Of Mochas and Macchiatos

Part 17

The coldness of the inky blue depths of the sea throttle me as my lifeless body is whipped about the churning waters, thrown into the rough black reefs. If this were real, maybe I'd marvel at the beauty of the world under the sea. I'd reach my arms out to stroke the delicate green fronds of seaweed that pepper the sea floor, trail my fingers over the resplendent hues of the coral that lines the reefs. Crabs, shellfish, and other crustaceans lazily traverse across the sand, their shells glittering as they catch the tiny pinpricks of light that shine down from heavenwards and come to meet the lowest depths of the earth. An octopus scales the floor, its tentacles grasping at jagged rocks and harsh crevices and yet, so used to the terrain, it doesn't hurt itself. Not like me. Its body dips in and out of focus, camouflaging with the sandy floor before it melts into a forest of lush green sea grass and disappears from view. If this were real, maybe I'd take joy in seeing the life all around me.

Or maybe I wouldn't.

Maybe I'd be bitter seeing all this life around me when I was stripped of it myself. Had my own heartbeat stolen away from me, replaced with only silence. Lifelessness.

The empty quiet between the ticks of a clock. Forevermore.

A shoal of fish sidle up beside me, hundreds of them, their tiny smooth bodies a harsh juxtaposition to my bruised battered one. For a moment I am jealous of them. They know their place in the world. They have their place. They are born with it, live with it, die with it. Their eyes rest upon my body for a few seconds as they linger in the stillness, the silence of the ocean. There is no noise down here, only a looming emptiness that envelopes everything. Then, in a few flickering movements, they are gone. A trail of bubbles in their wake as they dart away from my corpse. I watch on, wordlessly, from an invisible yet omniscient third person viewpoint as my corpse is tossed about the ocean.

A cold emotionless voice breaks the silence of the sea. A cruel laugh. A harsh discordant sound. "Broken. Forevermore." The clairvoyant fortune teller woman from years long ago. A lingering echo of my past. A reminder that even dead, I cannot escape the curse that plagues me.

My hair is like a dark gossamer as it trails away from my head, the long strands wavering in the current, desperate to reach the surface yet still anchored to me. A thin ribbon of blood flows from a cut on my arm. Like smoke, it weaves through the water, floating onwards, upwards. It doesn't quite reach the surface though.

Drawn into the nostril of a large vicious shark. There is a whole shoal of them now. A shiver. I remember now. A term from a rather exuberant outdoor environmental studies class from early high school days years long gone by now. A school or shoal of sharks. Or a shiver if one feels dramatic. Right now, I do not feel melodramatic; just cold, so very cold. As if all light, all warmth from the world is gone. Shiver seems to be the most apt word right now.

As those dark scavenging creatures approach my dead body, I can't bear to watch. The echo of the fortune teller's voice rings again in my ears. No. I can't watch as my already broken body descends into further disrepair. Disrepair. The word is so mechanical. Something you'd use to describe a machine. A malfunctioning automaton. Is that what I am? Nothing but a tangle of damaged wires and machinery? But I still feel. I feel coldness and terror wash over me as the sharks round up around my body. And somehow that fear gives voice to something. A scream.

A silent scream.

The savage waves whip away my voice. Muffle it with their immense force. The sharks are closer now, rapidly approaching me. I remain watching as my battered corpse is about to be to torn to pieces, unable to do anything to prevent the deed from happening. I am already dead. I died a solitary death. Abandoned by the world, left to the churning mass of blue that feeds so hungrily on me. And now, I shall die again. Alone. Again. But this melancholy empty thought forces my voice from me again. A shrill cry. High and terrified. Wavering with fear. It's loud, this time. Real. No longer stolen by the darkness of the water.