Issue Three

JUDITH DORE
I don’t even hold my breath as I plunge
into the water, an impulse that amuses
me even as my lungs protest. Bubbles
tickle my face and waist, welcome and
cleansing.
My shoulders lose their tension as I
reach forward, towards the shore,
towards where Brett is supposed to
be. I’ve never had good technique, but
the water assists me in pulling forward,
away from the cat, my hair like a
medusa halo, sensual along my
propelling body.
When I need to surface for air, I realize
that Adam has followed me. He
splashes like an injured seal. I can’t
judge how close he is, but I want
distance between us, so I duck beneath
the surface and kick my feet.
The tide is definitely coming in. I feel it
both pushing and pulling me, the
undertow growing, giving me less
control. It feels different than the ocean
of my youth.
I let my mind drift, feeling the flow of the
water, letting it tell me how to move. I
think about how clam diggers sought
holes in the sand, how I never caught a
single one, thwarted by their ability to
scoot away just as I caught a glimpse of
their ridged shells. How my sister and I
would run screaming from stranded
horseshoe crabs, and of our reverence
for marooned starfish.
One summer, I'd tried to make an
aquarium of found snails and hermit
crabs, only to have them stink of death a
few days later. I didn't really know what
to do with my acquisitions. My mother
took me to the library, and I read all the
books, but none helped me really
understand what food they needed, or
how I could get it. The kind of water that
they needed to survive. I tried table salt
and hot dogs.
Embarrassed by my failure, too
ashamed to show my dad how badly I’d
cared for my pets, I left their carcasses
out in the front yard for the birds. When
even the birds refused to eat them, I put
their sad little bodies in the creek behind
our house, hoping that they would find
life somehow, there downstream,
outside my bad influence. I was a silly
creature, even then.
I ended up using the empty fish tank for
my punk-haired Barbie to swim in. My
mother bought me inflatable doll
furniture, not the good kind that was
made by Mattel but some ugly knock-off
she found at a Kmart going out of
business sale. I kind of hated her for it,
but in the end I made good. Barbie had
hermit crab shells for pets.