Adrift

Cheryl Ferguson Bernini

It is in the hands of nature and fate that I arrive. The sun is full and brilliant. Its heat passes into the depths of the water and warms me. I’ve returned to a familiar place that transforms with every season.

I cannot be certain what exactly is being altered; but I know it, I can feel it. I’ve lost a scale or two on more than one occasion. The river’s mouth opens before us, but our arrival is untimely and we must wait until the tide turns to assist us once again. Water carries not only vitality but destruction.

Objects. These relentless things. Although I am only a small fish, I understand. There is something not quite right. An avalanche of discarded bottles and wrap and plastic waste gradually descends. This false earth is overtaking the river.

Stress. Distress. I spin, only to find myself one against thousands. Pushing, thrusting, fins and tails pummel my body. I force myself ever forward, towards the sea. The swells part before me, and I venture into deeper waters.

I am lost. Alone. I begin my reluctant odyssey. A sound travels, washes over me. Without warning, ensnared and unable to swim, I rise. My body flips and jerks; I gasp for breath. Grabbing my tail and lifting me from his net, I am now eye to eye with the fisherman. He exclaims that I am just too little. I am tossed back to the depths.

With luck on my side, I press on. Strange sensations fill me. I attempt to plow through the water and debris, but my body is a burden. My fins are consumed and calcified. Birds hover above, scrutinizing the tide for their next morsel. I fear being discovered. It is quite uncustomary when the feathered predator chooses not to attack; the blunted determination is a peculiarity in the day’s hunt. An oily bacterial sludge covers the sea like a second skin. Something pecks the water and returns to flight.

Ahead of me, a flotilla of sea turtles performs their ethereal dance among the plankton. Observing. Examining. I ponder the strange forms before me. A plastic cape rides the back of one, while another wears a shiny, transparent collar of rings. Another is nearly cinched in two.

The waters now fade from a heavenly turquoise to blueblack. The once polychromatic reef, teeming with life, has now diminished to an alabaster white. Desolate. Above me is a canopy, but not of seaweed and kelp. In their place are plastic bottles, floating and undulating at the surface, obscuring the sun. The water is feverish.

I surrender. It is both a beginning and an end. Succumbing, I am finally altered. I lose my memories. I eternally wander to nowhere.

On this day, I find myself ensnared in an underwater trap. The faint recollection of a previous encounter escapes me. The fisherman yanks and tugs. I observe him, his face, his mannerisms, as he pulls me, jerking and heaving, from the web of nylon line. I finally begin to understand. He is becoming just like me.