What the Night took from the Shore [ENG505]
Great waves lap against vibrant stones of charcoal black and sea-foam blue. They crash against jagged stones, arranged haphazardly like fresh teeth in a child’s mouth, and scatter lazily over the beach. Did some old God, wondered Coral-in-Crimson, watching the tide from her place beneath the water’s surface, place weapons of earth in this mud, to fend against the hubris of men? Did the deep think, and in thinking, understood, that demons of the land will one day come to devour our seas? Questions, but no answers. Not yet.
Coral’s tail, a mighty copper appendage reminiscent of what the fishermen on their barges would call ‘shrimp,’ shivered from the cold emanating from the water. Each ligament twitched invariably, like an eel hunting crab, and sent the krill surrounding her scrambling for cover. This was not her home, though she wished it to be. The Demons on the Barges had seen to it that she had no home — not anymore. In their hunger, in their greed, they tore her home asunder and made ashes of kelp and weeds, reefs and their seeds. Her cousins, those with beautiful, long tails like freshwater salmon, were all but extinct. No man-made myths about their beauty and beguiling presence would grace new tomes. Only Coral’s kind remained.
Coral hugged her carapace-laden form, the webbing between splayed-out fingers gingerly closing in over a wound, her otherwise beautiful face contorting into a grimace to evade the wracking sob of pain that burned out through her nervous system. Blood, carbon blue, stretched out from the open tear like factory smoke, before spreading out in delicate patterns. She watched her blood give its farewell. She did not blame it for leaving her; this was not their home, and it felt this as well, as strongly as she did. It would return to the hive-nests of her kind, but she would not. This beach would be a new home, one where she was safe and could live in harmony with the creatures of the sand and slop.
The wind and tide had chosen to recede. Seagulls cried out in the distance. Coral-in-Crimson rose up out of the water, breaking through the surface. A pillar of noise and fury rose from the depths. Minnows and other infinitesimal creatures that lived between the ripples were scattered, tossed aside by the strength of her desire. Coral breathed deep, letting the breeze dance through her nostrils and sigh through the cracks in her carapace. Scales clicked as droplets fell through the grooves. She forced herself to refrain from touching the red sores that stood out against the darker hue of her body, covering her from the abdomen to the crest of her tail.
Home. Home at last.
Coral ran her hands over her face. She arranged her long mop of tendril hair over one shoulder, watching the scene with warm eyes. Then she looked down from the distant beach, drifting from harbor trees to wet sand stained with the spray of the burbling waves. Her smile turned to ashes.
All around her was a collection of death. This expanse of color did not seem dangerous at first — they were so small, so harmless. Cylindrical bowls, broken pieces of toys, what could they possibly do to a beast such as her? But they were legion. An unceasing tide of plastic and polystyrene foam hellbent on poisoning her people. Even now, she realized that this rough mess of human waste extended far down in the depths from which she had come. She had missed it all, imagining it to be fellow denizens of the sea, instead of the virus that it truly was.
Coral began to laugh. The sound was harsh and cruel, like musical dreams murdered in their sleep. It reverberated with the refuse on the surface of the water. It drifted across large tracts of ocean, arriving at the coast. It danced through the litter on the beach, where it hollowed out and died.
She laughed until she cried, and the sea wept with her.
