Imagine

 

The sun emits a radiant glow off the surface of the water. It is setting now and it almost blinds me as I walk slowly towards the vast ocean. The depths of the water are deeper than anyone can even imagine. Imagine a world beyond the sea, image in a world for you and me. Imagine a world where we are free, imagine a world without boundary.

I chant the words in my mind as I edge closer and closer to the sparkling water. It is August. It is time. I feel the grains of sand slip through my toes. I feel the heat on the soles of my feet. The sun has almost set; the reflection on the water getting slowly duller. I close my eyes, and the image remains emblazoned on the back of my lids. Almost completely still clear blue water. Sparkling white from the light of the sun. The sun slowly disappearing behind the water’s edge.

The water lightly splashes my ankles. It is a luke warm temperature, and feels soothing as it slowly rises and falls with the tide. The hem of my long skirt touches the water and I can feel it sag with the weight. It soaks up the ocean’s tears like a sponge.

I am half submerged now. Even with my eyes closed I can imagine what I look like. A girl of about seventeen with waist length brown hair, fully clothed yet entering the water. My hands run through the surface, disrupting the calm and making little ringlets that flow forever outwards, away from me.

I keep walking. Deeper, deeper. Down, down, down, to the deepest depths of the ocean. My feet are still stepping on the drenched sand, the sand that’s become like mud from its exposure to liquid. My hair is billowing around my face; I can feel it flying in all directions. I finally open my eyes.

I am in the water. I am at the bottom of the ocean. My clothes sway around me along with my hair. I do not need to breathe. I turn my head slowly to find a merman lurking behind the seaweed.

I smile at him and he smiles back. He swims over to me and lightly touches his hand to my shoulder. Sing to me. I say in my mind. Merman sings – sings a most beautiful song with the most wondrous voice. And I feel my legs and feet go numb and tingly.

I throw my head back from the sensation and wait for it to subside. When it finally does, I lift my head up and look down at myself. Ahh.

I lie back and my flippers twitch before me. They flap up and down and make intricate patterns – the vibrations causing mini-waves.

This is what happened in August of 2008…I got pulled into a whole new world…

~

Imagine a world beyond the sea, image in a world for you and me. Imagine a world where we are free, imagine a world without boundary.

I sit on a small smooth rock. My flipper-tail dances in front of me. I sigh and lean back to rest my head on the cliff I know is standing behind me. The cool wet stone feels nice on the back of my head.

My hair dances before me. It has grown in the past two months. It almost reaches where my knees would have been should I still be human.

Merman is somewhere in this world – somewhere in this infinite space of water. I don’t know where he is but he sings to me from afar.

The water seems to carry his voice, seems to flow elegantly with each note he emits. The ripples seem to dance to his rhythm and embrace his sound. Conform to the words he formulates.

I don’t know who merman is, but then again, I don’t know who I am either. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know anything. All I know is merman sings to me, from wherever he is. From wherever he went after that day I met him at the end of August. Merman is my only hope.

~

Imagine a world beyond the sea, image in a world for you and me. Imagine a world where we are free, imagine a world without boundary.

Without a boundary. I would like that. It is December now and the surface of this never ending span of water is frozen. I must keep to the bottom of the ocean floor to refrain from freezing.

The higher I try to go, the thicker this clear blue liquid becomes. Until it’s not clear blue liquid anymore, but solid white ice. It is impenetrable.

I swim away; I swim in search of merman. Merman knows, I know he knows. My tail sways furiously as it pumps water away from me, propelling me forward. I breathe and puffy white cloudy air forms in front of me, in the water.

I swim on. I swim on forever. I get more and more tired, but I swim on anyway. I swim for days. I soon become immune to the exhaustion and the change in temperature. Sometimes I swim closer to the surface, sometimes I swim closer to the floor.

Sometimes I stop and stare off into the distance. All I can see is blue, blue, blue. Dark blue in all directions. Sometimes a small fragment of green seaweed. Sometimes a small pink fungus. A speck of colour here, a speck of colour there. And then blue vastness. Different shades of blue depending on the depth.

Look up and it’s light blue. Swim up closer to the surface, and find white. It’s freezing up there.

I swim a few more days until I stumble upon an underwater forest.

My eyes grow wide in shock as they rest on gorgeous green seaweed – seaweed that must be ten feet long. Big pink and purple fungi plants growing on the surface of rocks. Millions of underwater plant life that I had never seen before – had no idea what it was.

I swam closer and began to run my fingers through the seaweed. There was a bright yellow and orange plant that looked like the sun setting – like the sun was setting in the water rather than on the surface.

There was nothing to give this version of the sun a reflection. What was it going to reflect off of when it was already submerged in the mirror water? But it was beautiful nonetheless.

You like my collection?

I spun around to find merman smiling at me.

Yes.

Merman swam over to me. I know. He sang rather than spoke.

I know you know.

Merman wrapped his arms around me. I entwined my fingers in his.

Imagine a world beyond the sea, image in a world for you and me. Imagine a world where we are free, imagine a world without boundary.

It was a song. Merman was singing it to me, right now, right there. As we floated an inch above the floor of the ocean, our bodies caressing each other.

Someday we’ll be part of that world.

I nodded in agreement with merman’s statement. After all, merman was my only hope, I was in a whole new world, and I knew that someday we would be part of that world…