Plumbing the Depths
by
Donna Shanley
A bell tolled somewhere in the dimness. Well, not tolled, exactly. More of a plink, like the key of an untuned piano. Plink then plunk at measured intervals: rhythm without melody.
She was far below the surface now. She’d expected cold, but the water wrapped around her was surprisingly warm. Not the wrapped-around blood-warm of arms, but a memory of warm, of the wrapped-around shape they’d made together, the wrapped-arounds of all the spaces they’d inhabited until space inhabited them, until it became the shadow behind their eyes.
She hadn’t thought drowning would be so easy. No bursting lungs begging for one more breath, just silky greyness, milky with borrowed light. And the bell. Weren’t there old stories about bells in the deep? Wild bells, crying to sailors, Don’t come home! Then, for the heedless, the reckless, or the just plain unlucky, a somber bell calls them to a different home. A summons and a farewell. Which bell for her? Her thoughts were misty-murky like the encircling water, weightless as her body. Shapeless.
Something small and blocky slipped along her arm, gleaming. Strange that humans have always associated light with the above, darkness with the below, the under-world. Yet here it was: unfathomable phosphorescence, fathoms deep.
A gracefully-undulating square floated by. Some denizen of the ocean, undiscovered, or a dislocated patch of river flotsam. She reached out to stroke it. It changed shape, fluting and folding at her touch, but didn’t seem to mind the intrusion.
Did the creatures have feelings, she wondered, and was vaguely surprised again at her own sense of calm, almost of happiness--of something needed happening, something taking shape. Wishes, beliefs, love: they had always changed shape when she touched them. Shriveled to desiccated stillborns. Unrepaired. Her thoughts dived and swam away from the desert of memory.
The water was wrapping tighter, attaching to her like the skin of a plumping bud; she, its embryo of dark clumped petals, crouched to spring into shapes undreamed. Airy. Unsinkable. She pressed her fists against it, closed her eyes, and prepared to bloom.
The bell clinked again. No solemnity, no richness of myth about it; it was petty, a trivial breach of perfect peace.
“Shut up!” she thought. And became aware of heaviness, as though the mere imagining of speech had anchored her. Light gleamed from icy, unscalable cliffs. She felt pain.
The water careened as she heaved herself up, shaking her head to ease the stiffness in her neck. The soap bar bobbed against her toe, compact and self-assured, a jeering reminder of its ability to maintain shape. She kicked it away, feeling a pang of grief for the withering embryo left behind, for its shapeless un-future--and a reluctant relief for the way sinking could somersault into surfacing, just before the bottom. What goes down must come up.
Plink.
Bloody dripping tap! She groped about her, captured the floating facecloth, and rammed it into the faucet. Sometimes, temporary repairs were all you could manage.
She was far below the surface now. She’d expected cold, but the water wrapped around her was surprisingly warm. Not the wrapped-around blood-warm of arms, but a memory of warm, of the wrapped-around shape they’d made together, the wrapped-arounds of all the spaces they’d inhabited until space inhabited them, until it became the shadow behind their eyes.
She hadn’t thought drowning would be so easy. No bursting lungs begging for one more breath, just silky greyness, milky with borrowed light. And the bell. Weren’t there old stories about bells in the deep? Wild bells, crying to sailors, Don’t come home! Then, for the heedless, the reckless, or the just plain unlucky, a somber bell calls them to a different home. A summons and a farewell. Which bell for her? Her thoughts were misty-murky like the encircling water, weightless as her body. Shapeless.
Something small and blocky slipped along her arm, gleaming. Strange that humans have always associated light with the above, darkness with the below, the under-world. Yet here it was: unfathomable phosphorescence, fathoms deep.
A gracefully-undulating square floated by. Some denizen of the ocean, undiscovered, or a dislocated patch of river flotsam. She reached out to stroke it. It changed shape, fluting and folding at her touch, but didn’t seem to mind the intrusion.
Did the creatures have feelings, she wondered, and was vaguely surprised again at her own sense of calm, almost of happiness--of something needed happening, something taking shape. Wishes, beliefs, love: they had always changed shape when she touched them. Shriveled to desiccated stillborns. Unrepaired. Her thoughts dived and swam away from the desert of memory.
The water was wrapping tighter, attaching to her like the skin of a plumping bud; she, its embryo of dark clumped petals, crouched to spring into shapes undreamed. Airy. Unsinkable. She pressed her fists against it, closed her eyes, and prepared to bloom.
The bell clinked again. No solemnity, no richness of myth about it; it was petty, a trivial breach of perfect peace.
“Shut up!” she thought. And became aware of heaviness, as though the mere imagining of speech had anchored her. Light gleamed from icy, unscalable cliffs. She felt pain.
The water careened as she heaved herself up, shaking her head to ease the stiffness in her neck. The soap bar bobbed against her toe, compact and self-assured, a jeering reminder of its ability to maintain shape. She kicked it away, feeling a pang of grief for the withering embryo left behind, for its shapeless un-future--and a reluctant relief for the way sinking could somersault into surfacing, just before the bottom. What goes down must come up.
Plink.
Bloody dripping tap! She groped about her, captured the floating facecloth, and rammed it into the faucet. Sometimes, temporary repairs were all you could manage.