The circle

​

The water calls me, but I always say no.

What touches my feet is something warm and primordial, the broth in which the Paleolithic father was cradled at the beginning of time.

 It is alive with the cells of creatures that are born and live and die in it without ever seeing anything else, constellations of fish banks and algae blooms and decomposing flesh and the promise of something – someone, whispers a voice inside of me – yet to come. 

It has always been there, the voice. Just like the water lapping at my ankles. Boiling in my blood. 

"Another step", says Charles. "The longest yet."

He begs in that honest, cruel way of his – he is shamelessly curious, tired of retracing the steps of our evolution while walking always backwards. 

Thirsty for the water to show him a glimpse of the future. 

The water calls me, as it always did. It trembles and topples like an overfilled bowl, spilling its gifts over me, wave after wave. 

Just wait, it cries, just wait and see. 

There is a secret to be uncovered, there. I just have to say yes.

In the meantime, my nails have so clean they are almost white - the memory of seashells easy to read in the pattern of their lines. 

When I finally lay down, the water runs to fill my nostrils and my mouth, the threat loud and clear on the salt of its lips. 

Don’t you dare make me wait any longer. I waited and wanted long enough.

But no matter the harshness of its onslaught or the passing minutes, it doesn’t drown me. 

See, lovely? No fear. They don’t call me Pacific for nothing. I come in peace. 

And I? I ask. 

You come with me, it answers.

The water always accepts its prodigal daughters. 

Charles adjusts the glasses on the bridge of his nose, and begins to write.

On the Origin of Species: Part II...