Panthalassa

Panthalassa

Angela Sweet-Christian

929 words

Kangchen

Sea level rose twenty thousand feet in two days creating a global ocean, Panthalassa, the sailors were calling it. A heat dome blanketed the globe, melting the polar ice caps. The flooding started when the monsoons came.

“Go Northeast, toward Nepal, get to high ground!” repeated frantic BBC reporters. This was the last message Aadhya and her father heard before water muted all electricity. Her dad filled a milk jug with water and tied it to his waist, grabbed his pocketknife from the kitchen drawer, and they fled toward the marina where they kept their sailboat. The Calcutta streets were flooded, the dead were barely discernible from other debris, a hand next to a rusty oil drum, a foot tangled in the spokes of a motorcycle tire. The water rose feet in minutes. Aadhya’s father put her on his shoulders, but soon, his feet were lifted from the ground, and they were swimming. Aadhya’s father pulled her underwater as a downed telephone pole crashed over them. A strong current swept them the final mile toward the coast. They had to swim hard parallel to the strong flow for the last 100 yards. The ladder to the boat wasn’t down. The hull was tilting, still tied to the now submerged pier.

“Stand on my shoulders!” her father yelled over the monsoon. He had to go under while she climbed, her feet slipped on his wet shirt. Aadhya knocked her shins painfully on the boat rails but managed to get on board. She heard a thump as he threw the jug of water onto the boat deck then the clatter of his knife. She ran to the back of the boat to drop the ladder for him, but he was gone.

“Dad!” Her voice was stolen by the wind. She untied the boat from the pier hoping she would see him in the surf. It lurched at a 45-degree angle tossed like a toy by a wave. She needed to tie-on. She slid the cabin door open to get a rope. As she climbed down, the stairs went sideways and she was off her feet, and the world went dark.

She woke to her stomach twisting and climbed the stairs to see huge swells that lifted the boat and dropped it again, like heavy breathing. There were dozens of sails, white against the angry grey sky. Why hadn’t her dad hoisted the mainsail? Then she remembered. She hauled the mainsail cranking the winch, taking some comfort in the familiar clattering sound. She followed the sails for three days, rationing her water.

Sea life was malcontent under the surface. Plants and animals washed from the land had created an abundant new food source radically imbalancing the ecosystem. She watched Giant Squid leap from the ocean’s rolling hills, their colors flashing as the squads claimed new territories.

On the fourth day, she saw thousands of birds flocking over an island. Other boats were closer to the coast, but she didn’t know the tides here so she dropped anchor further out, snapped on a life vest, plunged feet first into the icy ocean and began to swim. She tried not to think of what might be below her.

After what felt like hours, her numb feet touched something. She stood and looked up. A bare-chested man in swim trunks covered with red flowers stood on a black rock above her. He threw her a rope as she found footing on the rugged coast.

“Thanks,” Aadhya said in Hakka, the common language of the region.

“I don’t speak Chinese,” he said in English.

He helped her up to a flat rock.

“I speak English.” Her voice faltered as she began to shake in the cold wind.

He wrapped his arms around her. She pushed him away.

“What are you doing?”

“You’re freezing. A man made it to land yesterday, then died of hypothermia. I’m

Ted. I was sailing near Hong Kong when the storms started. Come on, I’m harmless,” he said, with his arms open.

She knew he was right. This time she wrapped her arms around him. She hadn’t made it

this far to be afraid of an Englishman in flower-shorts. He felt hot against her chilled skin. Something rough pressed against her cheek. She kept her stomach against his but pulled her head back and took the object in her hand. It was a gold rock on a leather cord, roughly shaped like a heart with a long black needle, a tine from a sea urchin, at the bottom.

“What’s this?”

“It’s for ID, for sorting.”

“Sorting?”

“Yeah, there’s some fresh water from snow melt and some mountain goats, but we don’t have enough resources for many more.”

“Many more...people?”

“Right, so we are developing a system to classify, you know what we need, what people have to offer.”

“And this is?”

He snapped the rock open to reveal a chamber.

“We fill it with melted gold and tattoo newcomers, according to their rank, to assign worth.”

Cold or not, Aadhya stepped away from his hot chest.

“How very British of you.”

“Now that’s not fair.”

“I’ll hike it from here.” she said, climbing up the next rock. She called back over her shoulder, “But this island, where are we, do you know?”

“This island wasn’t an island before. A few days ago it was the third highest mountain in the world.

Aadhya froze remembering her balding geography teacher's worksheet. The three highest peaks in the world were Everest, K2 and Kangchen. This was all that was left.