Under the Thumb of a God

By the murky ocean I was embraced. Water streamed across the creases of my body as I drifted in the endless expanse. There was nothing else in the world save for me and the sea and the reigning blue above.

But then a shadow fell across the world. I watched as the dark mark spread across the sea, over me and beyond. It had come as sudden as the spark of a fire and brought vicious waves. The water pulsed and ricocheted. Powerless, I was flung around there and here and back again like a leaf tearing through the wind. As suddenly as it had come on, the ocean calmed and returned to peace.

In the stillness the sky darkened further and I watched in horror as a plump, pink finger came down from the sky towards me. It’s thick, clenched hand blocked out the sun. I tried to swim away but it was as if gravity pulled me towards it as it plunged into the ocean and tore the world asunder. I scraped against the rock-hard edge of the nail. Tsunamis rippled in a circle from the epicentre of the finger.

The world tilted on its axis and the ocean streamed past the finger towards me. I tried to cling to the finger, but the world kept turning until it was as if I were on the cusp of a waterfall. The ocean plunged down off the cliff into oblivion and I with it.

***

In the playground a child held a blue plastic bowl filled with muddy water. He showed an adult the insect that floated in it and tried to touch it. Under the advice of the adult, he spilled the water onto the sun-warmed ground so that the bug might have another chance to breathe.