The Seas

by Samantha Hunt

That ziggurat was originally called Etemennigur, which means ‘House whose foundation creates terror.’ And that was true. And it seems incredible that the name could still hold true after 4000 years, but it did.

“Then I saw why it was that loud. There was a hole, a gigantic hole in the ruin, and the wind was getting caught and disrupted as it tore across the hole, making this hissing or screaming noise, like a rip. The hole was a seam, kind of a canyon, or a sharp, jagged tear. The hole was unimaginable. It was a gulf that opened up the entire inside of the ruin.

I couldn’t believe that our country had blown a hole in a ruin that was probably one of the oldest things on earth.”

“Don’t do that,” he says. I stop touching him. “No,” he says. “I mean don’t forgive me. I wouldn’t forgive me if I were you.” Everything is quiet except for the rain. “Do you understand why I couldn’t go on?” he asks me.

Even after, when we are sitting on his bed with our legs around one another. I pet his face and listen to his breath and cannot fall asleep because there is a foreign feeling in my veins, it is the feeling of finally getting what I wanted, and the feeling is colder than I ever thought it would be. The feeling won’t let me sleep.

“We almost escaped,” I tell the sea. And the ocean spits what it thinks, like a storm, “Don’t you ever try that again.”

It happened. I know you won’t believe me, but sometimes people come back from the ocean. The polar explorer, he was in a wave over 198 feet tall and he came back because he had all those men to rescue. And for some reason I came back, even a coward like me.

He gave me an inside of ice so I’d never love you. But it didn’t work. You are so close. You are sleeping in the next room. You are the only warm thing to me. So warm, I am melting.

Maybe some of these voices had already been released from prison or died and the wall is still reverberating with the sound of them. In that way the wall gave me no fear but rather comfort, because the wall felt like my house, old and haunted. I push my ear against the wall. The women are waiting for me to talk.

I could pull Jude back up through the war and the water. I could make him mine.

My ribcage grows tight, making it difficult to breathe. For one moment I look back at the bed, but only for a very quick moment. I try the bars. They glide soundlessly, and in my bare feet I follow my father’s wet prints.

Birds, squirrels, fog, deer bones buried under pine needles, and lichen. Jude killed himself. The possibility that this might be the truth swoops near my head like a bat at dusk, a bat that soon flies off in the other direction uninterested in me.

Details make a story even as unbelievable as mine believable.

“Ah,” I say when she is done and for all I know it could mean, “Look out! Disaster!” But I don’t think so. I think it’s closer to Ocean. Continue. Forever. Smooth night with stars for navigation.

Words have more than one meaning all the time. Just like Jude’s note.

“What about you then? Are you going there too?” She wipes her tears on her sleeve and shoulder. I don’t have an answer to that yet. “Maybe it’s time for both of us to go,” she says. I don’t think she means to New York.

We park and as I climb from the car all the small, dry, yellow flowers that grow like trash by the side of the sandy road touch my ankles. My mother and I walk through the flowers down to the ocean. When we see the sea I jump. I am so happy, because I think, “Jude, there you are.” My mother cocks her head sideways, as though she wants to be happy but forgot how, and is only just now getting some vague recollection of what that felt like.

We float on our backs, every choice, every word, every possibility is drifting somewhere nearby us. Somewhere nearby is Jude. Somewhere nearby is my father. Somewhere nearby are all the words the town will say about me. Sad. Stupid. Suicide. In time, my mother might get cold or tired. She might even go home, but for now we are happy right here. We let the waves roll beneath us and forget the dry land and forget the idea of ever going back because the water is blue–n. Fr. bleu 1. having the color of the clear sky or the deep sea 2. melancholy 3. puritanical 4. obscene 5. faithful 6. said of women, especially those with literary inclinations

If one word can mean so many things at the same time then I don’t see why I can’t.

That is how I feel, only there’s no ship, just the sea to rescue me.