By Shari Hooke
The ocean carries the days away slowly. Paying tithes to the wind, the ship is carried wave by wave towards horizons unknown to me. The long hours drag, and the boredom is almost as wretched as the pain. No end in sight; the ocean is vaster than the sky.
I have a small porthole in my cell. The glass capping it is warped, glazed with sea salt and barnacle spawn. From this small portal, I can see equal parts ocean and sky. Sometimes the waves crest so high, my cell becomes dark, and I see for a moment the infinite blackness of the deep sea. Other times, the ship sits high on the swell, and I can see broad sky and clouds hazing into infinity. At those times, I paw at the glass, wondering if I should smash it just to feel the wind on my face and my feathers. I do not think my captors would repair the glass — I have no desire to spend the rest of this voyage mouldering in abrasive seawater.
Today, I can see the vessel has entered one of those strange periods, where, for uncountable stretches of time, the sea and the sky are the same colour and there is no line between them. The water is still, silent. The ship languishes on deadest air, and I can hear the men engage the oars. We are not moving.
The world outside my porthole feels changed in these strange hours. It is as though the place I am from, and the one the humans have pulled me in to, have at last kissed and become one. I feel as though — if only I could get outside — the mist would heal my broken bones, and I would spread my broad wings and leap from the gunwale. Forever disappear into that blurred world. I would never come back here. No humans would see me again. Yet, here I am, lost in a different way, and the ocean carries the days away so very slowly.
About the Author
Shari is an Australian speculative fiction writer working across science fiction, fantasy and weird fiction.
Her work explores identity, longing, discovery, liminality, transformation, and the experience of otherness through atmospheric, character-driven narratives.
She seeks to write stories that are both strange and deeply human.
Tara Campbell is an award-winning writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse, and graduate of American University's MFA in Creative Writing.
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