Girl. Boy. Sea.

by Chris Vick

  ‘It is a monster,’ said Aya. She had hate in her eyes. And fear and disgust like I’d seen when she looked at Stephan sometimes. She spat in the water.

  ‘Sharks are millions of years old,’ I said. ‘They evolved before the dinosaurs… Not a monster. Just an animal.’

  ‘Not animal. It is a monster!’ she insisted.

  And I thought: She’s right, it is.

  ‘Every shark is a copy,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Of one true shark,’ I said. ‘This one.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I… I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying.’ And I didn’t. I could barely hold the oar, could barely see. The line of the horizon kept getting out of place, wobbling, stretching.

  I felt the light of the stars and the whispers of the sea. There’s an energy in these things, strong and alive; an electric-like force that surged through my bones and across every inch of my skin. A vanishing treasure.

  ix

  We saw something. A dot on the horizon as the last sliver of sun was eaten by the sea.

  We planned to make our way to it in the morning.

  We drank aman. Almost all we had.

  I’d had an idea before we lost the hook. The bait we had was shrivelled and stinking, so I’d thought about cutting a chunk out of my leg and using that as bait.

  That should have horrified me. Like Stephan’s death should have horrified me. But the ‘me’ that could be horrified didn’t exist any more. Cutting a piece out of my leg to use as bait seemed a sensible thing to do. But now we had no hook.

  I had another thought. One that wouldn’t go away.

  Which one of us will die first? The other will have to eat them.

  It was like a voice. Not in my head, but heard a long way off.

  I forced the voice away.

  I thought:

  That isn’t right.

  None of this is right.

  Stephan’s death. Using flesh as bait. Cannibalism.

  *

  Morning.

  The sea was choppy with wind and there was a swell rolling. The dot rose and fell on the waves. We kept losing sight of it. The sun kept slipping behind clouds making it hard to navigate.

  It wasn’t a boat. A boat would move. It was jetsam maybe, a piece of wreck, a rock, an island?

  I stopped myself hoping for anything.

  I paddled slowly, stopping regularly to look for the shark, hoping it would leave us alone now that it had taken our fish.

  Aya slouched at the stern, huddled in the back of the boat, limp and still.

  She kept rubbing her stomach with her mouth open. As if someone might feed her. Gull sat behind her, crawking gently.

  *

  We rested. But not for long. I was too frightened of losing the dot. My head felt light. Disconnected; struggling to get the message to my muscles.

  Paddle. Paddle.

  But every stroke was a world of pain.

  ‘Tell me a story,’ I croaked.

  ‘I cannot,’ said Aya. ‘I am weak.’

  I sat back gasping. I had no strength either.

  ‘Please, Aya.’

  ‘Once… there was… I can. Not.’

  Her eyes were fading black stars.

  When we were on the island and she swam, her dress had clung to her. She was skinny, but had girl-shape. Curves and roundness. But it had all gone. Her body was eating itself. She was a stick-girl, dressed in a rotten sack. I was a stick-boy, wearing a holey rag t-shirt and too-big shorts.

  When the wind blew the sack against Aya, I saw her ribs.

  ‘Why did we leave the island?’ I said, to no one.

  *

  We got closer. But the dot was still far away.

  I thought reaching it would kill me. I believed that. I collapsed.

  ‘We’re going to die,’ I said.

  Aya took the seat out of its place and said: ‘Yes, we are going to die. When we are very old, playing with the young children of our children.’ She knelt at the bow. ‘Come,’ she said. She helped me back to my knees. ‘I will tell you a story. Once, on the great ocean, there lived a girl and a boy. Allah, in his magnificence, blessed them with a boat, full of treasure and bounty… Each day the treasure was less. But when the boat was empty, they had still one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hope.’

  She paddled, grimacing with the effort.

  ‘How does the story end?’ I asked, picking up the oar.

  ‘They live.’

  *

  The dead whale lay on its side. Most of it was underwater but the head was above the surface. A floating island. A sick, fleshy iceberg.

  Gull flew to the giant, barely able to keep above the sea. He settled where its eye had been and pecked at the hole for strings of flesh.

  The whale stank, but I knew we’d soon be eating its flesh too.

  The water was rising and falling and windblown. But we could see, in the fathoms, the whale’s tail and most of its body eaten away, showing sections of skeleton. Clouds of fish were feeding: rays, tuna, silver-striped fish, darting yellow long fish, chubby silver scaled ones the size of my hand. Hundreds and thousands of them. And we had no hook.

  Among the fish there were shadows, feeding on the water-bloated flesh of the giant. S-shaping swimmers. Sharks, sliding through the water, gathering as though the lunch bell had rung.

  There were as many different sharks as there were fish: hammerheads, slick blue ones, short fat ones. They’d head in, one at a time, tearing off a bite of the carcass and thrashing their heads from side to side till they’d seized their chunk. Then they’d vanish into the blue. They took turns at the free feast, smaller fish darting and dodging out of their way.

  Watching the sharks filled me with dread. The sharp fins, the beady eyes. Sharks are fear. That fear swam coldly round my gut.

  *

  Then the shadow came.

  It moved among the sharks and fish and in seconds was the only thing in the water with the dead whale. Every other thing vanished.

  It rose to the surface and drifted beside us.

  ‘Jesus,’ I whimpered.

  ‘Allah protect us,’ said Aya.

  I grabbed the oar, ready to fight it if I had to. It turned. Only its fin broke the surface as it glided away.

  ‘It’s so… so… It’s graceful,’ I said, hardly able to breathe the words out.

  I dropped the oar. We clung to each other, and sat as low in the boat as we could.

  Looking over the side was impossible then. Like looking over a cliff with nothing at the bottom.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I gasped. ‘It doesn’t want us.’

  ‘Bill, I…’

  Boom. It was an earthquake in the boat. Everything shuddered.

  Aya screamed: ‘Please, Bill, please!’

  ‘I… I don’t know…’

  ‘Please.’

  I knelt up and looked over the gunnels. But before I saw anything –

  Boom.

  I fell sideways. I sat up again, grabbing the oar and lifting it high.

  I watched the line of its fin as it swam away. It went so far I thought it was leaving. But then it turned, 180 degrees until it faced us. And it came fast. An accelerating truck.

  I looked over the bow, ready to hit it with the oar. I yelled at it.

  It skimmed the boat and thrashed its tail into the bow.

  The aft tipped into the water before righting, rocking and swaying.

  ‘Bill!’ Aya shouted.

  ‘I don’t… Wait, look!’ Water was filling the hull. We were sitting in it.

  Sinking.

  I waved the oar, panting, searching. It came again. Just before it hit I punched the oar into its back. It shuddered, banging the boat, thrashing its tail, as if it had saved its energy for this.

  I pushed Aya aside and opened the hold. It was filling with water. I grabbed the knife and the line.

  ‘Shout at it,’ I said. ‘Throw something a
t it. Anything!’

  I worked as quickly and as hard as I could. I unreeled some line, then took the knife from Aya and cut a length. Then I tore a strip from my t-shirt, and wrapped it around the knife handle and the end of the oar. I looped the line around it, tight. But my hands were trembling and everything was nightmare slow.

  Boom. It hit again.

  The line, the oar, the knife. I made them into a spear. And even in that frozen, panicked moment I knew: If we lose this spear we lose everything.

  Aya thrashed the water with the seat.

  When I’d made the spear, I stood, my feet wide, holding the weapon over my head.

  ‘Where is it?’ I said.

  ‘I cannot see… there!’

  It was coming at an angle. Its jaw open, teeth bared.

  I lunged. It dodged, or I missed. It went off, turned and charged again. Only this time it swam deeply and then curved, coming at us from below like a heat-seeking missile. Up and up and up.

  When it hit, the boat lifted as if a giant fist had struck it, then crashed down into the sea.

  Water flooded in. It was up to my knees. I swung the spear, stabbing water. But it was so fast, so clever. It spun over, dodging the spear.

  ‘Did you hit?’ asked Aya.

  ‘Dunno. Never mind that, we’re sinking. Now bail!’ I shouted. Aya grabbed the barrel lid and scooped water, swishing it over the side.

  I waited. And had time to think, to see what was happening. I knew the truth. It would come again and again and again, until we were in its world. It might be seconds or it might be hours, but it would never stop. It would ram us until we sank. Then there’d be tugging and ripping, thrashing in the red water. Then darkness.

  I knew we had a leak, that the weight of us was sinking the boat. I had no choice about what to do next.

  I leaned over the bow, as far as I dared. Teetering.

  ‘Come on!’ I shouted.

  It came, then, from below. I lunged.

  The knife made a gash in its back. It stuck there for a second and I held the oar fast, until it wriggled free.

  The shark writhed, creating a storm of white water. But it was tinged red too.

  ‘I got it!’ I shouted.

  It went down, spiralling, leaving a trail of red mist.

  Other sharks appeared, lured by blood. Not so scared of the white now.

  Aya screamed, panicking as she bailed and bailed. But the boat was filling, we were going down. The shark turned. It was hurt but not finished, and raced up with its jaw wide.

  I raised the spear and thrust it into the water. The blade stuck in the shark’s head, above its eye.

  It thrashed but I held the spear fast and Aya held me. I felt its raw power. I felt Aya losing her grip and then the shock of water as I fell in and went under.

  I clung to the spear, could feel it shaking in my hands, and pushed. And pushed. I couldn’t see the shark, only blue and white chaos. Then clouds of red. The spear was wrenched from my grip.

  Thrashing my arms, swimming, panicking, spinning, needing to get to the boat but not knowing which way was up. Suddenly I was there and the water was blue.

  I surfaced. Aya took my hand. She pulled hard, crying out with effort. I clambered and climbed, breaking with the strain. She pulled at my hair, my skin, my shorts, desperate to get me back in.

  I looked over the side of the boat, to see if it was coming again. And saw its head flailing in the red, far below. I could see it turning, getting ready for another charge, but it spasmed and lurched. The spear was near its eyehole, at the end of a long gash. Blade deep. It had no way to rid itself of the spear. It sank, drifting down in circles. Taking with it our knife and our oar and our line.

  The servants turned on their master quickly, swarming to kill and eat.

  We were alone.

  I turned to see Aya bailing like crazy.

  ‘I’ll help,’ I said, but vomited water.

  Everything went blurry: the boat, the sky, Aya.

  The sun beat down.

  I felt Aya doing something with my foot and leg. And covering my foot with her cloak. She tore at her dress and wedged the cloth into a crack in the hull.

  I wanted to help but I couldn’t get up. I lay, panting and sweating. She bailed more water until we were properly afloat. Bobbing in the breeze.

  ‘The sun,’ I said. Even in my dizziness I could feel it, beating me.

  ‘The hats are gone, in the sea. I look but I cannot see.’

  ‘My foot,’ I said. I leaned down to lift the cloak.

  ‘No,’ said Aya, ‘don’t.’ But I brushed her hand away. I saw.

  ‘Christ. No.’ I didn’t even remember it happening. I had no idea how it happened. Yet it had, in the madness, in the water.

  My right foot was ruined. A pulped slab of flesh, dripping blood.

  Two toes were gone, others were mangled. I tried to wriggle, to move, and almost blacked out with pain.

  A shark tooth was lodged in one toe, like a shard of glass.

  ‘My foot,’ I said again. Aya ripped more of her dress and tied the cloth tight around my ankle. I watched. She worked hard, but there was a lot of blood.

  I passed out.

  *

  Fever.

  Losing blood.

  My throat on fire.

  The sun blinding me.

  Sinking.

  Slipping away.

  My heart beat weakly, poison crept around my body, my mind.

  I woke to a sky awash with diamond stars. The lines between them formed shapes. Great tides, sweeping and shifting like sand. An archer on a horse. A dragon. A demon. The Sun Lord, parading through the sky.

  Aya’s soothing voice.

  ‘Rest, sleep.’

  There was no difference between dreams and waking. Sometimes there was a silent blackness and I sank into it. Wanting it, but knowing it was dangerous too.

  The world of the demons.

  Aya cleaning my foot. Seeing it swollen and yellow.

  No reason, or sense, or rhythm to any of it.

  Then:

  Our holiday in Italy, when I was lost.

  I’m there. I’m not six any more, I’m me now.

  There are trees. I stand in the shade looking up at the branches; the wind brushing through the blossom. It falls like snow, till the sun shines through.

  There are people. A young mum teaching her daughter to ride a bike. Two old men in dark suits, hunched over a chessboard on a table. Smoking, laughing, sipping coffee. I smell the coffee, I smell the cigarettes.

  A white stone statue of a noble Roman emperor.

  Three students reciting Latin from books as they walk.

  I remember. And I live it now. Being alone, but not scared. Not worrying that I’ve lost my family. Because nothing really bad can happen here.

  I walk out from under the shade of the tree and shield my eyes. The sun is strong and fierce.

  ‘Why am I here?’ I ask.

  x

  My skin is burning. Pain throbs through my leg and into my body, into my mind. Like whale song it gets into every piece of me.

  Time to wake up, says the sun.

  When the sun speaks, its voice is as soft as a sigh. At first. It crackles through the short-wave radio in my head, trying to make itself heard. I see Wilko slamming his fist into this radio, until it bursts with the sound of wind and waves. Wilko salutes then vanishes.

  Wake up.

  It swims, this voice. Coming from a long way off at first, snaking closer, until it’s in my skull.

  Wake up.

  I try to speak but my throat is swollen closed. My eyes too, I can barely see. There’s nothing to see. Only white light. But then, even though my throat is closed, I find I can speak. My voice is clear.

  ‘Aya?’ I say. But she’s not there or she can’t hear me. There’s only the light. Glaring. And then I see. I see very clearly.

  A mighty sultan. A coat of stars flowing behind him, a river of them twinkling in the sky.
He has a scimitar in his hand, heavy and sharp. One swing could cut through a hundred men.

  The sultan is a man but a demon too, with diamond blue eyes and a mouth that’s wide and hungry, filled with tiny, sharp teeth and a tongue writhing like a snake. He laughs, because he knows he has won. That he will never bow. That he can never be defeated.

  Look at me.

  ‘Who are you?’ I say. But he does not answer. ‘I thought death would be dark.’

  Death is dark, my friend. A night with no stars and no dawn. He is coming soon. There is time for you and him. More than you imagine. More than anyone can imagine. He will come when our talk is over.

  ‘Who are you?’

  I do not have a name. You also have no name. Not any more.

  ‘I’m Bill. I am. You’re not real… I’ve got septicaemia… You’re poison.’

  Names, words – these are nothing. This word ‘Bill’ is left behind. In your home country, in Canaria, on the island. Look at me.

  ‘Bill.’ This word is a drop of water in a stream, then a river, running faster and faster. And now this river is running into the sea.

  Look. At. Me.

  ‘I’ll go blind.’

  You are dying. You should see before you go.

  ‘What do you want?’

  I want you to know! I will never bow.

  The light softens. I’m lying in the fore of the boat. My leg lies in front of me, bloated and as thick as a log. Not belonging to me any more. At the end of the leg something awful is wrapped up in the cloak. Aya is perched on the seat above the hold, watching.

  ‘Aya?’ I say.

  Tears stream down her face.

  ‘Aya?’ My voice is like dry sand. I try to reach a hand up. But the light blinds and washes the vision away. The Lord is back.

  Look. At. Me.

  I don’t feel the heat any more. I’m floating and sinking at the same time. Almost leaving. But I want him to know:

  ‘You do have a name. More than one. Murder and torture and rape and slavery and hate. Many.’

  Look. At. Me.

  ‘I can’t.’

  You are not brave. You cannot look. No one can. Not in the end. You are a skeleton in a boat…

  ‘Aya’s seen you, hasn’t she? She’s looked you in the eye.’

  Then I do look at it. And it doesn’t blind me.