Let Her Call
Even in the wreckage, the ocean keeps what it loves.
The waves roll incessantly, flashes of lightning splay out in the dark sky like crooked hands from God reaching out to rescue my crew from the merciless Atlantic. Their red flares, nothing but a firework show for help to a nonexistent receiver.
“Captain, no one’s coming!” they cry out, voices hopeless and wrapped in cold.
They’re mistaken. Someone already came—the water gave her to us. Beneath the sea foam and the splintered masts jutting like ribs from the ocean is a siren bearing my late mother’s face.
Reality or hallucination? I couldn’t tell. It was said that she had drowned here too, and yet she calls for me. Her voice shrill, like the high-pitched note that the church organ couldn't sustain for more than a second.
Was this what they meant? When they said the ocean keeps what it loves?
Her arms spread out into an embrace, beckoning me over, tempting me. Bless you, Mother. The ocean is an orphan, and it has seen the love in your heart and kept you as its own.
I swam away, far from myth and closer to the cries of my drowning reality.
Let her call, a voice in my head whispers. Let her call…
Let her call…
Let her call…