The End and the Beginning [A Short Story]

Stepping Out

"I don't know my name," the woman in red said. She held out a limp hand to Dale and feigned a smile.

"Ah, don't worry, dear, what's in a name, anyway? That's a famous line, isn't it? It sounds familiar like that. What would you like to be called, Miss?" He took her hand and kissed it as best as an intangible being could.

"Oh, I don't know," she said with a shy smile and a blush that turned the water a soft shade of pink. "How can I decide such a thing? I don't know anything about myself or even what I like." She shook her head and looked off into the ocean. Her smile faded and a quite sense of contemplation came over her. "I think I need to get away from all of this," she said. "Clear my head and think about something beside myself, you know? This world, here... it's so small."

If I had had a heart, it would have sunk just a little to hear her want to leave. "You're not thinking of running off, too," I said.

"I don't know," she said. "I just... I'm tired of this. Whatever this is."

I followed her gaze out into the deep blue. There was a kind of peace out there that drew me away from the ship and all the heavy feelings that tied us to it. The stillness was freeing, and the vast expanse really did make the world of the shipwreck feel so very small and congested.

"Well then, let's go," I said. "Lets take a walk out there. I bet it's beautiful."

She looked at me, unsure if I was serious or not. I smiled and nodded toward the open ocean.

"Come on." I held out my hand to her, but she didn't take it right away. "We can always turn back if you get uncomfortable."

"You'd go out there with me?" She placed her hand in mine.

"Of course! I've been wandering around this ship for as long as I can remember. It'll be nice to finally get out."

"Well, aren't you two adorable," Dale said. "Do take care out there and unless you're planning on running off forever, I'd suggest staying within sight of the ship. Otherwise you might end up lost in some dark sea cave or some other abysmal place."

"Good idea," I said. "We'll keep that in mind." I started off toward the direction she had been looking in, but my hand grew cold, and when I looked back, I saw that she hadn't moved. I stopped. "Don't you want to go?"

"I do," she said. "But... in which direction?"

"Does it matter?" I asked. When that didn't move her I said,"Let's try this direction and if there's nothing out there, then we can go another way."

She smiled and nodded in agreement, then took my hand and walked with me off the ship, leaving behind the hum and groaning of the dead for the peaceful silence of the ocean life.

We descended to the ocean floor where the light from the water's surface cast ripples of light at our feet. A school of fish passed through us and all around us, tickling my form with the water's sudden movement.

"Did you feel that?" She said, her eyes wide with amazement. "I felt that!"

"It's strange, isn't it," I said. "When I left the ship to get the ball—the float—off the whale, I felt things for the first time, too."

She stopped in her tracks and bent down to touch the sand, but her hand went right through it. She looked up at me with a disappointed look on her face and shook her head, but before she could say anything, the sand shook—or rather, something under the sand shook—forming a cloud of dust in the water. Underneath it all, a large, flat fish rose from the ocean floor on fins like wings. It spun around, cutting our forms with its tail, and swam away in a hurry. The dust fell slowly through us until it settled on the ocean floor again.

"Did I cause it to do that?" She asked.

"Maybe."

"This world is strange," she said. "It makes me feel... I don't know... Like I'm stepping into a whole new realm."

"It makes me feel real," I said. "Like I'm a part of what's real."

"Yes!"

"I know what you mean. On the ship, everything is shallow, but out here, there's a deeper sense of being to everything." I put my hand on my chest where I could almost feel a barrier of something physical, as if the substance of being was forming inside of me, just as it had when the whale called out its song. The foggy mentality of self-consumed sorrow on the ship dissipated into the wide ocean and in front of me lay a world sharp with clarity. If I could still breathe, I would have taken in a big breathe of fresh reality. "It's beautiful out here," I said. "Makes me want to stay."

"Well, I suppose we have all the time in the world, might as well enjoy it. Come on!" she said and took off running across the sand, moving as if in slow motion through the water. Her form fractured the light that passed through her, giving her whole being an iridescent quality, like a red-tinted crystal. I followed after her in a strange game of tag that felt so familiar that I almost recalled a memory.