Day after day passed. I tied a cloth around my nose and mouth and set to fragging coral growths with the men.

  I took the rations.

  I wish I’d had the courage to die instead.

  MATT

  I KNOW NOW why I am alive. I didn’t then, because I did not consider the premeditation involved. Can stone think? Do the tectonic shifts of the earth act with any purpose? I couldn’t answer in the negative, not honestly.

  But now I understand that there were forces at work.

  ***

  After a few weeks, Reubens did something that changed the camp forever. He was accompanied by a small child that only came up to his waist. My heart throbbed with anxiety, until I noticed that something was odd about that child.

  About you.

  Reubens showed you off to the troop like you were a doll. When you turned full circle your eyes landed on me, and I saw Amanda in you. My guts clenched with recognition, the hair on my arms stood up. I was afraid that everyone would recognize you, would know my shame.

  Reubens ground the lit end of his cigarette on your shoulder. It didn’t leave a mark, and you didn’t react at all.

  He found you growing from a field of cauliflower corals. Your eyes were open, and you seemed harmless, he explained, wiping his bowie knife on his pantleg. Described you as “damned-indestructible.” The troop had seen coral growth in the shape of human faces. Never a fully grown human form.

  Amanda’s appearance to me must have been unusual. The dark possibilities frightened me. Why only me? Was something horrible in store? The coral, I decided, must be somewhat intelligent. It targeted me, I realized. For what purpose?

  You looked at me as if in answer, eyes slightly recessed in the way a sculpture is carved, the shadows giving your gaze an ominous feel.

  The troop eventually decided that they didn’t like you. I agreed with them; I wanted them to get rid of you. They examined you, lifted your arms, knocked their knuckles against your sheen of hair. One of them examined what looked like your clothes—to discover that there were no seams, no way to remove them. Sarge and Reubens decided to keep you around ‘for observance.’

  “If the coral wants to communicate, why can’t she talk?” Sarge’s voice was gravelly, the smell of cigarette smoke wafting over him in the thick air. The men often discussed issues at night around the fire, while I prepared for sleep.

  “Not she, it. And it’s not intelligent at all.” Someone replied. “It’s like those bugs that mimic birds.”

  “That’s a possibility. A nice defensive tactic. We won’t hurt it if it looks like one of our children.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to stay all innocent-looking, Sarge. What if it attacks?”

  Sarge remained quiet, the glint of the fire in the one eye that was looking at me. For some reason fear replaced my blood, and my whole body tensed.

  “Fireman,” he said softly. “It would be wise of you to share any insight into this issue.”

  He asked because you were my silent shadow. It amused everyone at first, the way you stood by me when I slept, the way you followed me in the day. I’d tried to shoo you away but refused to speak to you lest I be found out. I wanted to grip the sides of your head and ask you why you were doing this to me. The swell of grief in my chest returned because thoughts of Amanda confronted me with your arrival.

  “I know nothing. I want it gone.”

  There were a few grunts of assent around the fire at this, and I felt a weird camaraderie toward my captors in that moment. Sarge only took a long drag from his cigarette, a disembodied orange sun in the dark, rising and setting in front of his face.

  “It’s imprinted on you like a duckling. I want to know why.”

  “I don’t like it.” I insisted. “I did nothing to deserve this.” I pointed at Reubens. “He brought it here, not me.”

  “Maybe it thinks you’re safe. The noble rescue worker.” Reubens replied. There were appreciative chuckles. “You’re easy to take advantage of. I say we let this take its course. We’re not the ones the thing is obsessed with.”

  Sarge didn’t say anything, but his shadow bobbed in a nod.

  ***

  The rarest pine in North America, the Torrey Pine, was no more. Bark was overgrown with coral anemones, some pulsing in the light of the day. Bulbous cankers replaced the needles, giving me the impression that the branches were covered in barnacles. The majestic wilderness that I used to take refuge in was now fecund and infected.

  You followed me down every path I took, no matter how far I went from the camp. I hoped to lose you in an expedition that would cross several broken cliffs. Torrey Pines was known for its large cliffs, ravines, and sandstone structures. The calcium carbonate encasing everything seemed to be leaving the rocks alone. We had no explanation for it, but the troop was considering moving camp to the one place the coral hadn’t touched. So, I figured, what chance did you have? Maybe I could shake you off. I imagined your tiny doll-body breaking and crashing down the rock like glass.

  Our party packed up and scouted out at dawn: myself, Reubens, and three others with tools and rations. You were never far behind me. A school of jellyfish arced like a rainbow above us, their psychedelic coloring sending a spectrum of marbled light on our pathway.

  “Walk slow, those things can sting.” Bash, a short man with a moustache, had spoken behind me.

  I looked up. They were large, their ribbon-tails innocent and beautiful in their undulations. One of them had a head so big I was sure I could sit on it. They didn’t bother us, and soon they were floating away with the air currents.

  The wind picked up midway through our journey. We had not seen the end of jellyfish. In the distance, headed right toward us, was a swarm. It was so dense that I thought I was looking at a gelatinous cloud. The jellyfish heads were pulsing parachutes netted together by their long stinging tentacles, which dragged along the surface of the cliffs.

  “Get down!” Reubens shouted.

  We scrambled. The air grew charged, reminding me of approaching lightning strikes during thunderstorms. I bolted. I maintained a sprint, hoping I could stay ahead of them. The swarm was due to pass over the cliff if the breeze didn’t change. I imagined myself like an ant avoiding a broom, running along in line with the bristles until clearing the edge of them as it touched down.

  The men who followed Reubens’ advice were climbing down the rock. I heard their screams, followed by the crashing and booming echoes of rockfall. I did not turn back to look. In my peripheral vision I saw the psychedelic tentacles, like strings of billowing lace. The writhing curtain swept over the rocks. I felt the lash of a whip on my ankle as I cleared the swarm, a prickle that bloomed into a painful burn. Grimacing I kept on, leg throbbing with the effort. I’d reached the edge of the rock’s surface.

  I turned then, breathing hard. Reubens was stopped a few paces behind me, bent over with his hands on his knees, wheezing. Angry red lines marked up his pale arms. His body could not contain the tremors sweeping over him, and his eyes bulged with fear. I saw humanity in him, long disguised.

  The jellyfish cleared the cliff, tentacles dragging off the edge of the rock and then dangling gracefully as they drifted on. They passed over you, bumping against you like a beaded curtain. You sat with your legs crossed, unperturbed. No stings marred your alabaster complexion.

  In a miserable heap next to you lay one of our men. His sores had erupted into pustules, his mouth yawning in a silent scream. His body was so swollen he looked inflated; his eyelids balloons. As we approached him I was sure he was dead. Reubens cursed under his breath. I watched him take out one epi-pen from our small medkit and waste it on the corpse. I couldn’t fault him for such a useless action. He likely felt the need to do something. Anything.

  You only looked at me.

  We heard grunts over the cliff’s edge. Bash. He’d managed to climb down and hang on for dear life. “Barron is gone,” he gasped out, once Reubens and I pulled him the rest of the way up. “Slipped when the swarm started to pass over. Just got spooked.” He was trembling as well.

  Our party reduced, then, from six to four. Myself, you, Reubens and Bash.

  Reubens whirled on you. He put both hands on the side of your head. “Not a mark on this thing,” he growled. “Just watching us all get maimed? Huh? You little freak.”

  I saw his torso twist in a lunging motion, from my position behind him. I let out an exclamation when your small body went sailing over the cliffside. I do not believe that I was concerned for your wellbeing. But Rueben’s capacity for brutality always shocked me.

  You arced upward and then . . . twisted, like a fish.

  We all watched you walk across empty space to another cliff rock. It was a startling and uncanny moment, your tiny form in the air like that, moving in this new world with ease while we felt so vulnerable and unmoored.

  You touched down. Then, you turned and walked back toward us, the air shimmering like rainbows under your feet. You acted as if nothing had happened. You took your place beside me.

  “What the fuck?” Bash breathed. “Reubens come on, man. We can’t have this thing with us.”

  Reuben’s complexion flashed from sickly white to mottled purple. He took out a wrench from his bag, weighed it in his hand. He looked at you. I took a step back, anticipating his swing. Maybe he’d bash your head in, see how strong you really were. And then his eyes flit to me, and his face warmed to its usual color.

  “You,” he said. “You tie this thing down and you try to kill it.”

  “What?” I blinked rapidly. “You want me to—?”

  “Yeah,” Bash nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. If it’s got a defense mechanism then the fireman can take the heat.” He spit pink phlegm and wiped bloody crust from his nose.

  A bag of fragging tools landed by my feet.

  “Go on, Fireman. We’ll climb down to a nice spot. You get to work. If you wimp out we won’t be sharing rations.”

  We climbed down the cliffside to a wide and flat shelf that arced around the cliff, the lower elevation an adjustment. I felt slightly lightheaded. Bash and Reubens set up a camp and sent me walking. They didn’t want to witness it, I guess. They started to roast crab meat over the fire to incentivize me.

  I found I did not need to be threatened. I looked down at you and found myself capable of imagining your end.

  You just followed me.

  ***

  My arm muscles bulge with my efforts, the steel shears cut slightly into the sides of your neck before tremoring to a halt. I hate you. I hate how you look like her. I hate how you remind me of my weakness. My grief for Amanda was exploited and now takes your tiny form and haunts me, mocks me.

  My anger flares white, a new dimension of pain. My eyes swim. I wish I could shoot you, blow your head clean off and paint the rocks with whatever the fuck is inside there.

  The shears clatter to the ground. Why can’t I do it? I’m a fireman that’s broken down doors and hacked away obstructions to save lives. I can carry two people out of a building at the same time. Why are you stronger than me? Your neck only has small lines etched into it, mere scrapes. You really are like a rock. I upend the bag for other tools. The chisel, the hacksaw. Something in here has to work.

  I look at your face. You’re watching. Are you amused? I have never seen an emotion on your face. You do not seem made to express anything. But your arm lifts, your finger points. I follow it with my eyes.

  To the hacksaw.

  I watch you lower yourself to your knees. The tether on your waist falls slack. You bend down. Rest your head on a small rock like a pillow.

  You point again to the hacksaw, just as the sun begins to set.

  I am growing cold.

  Fin Part 1

  AMANDA

  I JUST WANTED a family. Doesn’t that sound so innocent?

  Behind every desire is a cold reality. It watches, smirks. Probes at any hypocrisy. It moves under what I consider to be my skin and makes me realize that I condone pain. That is what life is, after all. Pain is the only guarantee. To desire a child is to perpetuate this pain.

  How then, can I blame the coral for what it has done?

  ***

  There is no me anymore, but I still think of the child as mine.

  This is possible, because of Matt. He must be understood, the way I was understood and exploited. There is no I in the reef mind. It wonders: What is more predictable than the human tendency toward violence? But the human trait of individuality must not be underestimated. Some universal observations are not entirely incorrect. Humans will take the easy way out. The impulsive, destructive way for the sake of an immediate result.

  Matt sits on a bar stool, hunched over an amber glass with his Amanda-wife. He is recounting details from his upbringing. Amanda’s eyes widen, and her mouth opens. She raises her own glass to her lips, finishes the contents, and motions for another to the barkeep.

  Matt says, “lots of parents do it, Amanda.”

  “Is that so?” The tone of her voice suggests that she believes no such thing.

  “Yes,” Matt frowns at his own glass.

  “My dad beat me to keep me in line.” He keeps on. “Parenting is difficult. Sometimes a father has to make hard choices to steer a kid in the right direction.”

  The Amanda-wife is quiet for a long while. Perhaps she wonders if this man she loves would be different without the beatings. Better or worse?

  Her shoulders hunch.

  MATT

  IT WAS MORNING of the following day. From our vantage point, the sun outlined the rock around us in angry red before bursting over the edge to paint the ground with bright light. Bash and Reubens turned over the ash of the previous night’s fire. The wind carried with it the smell of ocean water and fish.

  Supine, my neck stiff from a night spent on the rock, I looked at the sky until the light stung. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes and filled my ears. I blinked, my mind retreating from a hazy nightmare as the real world came into sharper focus. When I sat up ,the particulars fell away like cobwebs brushed off a windowpane. But impressions and feelings remained. A thought came unbidden to me, in Amanda’s voice. A memory of a warm morning, her hand on my chest. Any child of ours should have your nose . . .

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat. I kept thinking of my father, and my own childhood. My respectful posture. My litany of “yes sir” and “no sir.” His hand striking me and then embracing me warmly, proud of my accomplishments. He made me the man that I was.

  Parents have a hard job.

  I’d left your body behind, within a ring of powdery white dust, next to the dulled hacksaw. I’d brought back your head. I’d brought it back to prove I’d done it.

  My hands trembled.

  Reubens looked at your head, perched in the center of camp. Light as a bowl, sort of porous. No blood poured from the stump of your neck. Your eyes were closed. I did not know if Reubens was impressed by my deed or if he distrusted it. I could not blame him for that if so, as the two hearts within me were also conflicted. Traces of determination, parental duty, leave an after-image in my mind. The prickle along my back flares up like an angry rash whenever I doubt myself, whenever I think I might collapse. I scratch absently at my skin.

  Sometimes a man has to make hard choices, my father said, taking off his belt. What kind of father would I be if I didn’t whip you into shape?

  I flinched. I caught Reubens staring at me, as if seeing something unexpected. Perhaps he had hoped to dispatch me, thinking I wouldn’t have the guts. Or maybe he envied me, the violence I’d done to you.

  “She didn’t make a sound,” I said to Reubens. He looked down, as if annoyed he was caught staring at you. I went on justifying myself: “It likely is a mimic of some sort. We’re better off without her around.”

  I spoke with such confidence that the burn on my back abated.

  What was I becoming?

  Who was I, without a purpose I understood?

  “Agreed.” Bash spoke, surprising me. He shouldered his pack. “I don’t want to stay here. The question is, do we go on or should we head back to camp?”

  Reubens shook his head. “I told Sarge we’d find a path forward. I will only concede if we cannot find a natural food source in the next day.”

  We bustled around with practical work, the other two moving quicker. I packed up, avoiding your head until the end. I didn’t know if I should leave you or toss you over the cliff.

  I picked you up and something uncoiled under the stump of your neck, umbilical in its swing. It looked like a mangled, exposed tree-root. But pulsing. Wet. It expanded and contracted like breathing lungs. It took a moment for my mind to recognize a trunk-like torso, the offshoots in the place of arms and legs.

  I froze there, heart in my ears. What the fuck?

  Behind me: “Fireman. Toss it. Let’s go.”

  I felt my shoulders stiffen. I put you down instead, under a slight overhang of rock in the shade. There had been no nightmare. I felt a compulsion and I’d done it. I’d moved the hacksaw back and forth over your small neck, jostling your head from side to side. Me. I’d done it. The pain in my palms remembered, as did the muscles of my upper body.

  Something in my thoughts halted as I reckoned with this. A decision.

  Mine?

  No.

  I turned around casually. “I’ll leave her there as a path marker. Just in case.”

  Reubens just shrugged.

  I was sure you opened your eyes as I turned away. I felt them on my back, the sores lining my skin stinging in response. My thoughts were with my father again.

  Sometimes you gotta break an egg so a chick can fly.

  ***

  The sun was high. The rock we traversed was barren and exposed. My arms itched with the start of a sunburn.

  Bash became agitated. He scratched at his own reddening forearms. “Do you think it knows things?”

  I stopped and looked out over the horizon, thinking he’d spotted the approach of something dangerous. Nothing but clear blue sky. Completely cloudless.

 

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