AMOEBA
Open Waters
The horizon wraps around me like a snake suffocating its prey. I sit in a kayak, engulfed by a field of blue. Or a desert of water. Or some metaphor for an ocean that sound very literary and impressive. Maybe I shouldn’t use up space with frivolous imagery. I don’t want to waste pages in this waterproof notebook I found. It’s my only piece of humanity left. That and the protein bars I found, but they were made in factory and even though the packaging on them says organic, there is nothing natural about them. I need to figure out what to do when those run out. Must learn how to survive. But what do I know? Grocery stores and bank lines. Even worse I cash my checks with my phone to avoid the minute social interaction. I know there’s no connection out here, but my mind still wonders where it’s gone. Probably at the bottom of the ocean. Or did I have it when I got here? I can’t remember.
I paddle forward, towards the sun that hangs above the horizon. It’ll set soon, though I don’t know how long soon is. I don’t want to think of the night. I know I will have to face it sooner or later, but I can’t force myself to think about it. I’m afraid of the dark, but not of being alone. I’m the only organism for miles. I know there’s a whole world below me that I can never be a part of. Unless. Unless I want to die, of course, and it’s not time for that yet. Not down there, anyway. I dip my paddle in the water and propel myself. Aiming for the sun that I know I will never reach. But maybe if I get close enough I can ask him what I should do and he could hear me.
I think a few hours have passed. I don’t know. There are no landmarks, just the same water, the same horizon. I think I’m going forward, because I’m paddling forward, but I can’t tell if I’m moving. I guess I have to believe I am. It’s been so long since I’ve drank water that I don’t know if I can trust myself. However, I don’t feel thirsty. Can’t trust myself.
But I’m all alone, and there’s no one here to trust but myself. Must keep paddling. Must eat dumb protein bars. Must go forward. It’s all I can do.
The sun hasn’t set, yet. I don’t think it’s even moved. I don’t know how longs it’s been. I don’t know where I am, or how I got here, or why I’m here. Doesn’t matter, I’m here nonetheless. No avoiding that reality. I’m in a boat on the ocean. In or on? Semantics don’t matter, I need to survive. I only have a few bars left. Has it been days? I don’t know what I’m doing. Waiting for the sun, but I think he’s deceiving me.
I don’t know if I’m even hungry or thirsty, but I eat the rest of the bars because I know it’s what humans do. The water laughs at me. I can’t drink it. Can’t breathe it. Stupid ape. The salt laughs at me, I see the particles snickering. Or is that the reflection of the sun? I can’t trust my eyes. Not now. The sun still hasn’t moved. Not one inch. Jesus Christ, where am I? What is this place? No land. No reference. No fucking fish, or boats, or a single cloud. I must’ve done something horrible and this is purgatory. Maybe I should just jump and have some definite answer, even if it’s a tragic one.
Wait!
I see a spec in the distance, a shadowy spec that might have some mass. A tangible thing. Maybe I can touch it. Maybe I can even talk to it, listen to it. Damn my species for its need to companionship. I crave it more than water, another soul I can connect with. I don’t know if it’s moving, or if it’s even alive. But it looks like it’s going forward. Towards me. It sees me and I see it, and I’ve never felt so loved. The empty ocean and sky are ruthless, the world I cannot feel laughs at me. Or maybe I laugh at myself, unable to feel, unable to move, unable to survive.
No, I must. For my spec, I must.
The sun doesn’t move, but my spec does. It grows bigger, more detailed, and I can see it is the outline of a boat, a rowboat. It reminds me of Hemingway, though less romantic. Romantic or realistic? Fuck I’m wasting paper. I’ll save some space for my spec to writing in. We’ll outshine Hemingway with our boats, and Keats with our imagery, and maybe Spec has a waterproof journal of its own and we can write plays and poems until the sun sets. And if the sun never sets, we can laugh at our own standup routines and stories, joy cemented in our journals.
Spec draws forward. He is a man, weather beaten and leathered by the sun. He was once beautiful, still is, but the lines in his face tell a story of pain, of fighting. He is not gaunt, but lean, strong, capable. His rowboat is filled with fish, fresh and glistening in the eternal evening sun. They follow his boat, glints of silver flowing around him. He sinks one hand in the water and offers it to me. It’s succulent and sweet, the best tasting thing I’ve ever eaten. I ask him about his potential journal, and he shows me a thick wad of discolored paper. Waterproof, wrinkled, filled with chicken scratch writing, thoughts, songs, memories of his humanity. I ask to read it, and he shows me select pages, windows into emotions that I forgot I also possess.
We attach our boats, but I am heading towards to sun, and Spec is travelling away from it. Though our boats float in place, in equilibrium, we are content. I am content. He writes a poem in my journal and I read it aloud to him. Spec laughs at the funny part, and cries at the sad one as if he had never heard it before. He says he just wanted to see my interpretation of it in my performance, his words from my eyes. I blush, or maybe I’m just sunburnt.
I write him a story about two fish, swimming in circles in a small fishbowl, continuously forgetting that they are in captivity and then discovering again and again. He says it needs a new ending, but I’ve never been good at writing fulfilling finale. I put a pin in it.
The sun doesn’t move and neither do we. We eat raw fish, and drink endless water for Spec’s canteen. He teaches me how to grab my own fish, and though I tried for hours (maybe days) I finally got one. We share it and I cry. I draw pictures of him in his journal, the contour of his chin, his arms. He says I’m making him look too attracting and I laugh knowing he is wrong.
At one point, Spec tells me he is restless, and deep down I am too. A part of me wants to go with him, he even asks me to. Go away from the frozen sun, to where? More of the same horizon? More unknown. If we go our opposite ways, will we meet again, or is this the opportunity? If I let Spec go, will I ever have him again? Or is that selfish to want to have someone. It doesn’t matter, hypotheticals waste paper.
Spec wants to move and tells me I’m too passive. I don’t disagree. He asks me to come with him again, this time with a sad glint in his eyes knowing that I’m too frozen by the uncertainties. Would I sacrifice a potential happiness filled with unknowns for a certainty of loneliness? Maybe. My indecisiveness irritates Spec. He says it doesn’t, but I can tell in the way he holds me that resentment is growing. He looks to the horizon, and is gone. He hasn’t moved, but I can’t feel him anymore, and I know I’ve made a mistake but it’s too late and I must face my choice. It is now reality. We both know this. I say I’m sorry, and write a letter in his journal, but words or just words, wasted space in a journal that should be used to create, not try to mend. I try anyway, and he says it’s okay, even though we both know it’s not, and that is we do meet again in the middle of ocean, it will never be the same.
He unties his boat from mine, and rows away from the sun. I watch him grow smaller, less detailed, so distant. His warmth fades into a stinging memory, a thought, an intangible concept. I watch Spec morph into a spec of what he was to me, into the nothingness that came before him. For a moment, I want to follow. Many moments actually. But instead, I sigh, no food, no water, no love, but I must find a way. I see a familiar glint beneath me, and without think snatch the small fish, surprised I caught it without someone else to impress. Well, I impressed myself. That’s pretty cool.
I throw the fish into my kayak and it flops against my feet. I’ll save it for tomorrow, whatever that may be. I pick up my paddle and resume my monotonous motions, travelling towards the unmoving sun. For a split second I think it has moved, for the light has developed a twinge of red and gold. I will not know for a while, but I smile. No landmarks, no clouds, only the ripple of my boat against the water. Yet, I am moving forward. I know that now. And maybe Spec and I will meet again, and it’ll be better to have changed, to be different. Or maybe the sun is still frozen, and I’ll keep following it, toiling to achieve something that doesn’t exist. But I guess there’s no point in thinking pondering. I don’t want to waste paper.