Perlas

Thirsty.

It was three in the morning and Perlas was thirsty. 

She got up from the narrow bed in her rented apartment, the covers sticking to the sweat-soaked clothes on her back. Her hair was drenched too, a consequence of the midsummer heat that had become unbearable seemingly overnight. Manila could be chilly from the northeast winds one day and sweltering the next.

She crossed the ten steps to her refrigerator and yanked it open. She was not sure what she expected but was aghast to find she had just one bottle of water left. She snatched the bottle up and drank it all at once, feeling a momentary calm from the cold settling into her stomach. She sat back down on the bed and turned the fan towards her face. That’s when she noticed the rashes.

All over her body were red bumps the size of peas. She held up a mirror to her face and saw the bumps there too, prominently on her cheeks, turning her fair skin into a battlefield. She scratched at her arms and they began to itch. She pulled out a box from underneath her bed and rummaged around for some Canesten. The small tube would not be enough to cover all the bumps but it would work for her face at least. Until she figured out what to do. She looked at the time again on her phone and opened her email.

“Dear Vivian, sorry I can’t come to work today, feeling under the weather. Hope it’s not too late to find a replacement for my shift. Back soon. Thanks, Perlas.”

She threw the phone back on the bed and took several deep breaths. The curly hair that fell to her waist was now sticking to her skin with sweat. She drew it back with a scarf and tied it in place. Swallowing painfully, she realized she would not last long without more water. She pulled on a jacket and made her way out of the building and down to the nearby 7-11.

The store was empty save for a couple of crew members and one old man sitting at a table eating a bowl of tuna rice. She winced. The smell of tuna always made her nauseous. Trying to ignore the man, she grabbed two gallons of water and dragged them to the cashier. But the thirst was unbearable. She sprinted to the refrigerators and popped open a bottle of water before paying for it. Then, noticing the fried chicken in the glass case on top of the counter, she ordered five to eat throughout the day. She didn’t think she would have the energy to go out again.

Getting the gallons back to her apartment was a chore and took longer than expected. Her legs felt heavier by the minute. Once she closed the door behind her she collapsed on her bed, which was still damp from her sweating on it all night. Her phone lit up, and a notification indicated Vivian replied.

“Perlas, sorry to hear that, and on a field trip day too! I know how much you like showing the kids our bubbly friends! Feel better soon! Best, Viv.”

Despite the itch on her body and the thirst in her throat she chuckled at Vivian’s joke. She definitely took her job at the local aqua park seriously. Five years ago, she hired Perlas to assist with the interactive tours, saying she had a natural aptitude for it. Perlas enjoyed the giant tanks best; the sharks were friendlier than most people realized. But now she wondered if the rash could be coming from the tank water.

She checked her reflection again and found the rash had crept up towards her ears. It was, however, no longer made up of raised bumps but flush with her skin. Her face was smooth to the touch but redder than before. She didn’t know if she was imagining it, but her eyes seemed duller too. She decided to drink more water, and, failing to think of anything to get rid of the rash, drifted off into uncomfortable sleep.

It was high noon when she woke up again. For a moment she forgot what day it was and what she was doing in bed. Then she remembered and scrambled for the mirror. In the bright light, she could see the skin on her face flaking away. She rubbed at it with her hands, sending up a cloud of dead skin into the still air of the room. She looked at her arms more closely and thought she saw a pattern, but she could not quite make it out yet.

Water.

If she could drown herself in the glass she would. She drank more, but felt panic setting in. Her head was becoming cloudy with a strange fever. She hoisted herself off the bed and opened her only window. It looked out onto the Pasig River, a long stretch of grayish water dotted with clumps of water hyacinths bisecting the city. The current was calm and there was hardly anyone on its banks. The water mesmerized her, endless ripples drifting out to sea.

Despite the heaviness in her legs, it was only a short walk to the riverbank. On any other day, it would have been pleasant to sit by the concrete balustrade railing of the river, but the pounding in her head made it difficult to see. She watched the water hyacinths being swept aside by a passing ferry. Years ago, the river was piled high with trash and its smell became notorious throughout the city. Ironically, that’s when she first emerged from it.

It was a summer day much like this one. She grew up in temperate waters bordered by sharp rocks, a cove hidden from view of passing boats. The weather was calmer than in other parts of the sea, but she had grown weary of it. And there were only a dozen of them left in the cove. There was nothing to do and nobody to keep her there.

But she could not emerge on the nearest shore, for the people would immediately recognize her for what she was. Her kind had attempted it before. Even though they had the same limbs, their hands and feet were webbed when in the water. Their faces were a little narrower, their eyes a little larger, their noses a little flatter. And though their scales and webbed hands and feet faded away the longer they spent on land, the people of the village knew. And they were always beaten back to the sea. If she wanted to leave, she would need to go far. And so, one day, when the sun was shining playfully, she stopped swimming.

For a length of time she could not name, she let the ocean take her wherever it wanted. She rested on rocky outcrops wherever she found them, eating the fowl and seagrass that was plentiful in those parts. On occasion, she ate things that crawled too, but they didn’t settle well. She lived a period of aimlessness until a boat caught her fancy. It was remarkable for how small it seemed in the ocean. It was made of the same trees the village people used for their boats, and for a moment she worried she had gone in a circle. But they spoke a different language. They laughed a different way too. She followed them through the night until they went ashore. Then she followed the shoreline for some time until she found what she had been looking for: a current to take her inland.

She was not as comfortable in those waters, and as the banks became thicker with smells and sounds she could only travel at night. She did not know what the things that floated in the water were. She could not eat them. Colorful bits of them stuck to her hair and turned her stomach when she opened her mouth. She found herself getting more and more tangled in the strange things. Birds that made unfamiliar sounds picked at the water around her, usually coming up with nothing. During a new moon, she found a low bank, and crawled up.

She found an empty shanty on the riverside and kind people who helped her get her wits about her. They thought she had lost her memory and her name was not one they could pronounce. They gave her a new one -- Perlas, for the bracelet of pearls she wore around her left wrist, threaded through strands of her own hair. She did not have many skills the people on the banks found useful except, of course, for the way she could swim.

That was five years ago. Now the water was pulling her back. She had not listened to its soft, lilting voice in a long time, but the closer she came, the better she understood. It was singing a warning of the tides. A reminder that all must flow back, one way or another. The red rash on her skin was fading to gray and becoming more clearly what she already knew they were. She took off her shoes and felt the ground with her feet. A single tear fell from her right eye, impossibly round and glistening white.

When she left the cove she told no one. She sometimes wondered what they thought happened to her. There were many ways to die whether on land or sea. They must have looked for her bones in the scattering of sand and stone and wept pearls into the water when they found nothing. She did not know if or how the tides would carry a prodigal daughter back. The sea is not known for accepting apologies.

It was almost night when she gathered enough strength to head back to her apartment. The moon was already visible in the cloudless sky, only a sliver of it left dark, a waxing gibbous. She reached her room and clambered into the bathtub. She twisted the tap and sat on the rim while watching it fill up. When it was half full, Perlas settled into the bathtub. She let the cold water wash over the tingling scales on her legs. When the water reached her neck she felt the skin at the back of her ears flapping.

She would have to call in sick another day.