See

CW: Death, hallucination, starvation and thirst, animal violence

The man in the ocean gazed into the Sun. Salt caked his blistered flesh. His lips were cracked and scabbed. He had stopped counting how many days he had been drifting when the jar of fresh water had run out. It seemed pointless by then. Only the fleeting mercies of the rain would save him now.

Food was not an issue; every once in a while, a fish would flop onto the remnants of his raft. Or a seabird expecting an easy meal might stray too close. He would seize the animal in his hands and rip a chunk of flesh from it. He had no tools to clean the corpse, no fire to cook the meat. And so he wouldn't even bother killing it before he began to eat it. He would simply tear at it with his teeth, and the splash of blood on his lips as it thrashed would feel like water. Like milk from the Mother.

The ocean was full of food. But even though it was made of water, he was dying of thirst. It was a cruel joke. He would have done anything the Gods demanded of him for just one more sip of fresh, clean water. In his desperation, he had cupped his hands and drank from the Ocean. But doing so made him feel sick. Delirious. The salt was killing him, one mouthful at a time.

More than the water, though, he longed for the sound of another voice. It was the silence that hurt the most. Any voice at all would have succored him. Kept him sane. Even if it had come from the lips of his worst enemy. Yet it was her voice he longed for most. But she was dead. She had been sucked into the whirlpool that had killed his fellow voyagers. And there was the next cruel joke: why had he been spared? Why did the gods want to tear everything away from him and leave him to die? Why did they leave him to this fate all alone? At least death had been quick for the others.

Just then, a storm bird landed on his raft. He did not move. Not even his eyes. He had been watching it in the air for a while. The animal was exhausted. It was a long way from land, and places for it to rest in the vast expanse were sparse. It would have kept flying if it could. But hunger and weariness outweighed caution.

He stayed still as it investigated him. It plucked at his leg, curious. When he still didn't move, it hopped closer to him. There it paused for a moment, still deciding if he would make an acceptable meal. An inquisitive caw came from its beak. The man heard it rustle its feathers. He waited for it to draw closer. Just a little bit closer. He did not want to waste what remained of his precious energy. If he moved too early or too slow, his prey would take to the skies once more.

The bird hopped closer again. Then, mustering all of his reserves, the man suddenly grabbed for it. He moved swiftly, like a sprung trap. His hand closed around the storm bird's neck, and he pulled it to him. The animal fought. Its wings flapped furiously. Its talons scrabbled. It almost wriggled away, but he got his other hand on it and managed to bring it to his teeth. He tore into the belly, ignoring the feathers. He had become an animal himself, and he lapped at the blood that flowed as though it was the sweetest nectar. With a final squeeze, he snapped the bird's neck. The animal let out its last strangled cry, and the struggle stopped there.

He chewed through the tough skin. Feathers and down stuck to his lips. The meat was sinewy and stringy, and it carried the taste of the fish that the bird survived on. As his teeth punctured the innards, a shot of bile went down his throat. He gagged, as much from the physical sensation as from the psychological: somewhere, deep in his mind, he heard an almost-familiar voice warning him against the taboo of killing these birds. They were omens. Messengers from the world of spirits.

But his body was dying, and he could not worry about his spirit. May the gods and the ancestors forgive me, he thought. If they listened, though, they were silent. He spit his reservations out with the torn plumage. Survival was all that he could worry about now.

When he had eaten as much as he could, he cast the corpse aside. Blood dripped into the sea. At the same moment, a strong gust of wind rippled across the water, and a cloud obscured the sun. He dared not thank the gods for this brief mercy. He was tainted. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to slip into unconsciousness.

When he awoke, it was dark. Rain fell on him from the heavens. He scrambled for his water jar, making sure it was upright. Every possible droplet had to be collected. Saved. Then he laid back down and opened his mouth. The water spattered and danced on his bloody lips. It delighted his parched tongue like the kisses of a lover once lost. It washed away the salt caked on his flesh.

The rain was gentle. Storms at sea could be violent and terrifying. Many lives had been lost to the ocean. He remembered the prayers and the ceremony in his village before the voyage had begun. Perhaps this stillness was a result of that. Or perhaps the gods simply wanted to prolong his suffering.

A single tear rolled from his eye, and it quickly merged with the rain. He was thinking about the life he had left behind. His family, his village, his home. The friends he'd lost on this voyage. He could still see the face of the woman he loved as the waters yanked her from the boat and into the churning spiral.

Hush, my love.

Though these waters are strange and you are far from home, you are not alone.

He sat up quickly. The voice sounded like her. But there was no one who could have spoken it. He was alone on the raft, despite the claim made by the voice. Images rose in his mind, like fish from the depths of the sea. Climbing, splashing on the surface, then diving back down. He felt as though oceanic madness was overtaking him. He was floating on the raft. But he was also watching himself flow backwards through time. Watching from the perspective of a bird, flying overhead and surveying his life.

He took a small swig from the jar and laid his head back down. The rain began to fall harder. He tried to close his eyes, but the beauty of the clouds would not let him. He let the water fall upon him, washing away his regrets and his pain. Some small part of him, raised in the village on the island, still feared the storm. He knew well what would happen when the storm was too great. But the heavens had hypnotized him.

The salt in your blood is our salt.

We are yours and you are ours.

We do not venture the seas alone.

Again, the voice. This time it spoke in a multitude: her voice was but one of many, all of the voyagers speaking to him at once. He did not lift his head again. He knew that no one would be there. Instead he watched the clouds: swirling and blackening, majestic in their fury.

Your arms are weary.

You need not hold so tight now. Release.

Release and be free.

Now the voice took on the aspect of the tribal matriarch. He could see every wrinkle in her ancient face. He could feel her words wrapping around him as she chanted the sacred verses. The falling rain stung his flesh like the points of the tattooist's comb, rhythmic and precise. It felt like his flesh--the boundary between him and the world outside--was being pierced and torn. He felt his blood flow out and the world flow in. Her words were like a numbing balm to his scarred flesh. The ritual marked him. On his flesh was written the story of the universe and of his people. Both of those energies converged in the emergence of the new man.

As the storm grew more fierce, so did the ocean. It was as if the Mother herself were affronted by his presence. His refusal to die. Waves swelled and crashed, tossing him and the raft casually. But to the dying man, the waves were a comfort. He let the past submerge him, dragging him to a faraway time and place, where he was a small child in his mother's arms. She rocked him and sang to him while she wiped his forehead with a cool rag. He remembered being afraid but knowing that nothing would happen to him while she held him. It was a place of primal innocence and vulnerability, and he had never felt so safe. So protected.

Salt in the blood, salt in the womb.

You are brine. You are tide.

The words pulled him deeper into himself. Into memory. He looked to the heavens, but the clouds were gone. He could only see his mother's face. Through her eyes, an unbroken chain of ancestors, all the way back to the First Man, looked at him with love. Through her lips came a song passed down through every generation. There was no judgment or scorn in their voices. There was only love. That love expressed itself in every gesture and every syllable and guided him through the haze of fever.

Let all that clings to flesh, melt. You are water. You are home.

And so he let the flesh and its concerns melt. He let the rain and the waves wash everything away. His shame, his regret, his fear: everything rinsed off like so much salt. Nameless, blameless, he released his hold on the raft and let the ocean take him home. Into the waiting arms of his Mother.

The waters swallowed him whole. Every trace of him was gone. Only the meager raft he had clung to remained. He was a child of the ocean, and he had returned to the Mother's embrace. As if it had been waiting for this moment, the storm came to an end and the waves stilled.

Far in the distance, on an island his people had not yet discovered, a mountain awoke from its slumber. Black smoke poured from it, and with a violent eruption that sounded like the end of this world, the hot lifeblood of the earth began to flow. Chunks of stone and rivers of fire rained down. Birds of every color flew from their trees in rainbow panic. Small reptiles scurried for safety, and all the fish nearby swam far, far away. Plants ignited and burned. Ash covered everything, even the wind, and it spread as if it would smother the earth.

There were no human beings to mourn the loss of life. No songs to eulogize the cataclysm. Yet the fires of the earth care not for mourning nor eulogy. The hidden pains and pressures of the Goddess move as She wills them.

Life remains, though none of its individual forms may. Some are lost in water, and some in fire. But the water that drowns, nourishes. And the ashes of one day become the fertile soil of the next.

These upheavals are the engine that drives creation. Even the hottest molten stone will cool, and a new island will emerge. This is how it's always been, and this is how it always will be. Creation and destruction are written in the stars.