Story a Day

She dove down deeper into the ocean. Even though her lungs were already almost bursting, she wriggled her whole body to propel herself down even deeper. Then she went deeper still. The sea was black and impossibly cold. She came to a fissure in the sea’s floor. 

Don’t go in, a voice told her. Or do, but first go up and get some air. Maybe it was the voice of her mother, still offering sensible advice even after her daughter was grown up. Maybe it was the voice of her lover, who she’d always assumed was telepathic but just keeping it from her, contacting her from the surface,  anxiously waiting in some skiff or cruise liner, wringing his hands, finally choosing this moment to share his gift, regretting holding back for so long.

She decided not to listen. She swam to the opening in the seafloor. This wasn’t because of the witch’s advice, although it was compliant.

“Don’t look back,” the pretty witch had said, her topaz eyes and amber hair both blazing. “Just keep going forward, whether you find yourself on a mountain or under the sea. It’s the only way you’ll find your father. You do want to find him, don’t you?”

And she had repeated obediently to the witch, “Don’t look back. Got it.” Secretly, she had told herself that if she decided to turn back, not meeting her father wouldn’t be that huge a loss. Even now, she swam to the fissure on the ocean floor not out of daughterly duty but from sheer curiosity. It was a long way to the surface; once she got there, she wouldn’t have the energy to swim down all this way again. Surely she had time for a glimpse.

The fissure shone with a golden light. She swam into the light and found herself in a cave. The cave was lined with thousands of luminescent anemones, red and green and mauve and turquoise. But the brightest light of all came from a shining, golden stingray. It was as big as a bedsheet.

“You can’t breathe down here,” the stingray said to her. “Quick, climb on my back.”

And then it was carrying her upward through the fissure. Soon—when she thought she couldn’t hold her breath a second longer—they were breaking through the surface.

“What was someone like you doing so deep in the sea?” asked the stingray. Its voice was like a marble bathtub with golden taps.

“A witch told me that to find out who my father is, I would have to keep going forward. Then she took me on her broomstick to this part of the sea, and she pushed me off. When I found myself sinking, I knew I had to keep going down.”

“Well, if I take you somewhere, won’t that be forward?”

“Yeah, I guess. If you decide where and take me straight there.”

“Since you’ll drown if you stay here, let me take you to the only place on the surface I know.” And then the stingray was flying through the air, and she was clinging to its slippery, still-shining back, They landed at a cluster of rocks on a grassy precipice. Tiny blue flowers dotted the crevices between rocks.

“I’ll leave you here. Goodbye.” It made a flapping noise as it rose, and then it went back down to the sea.

Now she wanted to rest. The grass looked so springy and dry, so inviting. Even the mossy rocks looked good for a nap. But she knew that to stop for a snooze would be no more acceptable than turning back. She would be OK with giving up, when the time came. But it wasn’t time yet.

She walked inland. She found a road.

Eventually, she came to a tavern. She went inside. The door was made of wet wood. A piece of it splintered off in her hand. A termite squirmed from the chunk she held, and she dropped the bug and the splinter on the ground.

“Can I help you?” said a woman, from behind the bar. She was beautiful, rough-skinned, and unmade-up. “My name’s Claire.”

“I guess I’m looking for my father. A witch sent me this direction, but I think I’m supposed to keep going down the road.”

“First let me give you some clothes.”

“I’m supposed to only go forward.  I can’t stop.”

“What if I told you a story while I was doin’ it?”

“I guess that would be more okay,” she said, unsure. How could she tell what was moving forward, and what was standing still? She hoped it would be a well-paced story; that seemed the best bet.

“When I was your age,” said Claire, leading her upstairs, “I had three lovers. One lived in town, one lived on a boat, and one lived in a lighthouse. I loved them all very much. It hurt all three of them that they had to share me. But whenever I tried to choose, I couldn’t do it. To solve my problem, I went to see a witch with yellow eyes.” Now Claire was giving her dry pants, underwear, a sweater, a screen to change behind. She thanked Claire and headed behind the screen to change. Claire nodded and began packing bread, soup, and beer into a knapsack as she talked.

Claire said, “The witch told me that to resolve my problem, I had to face east and walk a thousand miles. And I did it. I walked over fences and through backyards, waded through marshes, scaled cliffs. I always went due east. Part of me thought I could stop anytime. And yet, I didn’t. I went the whole thousand miles. I know because I wore a pedometer. I even went an extra hundred for good measure.”

Handing her the knapsack, Claire started heading back downstairs to the bar.

“What happened?”

“Well, I turned around and came home. And, while I was gone, my lover on the boat had drowned. My lover in the lighthouse had been murdered. My lover in the city had just disappeared. I looked for him for two years, and I still wonder if he’s out there somewhere.”

Opening the door for her, Claire said, “She solved my problem, but she also made it worse. Be careful taking the advice of witches.”

Warm and dry for the first time in hours, holding her package from Claire, she continued down the road. Day was breaking. She reached a fork; she could either continue on a highway, or turn into the woods. She turned into the woods.

Walking through the forest as the yellow light just began to kiss the trees, she thought she could do one more day, and then she would give up.

She had never met her father, anyway. He probably didn’t even want to see her. This was probably a lost cause.

She ate the bread and drank the soup as she walked, wishing Claire had given her food that was easier to eat while moving. The soup had chunks of tomato in it, and some kind of dried, chewy meat. She opened the bottle of beer and sipped it as she hiked through the forest. It was malty and sour.

She didn’t meet anyone for most of the day. Then, as the light started to wane, she saw a man sitting on a rock. It was the first man she’d seen since the witch had sent her on her journey. He was old enough to be her father. These both seemed to be good signs.

“Hi,” she said to maybe her father.

“Hi there,” maybe her father said.

“I’m supposed to be looking for my dad. Have you seen him?”

“What’s he look like?”

“I have no idea. Like me?”

“What did he ever do for you?”

“I don’t know. Made me.”

“Maybe he went that way,” said the man on the rock. “Good luck.”

Her heart sank. But she had to keep going.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Oh by the way,” he said, “I’m looking for my daughter. If you see her, would you send her this way?”

“Wait. Don’t you think that might be me?”

“I don’t think so. My daughter is probably beautiful, and smart.”

Ignoring the insult, she said, “‘Probably?’ Don’t you know her?”

“No. I’m looking for her for the first time now. But I can stop looking anytime. She probably doesn’t want me to find her. But a witch told me I had to sit on this rock, and she would come by.”

“It’s me. I know it’s me.”

“Yeah? Who’s your mom?”

“She’s a flight attendant. Her name is Fran.”

“Fran, Fran, Fran. Nope. Never did any flight attendants. Showgirls and singers and college girls and once a bank teller on her coffee break, but never a flight attendant. And no Frans. Sorry.”

“Fine. Good. I wouldn’t want to be related to you, anyway.”

“Goodbye, then,” said the man who wasn’t her father, indifferently.

She kept walking. Maybe he was a test. A test of her ability to follow directions. She had stopped thinking he was her father.

The forest turned into a valley, and then a canyon. Soon, she came to a tall brick wall. It was covered in slick moss. She couldn’t scale it; it was too slippery. And she couldn’t go around it—big cliffs met it at right angles on either side.

The truth was obvious. She could go no farther. This brick wall had to be her father.

“Excellent job,” said the witch. “For an extra grand, I’ll take you to your mother.”

“Isn’t my mother my mother?”

“No, dear. Do you think a human woman could have a child with a brick wall? No, your mother is a lake in South America.”

“Sure. OK, I’ll go,” she said.

She could stop at any time, after all.

image: Matthew Fang on flickr