The Long Way Across

Drift's world was: The anemone. The rocks around the anemone. The small sandy patch in front of the anemone. And the view from the anemone of the open water that led to school which Drift had been looking at every morning for two years from the safety of the anemone.

The open water was: Blue. Very blue. The kind of blue that doesn't have a bottom you can see or sides you can find or a place to stop and say: here. This is where the open water ends and something safer begins.

Papa swam with Drift every morning. This was the arrangement. Papa led. Drift followed. Close behind. Close enough that Papa's tail was always visible. Always there. A small orange flag saying: this way. Still here. Still here. Still here.

Then one Tuesday Papa said: "Tomorrow you swim alone."

Drift looked at the open water. The open water said nothing helpful.

"I'm not ready," said Drift. Papa looked at Drift. "I know," said Papa. "You'll go anyway."

That night Drift lay in the anemone. The anemone moved the way it always moved — slow and certain like breathing — and Drift had never once been afraid inside it.

Outside: The open water. Dark now. Moving. Enormous in the way that darkness makes enormous things more enormous.

Drift thought about all the things that lived in the open water. The list was long. The list was not helpful.

Morning came. Papa was at the edge of the anemone. Not in the open water. At the edge. The exact place where safe becomes not safe or not safe becomes safe depending on which direction you were going.

"Ready?" said Papa. "No," said Drift. "Off you go," said Papa.

Drift looked at Papa. Papa looked at Drift. With the eyes of someone who knows exactly how frightening this is and is sending you anyway because they love you which is the most complicated thing about being loved sometimes.

Drift swam. Into the open water.

The open water was: Cold. Moving. Blue in every direction. No walls. No floor visible. No ceiling. Just — water being water in all directions simultaneously without asking how Drift felt about it.

Drift kept swimming.

Something large moved in the deep blue below. Drift swam faster.

A current pushed sideways. Drift corrected.

The school was somewhere ahead. Drift couldn't see it yet. The open water was too open for seeing ahead.

Drift stopped.

Not because something happened. Because the open water was enormous and Drift was small and sometimes enormousness just — stops you.

Drift floated. In the middle of the open water. Between the anemone and school. Equidistant from safe and safe.

The water moved around Drift. The deep blue went on below. Something small and silver passed nearby going the other direction with the confidence of something that had never once thought about the open water being open.

Drift watched it go.

It's just water, thought Drift.

Which was true. And also not the whole truth. But true enough to keep swimming.

Drift swam. The school appeared ahead — a collection of rocks and coral and the sound of the morning arriving at school in the particular way mornings arrive at schools everywhere which is loudly and all at once.

Drift stopped at the edge of the school. Looked back.

The open water was between Drift and the anemone which was too far away to see now.

Just — open water. Blue. Moving. Enormous.

And Drift had crossed it.

Not fast. Not perfectly. Not without stopping. Not without the large thing in the deep blue and the sideways current and the moment of floating in the middle between safe and safe.

But crossed.

Drift went into school. Sat down.

At the end of the day Drift swam home. The open water was the same. Blue. Moving. Enormous.

Slightly smaller than the morning. Not much. Just — slightly. The way things get smaller when you have been through them once and your body knows now what your brain was afraid of before.

Papa was at the edge of the anemone. Same place. Same eyes.

Drift swam in. The anemone moved the way it always moved. Slow and certain. Like breathing.

Papa said nothing. Just looked at Drift with the look that didn't need words and wouldn't have fit into them anyway.

Drift looked at the open water. It was doing what it always did — being open and blue and enormous and entirely unbothered by what Drift had decided about it today.

Tomorrow it would be the same.

Drift would cross it anyway.