A Family Among Us

Four of them, a family, crawled naked from the sea clutching plastic suitcases. Like a brass section in an orchestra they drew breath into their lungs for the first time in days, months, years, decades. They were ageless, the mother and father, boy and girl. Slowly, the gills on their necks flattened and disappeared into skin, leaving only faint watermarks that suggested long forgotten scars or birthmarks. It hurt at first, their lungs rising and falling, rising and falling.

The decision to leave the sea was permanent, a unanimous vote to abandon the fuselage that had been their home, for how many years they could not count. On shore, among the smooth rocks and wet driftwood, they dressed. They stood on uncertain legs. Out of the water their arms seemed to move too fast, cutting through the air without resistance. For the first time the children heard waves crashing, birds overhead, and felt the warmth of the sun on their bare skin. A multitude of smells swirled about the children, and they smiled, and dripped dry for the first time in memory.

The mother helped her daughter fasten a training bra, and select a matching outfit from her suitcase. The father showed his boy how to button a shirt, how to be precise with his small hands and fingers so that he could make bunny ears with the shoelaces. Their clothes came from the 1970s and suggested disco, roller skates, horizontal stripes, primary colors, and brown corduroy. They had been underwater for some time, and emerged like lost luggage from a downed PAN-AM flight.

It was days, maybe weeks, before they spoke. They stayed in the forest, close to the shoreline. They returned to the water for food, and took turns gathering wood a short distance from camp. At night they huddled by a fire where they taught themselves coordination, and dredged their minds for language, parts of speech, agreement. The father cleared his voice over and over, as if to ease his chords into waking life. The mother started to hum, suggesting a beautiful voice, light and airy. For years they had been underwater, using only eye movement and waterlogged facial expressions to suggest emotion or directions. The family had created shorthand in the fluid world of the sea and was trying to begin anew on land.

Nightfall was easier on the eyes and soothing to their souls. The murkiness of the woods at night made them feel at home. Muted sounds, animals crying in the distance comforted them. Sunrise was startling, a brutal start to each morning. The clarity of daytime was difficult to comprehend, and the waking hours meant work of all kinds, collective re-schooling on everything that they had left behind when they fell from the air those many years ago into the sea.

This new life wasn’t as easy as the father and mother thought it would be. The boy had nightmares, and would scream in his sleep, scared of arboreal silhouettes and their vertical push skyward. Gravity provided no comfort, and weighed on them all. The daughter was the first to refuse her clothes. First her bra, then her pants, and within the week she was naked and running from the woods to the water as soon as she was allowed. She refused to speak, and used only her eyes to communicate. The boy followed suit. The water was fun, effortless, and before long he too was naked, emerging from the water reluctantly at the end of the day with pruned pale skin.

But the children could no longer dive deep enough, or stay under water long enough, and returned to the surface gulping for air. Their heads were dizzy and bodies fatigued from fighting the water. They fought their lungs to the point of exhaustion. Every day the children made it their goal to stay under water for longer than they had the previous day. The boy and girl held on to each other so they could sink lower, where the water was dark, and still they would have to scramble to the surface in a panic for air. In time the girl could stay under water for eight minutes, the boy for five, and together they thought eventually they would be able to hold their breath forever.

The mother and father didn’t know what to do. They were now able to talk about things, but the words came slowly. Those many months ago when they retrieved their suitcases from long forgotten compartments, and swam nervously to the surface, to shore, they never envisioned this. They were made for dry land, made for the openness of the countryside and the buzz of cities and cafes. By now they should have made their way into a city, where the transition would continue. They had so many dreams for the children.

And then, one night, the children didn’t return to camp. The father called for them; his strengthening voice carried through the woods and came back in an echo. He and his wife walked a well-worn path to the seashore. The light was just fading and the surface of the water seemed to ripple into an unending horizon. The sun was hanging low, and then it was gone.

Dusk remained. The father had to squint, but he was the first to see them. He let out a scream as loud and strong as any in his lifetime. His wife buried her head in his chest and started to whimper, light and airy. The boy and girl were floating on the surface of the water, not ten yards away. Their pale naked bodies bobbed in the water, their arms tangled together, as if one form. The water became dark and the night sky was black and cloudless.

The father swam to the boy and the girl. He returned their bodies to shore. For hours the mother kneeled beside them and hugged them and cried over them. When she was done the father carried the boy and girl into the woods and buried them in the soft earth at the base of the tallest tree in the forest.

When the father returned to the shore his wife was naked. Her clothes were gathered about her feet, and she glanced toward the sea. She again began to whimper. They held each other until the moon was high overhead. Without a word the father removed his clothes, one article at a time. Together they entered the sea, and swam until their lungs burned, and within the hour their heads bobbed out of sight. Where they went under only a slight ripple remained. They held on to each other, and sunk deeper and deeper, until everything was dark and their thoughts of land were no more.