They sat by the edge of the water and they breathed and they waited for their lungs to overflow.
Big, deep, shuddering breaths that made their bones rattle and the skin of their cheeks flap like sails. Over and over and over until their blood was so oxygenated it could glow in the dark and then:
“One, two, three, go.”
“Rock,” said the first diver, who was the tallest and longest and leanest.
“Rock,” said the second diver, who was the shortest and roundest and hairiest.
“Paper,” said the third diver, who was the baldest and burliest and loudest.
“How do you always do that?” asked the first diver (whose name was Cloe) in a voice that was carefully NOT whining and therefore was extremely whining.
“Simple,” said the third diver (whose name was Bert). “You two are too much siblings: you always pick the same thing.”
“But how did you know it was going to be rock?”
“You looked like you were going to pick rock.”
“But how-”
“There’s a rock-shapedness about you,” said Bert. He wrenched his arms in a brief windmill stretch, cracked his neck, shook himself, took one more deep, deep, rattling breath and dove into the water. The ripples slid out like rings in a tree trunk; perfectly two-dimensional.
“I hope he gets stuck and drowns,” said Cloe.
“No you don’t,” said the third diver (whose name was Marci).
“Fine. But I hope he doesn’t find anything.”
“He won’t.”
“Why?”
“Because he spent too much time gloating at you and not enough time getting ready.”
Cloe grabbed Marci’s hair with the casually gentle malice of a sibling and messed it up. She reciprocated, and together they watched the water.
***
In the water, Bert
swam
down
all
the
way
through the bright light
into the murky weeds
past the long long roots and tendrils
along the muck and into the sheets of silt
where there was no light and you felt with your hands and the sensation of the water on your skin and the instincts at the nape of your neck
which was where he began to feel the burn inside and as he did that his hands closed on something
something new
and he turned and grabbed and wrenched and pulled it free
and rose and kicked
all
the
way
up
***
When Bert came out of the water he breached like a dolphin and spouted like a whale and wheezed like a walrus all at once, which made a much more interesting sight than he had going in. Cloe applauded; Marci waded in to help him stand up.
“I got it,” he said, or gargled, or something. He put his hands on his knees and his knees on the sand and the sand on his palms one after another. “I got it.”
“You got it?” asked Cloe.
“I got it.”
“He got it?”
Marci gently removed the contents of Bert’s palm, knuckle by whitened knuckle. “He got it.”
“What’d he get?”
“I got it!” coughed Bert. “Didn’t you hear me, I got –”
“A dead root,” said Marci. “A really big one.”
“-it,” finished Bert at a lower volume and a lot more mumble.
Cloe began to cackle.
“Knock it off,” said Bert.
“It’s nice,” Marci told him. “Waterlogged, not rotten. You could carve something out of this.”
Cloe continued to cackle
“It won’t do,” said Bert. “It’s no dinner.”
“It’ll do. Just not what you thought it was, that’s all.”
Cloe was still cackling.
“Fine,” he said. “Fine, fine. Found it under the silt. Who’s next?”
Cloe’s cackling reached a peak and trailed off into a happy sigh. “I’ll do it,” she snorted, wiping away a tear. “Just let me – hoo boy – take a second to – ahah, holy shit – get a breath back in. Hweeeee. You just about drowned me on land here.”
Bert stood up straight, walked out of the shallows, bopped Cloe on the head as she began to fill her lungs again (he had to reach a long way up) and laid down in the sunshine with his eyes closed.
“Do you want this?” Marci asked, one hand full of root.
“Put it down over there,” he said, muffled under both his arms. “Let it dry out before we make any big decisions.”
“Too late,” said Cloe. “Big Decisions is heading down now. See you in a minute.”
She stepped back, rocked on her heels, thumped a foot like a rabbit and took one, two, three long, lunging, leaning strides before she launched like a frog, arched like a salmon, and shot down through the surface.
***
In the water, Cloe
slid
down
all
the
way
away from the sun
and beneath the weeds
and through their stems that were their roots that were themselves
and into the soft scum and mud of the shallow bottoms
down beyond that she eeled
turned so thin edge-on that the water couldn’t stop her
and turned so wide flat-out with her feet and hands to beat for power
down
farther
yet
in
the
dark
where the shapes grew regular and veiled and rotten and everything was hard and crusted
her heel kicked and caught in something long and thin and unbreaking
and she had to coil in on herself and feel blindly with fumbly fingers that weren’t paddles anymore
she was free
but she was running low
and she took the thin thing in one hand
and she took the first thing she could reach in the other
and she kicked
all
the
way
up
***
Cloe bubbled up to the surface and inhaled and yelled “holy SHIT’ and waved her finds in the air all at once which meant instead she swallowed water and coughed and sank. Marci ran in and dragged her out by the arms and the scruff of her neck, dripping and wheezing and whistling like a jay with a tin-plated windpipe.
“Did you get it?” asked Bert, who hadn’t moved a single centimeter in the most ostentatious way.
“Fuck, you, I, got, two,” gasped Cloe, expelling unwanted liquids from her mouth in several ways. She threw her possessions overhand at Bert an astounding six inches, then rolled over onto her face, which Marci adjusted to prevent her choking on her own vomit.
“Two what.”
“Chicken BUTT.”
“Chicken what?”
“YOU’RE the, chicken. Butt.”
“It’s a dead gar,” said Marci. She held the partially-fleshed remains with a critical eye and a blind nose. “Big one. Too bad it’s so far gone. Nice bones. And this over here is… a turtleshell.”
“Awhuhh.”
“With gar teeth in it. I think one of them choked on the other. Very pretty.”
“But not dinner,” said Bert.
“Very pretty,” said Marci.
“Beats a root,” said Cloe.
“The root smells better,” said Bert.
“Bug off,” said Cloe.
“Make me,” said Bert.
“I will,” said Cloe.
“I’ll go in a minute,” said Marci.
She breathed and she breathed and she breathed, then she took two heavy stones, one in each hand, and she went to the highest of the very little cliffs above the water, which weren’t very high, and she jumped.
***
In the water, Marci sank
all
the
way
down
through the light
under the weeds
under their underpinnings
through the murk
and into the dark
to the very bottom
where she let loose her stones and began to kick
swimming fast just above the jagged remnants
feeling them barely-not-brush against her with her hair
seeing them almost-just-not snag at her with her mind
until she plunged over the edge
of the shelf
of the rim
of the basin
and into the cleft
where the bottom was besides her everywhere
and everything was a claw waiting to grasp her and ask
stay
stay
stay
but she was quick and sure and clean and lucky
so she didn’t stay
but she stopped for a moment
and felt
with all of herself
and felt
with all of her care
something new
and she grabbed it
and bent
double
and heaved with her spine and arms and legs like a jack-knife
and it broke free and had no choice but to come with her as she tore it free
all
the
way
up
up
UP
***
Marci hadn’t broken surface before Cloe’s hands were on her arm, her shoulder, turning her up to her first inhalation in minutes and minutes. Bert held her back flat while she floated and breathed and remembered what air was, and together they waited until she was ready and they carried her up and out to the shallows where she planted her feet and swayed in gravity and took herself ashore.
“What’d you get?” asked Cloe. For formality’s sake, since it was taking up both of Marci’s arms and was taller than she was.
Marci held it up for inspection anyways. It was long, and sleek, and curved, and it shone in the sun despite the intrusion of corrosion and time and muck on its person. The grace was only slightly marred by a mangled rectangular placard placed squarely in its middle, announcing in antique glyphs
MYFLOR A.C M
E N – D 8
UNSHI STAT
“Now THAT’S dinner,” said Cloe.
“Dinner and more if you let me do the talking,” said Bert. “They’re crying for anything big at the junkers right now.”
So they left, Bert carrying the treasures in his arms, Cloe carrying Marci on her back. And they didn’t turn to look at where they’d been or say farewell, because this was just one dinner (and more) and they’d be back, and the water would be there, and so would what waited inside it, beneath it, taken back by it.
Them too, one day, a maybe day. But there was no rushing to any of that, so they walked slow.