darlings, ghost boys v. mermaid bay (day 3)

filler from my long weekend in london hehe sorry for the wait guys!!!

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in the night i walked an unending tightrope. even as i dragged my uncooperative body along the thin treeline, i was marvelling at the metaphor.  these dreams have an inorganic sense to them, as though the work of somebody hired, working to a brief. would it be too self-obsessed to presume that they are trying to tell me something - something, perhaps, about loyalties and truth and lies and the tension caused by a taught rope? there are candles up there in the sky with me, but they are not enough to illuminate the place i land when i finally fall. i am none the wiser as to which side of the allegory takes my body as payment, tucks me away for later. if they are sending me a message, i am illiterate, made stupid by the senselessness of it all, and besides, i keep my inner eye squeezed shut, for fear of foreign objects. 

my real-life eyes are another matter. i inspect the sand and the sea as though it has wronged me, as if the stone knight himself might suddenly emerge from the waves, seaweed-wigged and bloodthirsty, ready to finish what he started. i am not so afraid of my human counterparts - after all, they are flesh and bone, malleable and breakable, vulnerable to my knife and my bad attitude - but he is something different, a man with no pockets and no bargaining power, and i turn at every sound in case it is the beginning of his unrelenting footfall in the sand. 

the earthquake begins inside of me long before it reaches the ground. i started it, i know - the force of the lies i have told quake beneath the surface and threaten to spill everywhere. i swallow it over and over again, trying to keep it down, before it finally ripples up and grasps the surface of the earth by its hair and drags it like a child with an unwilling cat. 

grab hold of something! hunker down! eualalie cries, but she has made a mistake. behind her, the sky darkens, the bright sun drowned behind the wall of water that looms there. there is nothing that we can hold on to, anyway. we must simply let the water take us where it pleases, hold our breath until it's over. i am busy accepting my fate when the wave draws near, trading its position as a visual threat for one that is closer and colder and wetter and rips me from my firmly-planted feet and into what used to be the sky. it is like in my dream, when i was falling, but now i am falling upward, tumbling over and over and over until the water recedes. 

eualalie is already upright when i emerge. i am a strong swimmer; a curse and a blessing of my hometown, i suppose, although i would kick and scream accuse my mother of torture when she forced me to learn. i consider thanking her now, but that would go against some fundamental beliefs of mine. 

take my hands, eulalie screams, and i smirk, although i know she is just being practical - she relies on our survival as much as we rely on hers - because its the most sentimental instruction i've ever heard her give. i accept the offer gladly, seize their arms as though they are a life raft. i don't even have time to fear that shrapnel carried within the water will take out my allies before i have a chance to kill them myself - the next wave has already broken over our heads, tossed us back on the sand like discarded dolls. 

i spit salt water and look up to see two fellow victims of this watery torture; the loverboys, too,  have been regurgitated nearby. i have not even managed to process their presence before eulalie has put them to work: please, can you help us? she begs, a sob half-concealed in her voice. i'm really scared, brad. 

a laugh erupts from my throat without warning; i conceal it in a shuddering splutter that ends up in a hacking, saltwater cough. the back of my throat feels scraped raw. i watch eulalie beg, please don't leave us, and cannot believe the speed with which she has recovered from the very-real environmental threat in order to weaponize her faux-fear against these passers by.

there is nothing to do but to but to follow her, although i begrudge her this. 

thank you, i tell the boys, earnestly, as though they have already accepted eulalie's ridiculous proposition. i think we should all probably run now, i add, because although it is amusing to humour eulalie's crocodile tears, the precipitating factor that brought them on is very real and very tall and coming right at us once again.

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The wave crashes around me at last, just as I swivel my head to face the wall of water, catching Eulalie’s eye from across Florentine’s pixie face for just a moment. I see it now; she’s scared. I am too, beneath the blanket of calm keeping me safe. They teach us to swim in District One, and they teach us to kill, but this is no pool, and no ordinary enemy. The mindless water is less killable than that persistent knight in the woods. The wall comes tumbling down. Water fills my mouth, and the salt rubs my throat the wrong way and stings my eyes. Regardless, I keep them open, keep them trained on the blurry bodies of Maverick and Brad ahead of me. Something to look for — a spot to keep me grounded, as if I’m doing a pirouette. I tighten my arms against the sides of my body, Florentine’s arm too. It’s all enveloping. It’s baptismal.

I have wounds. They’re stinging. The Gamemakers are sick of us scattering ourselves across the arena, I think. This is a reminder that they can kill us too, if we don’t get on with killing each other.

The tide rears back into the bay, spitting us out behind it on the sodden ground. The sheer strength of it forces me to untangle from my allies, untwisting my arm from around Florentine’s. I land on my hands and knees, bow and quiver miraculously still slung over my back thumping against my spine. I shake my head like a dog, press the heels of my palms into my wet eyes. Water drips off of me, washing away my coat of calm with it. From my side Florentine yells — I try to say something back, but it comes out as coughs of water. Feels like some of my lungs come out with it too. But Florentine is alive and kicking; now where’s Eulalie?

She’d been trying to say something right before the wave hit, when a new emotion passed over her face. What was it? I doubt she’ll say it now. I still can’t really see, but through my coughs I manage to say, ”Eulalie? Boys?” Cough. Hacking up a lung. ”Are you…?” Splutter.

My wet clothes stick coldly to my skin, a creeping fear soaking through them. I suddenly realise that if another wave comes, I don’t think I’ll be able to weather it.

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