“Arthur wanted to say he’d miss sunrise runs and playing her favourite songs on the piano. The way her nose crinkled when he offered her peanut butter, and the sound she made when he beat her at tennis for the first time. The crack on her front tooth.”
Read MoreThis is it. The sailors gather around you, some jealous, some admiring, some fearful. Only a few have gone down in the bathysphere, but never to the depths you’re going. You can only hope the bathysphere is as infallible against the ocean as it is on blueprints. The captain salutes you and reminds you of your orders. When you hit 500 fathoms, you’re to observe any geological abnormalities as predicted from the unusual currents that emanate here.
Some expect you to give a final speech before you descend. Perhaps a thanks to the crew or a witty remark. Any final wishes if something goes wrong. A last chance to repent your sins. You offer nothing. Instead, you climb into the bathysphere, giving the crew a thumbs-up through the observation window. The hatch locks. You ready yourself as you’re hoisted above the ocean, deep and murky, and are dropped in.
Your breathing increases as choppy waves slosh against, and eventually over, the bathysphere. You feel like an acorn, dangling on a string, waiting to be cracked.
Read MoreA drop of sweat fell against his cracked lips—lacing them with the barest hint of pain and taste of salt. Or perhaps it had been some stray droplet from the sea. It didn’t matter to him, as his eyelids began to flutter shut. In his drunken stupor, he thought he saw shadows moving below the surface.
Read MoreSarah was just about to pour herself a glass of water when she noticed the pair of glasses left unfolded on the kitchen table. There was nothing unusual about that; both her parents wore glasses, and her mum had an annoying tendency of leaving them absentmindedly about the house and then asking Sarah or her brother to find them for her at the most inconvenient of times. Normally, she would have just ignored them, but today something seemed off.
Read MoreMost of the time, he was angry. Two decades - perhaps more if he dwelt on it for too long - he’d worked his way up to this. Research grant secured, carefully curated team on board. And now, he’d lost it all. Through no fault of his, either. perhaps it was his own biology laughing at him for trying to decipher it.
Read MoreYou do not remember what life used to be like. Or rather, you remember it, but it is hazy now, as if you are seeing it through a curtain. Some mornings you wake up and think you can feel seafoam on your skin, waves pushing against your breast. Some mornings you wake up with a smile on your face, but it is not yours. It belongs to some past you, some other you. And you are not her.
Read MoreMessing with the machinations of mortals was fun, until it got you stuck with them in a stolen fishing boat in the middle of the Ionian Sea.
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