Keep Art Alive :: “Deep Sea” :: Art by Sarah Joncas

“I’ve kissed mermaids,
rode the El Nino,
walked the sand with the crustaceans,
could find my way to Mariana,
on a wave of mutilation.”

The waves cut across each side of her, a riptide that took her breath and caused the flashing lights of near gone to dance inside her eyelids. At first she fought against the water, flailing erratically, her mouth open wide enough to silently scream, but instead it was the salt and sea that she was swallowing whole. Her head filled with echoes and a reverberating buzz, like static, like disconnection. Might as well sink, she thought, might as well open my hands and let go.

Letting go brought the light, the ice cold numb that coated all pain, and all of her worries turned into the ebb of the tides. Nothing left now except to float free. The colors came alive around her, new life combing out the tangles in her hair, renaming her, redefining the world for her. She was the stuff of fantasy tales, of parental promises when she was too young to see through deceit, she was some kind of undersea happily ever after.

Would she save a drowning sailor from a near fatal shipwreck? Would she learn to translate the patterns of sea turtles and manta rays? Would she ever return to the atmosphere above, as a spirit, a sprite, a soul afloat in the sky? Or would she stay here, a soaked and sunken treasure, another lover lost at sea?

Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf) :: Pixies