The day started early, but the breakfast was late.
The little Thudmakers found it at last – the biggest two did – in the back of the bottom of the end of the crooked cupboard hidden in the corner. They shared it with their siblings, quietly, and took very small bites apiece.
“I guess it’s time again,” said Thudmaker.
Out came the yellow hat, out came the brown boots, out came the overalls. And out the front door, shutting it quiet as a mouse, came Thudmaker, sixteen feet tall and going on sixty, headed down the street to look for work.
But looking high, there wasn’t any. And looking low, there wasn’t any. And nobody looks in between, but Thudmaker looked there too, and there wasn’t any.
There was one more place, though. It wasn’t any of those things.
It wasn’t anywhere at all.
And so Thudmaker headed down to the docks. Oh, woah Thudmaker, scars and muscles and old burns and new callouses and such a sight on the shining Main Street. Parents covered their children’s eyes; cars drove by a little faster. You don’t look at Thudmaker, they knew. You need, but you don’t look. And you don’t speak.
Down by the way of damp smells there was an older store that Thudmaker squeezed into and came out with a battered old sou’wester that was bent a little too far to the south. And a block farther down there was an even older store that Thudmaker couldn’t fit into at all, where a man had a boat that was half tin and half wood and you couldn’t tell the two halves apart if your life depended on it. Nobody wanted it and nobody would pay for it.
It fit Thudmaker, that boat. Like a glove. And it came with a little pair of oars.
Thudmaker dipped them into the water and pulled up and down and along and along.
Thud, thud, thud.
Out to sea went Thudmaker, with nobody watching from the shining streets. And they felt just a bit relieved to not see what they saw.
So Thudmaker rowed out to sea, over waves blue and green and strange, looking for fish with a battered old rod in a battered old pocket. And by and large there were things shimmering in the water, but a hook hauled up nothing, nothing, nothing.
“What’s this?” Thudmaker asked.
“A good question,” bellowed a passing voice. Thudmaker looked up and met eye to eye with a cargo ship, long and cold and steely-iron, a smooth cylinder covered in bulky boxes. “It’s plastic. Scrap plastic. Microplastic. You get a lot of it out here, from over there.”
“Over where?” asked Thudmaker.
“Everywhere. It all washes out, you know.”
Thudmaker dipped a paw in the water and came out with nothing, but a very special kind of nothing; thin and filmy and indestructibly tiny. “Is it safe?”
“Of course not, but it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing out here, you know.”
“I thought the sea was out here,” said Thudmaker.
“Yes, well, nothing real,” said the ship matter-of-factly. “I thought you’d know that, being a sailor.” And it pushed on, idly tipping a container over its side as it went.
Thudmaker fished there for a while, watching shoals of plastic and schools of rubber duckies drift by under the line. But there was nothing at all, and so down came the oars again.
Splash, splash, splash.
The plastic swirled around the bow.
Then Thudmaker went a little farther out to sea, under skies of blue and grey and black and white, until the boat went aground with a crunch and a crack and a tinkle and a rattle. But mostly a crunch.
Thudmaker got out and waded around to check the bow. It was dented, but that was normal.
“Whew,” said Thudmaker.
“Careful,” said some tourists. “Mind the coral.”
“Coral?” asked Thudmaker, looking at the tourists. They were covered in swimsuits, wetsuits, and cameras of very interesting kinds, and they were all wearing cages as they swam around Thudmaker’s ankles.
“Yes, the coral. The white, crumbly stuff. There’s not much left, you know.”
Thudmaker looked at the coral. There didn’t look like there was much left, it was true. It was practically bleached.
“Now would you please move?” asked the tourists. “We’re here for a shark dive. It’s very exciting and dramatic and thrilling and natural, and it might not be here next year.”
“Why?” asked Thudmaker.
“Well, the coral sure won’t be,” said the tourists. “Now beat it or you’ll get in the way of the chumming.”
Thudmaker beat it back into the boat and watched as the water turned red with filleted former fish and the fins appeared, nosing for treats and bumping cages that flashed and clicked and hummed with pent-up excitement. Some of them came and bumped Thudmaker’s boat too, but all Thudmaker’s pockets were empty except for crumbs.
“Will they be alright next year?” asked Thudmaker.
“Who knows?” said the tourists. “Who cares? It’s the sea; it’s big, and there are always plenty more fish in it and plenty more of it, no matter what happens. We’d think you’d know that, being a sailor.”
Thudmaker thought about fishing there, for a while. But the sharks were so small, and they looked so hungry, and in the end the hook stayed tucked with the rod and line and the oars came out again.
Splish, splish, splish.
The corals whitened behind the stern.
Now Thudmaker came farther out to sea yet, under wind and sun and cloud and over water, nothing but water, as far down as could be imagined and further still.
Thudmaker looked high, and there wasn’t anything there.
Thudmaker looked in the middle, and there wasn’t anything there.
And Thudmaker looked low, and saw the sea.
There were words for it, but they weren’t small enough to fit inside anybody’s head, let alone their mouths. They were too big even for Thudmaker’s; a skull that could split stone with a jaw that could crack walnuts. But there were things about it that could be grasped.
There were waves.
Thudmaker’s boat bobbed in the blue on top of them, like a cork that had seen the worst side of a corkscrew. The rod was fished out.
There were fish.
Thudmaker could see them down there, deep and fast and thick, all shining and wide-eyed. The line was fished out.
It was real.
And that was what hit Thudmaker like a calm slow stroke of lightning, sliding up inside from boots-to-hat. The hook paused mid-threading.
The sea was real, and it was there, and it was all around Thudmaker, edge to edge as far as could be seen no matter how high Thudmaker reared up into the horizon.
And they were alone together.
Thudmaker looked down at the little fishes. The sea looked back up at Thudmaker.
And the oars dropped down into their locks.
THUD.
It had been a good day, a busy day, a day for making things and building things and trading things. A long, productive day. And so the lights kept going as the sun turned itself out, because if there’s one thing that a day like that needs it’s a bustling night.
Everyone bustled appropriately, pushing papers, hauling girders, checking and filing and bending and breaking and they were so busy that they almost didn’t see Thudmaker come back in, down at the docks.
But they heard it when the road groaned. And they felt it when the air changed. And when the smell of damp and more came in…
Well.
That’s when people, even when they know they’re not meant to look, have got no choice.
And that’s when they saw them. The two of them. Filling the road and overflowing it, side by side, hand in hand, each leaning on the other after a long, tired journey.
Thudmaker and the sea.
Some people stared, shut-eyed. Some people screamed, quietly. And some other people ran, clumsily.
But none of that seemed real, not real at all, as the bright lights turned soft on the glimmering bodies of small fishes, as those two walked together up the shining Main Street.
There wasn’t much for dinner.
The youngest two little Thudmakers found a can; the oldest two found an old paper bag.
But it was enough for them all, and for one more. And that was all they needed.