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“ Return in peace to the ocean my love,
I too am part of that ocean, my love, we are not so much separated. ”
— Walt Whitman
John Bridgens had a routine.
As the night began to show the signs of relenting to day, John rose from his bed and stretched the sleep from his muscles. The trek from the beachouse to the sea felt longer each day, at least to John Bridgen’s aging knees and tired feet. But still he carried on, waking up early in the morning, pulling a book from the shelf and into his satchel, and setting off before the sun fully rose so that he could watch the hues of the sky shift from deep gray to red to gray again as the dawn gave way to cloudy daybreak.
Leaving the lively, populated cities for the desolate coastline he now called home was easy, inevitable even. He had no family, no lovers, no lingering companions that tethered him to the boroughs of his youth and the ports of his seaman days, and so, like the twin swallows alight on his shoulders, he was free. Free to carve a niche for himself in the little home amongst the wind-beaten rocks and salt sea breeze. He was content. At least, this is what he told himself as he ambled past the beached seaweed and driftwood, strewn across the beach like dark skeletons.
On his usual outcrop, where the shore faced East and he could get a clear view of the blurred sun, he found another gift.
Today it was half of an abalone shell, which shone metallic purple and green and blue in a pattern not unlike the swirl of milk in his black tea, back when he had easy access to fresh milk for his tea. John admired it, thumbing at the smooth pearlescent interior, made sparkling by the fine scattering of sea spray. He then put it in his coat pocket. Every day when John came to his spot to read, he found little things like this: a small shell or shark’s tooth or a coral fragment, even once a squid’s beak, arranged deliberately on the edge of his rock. When it was time to return for dinner, John would come back with the gift in tow, and add it to the many others that lined his window sills and cabinets. Something in John found it sacrilegious to consider throwing even one away.
He didn’t bother to make sense of it, in the manner of a man who had seen too many things he couldn’t make sense of.
John opened his book and read aloud, to himself and the sea, a lonely man’s work. The ocean was his companion and lover and his friend for all of the life it had given to him in his many years, and she cared for him now: his solitary audience, a vast ear turned to his lips. So he took off his shoes like Moses before the burning bush, and he sat down with his legs dangling over the edge of the rock, bare feet skimming above the tide. Today he read Robinson Crusoe —for that is what happened to slip from his shelf into his fingers on this day— and the waves crashed against the rocks in tandem with his voice, urging him to continue the story.
He had gotten to Crusoe’s Island of Despair when John happened to look down from his book, feeling the same tickle that a hunter gets when he feels the eyes of a mountain lion on his back. Inexplicably, he found a young man had apparated below him, half-submerged in the green water, looking up at him with eyes of the same hazy hue.
No, not a man.
John blinked rapidly, as if clearing his eyes would make the man dissipate from his view. Yet there he remained.
After recovering from the initial shock of seeing another human being materializing like a ghost out of the ocean, John could now see that extending from the creature’s sapien torso were not legs, but the tail of a great fish. His mind flashed to the illustrations of bestiaries, to Scylla and Charybdis. Under the rocking waves this tail was brown and spotted and the finned belly a brilliant red, and even in the overcast sky, his scales iridesced like mirrors under the white reflections of the waves. His collarbones were gashed— gills.
At last, he met the creature’s eyes, which stared back unabashedly.
Oh dear.
The fisherman, in spite of his astonishment, did not move away or flinch, even as the man-thing-from-the-sea approached and boldly rested his chin on the bare upper arc of John’s foot, never breaking his gaze. His eyes were painted with ocean blue as they looked up into the horizon of John’s stupefied face, and at once made John feel both impossibly light in his head, yet pinned fast to the damp stone under him as if he were suddenly made of lead. He thought of the color of a swell when the setting sun shines through the water so strongly that one could see the shadows of small fish and seaweed.
John asked the creature if he came to drown him, and the beast laughed and showed his sharp white teeth.
The siren assured him with vulturine ease that John was far too interesting to be wasted as a meal. John would have laughed at the ludicrosity of the situation, if it weren’t for the visitor’s strangely sobering gaze.
In a sudden burst of realization, John quickly reached into his pocket and fished out the sea urchin shell and the abalone from earlier in the morning. He displays them in his palms to the siren, who grinned knowingly. He asked the creature if these were his gifts, and the siren says yes and that he’s happy that John likes them and has kept them, that the pearly abalone was from one of his dinners and he had many more to give to John if it pleased him so. John told him that it would.
The siren explained that they were offerings, for he feared that one day John would stop coming. John asked why he waited until now to make himself known. The creature says that he didn’t know if he was kind or not. And if he were, he didn’t want to frighten John away.
John asked the Gift-Giver again, what is your name? The siren gave it to him, but John’s English tongue could not reconcile with the impossible boundaries of the word, not meant to be spoken by land-dwellers like him. Then give me a name, the creature sang, and John christened him Harry. An incongruously simple name.
John Bridgen’s new acquaintance flicked his tail to and fro, seemingly invigorated by the progress the two had made. Harry said plainly, matter-of-factly that he wanted to eat John many months ago —slow and inattentive as his kind were they made for easy feasts— but his words traveled well over water and he found himself entranced, entangled in his tales like a bird in a net. John appreciated his restraint.
Harry gestured for John to continue, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and the fisherman obliged; what else was he to do? Harry closed his eyes and rested his cheek along the storyteller’s shin, and he was lulled into silence with his fine English speech and the bobbing of the waves.
—
On the second day, Harry gave John a calico clam. He laid on the beach as the waves lapped over his tail, propped up on his elbows. John Bridgens watches him like this for a moment, and suddenly he felt such a bewildering tenderness for him that he had to look away.
John paced on the beach as he read to his new friend more Crusoe . Harry asked why sometimes he speaks of other people, and why he sometimes speaks of himself when reading his books. John explains to him the difference between the First-Person and the Third-Person . This book was in the First-Person , and was being told from Crusoe’s perspective, even though he said I. Harry nods solemnly, as though he understands. The corners of John’s eyes crinkle in delight. In the collective hours that John had known him, he found that Harry could easily fill their minutes together with a host of queries, but he knew not to be bothersome: Harry appreciated the flow of a good story just as well as John did, and spared him the constant peppering of questions in favor of tallying them up for the end of each chapter, so that he could rest in contemplative quiet —save for the occasional exclamation— as John’s words drifted over his ears.
It was at the end of one of these chapters that Harry questioned John on the direness of Crusoe’s circumstances. John then attempted to explain how the open ocean is inhospitable to humans and that Crusoe had to survive on an island for many years, an arduous feat by any measure. Harry furrows his brows; isn’t Crusoe’s home on an island? John laughs and tells him that England is a much larger island than the one their narrator is stranded on, an island long-settled. This is England, says John as he gestures to the grey landscape behind him. Harry contemplates, digs his hands into the sand, and marvels. England, he echoes.
When words failed to explain the finer details of the story, John Bridgens took up a stick and drew in the sand the shapes of flightless birds, a cross, and grapes.
Harry drew more crude copies of crosses above the surf, deep grooves that formed into the equilateral arms of the Christian symbol. John explained to him what it meant and how the Romans nailed Jesus to a cross in the New Testament. Harry asked why they did not simply kill him, and the fisherman replied that they wanted to make an example of him, to make him a martyr. Harry responded that only killer whales played with their victims before feasting, that the whales had huge teeth —illustrated with the curved clasp of his hands— and were evil creatures and frightened him terribly. Cheekily, he asked, did Romans have long sharp teeth? John said they had teeth just like his, and Harry asked him to bend down so that he could look at them, touch them with his hands and run his fingertips across the edge of John’s molars. His fingers tasted of salt.
—
The fisherman came to the beach and Harry told John he missed him, that he was lonely and bored while John was gone. The man had left for two days to travel inland for foodstuffs and thread. Outside of this lull, they had visited every day since meeting; it had been several weeks since. John said he missed him too, and it was true.
The siren lounged on the sand under a few inches of water, and John laid down to join him, as the air was not yet cold enough to make sodden clothing uncomfortable. He revealed to Harry an offering of salted cod and a cube of cheese, a gift of his own from the provisions he brought back from town. Harry revolted at the scent of the cheddar —John ate it instead— but greedily swallowed down the dried fish. John wondered how often Harry was able to eat. He wondered what he ate. He did say that he originally was going to eat John.
John offered his forearm and said to Harry, if you’d like a taste. He glanced up through his lashes at John and grinned widely, still licking the taste from his fingers. Harry reached forward and bit into the flesh hard enough to draw blood, and John smiled through the pain as he watched, fascinated, as Harry gleefully lapped up the red from his skin.
—
It was the weekend, or at least John thought it was; he no longer was as fastidious in keeping dates, at least since escaping the routines of city life. Moreso since meeting Harry. With his new companion, the days blended together into a new routine, where the days were defined not by the calendar, but by the time spent with the siren. Harry brought the fossilized, grooved tooth of a crabeater seal —Harry explained that this shape allowed them to sieve krill through their mouths— and they finished Robinson Crusoe . Harry said that he liked the character called Friday, and that it was a very good story and that he wished it was longer. In truth, Harry had stretched the novel out much longer than the author intended with his thousands of questions, all of which John happily entertained. Harry had enough curiosity to spin the most practiced philosopher in circles, and it gave John great joy to tutor one so wondrous of a world John once took for granted.
Like a languid snake, Harry draped himself across John’s submerged lap —Sirens apparently had no sense of personal space— and lazily flicked his tail to-and-fro as he unabashedly examined John’s ears and knees and palms with his curiously webbed hands. We aren’t all that different , Harry had said at last, and John quipped that this would be so as long as one only looked at their upper-halves. Harry laughed splendidly and shook the droplets out of his hair.
John ran his hand down the length of Harry’s tail, and lazily poured seawater over the fins that peeked out from under the shallows. It was a rare sunny day, and the blue sky reflected off of the scales brilliantly. He was fascinated as he watched the scales shift colors from red to brown to orange under his touch, as Harry hummed in lazy pleasure against John’s chest. The hues changed with the subtlety of the golden-green Dolphinfish that leaped alongside the frigates of his Navy days. Back then, The seamen speared the Dolphinfish for sport and for dinner when they could, and they turned stark white and blue as they bled out.
John had not brought a spare book with him, so after he put the completed Crusoe away in his satchel, they passed the afternoon time by scouring the sand for small crustaceans and strange little animals. Harry showed John how to dig for clams, and at one point dove away into the sea for half an hour and returned with several oysters, and Harry taught John how to pry them open with sharp rocks to access the soft meat inside.
It was strange, John thought, how his guiless speech and boyish appearance —if he were a human, he would be no more than twenty-five, thirty— were that of a fresh young creature, but he got the impression that Harry knew much more than he let on, that he was somehow very ancient, from another time predating his own.
There the two lay, bumping shoulders and chewing on the oyster-flesh. John looked to the happy, humming Harry, and noticed that his russet hair had dried in the sun and swept across his forehead in a briney mess. He looked lovely like this. Tentatively, he reached over to brush back his hair, and Harry closed his eyes and leaned into his palm, mouthing playfully at John’s forearm as he brushed.
That night, John Bridgens dreamt of emerald-green fish and Harry in the waves.
—
One day, John brings to Harry Cymbeline , appraising the story to be complex enough to capture Harry’s wandering imagination. He was right in thinking so, as the siren propped himself up on the rock ledge to listen and interrupt and nod in agreement as John narrated.
Harry cast himself as Innogen, citing the comparison between the character’s exchange of the ring and bracelet to Harry and John’s exchange of gifts and spoken words. John smiled over the book, and told him he might think differently by the end of the story. Naturally, Harry found the whole introductory affair incomprehensible; he didn’t understand the political intricacies and obligations of marriage in the 15th century, of course, being a creature entirely unfamiliar with all things terrestrial. He did, however, understand the inequity of Innogen’s plight. He had protested: they loved one another, was that not enough?
John closed his book, and turned to his companion with a soft smile. John and Shakespeare both understood that love was inescapably complex: Shakespeare through his writing, and John through his many personal accounts on the subject, all of which tallied up to an unremarkable and solitary total.
But not Harry. Harry was beautifully simple about it, looking past the veils of circumstance and prose to see only two people that were drawn to each other, nothing more.
John looked at him with a strange feeling settling in his chest, and nodded slowly. It should have been enough, he said.
—
John Bridgens could already see as he was walking down to the beach that the siren was darting about in the water, peeking over their rock and flashing the red of his tail like a flag as he impatiently waited for John to approach.
Sweet one, what is the matter?
John said with a laugh, smiling widely as Harry’s excited movements splashed droplets of seawater into his hair. Harry beckoned him, and John waded into the ocean until the water swirled at his knees, then sat down in the surf and allowed his finned friend to curl into the space between his legs. At this point, John had learned to bring a fresh change of clothes with him, as Harry would inevitably invite him into the water, glide his way into John’s lap or across his legs, and get him thoroughly soaked.
The siren asked John to close his eyes and open his hand. John obliged, and into his outstretched palm dropped something round, smooth, heavy for its size.
John’s eyes fluttered open and he found in his palm a beautiful peach-colored pearl. It was the biggest he had ever seen, something precious beyond measure. Harry said he found it only by chance on the ocean floor, buried under seagrass. John looked up at him with gentle eyes, and thanked him. He almost felt guilty taking this pearl, but he could see in the siren’s wide eyes that to refuse the gift would hurt him most ardently.
John told him that he had a wonderful eye, and Harry preened and touched his forehead to his.
The creature asked John if he would swim with him, or rather, goaded him into it. Could he swim with two clumsy legs in lieu of a strong tail like his? John assured him that he could swim just fine, and when his siren didn’t believe him John placed the pearl carefully in his bag and stripped down to his undergarments then waded into the sea, with Harry circling around like a shark. As the sea rose to his chin John realized this could very well be a simple ploy to lure him away from shore to be drowned and devoured, but with the nonchalance of a well-lived man, John shrugged and said so be it.
Swimming came to John more easily than walking; there was no gravity to weigh down his joints, and the Atlantic current caressed his skin like a tailor dressing him in silk. It was surprisingly cold, and the seabed below was rocky and blue and swayed with the tide. It was not particularly pretty, not like the equatorial shallows he visited as a seaman, but it was quiet and smelled familiar and it was Harry’s home. Below him Harry darted with flashes of brown and red, toying with him like a sea lion pup, in his element and unencumbered by the limitations of the land.
He watched, and at once he felt the shift that one experiences upon realizing that Fate for once had traded her usual cruelties for a miracle of such proportion that one would endure all of the cruelties of the word twice over to keep it. Harry was meant to find John, by what could only be either chance or the hand of God, reading on his rock in this lonesome land of his, for what other reason would he have come to know him? He thought of the Mother Sea, and knew that Harry was her gift, for all the years John had loved her. He looked down as the sun filtered into blue light on the siren’s shoulders.
Like this Harry was beautiful, he was flesh and blood, and John thanked the world for him.
When he came up for air, Harry came with him, and they treaded water and laughed and Harry draped his finned forearms across his shoulders and ‘round his neck. The siren teased him for his shivering, but there was nothing but affection in his voice. John leaned into the embrace and rested his cheek against his. The sea-being turned his head to nip at his ear, lap at the salted skin of his cheek, fluttered his wet lashes against the bridge of John’s nose, overwhelming him with his incessant need to touch until John thought he would burst from the seams for all of his adoration.
Finally, Harry asked if he could kiss him. John’s heart swelled like the tide and threatened to spill over into his lungs, his bones, his very core. He said yes, yes, and Harry kissed him rough and sweet, and the saltwater stung John’s lips where Harry’s teeth grazed the soft skin. Between the tempestuous thoughts of his mind, John wondered how Harry knew what kissing was.
When John’s feet found purchase in the soft shifting sand, he gathered Harry up in his strong arms and the siren laughed outrageously before dipping back down to swallow him whole, to swallow his heart and his soul.
—
The next morning, Harry was nowhere to be seen.
John waited at their rock with his book, reading out-loud as he always did, until the sun was at its zenith, but still, no Harry. He was scouring the oyster-beds, John told himself as the first hour passed. In the second he thought he had slept in. Did sirens sleep? By the third hour, John ran out of rationalizations. When the fourth hour passed, he called Harry’s name out towards the sea until his voice was hoarse and his throat raw with the salty air. It was at this point that John felt a gut-wrenching fear settle in his stomach like a dragging anchor.
He pulled himself up to begin searching along the shoreline, walking faster and faster until suddenly he was running, stumbling through the rocks catching on his feet. His mind raced even faster, fear bubbling up, tightening in his throat until he felt like he was about to cry.
It wasn't until the sun was beginning to set that he found him, tossed half-ashore amongst the sargassum and seagrass, under a rocky overhang that bookended the edge of the beach.
John threw himself down beside Harry and took his pale face in his hands, slapping his cheeks in an effort to rouse him. He did not open his eyes. John put his ear to Harry’s cold chest, and to his great relief he could feel and hear breath, fluttering in and out of him like a weak, but promising assurance. He was alive. Gently but quickly John peeled away the seagrass that tangled around his body. His color was pale and so was the red of his fins. It was then John saw the terrible wounds: a ragged puncture through the flesh of his bicep, still bleeding thickly and slowly, and another that cut deep into the soft flesh of his side, and John’s chest tightened with something too terrible to assign words to.
He wrapped his blood-slick arms around his dearest and heaved him up with great difficulty, then began the long walk back to his small white beach house above the shore.
—
John guessed that Harry had pulled himself from the deep waters up to the shelter of the outcrop, where he collapsed from the pain and exhaustion before John found him. He put Harry in his tub and filled it with as much saltwater as he could carry, making up for the difference with fresh water from the pump. He didn’t know how to dress wounds that were submerged, so instead he sewed them and kept them as clean as possible and set up a cot next to the tub so he could watch over the siren day and night. It had been three days before Harry was finally roused from his sleep.
He awoke, thrashing, wild-eyed and frightened and John leapt to his side to hold him still and chant to him you’re safe, you’re safe, I’m here, hold onto me, you’re safe.
By the time Harry had calmed down, John was clawed up and down his arms and his shirt was soaked through.
It hurts, John, he cried, and John kissed him gently all over, and told his love that he would heal and that he would feel better soon. It wasn’t an empty promise; John was awestruck by the speed of which his gashes stitched themselves back together; they already looked improved by miles after the three days. He knew that creatures of the sea healed quickly, but John had to attribute this progress to yet another one of the siren’s fantastical qualities.
Harry blinked at John in a delirious haze. He asked him where he was, breathing hard between words.
John smiled softly and gestured to the small space behind him. Home , my home . He then rose and padded to the kitchen to soak a towel in cold water to wipe Harry’s feverish forehead with.
Harry scanned John’s quaint little room, at least as much as he could without moving his head, feeling more as though he was in a fever dream than awake. Between the chairs and worn table and windows and pans, Harry felt like he was thrust into one of the foreign worlds that populated John’s books, full of strange human instruments and bizarre contraptions that were so carefully crafted and geometric. Then he recognized the many gifts that lined his bookshelves and window sills, and looked back at John with such tenderness that the man had to walk back across the room and kiss him. He asked John which was his favorite, to which he replied, all of them.
Harry laughed quietly, then grimaced, sinking back into the water as John gently brushed across his brow.
As Harry slept that night, John sat awake outdoors and watched the waxing moon rise through the night sky.
He knew what, or rather, who had hurt Harry. Only one thing resorted to such violence in the face of things he did not understand. And with that, he knew that Harry could no longer stay here, at John’s once-remote beach by the rocks where they laughed and kissed and John read and Harry listened.
Harry knew this too.
—
The further Harry’s wounds healed, the more unruly he became. John saw this in the ways he became snappy, restless, agitated. One morning, John had forgotten the kettle on the stove as he was puttering about his bookshelves looking for something for himself and his guest, and the sudden shrill whistle of the steam frightened Harry so badly that John had to spend the better part of his early morning smoothing down his hackles and assuring him back to rest. He was not meant to be confined to a fisherman’s small spare room, not a wild thing like him.
Eventually Harry felt well enough to eat, and John was more than happy to prepare breakfast for him before setting out on his errands. They ate dinner together too, side by side in silence. In fact, he became surprisingly ravenous, and devoured John’s meals with such fervor that any lingering doubts of Harry's recovery were banished from his mind.
After one of these dinners, John presented to Harry a new book. This is different from what I have previously read to you, he said, and his companion’s tired eyes blinked with renewed interest.
He drew up a chair and cracked open Walt Whitman, and finally Harry settled himself and rested his chin over the edge of the tub, looking up at John endlessly with those sea-colored eyes. Gently, as to caress each line with care, John read.
Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths,
breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do,
The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed
by beings like us who walk this sphere,
The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.
In Harry’s rapturous attention, John realized something beautiful: the siren had no concept of prose, parameters, and stanzas, but the words spoke to him regardless, no understanding of the structure needed to feel the musicality of words. He reveled in this small moment, in how the two of them could find connection, and everything beyond that, through strings of words so universally felt as something beautiful.
When he was done, Harry kissed him as if he could taste the words that spilled from John’s mouth.
—
I want to go home, Harry finally said one morning.
John had been at the table, sketching out some unimportant thing or another, when he put down his pencil and turned to Harry. The siren held his gaze there, and his eyes were neither pleading nor apologetic. In fact, they were nothing but assured, steadfast, and for a moment they made John feel like a child. It was time, if not past that. Harry was well again, well enough to where John would not be kept awake at night wondering how he would fare. He was certainly well enough to fuss and fidget, becoming more claustrophobic by the day, and was supposed to be a good thing, a great thing.
But the statement, simple yet sharp as a knife, plunged and twisted into John’s heart.
In that moment, a whirl of impossibilities flew through his mind like a flock.
Home.
This was not Harry’s home. No amount of acclimating could ever make this Harry’s home. But for an instant, John asked, pleading with his conscience,
what if? What if?
What if they could stay like this, the two of them alone in the little white house on the coast, where John could read to him and Harry could sing his words back, where they could eat together and sleep together and fill the day with nothing but each other. They could plant strong, deep roots into this rocky ground and love each other.
But it was a stupid thought, a thought for a man becoming too old and too naive, and he banished it as soon as it arrived.
And so, John left his pencil, his desk, and outstretched his arms to lift Harry up.
—
Harry let out a great sigh when he sunk into the water, and like magic the color returned to his flesh and scales as the waves lapped over him in a welcoming embrace. He stretched body experimentally into the expanse, umbered under the sun, and looked whole again. John sat submerged with him, feeling the sand swirl around his heels as Harry reveled by his side.
It reminded John of what made him seem so beautiful in the first place. This thought alone was reassurance enough for what was to come.
I will not have you hurt again, John began, and at the words Harry stopped and turned to him. Just meeting his gaze, wide and endless, sent John into silence again, as he floundered over his words desperately. He wasn’t sure if he had the strength to do this.
As always, Harry was his salvation. The siren came to him, pressed his forehead to his, and John breathed in his scent, his presence. With the automation of a lover he curled his hands around Harry’s jaw, tangled his fingers into his hair, and Harry brought up his own trembling hands to clasp around John’s wrists. If only they could remain like this until end-times, John thought.
I cannot stay here, can I? Harry said quietly, a tentative whisper, phrased as a question even though he already knew the answer. They both knew. When John looked up he was wretched to see his partner’s eyes so bereaved. Heartbreak didn’t suit him.
John pulled him into the cavities of his body, intertwined him so tightly within himself that maybe they could have melded into one. Maybe if he tried hard enough, he could crush together their marrows and knit together their skin into one. Maybe if John gave everything up, Harry could stay. He knew to think so was foolish, but he relished in the thought anyway, like a daydream.
He didn’t know how long they embraced like this, but as soon as he loosened his arms around Harry and the siren pulled back, he realized that a hundred days wouldn’t have been long enough.
As Harry glided into the ocean, turning back for one last goodbye, he realized that a hundred years wouldn’t have been long enough.
As the sea swallowed Harry back into her horizon, from whence he came, he realized that an eternity wouldn’t have been long enough.
—
It had been years since then. There were times when John looked out from his doorframe to the ocean and wondered if those strange days —now hazed by time and a tired psyche— were only a vivid dream, constructed by a lonely mind into a false memory stitched together from fever dreams and fantasies. But, once every few years, at the end of John’s daily morning ambles down to the gray coastline, he would find there a little shining pearl, touched by droplets of sparkling seawater, placed delicately at the end of the precipice.
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