Abigail Mandlin
Water begets water begets water begets water.
Out of water: man. Out of man: more men. Out of the birthing fluid, into the oxygen not yet mixed with hydrogen.
The water calls; the water calls; the water calls.
The waves crash upon the shore, beseeching, “Join me. Surround yourself with me. Drown. Breathe—struggle to breathe, then embrace me more. Swallow me down; replace the cells in your body with the particles of my being.
Bloat. Swell. Absorb me like a sponge. Take notice of the human-shaped void in my waters and fill it to the brim. Sink, then let me devour. Sink, then let me feast.
Reanimate my reefs. Stoke my seaweed into a frenzy. Let my coral once again grow flush—choked—with life.”
Life for life for life for life.
It is not cold; it is inviting. You will not die; you will be reborn.
“You’ve killed me,” the ocean garbles—struggles, then swallows. “You have killed me, you are killing me, you will. Your will has superseded my own. I once ruled this earth, covered every corner and crevice. My waters were inhospitable; the only creatures that could survive lived deep within my depths, where light could not penetrate. They—the marauders, the intruders—hid from my wrathful eye: my typhoon, my hurricane, my storm. You crawled from the womb of my underbelly onto the rocky shores, replacing the salt in your gills with deceitful air.
You’ve rejected me. You’ve cast away your birthright, for rocks and plants and molten fire. You shun my waters for a hot coal, smoldering in your palm. And what has it brought you, truly, if not disease and starvation and cold, lonely nights? You deny me once, twice, again and again.
But you need me. You need me more than you know—on an instinctual level, a microscopic one.
Subterranean.
Precambrian.
Do not forget that seventy percent of your body belongs to me; seventy percent of you is susceptible to my siren’s call. You need to choke down eight cups of me a day to merely maintain homeostasis; you need to kiss me breathless eight times, to remain breathing yourself.
This is a gift—and a curse. Because every gift has an expense, a barrier to entry, a price of admission. Every beach has a body count; every river, a favorite victim.”
Water to land; land to man; man to water.
A thousand-year sleep awaits you, should you accept it. After all, the ocean is owed its dues. Its anger is not hot but cool—as icebergs are, moving at a glacial pace. It does not make snap judgments; it bides its time.
It waited seven million years for you, after all.
It can spare a moment more.
CLAMOR 