Weightless

Stream fought against her. It would coil as it swelled, crashing and shattering against the sharp stone edges of a cliff. It would pull back just enough for the girl’s head to emerge. She wouldn’t panic. She would not dare hesitate to take a lungful of air. For minutes, she couldn’t let herself drown in a sea suffused with her tears. Her heart ached as another set of waves submerged her. The saltiness stung her swollen eyes. And she sunk. Deeper and deeper each time relentlessly. In the deep, with the brine flowing past her limbs, she found freedom infused with pain.

 Storm brewed above. Blues and greys all swirled up in a tragedy ready to weep. Xenia had never seen such wild sky. The girl threshed at the sea with her scrawny arms but to no avail. She wished Mimi taught her the ways of nature. Xenia pitied children whose stories were stuffed with deceit. Lies of peace between The Lands and its Mother. False tales of forests that were not watered with acid rain. Village myths of golden rays that shone through blue waters. Now decayed into rust-colored radiation.

 The girl choked on her own spit. Frantically looking for an escape.

This is it. I will never hear more village lies. If I let the waters take me, I shall never again bear the weight digging into my heart. Never again.

  Xenia resisted the urge to command her arms to stop. She fought against her wish to disappear under the sea’s heavy blankets. The voice that whispered naughty things, as Mimi liked to call them.

 “The worst thing you do is listen to your head child.” – she would say.

 Oh, how she would scoff her disappointment had she seen Xenia then. Panting like a wet dog in the summer. Taking a beating she put herself in. The look of grief would be imbedded in her soul forever. But she could not leave her. Xenia couldn’t abandon Mimi’s poems that sang like village’s birds in springtime. She couldn’t let them rot away in Mimi’s basement, collecting dust. She also knew she couldn’t return.

 Maybe life isn’t for everyone – she constantly recited inwardly – surely with all the lands and universes I’m worthless even if it is.

 She was submerged again. All naughty whispers knocked out of her. Her blood boiled in her veins. Xenia despised the words she fed herself with. Constant battle between what used to sound right and wrong. Mimi often told her village tales of a redhead girl who couldn’t stifle the naughty whispers. They would sit by the firepit right outside their little cottage until the fire died. Mimi would tell her about a girl who let her brain wander. Tales claimed Lora as an evil spirit. A widow whose husband had fallen for The Lands in war. After her husband was killed, Lora’s mind corrupted with whispers. They clouded her judgement, making her hunt fish and poison the waters of The Lands. Mimi would say she was the reason why all lands couldn’t survive off the Waters anymore. Why they had to survive off land animals and herbs.

 Am I going mad like Lora? Am I bound to become a killer with no one and nothing to keep me sane?

 Mimi would know. She knew everything. If she was alive, perhaps she would have stopped her from jumping. Perhaps she would have taken her silky hand in her own wrinkly one. Maybe even hugged her for the first time. She would wear her famous frown that shooed away children who foolishly woke her up from a nap. Xenia was sure she would have dragged her back to the poor village. Where she would put on her uniform and a badge that hurt like a stab wound.

 Thunder cracked the sky open in half. The brightness blinding. More like a whip of light that lashed across the darkness. As if Lora herself answered her cries. And amongst the chaos, Xenia hysterically looked for – anything. Until a flame caught her attention along the cliffside. Her heart pounded in her ears furiously and on verge of explosion. She knew she had to push through it. Lest she listen to her evil whispers.

  Thrusting forward, Xenia paddled toward the light, cutting water like she’d seen village kids do in the summer. They played on the east side of their island where the water remained drinkable. Elders would come and whine and beat them with sticks until they left. Xenia liked to laugh at the scenery, never thinking there would be a day she didn’t.

  Huge rocks sat between her and coastline, but at least she was close enough to feel stabs of tiny stones beneath her feet. She gasped and panted, clutching at her chest. Her vision blurred and the world tilted. Closer and closer she went to the light.

 Little more – she reminded herself.

  Her brain was buzzing with extreme pressure. The pressure she realized never really went away. She had to concentrate on every step she took toward – what she now noticed – a beach. Every step, her heart pumped harder. Every step, she heard Mimi’s curses and praises. Every step, the buzzing in her head worsened.

 Before she finally collapsed on the scraps of prickly sand. Xenia huffed out a breath she did not know she was holding. Rolling on to her back, she gripped bloody her ankle and sighed.

  Lora’s Waters wouldn’t let her survive that night. With poison flowing through her body, she only then grasped at the idea. Maybe that was her plan all along. Maybe she even felt satisfied. But she couldn’t feel guilt anymore. What good was guilt when she was going to die? So she laid there on her back, staring out at the sky. Storm had cleared. And it left a trail of shining stars that seemed to be smiling down at her.

  And so she smiled back. Relieved.

Before she shut down. For the first time in her life… weightless.