* * * *
Painted canvases line the boardwalk railing, the work of some local artist looking to make a few bucks. Mari walks past with her head down, but from the corner of her vision, she sees seascapes and still-lifes, roller coasters, the tramcar, sand dunes. There are seaglass floats intricately trapped in rope netting and wooden bobbers in once bright colors now faded by the salt air and sun. Here are someone else’s dreams, captured in broad strokes of oil and pastel paint. She doesn’t plan to look, doesn’t want to appear interested, doesn’t want to give the artist hope she might buy something. The paintings are like water, shifting, shimmering, blending one into the next as she passes. She stops at none and forgets each one the moment it’s behind her.
Then she sees…something. She stops mid-step and half-turns to a large canvas, easily more than half her height, covered in dark tempura swirls with tinges of white, giving the impression of waves. But there’s something in them, something hidden beneath the brush strokes. Something just out of sight but there, tugging at her senses, like whatever chases her in thedreams.
“You see it.”
It isn’t a question, exactly. Suddenly an old woman is beside Mari, a knowing grin smoothing her weathered, sunkissed skin. Her eyes sparkle like the seaglass she paints.
“See what?” Mari asks, hoping to put a name to whatever it is that’s caught her attention.
The old woman laughs. “You know, or you wouldn’t have stopped.”
Marialmostknows. Something there, or thehintof something among the waves, flashing just out of sight. Something…or someone…
There—a flash of hair, gone back into the painted surf as quickly as she sees it. Reaching out, she touches the edge of the canvas where it’s stapled to the frame. Her fingers brush over thick strokes and come away almost damp.The weather, she thinks. Nothing ever fully dries on the shore. But this feels like a meniscus almost, the hint of vast amounts of water on the cusp of breaking through the surface.
Then something moves under her fingertip. Something pushes back. She must buy this painting. Sheneedsit.
“How much?” she asks, reaching for her purse.
* * * *
It takes some doing, but she gets the painting home. It’s so big, there’s nowhere really to put it, so she props it up in front of the dormant fireplace in her living room, then positions her armchair so she can stare straight into the painting’s depths. There are waves at the top, laced with seaspray almost translucent against a stormy sky. The waves crash and churn, the hint of movement hidden in impasto brush strokes, drawing her down into the deep midnight blue depths at the bottomof the canvas. The painting feels alive somehow, and she keeps drawing back to try to see everything all at once, sure something’s moving in the water, something dancing on the tip of her tongue, on the edges of her vision.
What did the old woman say?You see it.
But did she? Was it nothing more than a feeling? A sense of…what, exactly?
Blue halls hemmed in green. Blue hair swirling through blue water, green eyes flashing like dappled flecks of glinting sunlight. That’s what she thinks she sees when she isn’t looking at the painting, what she imagines lurking in the depths. Whoever chases her in those fleeting dreams now hides between the thick paint and the canvas beneath, just out of sight.
Time passes, a fact she knows only because the sun sets and the windows blacken. The room darkens. Now she sees it, the hair, the eyes. It’s a mermaid, maybe. Or no, nothing that saccharine. A merrow then, more cryptid than human, darting and diving as shadows lengthen across the canvas. Mari sees it, oralmostsees it, and feels the weight of its gaze on her. Chasing her, but still out of reach.
Soon it’s too dark to see anything at all. Mari scoots closer, reaching out to touch the painting, and her fingertips come away wet again. She sucks on one and tastes sea salt. The brine makes her lips pucker. She leans further, sure she can hear the faint crash of waves, the distant cry of a lone gull. Further, until she smells it, the unmistakable thickness of low tide in the back of her throat like wet pennies or stale blood. A fishy scent envelopes her. She closes her eyes and breathes in deep.
Wet fingers brush her cheek, then cold lips cover hers. The kiss takes her breath away. The sea crashes around her, stinging at first, as electric as the mouth opening over hers, then a bone-heavy crush numbs her completely. No more running. No more dreams. She’s caught after all this time, and she knowsnothing but the kiss and the merrow and the sea.
Exit Plan by Emery C. Walters
A piece of acid metal music saved my life. Dammit. I had it all planned out. My name is Jess. I’m a guy; I’m eighteen. And a half. And I hate my life.
In a different world, I’d be perfectly fine, I think. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with me…maybe it’s just everyone and everything else, but it doesn’t matter, does it? Because I, just like you, have to live in this world.
I just couldn’t do it anymore. So, I made my plan, my exit plan.
I got in a fight at school last week. It was the last straw. I fought this guy Marc, they called him Merc—short for Mercury—because he was the star of the track team. He was also on the boxing team and the baseball team and well, you get the idea.
Frankly, I thought he was overcompensating for being a big fag, just like me, only he was too chicken to admit it. And if you want a second opinion, he wanted me. He had a twisted way of showing it, though.
I kind of liked fighting with him, I mean, the body contact part, the punches and kicks not so much.
Oh yeah, back to the plan.
So yeah, I’m still a virgin. Anyhow, after Marc got through beating me to a pulp to prove how not-gay he was, I just lay there and I started to cry. I was busy trying not to piss my pants after those kicks to my kidneys, so I really didn’t pay much attention when someone took my hand and helped me to my feet. I could hear Marc and his posse laughing at me, but my eye was swelling up and I couldn’t really see them.
I sort of came to myself in the bathroom with someone washing the blood off me, and holding a cold wet paper towel to my eyelid to stop the bleeding there.
The bell rang and he said, “Shit, I’ve got to go. Are yougoing to be okay? I have to get home, my bus…my dad…”
