Chapter Text
There is light pointing down through the tree branches. It stabs into the water, glaring harshly in its brightness and illumination. It puts on display the dust and spores, the algae and tadpoles, abovewater and below. A stage, presented. Ready for the first act.
Do you know where the term ‘steal my thunder’ comes from? A man wrote an average play that was discontinued, using thunder in a scene. And then after, the theatre held Hamlet. The thunder-maker from the first play was reused for Hamlet, and naturally, the playwright confronted the theatre. That is when this phrase was born.
The thunder here is not stolen, is not false despite it coming later. It drums out through the vast spaces between trees, leaves ringing in sensitive ears, shakes down to bones. It rattles the foundation of things, curls around your heart and squeezes.
It is generally accepted and known not to be in the water during a thunderstorm. This is because all the little particles in the water conduct electricity- not the water itself, but the other things within it. Sometimes, yes, the living things. Crawling and squirming, smaller than the naked eye can see and perhaps even smaller still. Collaborative in nature, as most living things are. This storm was no better a one to be submerged in.
Does a fish have a choice, to stay in the rumbling water?
The water is cold. It is ice cubes in a summer drink, the chill running down your spine when you realize you have failed. And the lightning, it snaps and crackles, it enlightens for one harsh, fiery second.
The bayou is not aflame. But it is burning.
It burns with movement, flurries and frozen faces, flying and fleeing and fighting to escape. It burns with fear. It burns with terror. The winds have never been so forceful here in living memory before, and it is too late to find shelter if you did not already have it, fortified and defended.
Scene two, enter. How familiar are you with mold? The kind that grows in your bathtub corners, in the handles of decorative water spouts, in long-forgotten Gatorade bottles. Have you seen it before? Why did it have a chance to grow? It wasn’t intentional, no. Mold grows where it is let, where nothing interrupts it. Stagnancy begets it, beckons to it. That is where it flourishes, in mosquito soup ponds and in seen but forgotten places. It makes things fuzzier than they were before.
There is a specific dull ache that burrows into your bones and makes you wish that the pain were sharp, were because of jaws locked through your muscles and tendons, because then you could at least do something about it, then you could see the problem. Instead, with this ache, all you are left with is the feeling that something is wrong with no way at all to fix it.
The storm continues on. Things, unseen, have bent and broken.
If the tree doesn’t split at the lightning strike, if it instead burns from the inside, is that any less dangerous? If the tree turns hollow and looks the same, offers you the comfort of an illusion, isn’t that still pain in waiting?
Isn’t that just another in a line of comforting lies we tell ourselves? Lies said without thinking or realizing, lies just melded into our reality like another piece of paper mache. Not seamless. But integrated all the same.
David Marmalade was not planning to stay in the bayou long.
Most Freshwater Sirens lived in them, true. The algae and the high water, the crocodiles and the birds and the food- all made fitting conditions for a School of sirens. There wasn’t any shortage of people around either. But to David, something in the way the algae crawled made his whiskers tremble. Something in the brush of hard wood underwater in his nest made his fins flare in distress. There was something waiting underneath his skin for these moments, some small part that recognized why he felt that way- something that felt distinctly Not Him, much as he knew all that was under his skin was ultimately him. Technically, him.
Storms were no fun to endure outside needlessly. There were times when he could poke his head above water, feel the pin needles of rain in harsh cold wind, all the sensation and exhilaration of centipedes running across his face but infinitely more enjoyable and less gross. This was always done with the knowledge that he had a home to retreat to, though, of course. A safe haven. Why poke the bear when you were cornered? Perhaps something about taking charge of your own fate. But, no, David wasn’t the type to poke the bear. This was recognized.
It was dark. Illuminated only shortly by the strike of thunder and lightning, David was curled up inside his nest, woven together from the roots of the tree overhead. The water was tumultuous; shaking and dirty and clogging, barely comfortable but still more homely than the land outside. He curled one paw into the mud below, carving it into an undefined shape. It was still becoming what it would be, still being formed.
The crack of thunder close by led to his paw snapping closed, squishing the mud into scattered parts, no longer one but many and all the more undefinable because of it. Darkness wasn’t something that often scared him, as he always had the Humlights to illuminate the world around him, but there was something about not knowing that nestled itself at the base of his skull, curling like the tightest of scarves in discomfort.
His gaze turned to the entryway to his nest, still open and clear, waterflow coming in and out with the ebb and flow of the storm. It branched off into two directions after a few feet, two escape routes in case one was cut off.
He was still safe. As safe as he could be, fur standing on end and tingly in fear. David scratched at the harsh bark of the roots, tail twitching and whiskers flicking as he tried to calm himself down without scratching at his face. He’d gone to the trouble of trimming his claws recently, no need to undo that effort by relapsing.
Another crack sounded out overhead, clearer in the vibration in the water than in open air. He looked to the nest’s entryway again- still clear, still open as ever. Neither of the exits had been closed off. He let out a breath he had felt like a string through his gills.
He felt the next thud through the mud first.
It shook his little cavern, his home, leaving him rolling in the force of the water suddenly stopped up. Blinking past the sediment around him, his gaze went immediately towards the entranceway, watching the way the water moved.
Or rather, how it didn’t.
Both of the exits had been stopped up. He froze, eyes locked on the mud, caved in and carved, layered and the only tunnel left one far too small to leave through. Enough to get him oxygen, but not enough to move. To escape.
The numbness started in his legs and arms, travelling up until it muffled his brain. Panic, sudden and cold, freezing his muscles into going limp- and he slowly drifted down to the floor of his nest, gazing, watching.
“G-d, how am I going to get out of this.” His voice is quiet, small.
He is faced with the sudden realization that he may, in fact, not get out of this at all.
The water is still. Outside, the world is not. But in moments of panic, such a fortified area- a place of refuge, a temporary home- has so easily become a tomb. David’s whiskers twitch in the water, watching the particles in the water drift along. They move on their own rhythm, unconcerned with the outside world.
Algae, mold, slime, something sodden and delighting in the wonderful biome of this now enclosed world. This jarrarium, lid shut tight, created with enough for microbes to feast upon and macrobes to feel claustrophobia in.
David had never been scared of enclosed spaces before. They almost seemed to bring a measure of comfort, at times- buried under piles of blankets, under torn moss and oily feathers from waterfowl.
But, in this enclosed space, time passed.
The storm passed by, overhead.
And David could not see any of it. The entrance was collapsed; unpassable. The outside had no clue he was here. There was no help coming.
The only thing left to do was to watch mold grow.
It grew slowly.
Solitary confinement is often considered torture. It causes damage to a person’s psyche. Scratches, worried away at, tiny holes worn into the cloth of someone’s mental health. Is anybody out there?
The mold grew a bit more.
There are many theories about why aliens have not contacted humanity if they exist. Fermi’s paradox is a name for the contradiction between the lack of communication with aliens and the high likelihood of their existence. Is there anything beyond this solitary world?
The mold grew a bit more.
David watched as two larvae squiggled through the water. They danced.
The mold grew a bit more.
It was a bit like watching an improv dance by kindergarteners. They don’t quite get the theory, but sure, they have the spirit. They want to move and dance, but clumsy, don’t exactly know how. The larvae keep moving, unaware of their audience.
The mold grew a bit more.
David sneezed. The action leaves more floating in the water than expected. Dissipated pieces of some fuzzy thing drift along; the only instigators of motion being David and the bugs.
The mold grew a bit more.
And a bit more.
He could see the colors of it now. Green, white, black, orange, pink, blue; many colors, bright, toxic, warnings. What colors were these? Green, white, black, orange, pink, blue. They color the entirety of the underside of the tree roots, cover the entirety of the nest; stained glass reflections through what is surely a small hole, recently made.
David looks up. He sees the wide clear blue sky; the tree has long-collapsed, fallen over. Perhaps if he had looked just a bit sooner, he’d have seen the jagged edges- teeth from his prison, from whatever tried to devour him; but now, there are only the soft lumps of these edges remaining. Toothless. Decayed. Plaque- mold- tearing out whatever sharp things threaten him.
“Oh,” David says.
Much like his vision, his thoughts have grown fuzzy, distanced. Slow. But persistent.
“I’m out.”
Curtains close.