CHAPTER SIXTEEN<\/p>\n
My death was short-lived and somewhat premature. The<\/p>\n
tough kelp that held me beneath the surface was stripped away, and<\/p>\n
puny little fins pulled me to the surface. When I was yanked from<\/p>\n
the water, my lungs gave an involuntary gasp, and filled with wel-<\/p>\n
come air. All my senses returned in a flash of black to red to white<\/p>\n
to light. I was quite surrounded — captured, if you would — by slick-<\/p>\n
skinned sandwalkers who swam in the water with me.<\/p>\n
A skin of some sort had been wrapped around me, and I was<\/p>\n
quite unceremoniously lifted above the sea and dropped into the<\/p>\n
shell-shark. I had seen the inside of one of these strange creatures<\/p>\n
before when Little Brother and I had breached above its sides, but<\/p>\n
nothing prepared me for the actual experience of riding on its back.<\/p>\n
I stayed perfectly still — more from fear than from curiosity<\/p>\n
about my surroundings. The back of this shell swarmed with pu-<\/p>\n
ny-finned sandwalkers who rushed about doing odd things to odd<\/p>\n
things. Some would bend down beside me and look me in the eye<\/p>\n
and offer a strange whistle punctuated with guttural burping (and<\/p>\n
Little Brother thought my singing out of tune).<\/p>\n
From deep within this hard-shell\u2019s creature\u2019s bowels, I could<\/p>\n
hear it buzzing and groaning. Soon it began to pitch and yaw in the<\/p>\n
open sea, and I could tell that it was attempting to swim.<\/p>\n
The sandwalkers now regularly leaned down to touch me as<\/p>\n
was their desire and strange satisfaction. Still others splashed me<\/p>\n
with water. Then they did the oddest thing: they smeared my body<\/p>\n
from nose to tail with sickeningly sweet, melted jellyfish.<\/p>\n
Then for no apparent reason, they placed a very cold and<\/p>\n
long-dead fish in my mouth. Did they really wish that I would eat<\/p>\n
such filth? I spat the dead thing out. They pushed it back in. I spat.<\/p>\n
They pushed.<\/p>\n
Food fight!<\/p>\n
I looked up and could see an odd spirit burning in the eyes<\/p>\n
of my captors. This fish dance must be some ceremony of great re-<\/p>\n
ligious significance. I finally relented and swallowed the fish whole.<\/p>\n
In this manner I was fed three dead fish, and somehow this<\/p>\n
satisfied these odd sandwalkers. They asked me to eat no more.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t see much as the shell-shark swam, and the sounds<\/p>\n
and smells of the dryside assailed my senses. The beast settled<\/p>\n
into a steady stroke as the smells grew stronger and the sweet scent<\/p>\n
of the sea was replaced by other unidentified scents.<\/p>\n
Suddenly the shell-shark went silent, and floated still in<\/p>\n
the water.<\/p>\n
But all that had happened was soon forgotten as the air was<\/p>\n
filled with a heavy slapping sound. The wind stirred about me; the<\/p>\n
strange wispy seaweed on the sandwalkers\u2019 heads blew this way and<\/p>\n
that. I could see nothing forward other than puny fins and the yel-<\/p>\n
lowed skin of the shell-shark. I looked up and to my horror; there<\/p>\n
above was the largest feathered-fury I have ever seen — if indeed it<\/p>\n
was a feathered-fury at all. It looked something like a shell-shark<\/p>\n
but with a great fin that spun crazily about.<\/p>\n
It hovered above me for a time, a whomping sound pulsing<\/p>\n
the air. Finally it dropped a large coil of kelp to the back of the<\/p>\n
shell-shark. The skin on which I rested was twisted in the kelp, and<\/p>\n
with a slap on my back, I was lifted into the air with a lurch, a cap-<\/p>\n
tive of this flying beast.<\/p>\n
Finally, I knew what was to happen. I was to be fed to this<\/p>\n
great unfeathered fury. I waited for that moment I would enter its<\/p>\n
belly and truly and finally be joined with the end . . . the beginning.<\/p>\n
Surprisingly I was not eaten, but, instead, I was carried to great<\/p>\n
heights, lifted clear up into the clouds.<\/p>\n
Higher and higher I was raised, but I refused to look up<\/p>\n
anymore and cast my eyes down to the sea. Lo, what a world! The<\/p>\n
dryside seemed filled with straight-lined mountained corals that<\/p>\n
reached for the sky but with no water to surround them. I yearned to<\/p>\n
see more of these strange miracles, but we left the coral mountains<\/p>\n
and moved ahead with the sea on one side of the shell-shark and<\/p>\n
the dryside on the other.<\/p>\n
As the huge fury moved slowly, I could see odd islands of wa-<\/p>\n
ter trapped in coral pools surrounded by the dryside — the opposite<\/p>\n
of all I had known. It was to these dryside water islands the great<\/p>\n
bird dropped, and I was sure that here was where it nested and kept<\/p>\n
its young.<\/p>\n
Ah, ha! That was it! I was to be fed to the young of this<\/p>\n
flying monstrosity. As if in answer, the beast dropped lower and<\/p>\n
lower, until I was nearly touching the dryside. But instead of finding<\/p>\n
myself pounced upon by hungry, hopping, children, I was instantly<\/p>\n
surrounded by sandwalkers who gently guided me to a soft landing<\/p>\n
on a raised slab of cool stone.<\/p>\n
With their fins all around, they pushed me, and I glided past<\/p>\n
the smooth coral and rock into the dryside itself. Here in the land of<\/p>\n
the sandwalker, the golden light was trapped in smooth water orbs<\/p>\n
that glowed like the light of day. On and on I was whisked through<\/p>\n
the walls of stone that opened with crashes and clanks. At last, I<\/p>\n
was stopped in a great room filled with acid smells and odd plants<\/p>\n
that grew in odd directions.<\/p>\n
I began to panic and flipped my body mightily against the<\/p>\n
restraints. A sharp stinging pain distracted me on my right side, and<\/p>\n
suddenly I could not move at all, save for my eyes. But I could feel,<\/p>\n
though numbly, the length of my body. Every bit of my surface skin<\/p>\n
was poked and prodded: my eyes, my vent, my tongue and teeth.<\/p>\n
Nothing was left unexamined.<\/p>\n
And then these creatures, long cast from the sea, became<\/p>\n
quite excited. They began to whistle and burp faster and faster.<\/p>\n
They all rushed from my sight, yet I was still able to hear them. In<\/p>\n
a way that only a mother could understand, I knew they had found<\/p>\n
my baby, the child growing in my womb, and for the first time I truly<\/p>\n
feared for my child. There was nothing I could do, no protection<\/p>\n
could I offer.<\/p>\n
Reverently now, a sandwalker with gentle eyes and long sea-<\/p>\n
weed draped from its head came to gaze. We stared at one another<\/p>\n
for the longest of times, and I reached out with my heart, beseech-<\/p>\n
ing it to set me free. But sandwalkers cannot sing, and those who<\/p>\n
cannot sing cannot hear the song as it is sung.<\/p>\n
There was more poking and prodding, then some new sharp<\/p>\n
stings. My skin began to tingle as life was given back to me.<\/p>\n
After a time, once again I was carried on the slab of stone<\/p>\n
through the strange narrow canyons and, once again, into the<\/p>\n
non-captive light, that golden light of the true day.<\/p>\n
I was lifted again and felt the comfort of those waters of life<\/p>\n
wash me as I was put back in the water. I breathed deep and thought<\/p>\n
I could almost smell the sweetness of the open sea. But this water,<\/p>\n
oddly enough, seemed too clean. Was I actually free? I cast a<\/p>\n
sounding cry, but the echo returned coldly from all around. I real-<\/p>\n
ized I was trapped in a captive water island completely surrounded<\/p>\n
by stone and coral.<\/p>\n
I swam about this pool of sterile water faster and faster,<\/p>\n
seeking escape, but none was found. I breached and leaped from<\/p>\n
the water over and over again to further view my alien surround-<\/p>\n
ings. All I could see were other pools and sandwalkers standing<\/p>\n
around, gaping.<\/p>\n
For how long I spun in that pool I know not. The skies<\/p>\n
turned first to pink, then purple, then black. The blinking lights<\/p>\n
of night winked at me just as they had done in other places, other<\/p>\n
times. Suddenly, in a flash of blinding light, I was back in the bright<\/p>\n
light of day. But no, it was not the sun, but rather, strange crystal<\/p>\n
orbs that had captured bits of light and now brightly flooded the<\/p>\n
pool in which I swam.<\/p>\n
I moved to the center of this dryside pool, floating there still<\/p>\n
for the longest of time, and the sandwalkers moved away one by one<\/p>\n
on their puny fins. Then, as quickly as the light of day had come, it<\/p>\n
disappeared, and I was plunged into the cool, soothing darkness of<\/p>\n
the silverside night.<\/p>\n
I called out, hoping against hope that a pod close to shore<\/p>\n
might hear, but I was rewarded only by the echoing of the water on<\/p>\n
the smooth rock shores. There was no one to hear me in my plight.<\/p>\n
There would be no dramatic rescue. I was trapped, captured in<\/p>\n
some nightmare dream, ripped from my home, my life, the sea.<\/p>\n
I shouted out in my fear and anger, but there was no Little<\/p>\n
Brother to soothe me. I laughed, and then I cried.<\/p>\n
I slept fitfully through the night, and as the early golden<\/p>\n
light crept across the stone ponds, I was awake and searching for<\/p>\n
some opening that might afford my escape. Search though I might,<\/p>\n
I found nothing other than the bubbly source of the sterile water. I<\/p>\n
leaned into the stream of bubbles, but I could smell no trace of the<\/p>\n
open sea, only unnatural scents. Oddly, the water burnt my eyes.<\/p>\n
It was with my head in the bubbles that I thought I heard<\/p>\n
voices of others. It was faint, a whispering, barely echoing through<\/p>\n
the dryside from the other ponds, but definitely voices. There were<\/p>\n
four or five individual dolphin and the singing of one whale. They<\/p>\n
were excited but their song lacked the deep feeling, the emotion,<\/p>\n
and the passion of the others that I had known in the open seas.<\/p>\n
After a while, things settled down, and I could not hear the whisper-<\/p>\n
ings anymore.<\/p>\n
In a frustration born of boredom, I swam in the widest circles<\/p>\n
possible, more than anything because I felt the need for exercise<\/p>\n
and the chance to relieve the pains of the cramps the baby was<\/p>\n
causing. I had not swum for long when there came an odd clicking<\/p>\n
sound, followed by the splash of something thrown in the water. I<\/p>\n
sourced the object, and by its size, I knew it must be a fish. I surged<\/p>\n
down to it and was shocked to find another of those long-dead fish<\/p>\n
so favored by the sandwalker.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy do they do that?\u201d I wondered. \u201cIs it some sort of game<\/p>\n
for the sandwalker to throw dead fish at dolphin?\u201d<\/p>\n
I nosed the fish around the pond, trying to revive it, when the<\/p>\n
odd clicking began again. There was a splash, and another dead<\/p>\n
fish joined the collection.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is getting ridiculous,\u201d I spoke out loud. \u201cWhat am I to<\/p>\n
do with these?\u201d<\/p>\n
But I knew they were to be eaten. For the sake of the child,<\/p>\n
for the sake of myself, who was very hungry, I ate the very dead<\/p>\n
fish. In truth, it wasn\u2019t that bad; it was worse. When the second<\/p>\n
was eaten, the odd clicking came again, and another fish, and an-<\/p>\n
other were thrown into the water.<\/p>\n
It was obvious where the fish came from; what was not ob-<\/p>\n
vious was the meaning of it all. Why were they attempting to feed<\/p>\n
me? Why did they trap me in the first place? What did they want?<\/p>\n
What was the game?<\/p>\n
After I had eaten my fill and the last two fish were left to rest<\/p>\n
and sing their silent song on the bottom of the pond, the strange<\/p>\n
clicking stopped. I was alone with the solitary sound of slapping<\/p>\n
water on smooth rock shores. The walls of the pond reared half my<\/p>\n
length up from the lapping water, which made it nearly impossible to<\/p>\n
see anything on the dryside, and there was much dryside to see.<\/p>\n
There was nothing to do, save swim in circles, which I had<\/p>\n
already done so much, that I was dizzy. Bored, I kicked with tail<\/p>\n
and lifted out of the water to better view the stone pond. What a<\/p>\n
surprise! A group of sandwalkers swarmed together just on the other<\/p>\n
side of the wall, watching me. I don\u2019t know who was more shocked<\/p>\n
— the sandwalkers or me. I quickly back-flipped into the water.<\/p>\n
But why were they staring at me?<\/p>\n
Before I could ponder much, the sandwalkers made their way<\/p>\n
to the edge of the pool, gawking with their odd, dry-blinking eyes.<\/p>\n
Seeing them stand there watching, I was overwhelmed with anger.<\/p>\n
They had taken me from the sea. They had taken me from Little<\/p>\n
Brother. They had taken me from all that I loved.<\/p>\n
I leaped in the center of the pool and circled underwa-<\/p>\n
ter, pausing for a moment below the spot where the sandwalkers<\/p>\n
watched. I swam around again and again gaining speed, then<\/p>\n
breached as high as my plump body would allow. My plan was to<\/p>\n
slam one of them full face with my tail, but the best I accomplished<\/p>\n
was to wash them clean.<\/p>\n
I back-swam with my head out of the water, angrily berating<\/p>\n
them for what they had done. \u201cYou slime-gutted jellyfish. You eggs<\/p>\n
that were never hatched,\u201d I ranted and railed. From the dryside<\/p>\n
came the burbles and burps of excited sandwalkers. Maybe they<\/p>\n
liked the water. Using my front fins, I tossed more and more water<\/p>\n
at them, hoping to wash just one of them into the tank to possibly<\/p>\n
have a little chat, but all that happened was that the sandwalkers<\/p>\n
were forced back from the slick-stone shore.<\/p>\n
Every time they returned to the edge, I rewarded them with<\/p>\n
vertical rain, but soon even I tired of this game and retired to the<\/p>\n
center of the pool. As the day went on, they, too, tired of just<\/p>\n
watching. A few of the sandwalkers drifted away, and others dragged<\/p>\n
things to the edge of the pool. Then the clicking began again.<\/p>\n
What did it mean? I listened to the tonal echoing in the<\/p>\n
water. There was a faint, very faint, resemblance to the crudest of<\/p>\n
speech, but it sounded like no singing creature I had ever heard<\/p>\n
before. If those repeated clickings were some odd kind of speech<\/p>\n
or song, they obviously meant very little. Freely translated, they<\/p>\n
meant, squid squiggle. But was this some kind of code? Were the<\/p>\n
sandwalkers trying to communicate with me? Did they think I was a<\/p>\n
squiggle-fin?<\/p>\n
This unusual communication only took place in the golden<\/p>\n
light. During the silverside nothing happened at all. The return<\/p>\n
of the sandwalkers to the stone pond was always preceded by the<\/p>\n
clicking words, squid squiggle. During the long nights when I was<\/p>\n
unable to sleep, I would think about the noises and actually reached<\/p>\n
the point where I could imitate the sounds. If there was a secret<\/p>\n
code in what they were saying, my understanding was awfully slow<\/p>\n
in coming.<\/p>\n
The sandwalker at least kept my captivity interesting with<\/p>\n
bits of junk that they threw in the water. I examined it all carefully,<\/p>\n
searching for the answer to what the sandwalker wanted of me.<\/p>\n
But what odd junk!<\/p>\n
There was a red-skinned orb as round and as smooth as a<\/p>\n
water-washed stone, and also a flat circle with a hole in the middle<\/p>\n
that seemed made of a strange floating skin. There was also a larg-<\/p>\n
er circle that they suspended over the pool, vertical to the water and<\/p>\n
the sky.<\/p>\n
I threw whatever the sandwalkers tossed to me back at them.<\/p>\n
My hope was that I might hit one of them full in the face, but if this<\/p>\n
creature had a special ability, it was adeptness in the way it could<\/p>\n
use its puny fins, and it managed to catch all of my ill-timed missiles.<\/p>\n
Oh, how I wished for just one of the floating poisoned jellied<\/p>\n
fish. That would indeed give them something to catch.<\/p>\n
The circle that they suspended above the pool will always be<\/p>\n
a mystery to me. The best I can figure is that it held some religious<\/p>\n
significance. Once I even jumped through it, but the sandwalkers<\/p>\n
became so agitated, I avoided that practice in the future.<\/p>\n
My other problem was that I was becoming more and more<\/p>\n
pregnant every tide, and escape, though seemingly impossible, was<\/p>\n
always foremost in my thoughts. I continued to eat the dead fish<\/p>\n
that were thrown into the water, for there was nothing else to eat,<\/p>\n
the smooth stone pool was devoid of all life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CHAPTER SIXTEEN My death was short-lived and somewhat premature. The tough kelp that held me beneath the surface was stripped away, and puny little fins pulled me to the surface. When I was yanked from the water, my lungs gave an involuntary gasp, and filled with wel- come air. All my senses returned in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1357"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1359,"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357\/revisions\/1359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}