My Name is Yilin

My name is Yilin. I came to the ocean with my little black book.

I love visiting the sailors at the wharf. They are my favorite company. Since I was little, they’ve regaled me with tales of their escapades; the sights they behold, the creatures they’ve seen. They tell me how beautiful it is to be out on the ocean. They’ve given me logs from their little black books and I read them with stars in my eyes, dreaming of one day making adventures of my own.

Now that I’m older, the sailors and I are close. We go to a bar together, Bermuda. They bring me back small trinkets from their travels, I rifle through their story-filled notebooks. We have our traditions. We drink the same drinks. Same cards on our birthdays. Same brand of lottery tickets on the first of each month.

The first of the month was that day.

My ticket was worth twenty thousand dollars.

I gave them most of the money. With the rest, I bought a little black book just like theirs. And I bought my own boat.

In the week leading up to today’s voyage, I spent every second with my blood on fire. I learned. I prepared. Even though I’d been learning and preparing for this moment… for…

Actually, I’ve been ready my entire life.

So I left the world all behind, just for a little while. It’s not like I could live forever on a wooden boat on the sea. I’ve been sailing for a few hours, long enough to find myself a satisfyingly far-away distance from the shore. That is why I brought myself here.

I have my book where I’ll log my thoughts and days. Provisions too, obviously. Jugs full of water, food that will last; some sealed in jars, some dried out and salted. I left my compass at home. I know the stars well enough to find my way back when I’d like to. I know the stars because I know the sea.

I can catch fish. I can fend for myself.

I wonder what this will become.

➻

It’s the second day and I’m already feeling comfortable in my surroundings. I’ve seen a bird or two. They’ve seen me. Their triangular flight pattern makes me think they’re migrating somewhere. I wonder if they know that I’m far from home, just like they are.

The sky changes second by second. Clouds are forming new patterns, some soft and wispy, some scrawny and clever. There are clouds that look after me for hours and clouds that have fallen across the sky in minutes, thin and here and then gone in a puff of gray and white breath. But the ocean?

The ocean is long and blue and green and gray with a surface covered in sparkles. Sunlight dances off the water. The foam that froths quietly around the hull of my sailboat feels like a lullaby. Not one meant to put you to sleep, but one sung to you quietly after a nightmare to reassure you that right now, you are warm, your scope will narrow from the width of the horrible world and your wild pretty mind is going to wind your chaos down to an ‘okay’ at some moment soon.

These feelings are constant.

The ocean stays the same.

➻

It’s day three, nighttime. I love laying on my back and looking up at the stars. They’re reflected in the water, and I can name a good few constellations. I’ve even made up some of my own.

The water is so calm and pretty. It drew me in, and I know it isn’t good for me, but earlier today, I cupped my hands together and leaned over the stern of my little sailboat. There’s a mermaid there, not an external sculpture, no. I drew her, I etched her into the wood. I leaned over her and reached just far enough to scoop some water into my palms.

I drank it.

It’s so clear.

And it’s potable.

Somehow, it wasn’t even salty. It was refreshing. Almost sweet.

I took a few more sips, then splashed my face with what was left. I felt awake, but not the type of energy that made me want to run a mile or something. It was a clarity that led me to my head, deep into my thoughts.

Everything in my life was necessary to have brought me right here. The people I’ve met, the people I’ve loved, the people who have loved me and tripped me and checked me into hotel rooms, the people I’ve smiled sweetly at in public restrooms. The people who may or may not have smiled back.

I wonder if I would even be here exactly as I am if I hadn’t glanced up two years ago at a tea shop and seen a girl about my age outside of a window. She didn’t see me, didn’t enter the store, she didn’t say a word. Just adjusted her stockings for a second and continued on her way. She was… so beautiful.

There were little glass fish hanging from her earrings, the same color as the horizon I’m looking out on right now. They’d made me think of the ocean. I looked down into my hot tea and pondered my reflection. I thought about the earth. I want the grass and the water to embrace me forever.

➻

Day five. Nothing has bothered me so far. This sailboat is too big for any megalodon or non-extinct-massive-ocean-what-have-you to think that it’s prey. They’re steering clear. It’s like I’m the predator, but only from above.

Down there, something would take me and eat me alive.

I said earlier nothing is bothering me. That doesn’t mean nothing has been around.

I saw something under the water. It crossed under my boat, but not at the surface. The sun was lowering. The water was blue and it was clear. I saw a shape a few feet swimming down. It was long, fluttering, coiled. It wasn’t a shadow. I know that it wasn’t.

I’ve seen more fish, some birds, all normal. I don’t know what that thing was. Since then, I’d seen others, just two or three, all that looked somehow… wrong.

One was about the size of a salmon, shaped like a triangle. It was faster than any fish I’d ever seen. I could practically feel it racing through the water. Another was big, just about my size, but it was thin and slick. It had fins that I thought for a second were arms.

And there was something that looked like it had… two heads. It could’ve been the tail, I don’t know.

But I feel like I saw eyes. Glassy eyes. Too many eyes.

Maybe it was looking at me?

➻

It’s day… seven. I’m still drinking the ocean water and I don’t think it’s caused me any issues yet. That’s good. Strange, but not particularly disconcerting.

The skin on my arms and neck has been itching a lot. It could be the food, the sun, wearing the same clothes for a week straight. The rest of my body has felt comfortable. Normal. I’m taking care of myself out here.

I caught a fish, and it was a welcome disruption to my diet of greens and salted meat. I was able to heat it for a bit in the sun. I tilted the glass from an empty jar of fruit in a way that caught the sunlight to speed up the process.

I didn’t expect that to work, but it did. The fish cooked and dried up in minutes. I almost felt bad about taking it out of the sea. Away from its home, it shriveled so quickly.

➻

I’m at the two week mark. There’s a few notable things to report.

I’ll say first that internally, I feel perfectly healthy. My skin, however, doesn’t.

I’m itchy. It’s dry. Despite the sun, I seem to be growing paler, almost translucent. The veins in my arms are so visible, turning my skin into sheets of lined paper. I feel almost like my notebook. My body is writing a story.

I found that the water makes it all go away. The heat under my skin dissipates almost completely when I lean my body in. I scooped the water in my hands, splashing it on my torso, my shoulders, rubbing it all over my skin. My fingers found something on my neck.

Scratches. Maybe some type of claw marks. They’re straight, clean gashes mirrored on both sides of my throat that trail for a few inches from the front to the back. They don’t hurt when I touch them, so I’m letting them be.

My teeth feel harder and stronger. It might be because they’ve evolved to combat the salt content of all the dried snacks I’ve been eating, or what I’ve been drinking..

I’m calm through all of this. Should a human be this calm?

My skin, my neck, my teeth, my heart. Something is changing. I am changing.

➻

I think I’ve been out here for about three weeks, so I’ll say it has been twenty one days.

I caught another fish today.

It isn’t a normal fish.

I don’t even know if it would be accurate to call it one.

I’d trapped it in my net. As soon as I pulled my catch from the water, it died. The surface snuffed it out immediately.

I’ve seen marine organisms of every different color and shape, but this creature is different. Its face is a brilliantly vibrant red, and its tail end fades into an impossible black, but I suppose the coloration isn’t what strikes me the most.

Its head is split in two down the middle directly between the eyes. It winds into two distinct ropes that circle each other and branch out into intricate weavings at least three feet long. The way its body twists and connects is somewhat reminiscent of the shimmering triangular cords I’ve seen on Lunar New Year decorations, the little red flags with golden characters that wave to you things like happiness, fortune, luck for a freshly burgeoning era.

I am grateful that the ocean has fed me. I ate the being raw.

➻

I don’t know how many days it has been anymore. I knew there would come a point where I would stop counting, forget for a day, sleep through a sunrise. And I know the sun is still setting and rising. But out here it just feels like time has… stopped.

The ocean stays the same. It always does.

I still see the fish. They’re still strange in a way that feels deceptively normal. I don’t still think I see myself.

Still… the water is still.

I have no mirror here, so all I can do to get a glimpse of myself is look down. I don’t know if the water has changed, maybe it’s too far deep, I’m too far out, but I don’t look the same. I can’t see the scratch marks on my neck too clearly either. The ocean isn’t showing me scratch marks. It’s showing me something I think should be wrong.

There’s only one way to know, really.

I checked. There aren’t any… fish.

I can go into the water.

...

Gills.

They’re gills.

➻

It’s been a few more days.

It’s hard to breathe up here.

My skin is too dry.

I think I’ll go into the water.

➻

The ocean is warm. It’s all around me, flexing and pulling and telling me I’m safe. Maybe I didn’t bring myself here. Maybe the water one day let out a purr and sweetly coaxed me to return to my primordial home.

We did evolve from marine life, after all.

My name is Yilin.

There’s something above me now, something laying on the surface. It’s too big to look like viable prey.

Are you just a visitor?

You won’t be for long.