Our Wives Under the Sea

by Julia Armfield

We surfaced, of course. This is something to remember—that we turned toward the panel after who knows how many hours spent staring into that eye and told the craft to take us upward. That we grasped each other’s hands, Matteo and I, and begged a being neither of us believed in to allow us to surface. I don’t remember much about the rest. I know the creature did not stop us, though its eye held a strange, anticipatory expression as we receded, if “expression” is the word I want. I know, too, that Matteo held on to Jelka’s rosary beads as we rocketed upward, as we moved up from darkness into further dark, the light so many miles above our heads. I know all this, and I know that as my head cleared, finally, of everything, sunken thoughts receding with the thing that we had left below, I thought to myself Miri Miri Miri and I waited for the ocean to end.