Overboard

With my head tipped back, face to the sky, I kneel listening to the sounds of the rain hitting the deck. With my tongue out, I lap at the drops as they fall.

Water runs down my body, and I'm leaning so far back that only the front of my shirt gets wet. Heavy droplets soak through the fabric, sticking it to my skin. Breathing out a long, slow sigh, my eyelids twitch whenever a drop hits my face.

I'm trying not to think about the words STRANDED or ADRIFT or ALONE or COWARD.

Words that have come from another head. My mind, but not my mind.

The rain seems to have no source. The sky is blue and clear and bright, and the only traces of faint white clouds hover above the shoreline.

It looks so far away.

Far enough away that nobody would be able to hear if an engine was to fail or a radio was to break or a gunshot was used to silence a scream. Far enough away that there would be no crying for help no matter how loud, despite the volume and pitch being enough to make your ears pop and crackle. Far enough away that a lone boat could be the target of opportunistic piracy. No skull and crossbones, no cutlass, instead, only the capacity for violence against a solo sailor. A lone sailor in distress always gets Mother’s attention. She is a romantic at heart. It makes her feels like the old days.

Another long sigh. There are no birds to see. The only signs of life are on the land, and they are infrequent and distant.

The rain intensifies the smell of my shirt. It’s unfamiliar and alien. It’s someone else's hair or sweat; the smell of lubricating oil and metal and cigarettes. I consider changing, wanting to wash off the stink, but I am wet enough already.

It is time to go.

I should return.

The gentle rock of the waves makes my steps unsteady as I descend the stairs. My eyes throb as my pupils dilate. It is so much darker here.

Below deck, bloody footprints circle each other like dance steps. Heel toe, heel toe, pirouetting around the galley.

A red semi-circle has been scraped by the fat sole of a shoe. At the end of its dragged rainbow curve is a cabin. Fingers have slipped from door frames, all gripping and scraping and clawing, leaving marks and drops, slick and dark against the white and the wood.

There is a pile of torn denim and bloodied linen. They cover salt-worn skin cracked from the elements. Tangles of knees and elbows and hair and silence. A digital wristwatch with a metal band. A thumb bent against a bed frame.

The bodies have pulled the sheet from the bed and it wraps their heads like a shroud. One of their hands has swept photographs from the wall, and they guide to the mess like stars.

After closing the door, both the light and the bodies are hidden. My head and palms rest against the veneered surface, fingers vibrating as waves knock against the sides of the boat. Wet fabric weighs heavy on my chest and legs.

When my eyes open, the watery pool around my bare feet is inky and thin and spread wider than before.

There are footsteps above, skittering and slipping, skin squeaking against the wet plastic. He has returned from the water. Do not be afraid Brother.

The sounds stop where the light does.

A shadow extends. The form fractures into bars as it makes its way down the steps.

Hunkering down into the darkness, squeezing in, I hide beside furniture. Behind the open steps, crouched down low, my legs fold against my wet chest and blood-warm fabric presses against my chin.

I have never met a Brother before.

Feet descend the wooden stairs. He is hissing and whispering, all of his skittering panic now in his voice. Saltwater wrinkled toes and brown, beaded anklets appear in the letterbox of light.

His feet are mine, only tanned.

His legs have scars, unlike mine.

Brother - not brother.

Each step shows more flesh, more hair, more twitching tendons. He has been in the world much longer than me. He has been exposed to more sun, more damage. Each step exposes more circular welts where skin used to be. Polka dots of purple, the colour of raw liver, wind upwards to the light, up over his legs, up towards his chest.

They are the kisses given to him by Mother's embrace.

Mother - not Mother.

A flash of an image seen from his eyes: a beach and a drink and a knee cut by a rock. Blood sinking into sand and a girl pouring water to wash away both. She shows him his reflection in a tiny mirror and he sees his lip bleeding too. My lip. She gives him her trinkets but nothing more. He has not seen her naked but thinks about it often. He likes the feel of the beads against his skin, knowing they have touched her too.

My fingers rub the spot on my face and feel nothing. An image of a memory I never lived.

His fingers grip the stairs now, head looking to the light, bruised knuckles so close to my face that I could lean in and taste the salt on them.

His head turns, looks directly at me, eyes wide like something is choking him, and he pushes away from the steps and lands on his back.

There is a delayed noise, the kind of droning sound a large land animal might make.

Red hoodie, darker in patches where his wet hair has soaked through, elbows mopping up the blood and water from the floor. His hands and feet struggle for traction as he scuttles backwards further into the light, away from his Brother - not Brother.

I am his size, I am his shape. I lack the tan and the scars and the sun-bleached hair. I lack what he's earned from experience.

Brother - not brother.

Born - not born.

Created in his image. Born without scars. Born from the same Mother who embraced him only a short time ago.

Not Mother - not born.

A flash of an image seen through Mother's eyes: a circle of light, a splash, and a thrashing of legs. Bad noises above.

Mother understands.

A tentative touch, difficult given the movement, skin meeting skin as Mother reaches around his legs and up his shorts and under his shirt and over his belly. She pulls, her tendrils keeping kisses against his flesh, and brings him to her.

To safety.

She holds him close, despite the thrashing limbs and the bubbles and the gurgling. The Depths are no place for him but Mother will keep him safe. She wants me to solve the problem above. She wants me to take his form, the retribution should be his, after all.

She is kind.

She is fair.

She only wants the best for him. He is her child now too. A child of the sea, of the Depths. He has drank from her and she from him. She keeps him safe in the water while I protect the land.

Unfurled from her flesh like a yawn I am born into a beautiful facsimile.

I am a good Brother - not Brother. I will see to it that he is protected.

Now he is back, faster than anyone I have saved before. I have never met a Brother.

I'm trying not to think about his words STRANDED or ADRIFT or ALONE or COWARD.

I have taken care of his problem.

I am here to help.