yellow into a crunchy beige paste. “It’s not the wall that bothers me,” my mother said to my father. “It’s the idea that the wall has always been there, and I didn’t know. How many times have I walked through it, or stepped on it? We’ve been to the beach six times together, and how many apart? No one knows if it’s new or old. No one will touch it to find out if it’s real. I understand why, of course, it could be dangerous, poisonous or… it just bothers me that this thing might have been here my whole life, in all these memories, and I never knew. Doesn’t that bother you? It feels like a lost family member. Like those old daguerreotypes.” I pulled on my milkshake, waiting for the pink sugar to crawl its way up the straw. The reporter’s leg was shaven, nyloned, bronze. It had been one year since I last shaved my legs, and the hair was now coarse, poking, black, and stuck out with a static charge. These thin dark streaks were proof to me of the passage of time. Sometimes it felt like time did not move. But no—it had taken me

twelve months to look like every other girl at my college: pale, thin, with vague, transparent eyes. Except I was even worse, even weaker, with bleached stilts for legs. I envied the reporter, vaguely. She was thin, but she did not shake. I shook constantly if I didn’t think about it—if I didn’t hold myself tight enough. “What bothers me is that a wall can only get so high,” my father said, his food only halfway chewed. “Now I know you’re a philosophical mind by nature, and you know I respect that, but you know that I see the world in weights and measures. I’m concerned with how high the tide can get. Before it crashes over us, I mean. You remember that movie we saw, where the meteor hit Earth, the meteor the size of Australia? I’m concerned with a wave like that. I’m concerned with our lives, Carla. But if it never breaks, that’s just fine with me. That’s a coastal problem then, a tourist problem, not mine.” An infographic on the TV said the wall was growing at a rate of one inch of height per day. One inch of height, one foot of length, no change in width. The depth of paper, apparently, to hold the entire world’s sea. The science of how strong this mystery element was still baffled Mom. She fretted over the notion of tensile strength and ionic bonds. Dad didn’t care. I was somewhere in between. I understood what they did not, that unbreakable things are rarely ever that. Take surface tension. The people on the news threw that phrase around a lot, talking about water striders and fifth grade science experiments. They talked about this strange trait of our most vital resource like it was a friend. But I had once watched, from the lap lanes, as our school’s most talented high-diver tripped and broke her neck by hitting the water wrong. Water isn’t your friend. It never was. This is not a symbiotic relationship, this is the thousands-year-old tale of a parasite and its thrall. I wanted to say: we are tourists, Dad. We’re going to Florida right now. But one of the side effects of last year’s vacation was that I rarely spoke my mind. Thoughts got lost on the way to my mouth, and by the time they arrived it was minutes too late. Just as I remembered, my straw made a gurgling sound. Both my parents jumped at the sound, a minor-league heart attack. My mother forced a smile and patted my hair. My father just sighed. Minutes later we were back in the car, on the way to the poisoned coast. The afternoon sun was quiet, muted through car window glass. When she thought I’d gone to sleep, my mother switched from music to the news. A woman with a deep voice talked about the plunge in the stock market, the glass ceiling in cinema—anything but the wall, as hard as she could. My mother gnawed at her nails and muttered to my father. He nodded along, stalwart and brown. They looked in love. Worrying together always gave me that impression. One year ago they had clung to each other and cried, and I had thought through the pain that I was sick with affection for them, and shame. One year later, my mother tore at her nails again, tore at her nails over me. But this worry was not as bad. The dense tall hills of Tennessee were a comfort on either side of the road. Waves of trees rose vertically from the ground, towering above us like Chicago

skyscrapers. It was the same dizzying sensation of height without end. Dad had this old joke about Tennessee hills. He would say sometimes that the miners in those hills drove with one foot on the break, and the other out the door. It took me many years to realize that it was, in fact, a joke at all—as a child I’d imagined myself driving those machines down a hill littered with trees and rocks. I saw myself rumbling tumbling down this sheer face, hoping not to crash. I heard myself screaming, somewhere between fear and joy. The line was much darker back then. I once knew how to categorize my thrills. Somewhere, I had forgotten that skill, and now I could sob at nothing, at the sight of water in a crystal glass. I reached into my bag and took the orange bottle out. I reminded myself that this was the right thing to do, that this was a matter of health, not cowardice. I took the pill and thought about how much it would cost without my parent’s insurance. Minutes, seconds later I am amidst something great and black and wrong. It swirls and churns and I am flying above it, but I can’t see what it is. Yes I can. I am flying above the Emerald Coast, about twenty feet up. The water isn’t black at all. The water is deep and mean and blue. The sun is out and very warm. I can feel the burning on my shoulders. I can see them, my shoulders, gleaming red and glossy, the strange red glow of hurt flesh. Now I’m sweating. I’m so, so hot, dripping sweat like molten wax. I fly close to the water. The corner of my shoulder grazes the top of a wave. It hurts. My shoulder feels like it is being rubbed with sand. And then it’s my mother, smiling, grinding sand on my wounds. Her hands are so red. She has my arm, her nails hurt, she won’t let go, I— I woke to the sound of my own breath, caught in my throat. It took a long moment to realize that we were in a parking lot littered with palm. My father’s car door was open; I could see him stretching a few feet away, his sleeve sliding back to reveal a lawnmower’s tan. White concrete driveway. Cerulean plaster wall. My mother peeked up over her seat, her eyes sleepy and content. She said: we’re here, and my stomach gave a hard twist at her instinctively pleasant voice. Had I really slept that long? The sun had not started to go down. But the clock was right and it betrayed the time, almost six p.m. Mom ruffled my hair and climbed out of the car. Briefly alone, I took a deep breath that no one else could hear. I opened the door and the seal gave with a small gasp. The safety of false air vanished under the balmy, salted heat. The front desk of the condominium was unnaturally white and blue. The front wall of the room was made of glass. The translucence, twenty feet high and glittering, made my shoulders curl, as if it would lean toward me. I stood behind my parents with my back to the glass wall. My mother wound her arm through mine, but she wasn’t sensing my fear, she was smiling in spite of it, as if everything were fine. My ribcage trembled. I could feel the tendons in my legs, the weakness behind my knees. My father signed his name, hopefully for the last time. I tried to watch his brown hands, the earthly fingers scribbling in blue, but it didn’t help. The room was full of refracted sunlight, and I could not escape its glare. “Thank you so much,” the concierge said. “Enjoy your stay.” He was a thin,

hairless man in a teal polo shirt. His eyes were too round and bright, bright blue, and when he smiled his teeth were too small. “Excuse me,” my mother interjected, leaning her elbow on the counter. “How have the flags been?” The concierge’s grin did not falter. His teeth looked like shells. “Flags, ma’am?” “The tide flags,” my mother clarified. “Any marine life warnings?” “Mom.” The word was wrenched from me at this betrayal. “Don’t worry, honey,” she said. “I was going to ask anyways.” My toes curled in my flip flops. I wanted to say: that’s not the point, Mom. You let him know, you let this stranger know what’s wrong with me--what happened to me. But the concierge barreled on, his voice a tumbling, turning echo. I had the thought that his gleaming head might as well have been a sandbank, waiting to trap me with the tide. “Our beaches are unfortunately closed, ma’am,” he said obediently. “For swimming, at least.” “Oh, I know that.” She waved her hand for general emphasis. “I figured, what with all this strangeness. I’m just interested in whether or not there’s been a...an increase in danger. Along with the strangeness.” He laughed at this momentarily. My mother joined, and as she did, the concierge smiled at me. The blue in his eyes went briefly dark. I tried to walk away but my mother’s grip tightened. It didn’t hurt yet, but my chest did. My vision blurred for the weakness of my legs. Like a building about to collapse. These goddamned legs—he must have already known, just by the look of me, that I had once been strong. Or maybe Mom told him while she was making reservations. I could hear the blabber now. Two heated pools? Oh, yes, that will be just splendid. My daughter used to be quite good at swimming, did you know? Oh, yes, terrible what happened...ruined our whole year, the little bitch, just because she couldn’t watch where she was fucking going. The pool will be safer for the likes of her. “We haven’t been able to measure the marine life as of late. All observation is focused on keeping an eye on at-risk species. Dolphins, you understand.” The man placed a pen back into its bowl of clear glass beads, an awful, grinding sound. “Yes, the wall has made our jobs here quite strange.” My mother glanced at my father, and in her moment of weakness, I was able to slip away. “The wall is here?” she said. “Since when?” “I didn’t think it was,” my father said, and looked accusingly at the concierge. “My apologies, sir, ma’am. We closed the waterfront as soon as the wall reached us.” “When the hell was that?” “Last night, around eight. We sent an email to inform our guests. If you check, you’ll find that we included three complimentary water park tickets to make

up for the unfortunate circumstances. We also have two heated swimming pools, indoor and outdoor alike.” While my parents complained about what they could not change, the concierge stood and smiled. His hands like pale tendrils, his nails clean like salt. He was so, so still, and then his eyes were on me again. I was on the other end of the cavernous room, but it felt just as bad--too sharp, too close. I turned hard toward the door. But the door was glass, and so was the wall. I could feel the clear man watching me, as well as the wall of clear. I had to get out, but there was nothing corporeal and known. No concrete stairs, no wooden doors, just the gleam of unknown. A small sound began to come from me, a whine, a chirp, like a broken, infant bird. Dad must have heard. I saw him depart from the desk out of the corner of my eye. Shame and relief flooded me as he caught me, and pulled me gently away from the exit and into his chest. I let myself see and breathe the reality of his brown shirt, the tan plastic buttons. Opaque cotton, fiber and color, made from the real world. My father has never smelled anything like the sea. He smells like the earth itself. He smells like herbs and trees. The concierge does not exist. The wall does not exist. Water does not exist. A sound ripped from me at this thought, a pained, choking scream. Who had I become, to wish for such a thing? My father talked to me as I shook. “Hey, you’re okay.” It took a while to get me up to the condo. There was an elevator, but the idea of being pulled into the air by some forceful, weightless machine was too much. The concierge, utterly unruffled, led us to a set of stone stairs at the back of the condo, a long upward tunnel with no air. I climbed the stairs one at a time, one hand on the railing, the other on my father’s arm. My mother stood by, silent except for the occasional, pitying groan. By the time we reached our door, I realized that I had climbed at least a hundred stairs, and so had they. My mother was louder now, cursing at the electronic key. My father’s hands were still clamped on my shoulder. When the door opened, he let go, and we pulled ourselves into the room. My mother dropped her case onto the bed. She covered her face for an instant, with both hands. She’s supposed to be happy right now, she’s supposed to be looking at this room. My fault. I tried to be brave and apologize— properly, finally—for everything that I’d done. I saw it all at once, the great wealth of one year that was rightfully hers. But she interrupted by taking me into her arms, and my voice went soft, and I let the thought go. We went for dinner and ice cream. Mom pretended to get excited about a Mexican restaurant a few blocks from the coast. I tried to offer the seaside bistro, her favorite, what she had talked about for months, for Christ’s sake, but Dad said no. We’d go when I felt braver, he said, or they’d go as a date. My mother placed her warm hand on mine and smiled the way I hate. I clamped my mouth shut. We got tacos, and banana splits. Good cooked brown beef. Deep, earthy cream. At the parlor we sat outside with our treats, and I was safe. Mom became herself again, laughing with Dad, pointing out the sunset. She looked beautiful in the salted

evening, all brown and pink and gold. She wore white pleated shorts and a polo like a modest pink box--nothing she wouldn’t wear at home. All I could think about was her standing at her closet at home, picking out her clothes. My mother loved to pack. She loved the planning, the meditation of what was to come. She made lists and notes not out of anxiety, but as a way to hone herself, to tune in to her platonic ideal. I knew how she worked. This outfit was meant for days from now. When she was sick of the sea and the heat and the evil creatures, homesick for dry land, she was supposed to find the tacos, and the corn, and the cream, and take a break. She was to be Midwestern again as a reprieve, not as an introduction. I had taken that from them, like so many other things. And why? Because of our last trip? Mexico felt so far away, like it had never happened. Almost—I could still feel the pain in my leg. How much longer, then? How long until I got my life back? And why did I have to do it myself, alone, at night? I knew what would solve this, of course. I knew what I had to do. I had known ever since I watched the shore go still, from our TV at home, but I didn’t want to be right. When we got back to the condo, I pretended to take my pill and fall asleep. The sofas in the living room were leather and cool to the touch. When they noticed my silence, my parents whispered loving, pitiful words. It was the same story, the one I knew they would tell. It was the story of their water baby, who cried upon arrival at a beautiful Ontario hotel because there was no pool. My parents used to tell this story a lot. Like gum or a cigarette, they pulled the memory from their pockets at meets and competitions, even when I lost. They were certain that it had been a sign, that I was meant for great things. I was good amongst my team, I suppose. But I was never meant for the Olympics. I didn’t even want to go. I just wanted to swim, every day of my life, forever. It was hard to remember that feeling now—the surge of power I felt skimming the surface tension, mastering this element I loved. Now all I felt was something like slime, a glistening, silvering paste.

They got ready slowly, shifting their weight from the cushions to their toes. The stretching sound of lycra, a few giggles, and then a blanket in my lap. The door opened and shut. I sat up fast and for that instant I felt ready to go, ready to be brave, but moving too fast had made me dizzy, and my stomach rested wrong. My head felt bad. I thought I’d missed a crucial moment, a terrible opportunity. I was never meant to do this thing, this manic notion that had passed my mind, this pathetic “solution.” I was supposed to let the therapy work. I was supposed to have gone with them tonight, and broken no rules. I cried, but it only lasted a few seconds. I did all my crying last year. It occurred to me finally that the television was still on. My eyes focused soft against the colors of the screen, until the commercial ended. The few tears blinked away and I saw that it was a professor this time, a documentary delivery of the news. The old man wore khaki shorts and, incomprehensibly, a tweed jacket. He spoke into a microphone, one hand flat against his ribs. I reached into my bag and

took three of my pills, swallowing them dry, as I had recently learned how to do. “The ‘water wall,’ as it has been colloquially known, is said to grow at an average rate of two and a half centimeters in height, and approximately thirty centimeters in length, per hour. As far as we know, the width of the wall has not changed. It’s as thin as a piece of paper throughout. The material is yet to be identified or tested. Though it is not expressly dangerous, local officials have reported stories of disappearances, injuries, and even deaths related to the wall. Until such time as these stories can be confirmed or denied, the White House has issued a ban on contact with the anomaly, and a closure of all waterfronts.” At any given time, I could decide to smell the chlorine of my college’s pool. The ungodly blue, the triangle flags, the rows of sleek, capped heads, were just a summon away. Stretch marks on my thighs, disappearing beyond the nylon. Black nylon, weakened from too much use. Who am I kidding, I was so, so good at it. But I have a new swimsuit now. Useless little thing. Mom thought it would be good for me to have a bikini, something to cut the association. I was quiet at the store when we bought it. I smiled and nodded, because I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I had been wearing a pretty skimpy thing when the man o’ war wrapped around my leg.

“Since we are unable to interact with the wall’s material form, information on its chemical composition is limited. It is clear and very strong, and behaves in a way that suggests life. As it is strong enough to withstand the weight of the tide, engineers have speculated the possibility of a synthesized, controlled version of the substance as building material. Its strength and rapid growth would make it ideal for roads, skyscrapers, and housing. If the wall is living, however, this could lead to resistance from the animal rights community, despite the material’s apparent lack of sentience.” It’s funny. When I woke up in the hospital, Mom swore that I had stepped on the thing, that its corpse had been lying on the sand. In her mind I was blinded by the sun; I’d made a mistake, a decision that was wrong. Dad still won’t say how he remembers it, but then again, he wasn’t there. He was talking to the bartender, a quarter mile down the coast. Just far enough away that he couldn’t hear Mom scream. Personally, I maintain that it attacked me in the water—that the thing fucking knew what it would mean to me, to be hurt in my own realm—but I can’t really remember. Adrenaline will do that to you. I have to take my mother’s word for it, the way I have since I was born. Did she lie to protect me? Was she lying at all? Funny--I had always assumed I could not be wrong. No, I don’t remember what happened. I do remember a few things about what happened, though. I remember the texture of vomit and sand, that crunchy, beige paste. I remember the EMT saying the word “allergic,” like it made any sense. “Many have begun to think of the wall as a sign from God, a warning from a higher power. The Vatican has released an official statement that they do not consider the wall to be anything more than a freak occurrence, and will

not qualify it as a miracle. The Church of Scientology similarly disavowed claims from its members that the wall is the living embodiment of L. Ron Hubbard. Even the Area 51 fan club has said that ‘a species of reptilian overlords have given us this technology, just like written language, mathematics, and the pyramids.’” When I think of that day, I don’t see myself. I see my leg, as if I were only a leg. I have no head, I have no arms, no body. I am lungs and a heart and my right leg. I can’t remember the pain. I remember the tendrils like wet hair. Except they move, except they don’t. I should go to sleep, this is not going to help me. I need to go slow. I need to slow down or I am going to drown myself in this, I need to slow down. I don’t see myself. I see the plastic bag in the water. I see its shredded arms wrapped around my calf. I feel...I feel it, and then I see my mother in the distance, screaming, her arms like flags. I see my limp body, my heart stopping, the paling, vomiting girl. I am me. And then I am the bartender, a quarter mile down the coast. I see the two of us over my father’s shoulder, and I can’t see his eyes through the black sunglasses he has never worn. I am flying above the Emerald Coast, about twenty feet up. Clear jellyfish dot the top of the water. Don’t fucking touch them, curl your hands in, like a mummy, don’t reach out. Go back to the shore. And then I make it to the shore. The water is black in the middle of the day. Storm clouds rage and flash, three tornadoes churn the foam. Dead jellyfish on the beach. Stingers in my feet. I feel the venom again, and I can’t shake it out. The water wall is fifty feet high now and the top sags like a bad muffin. Raw batter, threatening to overflow. We will all die. I have to get away, I can’t fly high enough. No one is doing anything! I’m kicking my legs, swimming up, trying to fly but I can’t, get— I wake up. The television is off. The blanket is tucked around my feet. All the lights in the condo are out except for the green numbers on the microwave which read 2:14. I can hear my parents snoring in the other room. I sit upright, my fists clenched and white. Then I get up. The stairs leading down are made of stone. The grey is smooth and cool against the bottoms of my feet. I walk slowly, taking each step of the eight floors with tender care. My legs extend before me, paler than they’ve ever been. The stretch marks glimmer silver in the light. The dark hairs brush against my skin with every move, pushed by the air. I don’t stop when I reach the bottom. I only hesitate once, when I see the concierge. Glass smooth head, sea blue eyes. I hate him so much. He smiles at me and makes a gesture like tipping a hat, but he has no fucking hat, just his shining bald skin. I walk past him, clutching my towel. Keep your head down.

I can feel his translucent eyes for too long before I realize he’s long gone. Why am I doing this? I keep my eyes on the ground until it turns from pavement to old dry wood. My feet make hollow sounds on the boardwalk and then finally, sand. Sand. It’s been so long. It’s soft and strange, still warm from the heat of the day, and I can smell the sun when I kick up its weight. Grit falls around my calves and it feels like a kiss. A purposeful, conscious love. Did you miss me, too? The urge

for tears comes, and I stop. But I have to move on. I know I have to be here, I can’t go without this for the rest of my life. So I walk until the sound of the sea beating against a rock is too much. At the edge, I stare down at my feet. I close my eyes. Then I lift my head, and breathe, and look up. At once, I am so perfectly still inside. The shaking has stopped. The wall is ten, maybe fifteen feet tall. The top is not foamy or white. It is perfectly still, like the edge of an infinity pool, like the lip of a bathtub filled too high. The water is dark, but not black. It is the exact color of the sky, a midnight blue that speaks of coolness and the ingredients for life. Like an aquarium wall, but not. Clear, but matte, not like glass at all. This is separate, unique, something truly new. Do I see fish swimming beyond the border? Do I see life beyond the wall? I tell myself that I see dark red lights flashing, ancient creatures of ancient means, but I don’t. I only see what is before me. The whole of the world. The ocean is all things, and I approach. I stand a foot away from this thing which I have hated. I hold my hands out flat, an inch from the surface of the thing like me. I feel no malice, no love, no radiation of any kind. It is a fact in front of my face, nothing more. I close my eyes. I turn around, take a breath. I dive backward into the sea. The wall breaks like a spell and I am swept, with the rest of the world, back to shore.