THREE - ENGULFED

It was early on a winter’s morning when Terrance climbed over the railings that topped the sea wall at the end of Ida Street, scaling carefully down to the bed of moist sand far below. There was no-one there to see him, the coldness of the weather keeping most indoors and all as far as possible from the gusting sea breeze that cut like a knife of ice into the flesh, no matter how many layers of clothing had been piled on to keep a body warm. Terrance hadn’t worn much of anything to fend off the icy weather, just blue jeans, grey shirt and a black pullover. His one concession had been thick socks beneath his chunky boots, but there was a limit to what socks could do against the wet and the cold. He didn’t mind. He’d never much minded either the wet or the cold.

He took his time scrambling downwards, making sure his hands and feet didn’t slip on the mossy bricks that made up the wall. He had to be extra careful due to the clanking weight he carried, a thick black chain wrapped in loops about his torso. As he climbed down it occurred to him to wonder where the chain had come from. He’d gotten it from his shed, where it had been for as long as he could remember. Had some past occupant from an earlier generation purchased it for some purpose long forgotten? Or even further back, had some ancestor made it, forming the chain link by link through fire and hammer and anvil? It didn’t really matter of course, but it worried him faintly. Had it always been there, waiting for him, waiting secretly for this day all along? The black snake of destiny, coiled patiently as it awaited its moment to strike.

When his feet touched the soft sand at the base of the wall, they sank down into it, leaving cratered impressions as he stepped this way and that. Transitory marks soon to be washed away. Terrance found the metal circlet easily enough. He remembered the first time that he’d seen it, as a child riding his bicycle along the path, losing his balance and tumbling over the edge of the wall, landing heavily in the sand below. He’d looked back up to the top of the wall in shock, the world above suddenly seeming so far away. Then he’d noticed it, a circlet of rusted metal mounted to the base of the wall. It was probably an old anchoring point for boats, back when people used to hire them for weekend jaunts, rowing up and down, usually with a fishing line trailing over the side. Well, today it would be an anchor point again. The chain threaded easily through the circle, then wrapped around and around Terrance’s body. He left enough slack in it so it wasn’t uncomfortable, but not so much that he could escape its cold embrace. Once his work was done, he took out the padlock from his pocket and threaded it through the links of the chain, snapping it into place and pulling out the key from the base. There. Done. He sat down in the sand, his back against the wall, and turned his gaze outward to the sea.

As he gazed at the lapping waves of water beyond, he held the key firmly in his right hand. His grip was so tight that the metal pressed into his flesh, leaving the impression of its shape indented into his palm. So long as he held the key he could still turn back; it wasn’t yet too late. He held tight to that knowledge but tried not to dwell on it too much. Instead he focussed his attention on the water beyond. Its closest edge was only a few metres away from him, lapping gently at the tiny finger of yellow sand that lay between it and the old sea wall. Terrance watched silently as the tide slowly drew closer, and closer.

There was a beauty to the sea that few could deny, and certainly Terrance had never heard anyone try. The enormity of it compared to an individual human existence made gazing at it akin to staring at the stars, but unlike the stars you could stand at its very edge and touch it. You could dip your feet into its waves while staring at the endless expanse beyond, squinting toward that point on the horizon where the azure ocean below somehow merged with the cerulean skies above, forming one never-ending sea. As above, so below. Ever since he was a child Terrance had felt the magnetic pull of the ocean, had spent many hours standing aloft on beach dunes and cliff tops and rocky promontories, on shores and coastlines north and south. He breathed the sweet aroma of sea salt into his lungs and smiled as though it were the scent of baking bread, nourishing to the soul.

He still found it nourishing even now, especially now in some ways, even as he watched the waters lapping up over his feet. Over the sound of the rising waters he was alerted to a gull landing nearby as it gave off a plaintive call, feathers ruffling in the wind as it strutted cautiously towards him across the swiftly diminishing sand. It lingered next to him for a moment or two, meeting Terrance’s gaze, calling to mind many days of hot chips by the sea, casting the unwanted remnants toward a feeding frenzy of raucous birds. He had no food to give this day though and, finally drawing that conclusion on its own, the bird shook once then took flight. Terrance watched it for a while as it soared in the skies above, riding the currents of the air that were in their own way no less treacherous than those than lurked beneath the waves.

He’d had first-hand experience of those dangerous undercurrents as a teenager. Splashing in the ocean shallows, full of laughter, relishing the cool of the waters in contrast to the heat of that summer day long ago. He remembered the sudden shock when he’d noticed how far he’d drifted from the shore, disbelieving for a moment, as though it had happened to someone else, unable to reconcile the sudden jump cut from playful frolic to panicked fear. He’d fought the current and clawed his way back to shore, but the moment had stayed with him, something he recognised more and more as the years went by. That we all paddled on the edge of infinity, trespassing in that borderland between two worlds, never quite knowing when it would suddenly shift from one to the other.

There was a story about a family tragedy, mother and father buying their daughter a ballerina dress at Christmas. There they were, open fire filling the room with warmth, laughter on their lips as they exchanged gifts, the joy of seeing the small girl’s face light up as she tore back the wrapping and revealed the pink material beneath, her tiny heart’s desire made real. She dressed in it there and then and began to perform for her adoring parents. Imagine it, a moment, one seemingly of impossible perfection, recognised as such even while still in it, experiencing it as too good to be true, hoping that it would never end. Then the log shifted on the fire and a single spark sped out like a dying star, colliding with the flammable material of the young girl’s new ballerina dress. One second, she was spinning before her parents in a moment of pure happiness, the next she was a living Roman candle, all joy turned to horror. And the thing that Terrance always thought whenever he mused on that story, which he often did, was that there was nothing in between one moment and the next. The joy and the horror were not separated by anything at all. At any moment it could happen to anyone, anywhere. We were all of us dancing on the edge of a razor, and none of us knew the moment when we would slip and fall.

The waters had completely covered his legs by now, gentle waves lapping at his waist as he stared at the open palm of his hand and the key perched upon it. In his heart he had committed to this action long ago, the key was little more than a formality now. It was a symbol, the last link to a life he had no real intention of returning to. He closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, then opened them again. Without giving himself time to consider it as a conscious decision he swung his hand back, then swiftly forward, letting go of the key at the top of this short parabola. He watched it curve upward first, then change its mind and swoop down instead, landing plunk with a brief splash in the embrace of the waters, some distance from him. Terrance strained momentarily against the chain wrapped about him, testing its strength against his own. There was no shifting it and the key was gone; he was here to stay.

The waters seemed to flow in faster after that, each new wave striking higher and higher upon his chained body. First the waist, then the torso. Soon he felt the swell tugging at his body as each wave withdrew, then felt himself pushed back against the wall again, clanking in the deep as the waves crashed against the sea wall either side of his sagging shoulders. Like a lover eager to share a kiss, the waves pushed themselves higher, ever higher. Wild thoughts flooded Terrance’s mind as the brine embraced his body, leaving him no more than a disembodied head bobbing on the surface. Perhaps he could call for help. Someone might hear him. They could get some sort of saw or blade, extricating him from the chain before the waters closed above him. But they were only thoughts, panicked musings that he knew he would not act on. Terrance’s lips were tightly closed and he did not make a single sound as the waves crashed in once more and the dark waters embraced above his head.

Now that he was under the water a new sense of calm overcame Terrance. It was quiet here, peacefully so. Even the clanking of the chain as he moved caused no more than a dull vibration. One after another, a succession of solitary bubbles gently issued from his lips, the remaining air in his lungs spiralling upward to break on the surface above. Terrance did not follow their course however, his eyes were straining forward, peering through the murky waters toward the distant dark beyond. There was something there, hard to make out through the water’s distortion, something distant, making its way towards him.

She was still so young, the years unable to touch her, not down here in the silent world. Her blond hair looked black as it flowed around her fast swimming body, gliding effortlessly with speed and grace, swiftly spinning forward to rest in the soft sand in front of Terrance, the impact of her feet causing small clouds of sand to rise from the sea bed, spiralling briefly about her toes before settling once again. She looked at him seriously, a questioning gaze puzzling over his presence. There were things that Terrance wanted to say. He wanted to say that he loved her. He wanted to say that he missed her. He wanted to say that he was ready, ready to stay here in the depths, to hold her hand and swim with her into that unknown infinity beyond. But of course, there was no speaking in the silent world and Terrance had already expelled the last of the air from his lungs. So he just looked at her, smiling, knowing that she understood. She’d always understood him so well, without him ever needing to say a thing.

He hung in the water like that, gazing at her, tethered by the heavy chain coiled about him, lungs searing in pain as his vision started to burn red and black at the edges of sight. But she was clear to him, even through the water’s distortion, she was so very, very clear. She smiled and it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Then she opened the fist of her closed hand and revealed what she held there. The key that he had thrown away, salvaged from the deep. He tried to motion to her to stop, tried to tell her it was better this way, so long as she was with him. She could not speak, but she fixed him with her eyes, eyes with depths even deeper than the ocean itself. I am always with you, those eyes said, I always have been. I always will be. And she snapped the key into the lock and forced it to turn…

It was late on a winter’s evening when Terrance climbed up over the sea wall at the end of Ida Street, coughing and spluttering as he left the crashing ocean behind him, far below. When he reached the top he collapsed, lying there panting for some time, water pooling from his wet body to soak the ground around him in a vast desultory puddle. When finally, he caught his breath, he stood, sparing himself a moment to look back at the waters he had left behind. They would always be there, he knew that, but now it was time to go home. As he made his way back past the silent houses, he walked with a new strength to his stride; for when he had emerged from the waters, he had left all his chains behind…