Johny and Joyce

Little Johny's come back to the ocean today.

He never leaves for long, of course. Being from a family of ship-dwellers, he can probably count on his fingers the number of days he's spent out of the ocean since he's met Joyce, his lifelong friend when they were both barely old enough to crawl around the boat.

He comes back telling Joyce stories of the other merchants he meets on land, how he'll have gone to a local pub to have a pint with one of them since he's now of age.

Johny also tells Joyce that he gets sick on land, cruelly and violently because land misses the gentle rocking to which years of ship-dwelling have made him so accustomed. The ground, so sternly beneath his feet is merciless when it comes to even the slightest misstep on land.

Johny prefers the ship-dwelling life anyway. She listens to his stories of land visits with scrutiny, silently rejoicing in every mishap and inconvenience on land.

When Johny is around fifteen, his visit to land was marked by the arrival of a traveling tradesman who sold bottled emotions to the visitors of the port. People wait hours, sometimes days, to get the perfect cocktail of joy and redemption in times of grief, anger in times when they needed the drive. At the time, the art of encapsulating emotions was lost because people had moved to cities. The bottles were tainted with the perspectives of the tradesmen, unlike the ones that were sold to Johny's grandfather.

Joyce's dark eyes grow even bigger as Johny depicted the mob's shoving and pushing, the hustle of the market and glow surrounding that particular trader.

"And what about you Jay-jay, did you have any of it?"

"I tried, he wouldn't let me. Said I was too young and might react badly."

Joyce's eyes were taking up most of the space on her head by the end of that story, her skin, emerald-green, glistering against the autumn sunset light.

After the story, Johny dives under the ship with Joyce, to make sure she gets home safely. Even when it's late, the mosaic of corals and anemones leads the way to her parents' house. It's Joyce's turn to be the storyteller, but she prefers stories centered around politics and current events. She'll tell Johny of the benthic dweller that requisitions a certain amount of time from each individual creature that will contribute to improving the structure of the reefs further up. Anarchist fish will shatter the water column in response, much to the neighbourhood watch's dismay.

Joyce swims nonchalantly as she tells her stories. She mocks her peers for taking the fish anarchists so seriously and includes Johny in that category because there is really no need for him to dive nearly 200 metres every night to make sure she’s safe.

The following year during his stay at the port, Johny meets a girl. A land-dweller with pink skin and yellow hair. She’s got a bright laugh and a row of shiny teeth. She asks Johny to dance with her at the harbour' annual lunal festival. Johny’s not sure where he is because he feels sick again. Nauseous, he loses his balance and falls to the ground.

When he wakes up, he’s in a hospital bed. He’s been on land for days, longer than he’s ever been. A flash of green flashes before his eyes and Johny heartbeat surges at the thought of Joyce's huge round eyes, anxiously awaiting his return.

If only there was a way of letting her know he’s safe, he thinks.

Later that day, the young land-dweller he’d danced with stops by. She is more composed than he remembers her, and distant in her recollections of the danse. Johny doesn’t remember her name, and at this point, he’s too afraid to ask. In just a few more days, he’ll be well enough to go back to sea. His ship, a distant silhouette on the horizon, is still visible from his hospital room’s window.

When he is finally well enough to go back to the harbour, the tradesman slips him a flask wrapped in a small brown paper box labelled “for Joyce”. Johny puts it in his pocket, after a vague explanation from the man.

At the sight of Johny, Joyce springs to the surface to give him a slimy hug, covered in kelp. Her skin, greener than ever, shines in the mid-day light. She stays with him for hours giving him the latest updates on fish anarchy, and new bands of colourful jellyfish that have settled in the area since Johny’s been gone. Johny’s leg is numb from its contact with the flask. When Joyce has finally left, Johny doesn’t dive down with her this time, he is too weak. He stares at the flask and drinks its contents in one gulp. It was that or dumping it in the ocean. Enough with fish anarchy and new gangs of jellyfish, he thought.

He feels himself drifting away slowly, but when he wakes up, Joyce is there. And for a moment, Johny forgets that they’ve never in their lives woken up or fallen asleep in the same place at the same time. At this moment, Joyce is more than a ship on the horizon, greener and more beautiful than she’s ever been before. She’s merged into him and Johny sees the reflection of his skin against hers, for the first time. They are the same and Johny sighs with relief before taking a deep dive with Joyce. He falls back asleep, smiling at the perspective of a longer, even deeper dive the next day, in the company of his beloved who would no longer be just a ship on the horizon.