The now has its roots elsewhere, in the past.
- Anais Nin
Our shoes are full of sand. Isobel takes hers off, shaking them out so that the sand pours out onto the beach. The sun peers between clouds, spotlighting her face, scattering freckles across her nose. We walk with our arms linked, looking for seashells and driftwood along the littered shore.
Last night the sky rang thunder and crashing light. A section of the pier toppled into the ocean. Maybe the sea rose up and with its long arms embraced the pier and dragged it down into the water, to be its lover forever. The stairway leading up to the pier is blocked off with glaring yellow tape and Caution - Danger signs. A seagull huddles on the railing of the steps that lead up to the pier, preening its feathers and glancing at us warily. Isobel snaps a picture of it with a disposable camera we bought at a convenience store.
I keep laughing in the pictures she takes of me, my mouth wide open. Gaping. I feel so foolish, my motions awkward against Isobel's smoothness.
"I've always been clumsy," I tell her.
Isobel smiles. "I think it's cute. You're like a little kid."
"I am a little kid! But you know, when I really was little, like wee, I was so klutzy I actually walked backwards off a dock and tumbled into the water. In all my clothes. That was before I learned to swim."
"What did you do that for?"
"I was feeding ducks at this lake. My mom had given me crackers and I was breaking them up into little pieces and tossing them to the ducks that were sitting on the dock. Everytime I threw the crackers the ducks would step closer to me, and they were a lot bigger than me, so I was afraid. I'd take a step back. I walked off the dock and fell in. I still remember it, being underwater. It was peaceful somehow. The world was green, and I could see the moss that grows on the bottom of the dock swaying in the current. I must have been sinking. But my dad saved me. He pulled me out."
Isobel hugs me. "I'm glad."
"I got hit by a car once, too," I tell her. "I broke my collarbone, the car's hood slamming into my body. I got to ride in an ambulance."
"You're lucky," Isobel says. "Every time you just get hurt a little."
"It adds up," I say.
I'm practically a corpse. Aurelia left me, and now that you're here you might leave me too. And then I will be alone, and it will be too much.
We climb the steps up to the pier and slip under the yellow tape. The seagull shrieks at us and flies away. It's dark now and it's started to rain again. The planks of the pier are soft beneath our bare feet, and the wood smells clean, musty.
We walk out to where part of the pier has dropped into the ocean. Jagged edges stretch out into the air like kitchen knives, slicing at the sky. The waves froth around the pilings, white foam soaring. It is so beautiful, so turbulent. I look at Isobel and she smiles at me, brushing hair out of her eyes that has been flung there by the wind.
I tell her, "If I were winged, I would fly away. I would be free. I would be careless and I would forget my heart and love you, and it would be simple, and so certain. But I can't. I mean - I do - but I feel I shouldn't. I miss her, I'll betray her if I don't go on missing her. I miss what she took with her when she went to New Orleans. I used to believe in things; I was so innocent - I wished on stars and knew it'd come true; I had faith in not knowing. I don't anymore, I don't believe you love me, that there would be anything but pain in being in love. But it's all I want! To curl up next to you and feel your heartbeat against my palm, to wear the same dresses and be like twin sisters and share secrets and dreams and to have you there, always, when I'll need you most. It's all I want and it's impossible! I'm weighed down by the impossibility of things, the sadnesses, the inevitability. I am heavy with it. I don't trust you. Sometimes when I'm with you I feel as if I'm choking. There is a stone in my heart that I can't tear out. I can't bear to have it in me anymore, reminding me of my failures."
Isobel pulls me to her and kisses my cheek, beneath my eye, brushing raindrops away with her lips. "It'll be alright, Cassandra," she says. "You just need to relax. I don't think you'll ever be able to forget Aurelia - why would you want to? She was beautiful with you. You will carry that with you, that beauty. That will last forever. That and your love. You'll always be able to give that, even if the faces of those you give it to change."
I push Isobel away from me and look down into the water, swelling with motion. Isobel continues to console me, but I'm not listening to her anymore; only the roar of the wind and the rain splattering against the planks of the pier and this voice in my head like a siren. She doesn't understand and no one ever could. Nothing works. Everything is ruined before I even begin. I can't help it. I think I will be lonely forever. I will be alone forever.
Forever. Forever. Forever.
It will make me into a monster. Tearing at my own skin. I'll sink back.
"You're being selfish, you know," Isobel says. "You're not the only one to have lost someone you love. Don't imagine that I'm just here to amuse you. Don't be so predictable, dear. Is this destiny, was that meant to be. Eventually it won't matter and you will only be glad that you were here to experience this at all; that I was willing. Take my hand. I will take you. Take it because it is not obvious, and not necessarily true."
Isobel holds out her palm, flat like she is offering sweetgrass to a horse. I place my trembling hand in her cool, firm grasp and she squeezes my fingers together, making a fist. Together we run towards the precipice and leap into the welcoming sea. I feel the breath of the ocean reaching up my skirt, sliding cold, damp fingers against my hips. I pass out before I hit the water.
There's dust on me &dust&dust collects the fine silt I powder on myself hot sand in looking glass land I leave the remains of my wishes buried in ever-sifting dunes brushing the sun from my eyes my lashes thick coated everything weighing upon me with no particular circumstance we used to dance oh how my heart fluttered the impracticality of passion the endless streams of sand clogging me and scratching at my skin my long Scherazade arms breasts indescribable planets my body hollow-boned like a sparrow, legs where a tail used to be. Swells up the tide I am washed out and over buried in sand heavyweight the sand and gasping under water pulled out to sea pulled out to see a little of me overdone diamonds on my fingers dragging for the surface pulling back buried underground miles of water on me salt weighing me down and the seashells of my ears ocean in my head roaring dig me out DIG HERE dig dig dig my nails are filled with dirt and cracked splitting I am like something that has been dead for too long for too long! I am a ghost, baby, a ghost sucked under the rush of the tide sucked out to see into watersdeep a piece of shadow my mouth filled with the ocean I have seen the sea the sea in me my mouth is sky wide legs spread let it in filled with stars and I hold my mouth open and I laughforever the ocean hurdling quick and hard inside me I am bursting with the sea the density of it there are fish in my belly and they are hungry for bloodworms and bloodlust my blood is the saltwater my skin is as pale as an earthworm I am stuffed with ocean and seaweed and sawdust is dripping from my seams where I split open and my mouth is singing
I am a girl I am singing singsinsing underwater voices I sing screaming at the ocean sing unreturnable love.
I can't give it back, notever. There are things I cannot catch, women I cannot hold onto.
Once I dreamed of singing fish, a girl's school of veiled opera divas rouged cheeks fins like feathers boas. All in symmetry,
all identical in posture, sharing common traits and adoration of each other. In a theatre
I sat before a stage, an aquarium with no glass, only a wall of water gleaming shining still like a
windowpane sheets of satin rain and the
singing fish girls all golden shimmering bursting out their song. I could feel the vibrations their voices created
through the floor traveling up my legs into my bones and then the wall of water came crashing down
and I drown, my mouth falling open, filling with sand.
The ocean is my mother mother mother sister tell me sister how does your garden grow with cockle shells and tulip bells the ocean is my mother fluid warmth around me floating dreamily oh the sea foam on the wave dust to dust collect no death there is no death here hook, line and sink her. Stirring the sea, my mouth wallowing open in a scream spike heart throb vanished bliss catching me in its undulations spiraling in labyrinthine revolutions it's just what I do it just can't be helped I get smaller and smaller as the sea swallows me up sinks me down spinning round&round.
Farther stars my lungs rise up in my throat to choke my cruel hands a horrible sickening tightening my head swelling eyes dripping saltwater but oh things do get better the desire to draw breath to suck in the cold dark fluid around me was overwhelming and a woman told me her face shining her hair full of fish like feathers her body's beautiful calligraphy hips wonderfully curled she told me she'd teach me to breathe underwater like I breathe air, swim between stars.
I'm gasping water spilling out of my mouth.
Lying on the sand, Isobel's arms around me, her face pressed against mine, her breath hot on my cheek. Her hair hanging in wet strands clinging
to her face. She looks more innocent than a child, more devious than a rake.
"You're mad, Cassandra," she says. "You're mad, you're mysterious, you're oh-so mine."
I smile. "My heart is light," I tell her. Aurelia is gone. She's gone. She's in New Orleans, she's at the bottom of the sea.
Sunken. A hidden treasure, an unpenetrable wreck.
Isobel shakes me, laughing. "You're heart!" she says. "You're heavy as a stone, and water-logged. You drowned kitten."
"You frightened me," I tell her, "but I'm not afraid anymore." Isobel saved me. She rescued me from
my own obessions and pulled me from the sea that had swallowed me.
The waves took us whole, but she resisted; she didn't let me go when it would
have been so easy and uncomplicated to let me drift away.
"I lost my grip at first; I was frantic, searching for you with my face to the water.
You were just below the surface," she tells me, "sinking down, your head haloed like an angel's.
I swam down after you and I caught you in my arms, you were so light, like a bouquet of flowers.
We rose to the surface, your head titling back, breathing soft as we broke the water. The waves pushed us to shore,
guided us really. It was strange. The water was full of lights carressing us, voices whispering."
"I believe in you now," I tell Isobel.
As long as time is time, there will be beauty.
"Yes," she says. "I am here now."
