Corpus Civilization

Bahamas

"Okay Jackie. Remember what I said about the beach. Wear shoes, be careful. Avoid them if you find them."

Jackie snorted, yanking on her new, flowery sun hat. "Of course I'll avoid them. You've only told me that a thousand times before. I don't think I could forget that."

Jackie's mother smiled and shook her head. She opened the door leading to the warm exterior of their rented beach villa, located right on the coast of the Bahamas. The mother-daughter duo were vacationing on a small island at the southern tip of the archipelago, making the most of their time off before school began again. Jackie was going into her first year of high school and suggested the Bahamas as their go-to relaxation spot.

"I'll be off!" Jackie leapt out the doorway, earning a chuckle from her mother. Her camera bounced against her hip, where it was attached loosely to her shorts with a rainbow braid of string. "I'm going to take some great pictures, you'll see!"

Without pause, Jackie descended the sandy stairs of the beach villa. Outside, the scent of sea spray and warm rays of sunlight pleased her greatly. In the tropics, she felt a sort of freedom that her home couldn't provide her with. This island had never known snow or deep freeze—it had never seen conifer trees or entire streets covered in white. Jackie loved it for that reason, loved the fact that this foreign place stood apart from other sectors of the world. Isolation gave the island nuances that Jackie was all too excited to explore with the shutter of her Polaroid camera. Her first stop to capture the island's beauty was the ocean, the lovely rolling tides of blue waves that incessantly lapped against the white shoreline.

"So nice!" She cheered as her flip flops sunk into the sand repeatedly. "What should I capture first?"

Out on the beach, the options were endless. She could aim upward to capture the baby blue sky dappled with clouds...or the tree line of sturdy palms painted a verdant green...or even the vast ocean hissing against the sand dunes in the distance. All views were perfectly capturable; in such a characteristically aesthetic place, Jackie was convinced it was the most photogenic in the world.

Kneeling in the warm sand, she brought her camera up to her nose. Her first target was the insurmountable ocean and the undefinable horizon for which waves carried on and on. Capturing it on film was only scratching the surface of the fauna swimming underneath it. No picture of the choppy surface could reveal the creatures which roamed below. Jackie grew to realize that she was only taking a picture of the tip of the iceberg.

What good was it to capture the ocean's surface without seeing everything it contained? It was like taking a snapshot of a house, only to disregard the colorful occupants inside. Suddenly, she felt like she was missing the point of photography. Were beautiful images only beautiful if they meant to hold out the other, less desirable aspects of the environment? Was the ocean only pretty on the top because it was limited to blue, rolling waves instead of the less appealing forces of nature transpiring underneath? Waves were great and all, but taking pictures of them felt like portraying a place of life as a ghost town. None of the defining organisms were even in the shot.

"I need to find animals to take pictures of." Jackie stood up, frowning. If she couldn't snap sea creatures to capture the essence of the ocean on her vacation, then she could at least find a few land creatures to augment the living portion of her collection.

She moved along the beach, dragging her feet amidst soft patches of sand and stray strands of seaweed. Along her route, she saw pieces of litter, a few bottles, and unidentifiable plastics. The wasteful side of humanity was present on this beach, but she saw very little evidence of natural life. Driftwood, rocks, and shells that had washed ashore filled her visual field, yet no living being was present alongside them. The longer she walked, the more her impatience grew. The birds in the trees weren't even chatting like they did when she first arrived on the island.

"Oh, there!" Jackie pointed at a diving seagull, whipping out her camera quickly. She aimed at the bird, lining its wingspan up with the boundaries of the camera's scope. She pressed the button, smiling when it clicked. "Finally!"

Jackie pulled the picture out of the camera and waited for it to develop. While waiting, she removed her flip flops and let her toes curl in the sand. Here, the sand was so warm and inviting. It felt like each grain of sand was hugging her foot tenderly, acting as a blanket to reassure her foot that it belonged. Jackie loved it.

"Okay the pic is...what! Why is it blurry? Ugh..."

Jackie glared at the picture she had taken. Instead of a magnificent bird swooping in for a tropical kill, it showed a blurry white blob lingering above an equally blurry waterline. Disheartened by the shot, she shoved the developed picture in her pocket. Maybe the next one would be better.

With her flip-flops in hand, she trudged along the beach with her eyes peeled. There had to be some kind of organism out here that would make a nice model. Crabs, butterflies, birds, the Loch Ness...something had to show up sooner or later. Jackie felt like she was losing sight of the plan, that she was becoming the ghost town. It didn't make sense. Out in the Bahamas, life was plentiful. She just needed to find it.

"Oh...oh! There!"

Jackie rushed over to a pile of something shiny in the sand. Here was her perfect opportunity to glimpse the beauty of the ocean—even if it was a dead creature washed ashore.

"What is...oh...oh no!"

Jackie, filled with dread, backed away from her find. The twitching creature left a pit to expand in her stomach, one that only worsened with the memory of her mother's warning replaying in her mind.

'Avoid them if you find them.' Her mother had advised.

Somehow, Jackie couldn't move. The presence of the forbidden creature was enough to light a fire of admiration in her. Her mother always told her to stay away from the Portuguese man-of-war, but its guest appearance on the beach stole the breath out of her. The excitement of danger pumped her heart, and her fingertips tapped thoughtfully against her Polaroid camera. Here was a representation of the sea, a powerfully venomous creature with beautiful blue tendrils and a magnificent torso that was translucent. Sunlight reflected off of the creature in a way that made it sparkle against the sand. Jackie gaped at it, wondering how this beautiful creature was so lethal. Extremely venomous, the Portuguese man-of-war was a deterrent to so many people. To Jackie, studying its unique amalgamation of veiny, purple-blue formations, she saw it for what it was, a treasure. Its close resemblance to an organ reminded her of a heart, and since it was blue, her mind saw it as the ocean's pulsing ticker.

Carefully, she placed her flip-flops on the ground, slipping her feet into them. Any touch to the surface of this creature might severely incapacitate her. Once protected, Jackie drew out her camera, leaning over the beached heart with a grin on her lips. There was no way she could show her mother this picture without reaping an intense scolding, but she knew she needed to get it anyway.

This was the ocean, a glimpse at the main, awe-inspiring iceberg that normally hid from sight. This was danger...this was life.

Jackie snapped the exhilarating picture while drab ocean waves crashed enviously against the shore, rendered weak without their heart.

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by Izzy