Serenades for Drowning
F.E. Holland
Our island wasn’t there.
I think we knew it wouldn’t be there long before we admitted it. The waves are really high, that’s all, soon we’ll see the cliffs and hear the sea birds calling us to land. But we’re from the island, we grew up on the water, we know how it works. My father would take me out on his boat almost every day. You’d stand on the docks, holding the doll your mother made you by braiding dried kelp together. And I’d lean over the edge, bring up the weights, and watch you watching me.
“You know,” you said when the coordinates matched those of the schoolhouse, I was still straining my neck to the north, trying to convince myself that somehow the computers were wrong and at any moment our home would appear in the distance. “I think the rumors are real.”
Before Leto gave birth to her twins on Delos, the island would roam free, move across the Aegean never bound to the rocks of the Earth. The story would float around festivals, the school yard, under the covers of sleepovers. Delos was cursed to become a tourist destination, where people would take pictures of the reconstructed stone lions and the rubble of the temple of Artemis. But islands must roam. So, ours moved for her, staying in one spot until all has been seen, then moving on to the next, repeating its cycle until the end of time.
As children of the island, never stepping on solid ground, only seeing the waves and the passing ships, slightly farther than the horizon, we never had a reason to believe it. Or rather, we never had a reason to think of it. The island moves but it never changed the view. The sun would still set on the west when the moon would rise on the east.
“Yeah,” I said, finally looking away from the ocean, and back at you. Your hair was pulled back in a scarf, a strand was loose, the wind pulling it across your face. I leaned forward, the boat rocking with the movement, and tucked the hair behind your ear. “I think you’re right.”
You acted first, you always did. When that boy in grade school kicked the stray dog that ran onto the turf, interrupting our football game, while I stood there and screamed, telling him not to hurt it. It was you who went to him, slapping him across the face, then ran to get the teacher. When we were teenagers, while I would blush whenever I thought of you, and my stutter that I haven’t had for years would come back when I tried to talk to you, it was you who grabbed the collar of my coat during that horrid rainstorm and kissed me. And when we were trapped on that boat, while I was rechecking the instruments, and tapping the compass, and going over the map again and again, it was you who made me move to the front of the boat, and it was you who sat next to the motor and directed us to move west.
“What are you doing?” The boat had picked up speed and I had to yell at you, putting a hand on the top of my head, holding my hat down like the women in the perfume ads in the old magazines your mother would show us.
“The closest island is a few days this way.” You were wearing your white dress, the hem covered with stains from all the times you would grab my hand and we would run into the break until we fell, and we would swim until the stars were out, still fully clothed in the linen dresses our grandmothers would make us for every birthday.
We sat in silence for a few hours, you quietly steering us away from where our home once was, me checking the maps and the horizon, ignoring the fact the waves were getting higher, the fact the sky was getting darker, and the fact that we were coming back from a picnic. But eventually I couldn’t ignore it any longer, so I said it first.
“We don’t have enough water.”
“We should meet another boat soon.” You didn’t look at me when you said it though. You kissed my eyelids once and told me that you can’t look at someone when you lie to them, and you couldn’t bear the thought of having to look away from me.
Our island prides herself on where she chooses to move. A place where islands are, but where no one will see her. Who would notice one more island around hundreds of others, and so who would go to it? Isolated yet surrounded by others.
I stood up, rocking the boat and you instantly shut off the motor to stop us from flipping over. The wind brought my skirt up and it looked like an umbrella.
“We don’t have enough water for both of us.”
“Then don’t waste it by talking.” You still wouldn’t look at me and I couldn’t look away. The sun was behind me, its last rays hitting your face and reflecting off the gold line I drew across your face that morning. You were glowing.
“That won’t help.” I said and took off my hat, my hair instantly flying all over the place. You looked at me then, squinting at me, like you wanted to be mad but can’t. “Do you remember that story our mothers would tell us when teaching us to swim?”
“Stop it.” You stood up when you said it, the boat groaned, and we had to bend our knees and spread our arms out to stop ourselves from falling over.
“About those lost from the island. All but one would make it back. No matter where the island went, all but one would make it back, with just enough water.”
“Stop it.”
“Keep going, okay? Don’t stop and don’t look back.”
You didn’t respond, just kept staring at me, while I leaned forward and put my hat on your head. I grabbed your hand and you let me, but didn’t hold it back, just stayed limp.
I didn’t try to kiss you and you didn’t try to kiss me. You just stood there staring at me as I let go of your hand and as I carefully stepped back to the edge, grabbing one of the weights from the side, tying it around my waist.
“I love you.”
The water was cold, and the waves covered my face.
And I began to sink.
And I watched your blurry outline stand at the end and watch.
And I watched your blurry outline disappear.
And I watched the boat start to move and bubbles from the motor take over my vision.
And when the bubbles were gone it was too dark and I was too deep to see you.
And I kept sinking.
And I kept thinking of you.
And you will go off and find the island, somehow, no matter how far away.
And you will kiss my father on the cheek.
And you will cry for me.
And you will burn a fire for me on the shore every year.
And when my bones are crushed by the waves and become the sand in which your grandchildren make castles which hold their dreams, honey, I will be there, I will wait for you, on our island which has no home.
F.E. Holland
Findley Eve Holland is a Canadian writer living in Maryland with a Master's in Professional Writing from Towson University. She is currently working on a memoir as well as a novel. When not writing, you can find her reading, working out, travelling, or playing with her cat.