The Truth at the Bottom of the Ocean

Content warnings: climate change, refugee experience, loss/grief, isolation

When you ask me about my people—that’s what you call it, your people and not our people, and even though I’ve done the same, have held your rightful place from you with a single word—I resent you for it, for the question spread thick on the surface, obscuring what lies beneath like the rainbow film of an oil slick. Still, I try to tell you the truth.

We are, were, like all people, I say, as ghosts stir in dusty corners, echoes of the future we could’ve had. We were parents and lovers and students, poets and masters of the polyrhythmic, the pentatonic, skeptics and believers and—

But how did you make money? 

I swallow, even though I knew it would come to this. Part of raising a child is discovering that their window into the world is one you’ll never understand—and one day, my love, you may come around to the way I think, but for now, your survival depends on learning the rules. Though this squeezes my heart with such anguish I can’t breathe, I can’t blame you or the way your life on the Monster has gifted you such pragmatism.

Pearl diving, I say, the words turning to ash in my mouth. I don’t tell you about the spell-work, passed down from parent to child, shared between us like the secrets of celestial navigation: weaving, diving, dream-walking. You’ve been raised too far from our home. To know that we had magic, magic you could never learn—it would only hurt you.

You nod and turn back to swiping through your book, and I have nothing left but to hope that one day you will ask me the question again. That I will be brave enough to repeat myself, and you brave enough to hear my answer.

•••

Two truths and a lie:

One: When you were five, after you broke your finger, I stood on the boat that had become our salvation and held your splinted hand to my breast. I kissed that mess of straps and plastic and promised you I would do whatever it took to save you.

Two: When you were fourteen, you woke up screaming. I turned to find that two long wings had sprouted from your back, bursting through the thin cotton of your second-hand shirt like the vigorous push of a sprout through the soil.

Three: I go to bed each night certain everything will turn out all right.

•••

Do you see this, you say. You tap on the screen with an index finger that, although functional, will never again fully bend or straighten. It reminds me of my heart.

I don’t answer you. You don’t notice. You’re so engrossed in your article that your left wing is twitching, the feathers rippling like seagrass. 

It’s a machine, you say, as if this is novel. As if we don’t live, right now, tethered to a giant machine. As if we don’t spend each night curled up within the ribcage of our enemy.

But part of being your parent is engaging with you, even when it hurts. What kind of machine, I say.

It’s called a dredger, you say, your eyes trailing through the text. It breaks the rocks in the trenches—the deepest parts of the ocean floor—into bits, and takes out all the little nuggets of metal it can find.

You turn toward me, and I’m surprised to find you’re crying—but of course you’re crying, because you’re not like me, not jaded by the loss of a home, of a people. I’m sorry, I say. I wonder if you ever look at our bobbing metal frame attached to the oil rig and remember what it was like to stick your toes in sand.

It makes me resent our leaders for not letting us settle, even though it was the right choice. Even though I am one of those leaders.

We don’t even know all the species the trenches hold, you say, tears runneling down your face. I’m reminded that tears used to flow more dramatically, more slowly. The patina that forever coats us now rushes even our tears.

I’m sorry, I say again.

You show me a photograph of an octopus with ears. A fish with a transparent head. A jellyfish that looks like a bell, or perhaps a fancy woman’s hat. They’re nowhere else, you say, and I’m alarmed by your gasps.

I am a bell jellyfish, I want to say, but instead, I shake my head. This is a precious moment. You’re close to understanding. 

I ask, And why would they do something like that?

They make batteries out of the metal, you say, and then your eyes widen. You stop crying—too stunned, I think, to feel sadness. You stare at the phone in your hand, realizing it for the traitor it is.

I feel smug—I didn’t want you to get that phone, not when you can’t replace the battery, although that was more about the cost—but it dies when you look up at me, at the grief written on your face.

Do you know what they call it? you ask. The slurry of toxic chemicals that’s ejected back into the water?

I shake my head.

You rip a feather out of your wings. It wasn’t ready to go yet, too solidly anchored, and the end of the quill is tipped in blood. 

They call it a plume, you say, and you let go of it. It sinks straight to the floor, like a stone.

Perhaps, I say, we should worry about ourselves right now. It’s meant to be placating, but the betrayal is naked on your face.

•••

Two truths and a lie:

When you were fifteen, workers from the rig dragged you to my door, your face smeared with oil. They’d caught you about to dive off the monkey-board—sure, somehow, that you’d circle back on your wings, that you wouldn’t be lost in the deep ocean.

On the night after you were born, I awoke to find that my skin had turned to armour—metal or stone, or perhaps bone, so tough that nothing but your pain penetrates it.

I’m confident that we’ll win our case against Petro-Earth.

MARIA DONG’s (she/her) short fiction has been published in or is forthcoming from Nightmare, Apparition, Fusion Fragment, Decoded Pride, and If There’s Anyone Left. She was featured in the 2018 Pitch Wars showcase and is agented by Amy Bishop at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. She can be found on Twitter @mariadongwrites, or at mariadong.com, where she also runs a project that connects Black writers with editing, querying, and website assistance.