THE MIDDLE, THE EDGE
Fiction. Commissioned by MicroLabs Melbourne / Melbourne Knowledge Week / Melbourne Conversations, November 2022.
The first thing you need to know is this: it wasn’t our fault. At least, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t our fault. I drink too much. There are gaps. Things get spotty. But I’d remember this. I’d remember the severing.
When I was a child, I couldn’t understand that the world was round. It was counter-intuitive. Still is, I suppose. The way I pictured it then was that as the oceans rose, the world filled up like water in a glass. I imagined the liquid creeping up the sides, until it eventually formed a meniscus over the lip of the cup, and then spilled over. Into where? I never thought that far. At any rate, it never made sense to me, imagining a globe getting fatter with water. It always felt up and down. I could only think in verticals. My brother and I would dare each other to dive when our parents weren’t looking. It was stupid; they always knew. It’s impossible to dry off fast enough for them not to notice the dripping hair. The smell of it, too. That tangy funk that sticks around for days and makes other children hold their noses when you pass.
Still, it called us. The below. We kicked down until our lungs were bursting, and then erupted at the surface, panting and grinning. For a long time, it was hard to figure how far down we’d reached, until we became teenagers, and our lungs got bigger. It was Dean who first saw the Tether. We knew it was there, of course. When the waves tugged at the raft, we could feel it holding us in place. Could feel the tension of it under strain. If you listened carefully, you could hear a deep sort of groan as it flexed. Dean was down a long time. When he reached the air, his eyes were so wide you could see the whites all around. He had described the rounded base of the raft, way down, and below that, a thick cable, twice as thick around as he was long. Barnacled, painted with algae. The great stalk to which we owed our constancy, our togetherness. The thing that held us here, let us live above the water, kept us stable in the currents, in the place most protected from the storms. He was still talking when I dived in, nosing into the depths, until my lungs got tight and little red dots danced in my vision. I pushed on down. My eyes acclimatised. And then I saw it. Loose, languid. The Tether. Testament to all that we had achieved. All that our forebears had fought for. All the decades of fear and blame and superstition. The thing they had made. When I hit the surface, I lay on my back, clawing air in. When my heart stopped hammering, I pulled myself onto the raft. I looked at Dean. He nodded. I burst into tears.
*
Full piece online at Melbourne Knowledge Week.
Illustration by Emma Ismawi.