Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean
You are completely alone.
At the bottom of the monster ocean.
Walking across a floor of solid, polished marble.
You are so very alone.
As your brightly illuminated body treks across this unfamiliar ground.
At the bottom of the ocean.
You are easily breathing in water.
Into your lungs, into your human flesh.
The oxygen in the water separates in your lungs at a terrifying pace.
You like it.
You come to terms with the fact that you still live.
However, you don’t want to think about why you are still alive.
You really don’t want to think about anything.
But that proves to be impossible, at the bottom of
this particular monster ocean.
You just know something is watching you.
You feel pressure.
But it’s not from the monster ocean.
Or the monster that is in the ocean with you.
It’s from the wonder that is exploding out of your ears and dripping down your neck.
It’s cold. You’ve finally realized how cold it is.
You admit to no one in particular that you don’t understand.
You admit to no one in particular that you’ve never felt so pure in your life.
You feel lethargy take hold of you.
Your hair is swirling up and over your head.
It strangles you a bit
You’re almost eating it.
It’s more deadly then the water around you.
The monster ocean around you.
But you already decided that you almost love it here.
You don’t want to go home.
Not Yet.
You walk faster now.
Without warning, your body goes stiff
You feel the skin under your feet being pulled away from the marble.
Your hands are pinned to your sides, and you are speeding towards the surface like a speeding bullet.
You see the light of the sun through the water cheering for you, yelling out encouraging comments and beckoning you into its warmth and love!
Beckoning you to grilled hamburgers and jewellery, a day by the heated pool in your backyard, to your never-ending need for new and expensive material goods, back to gluttony, back to taking and never giving, to being loved but hating everyone around you, to being spoon-fed every single thing you’ve ever known, to feeling proud and thankful that the society you live in judges by how much money you have and where you’re parents work, you know it’s the god-damn truth when you scream out that life beyond this monster ocean is a big deal!
At least you think you think it’s a big deal.
You think you’re a big deal.
Not.
You don’t end up breaking the surface.
You don’t even make a ripple in the water.
No one notices your limp, unconscious body slowly make its way down to the bottom of the monster ocean.
The days roll by, until you finally realize you are lying on your back, on a mound of sand.
Where did the marble go.
You are conscious now.
But; you feel uncomfortable.
You feel small objects underneath you, and they are digging into your naked flesh.
These objects.
Round.
You slowly sit up and rub your eyes.
--
You open your eyes, and you almost cry out when your brain flips the image upside down.
You see, a sea of pearls.
Illuminated, for you alone to adore.
You are no longer shining bright; you are a shadow in a world of limitless treasure.
You take one in your hand. You fondle it because it’s beautiful
Loving it’s brilliant colour and feeling.
You kiss it, and pick up another, then another, and another.
You stand up and look around you, not being able to see where the pearls end.
You don’t notice that the brightly lit ocean bottom has a door embedded in it and wires running across it.
You are too happy about the pearls.
You smile.
You are so happy to be alive right now.
Your heart starts to beat faster, and you don’t notice the monster creep out of the door in the floor and make its way through the water.
You don’t notice it start to move in your direction.
You don’t hesitate as you start to gather the pearls,
faster and faster, at an inhuman speed.
You grab anything; a line of seaweed and you begin to thread the pearls.
You tightly knot the string of pearls around your neck.
You’re not letting any of these wealthy pieces get away.
The monster is eating you alive, but you don’t feel it ripping away your flesh with its teeth, eating your soul with its ragged fingernails.
All you can think of is going back to the beloved sun, going back home with all you’ve found at the bottom of this monster ocean.
You start shoving the pearls in your hair, between your legs and in your mouth,
To the top.
To a place where nothing is equal.
To a place where people will die without ever seeing pearls at all.
To a place where people hate those who happen to not have homes,
To a place where people fight over trees and fresh air.
To a place where people fear debt more then death!
You propel yourself upwards, you are grinning now, you wave in the darkness to the sea horses, you can’t see a thing, and you are ready to break surface now.
Goodbye monster ocean!
Goodbye!
Without warning, your body goes rigid.
You feel the torn, greedy skin under your feet being ripped away from your ankles this time.
Your hands are violently sown together with a needle and thread above your head,
and you are speeding towards the surface again, much faster then a bullet now,
so fast that all the skin peels off your body, and you finally begin to drown.
Your nose starts to bleed, you explode, and your bones never reach the surface.
The distraught pearls glimmer and sparkle, as they start to sink down to the ocean floor.
The monster plucks them from the water, and places them in their respective positions.
He puts another tally in the sand beside where the staged marble floor begins, and grins.
Everyone loves when things go exactly the way they’ve planned.
The monster slips back into the shadows;
and waits for its next victim.