Catch up!

“Maybe. But where would you go if you swallowed it? Is there any land around here?”

Still staring at the breather, Spot slowly said, “Not that I’ve ever seen.” Adam’s face tensed up with a sad rage. Spot added, “But what do I know, Adam? I’m always with my school and we don’t go hunting for land. Maybe there is land somewhere, Adam. And, now that you’ve got your suit, maybe you will find it.”

“Maybe,” Adam choked back a sniffle. “What am I supposed to do, Spot? I can’t float here forever.” He put the breather back into the waterwood box.

—-

“What’s left in there?” Spot asked.

Adam tilted the opening of the box towards him and peered inside. There was one other item in the box. “There is something else.” He reached in and removed a folded piece of dried seaweed. Adam let go of the box and flipped over on his back so that he could unfold the seaweed. In a chalky, glorious cursive it was written:

I must apologize, young man.
Often, that which spells Tragedy for one spells Blessing to another.
Enjoy the gifts.

Furious, Adam crumpled the seaweed and tossed it into the water. “Somebody did this on purpose? Everything? On purpose?” Adam cried to the open sky. Why would someone want to hurt him? Why would they want to take away everything? He sobbed uncontrollably, with great heaves and shudders. Waves of anger and loneliness roiled through his body. Spot swam close by, paying attention but letting Adam alone.

Eventually, Adam settled down. He rested on the box and stared off into the distance. Without saying anything, Spot disappeared under the water and didn’t come back up. Adam began weeping again, for himself and for his lost world.

Catch up!

With renewed energy, Adam pulled his arms from the tube and let it float beside him while he took off his water-logged jeans. He slid his entire body feet first into the cloth tube. The material covered him from the bottom of his ankles to just underneath his armpits. His arms, shoulders, and head were free to move about. The tube squished his feet together but Adam didn’t care. He was so, so warm. He rolled over to float on his back and inhale the salt air with a deep satisfaction.

“Wow, Adam,” said Spot. “Now you look like a water-man!”

“Well, I don’t care how I look. I feel like I’m wrapped up in a hot towel,” he said to Spot.

“What’s a towel?” asked Spot.

“Never mind,” Adam said and turned over to watch his jeans slowly sink beneath him. Just before they were lost to the depths, he remembered his knife. Somersaulting in place, Adam dove underwater and darted, not unlike a fish, toward his jeans. He pulled the knife from the right back pocket and tucked it into the top of his new swimsuit. For the first time since the flood, he felt comfortable.

—-

The next item Adam removed from the waterwood box caused Spot to spitter and sputter and spatter and splatter salt water everywhere. Between water-wrinkled fingertips, Adam held to the sun a thin, semi-clear circle about the size of a quarter and made from some flexible material like rubber or plastic.

“A breather!” gasped Spot.

“What is it?” asked Adam as he turned the thing over in his hand, bending it in half and half again.

“It’s an antique. The Coral Annals recall that the Turtles invented breathers after the Rise. They’ve been long forbidden.” Spot swam around Adam’s hand and stared at the small disc.

“Well, what do I do with it?”

“I don’t know what you do with it. The Annals tell tales of water-folk using breathers when they wanted (or needed) to leave Ocean.” Spot’s eyes never once strayed from the breather. “Maybe it’s for me?” Spot whispered.

Catch up!

“I’m confused,” Adam said, when Spot returned.

“Well, that is what words do best, ya know?”

Spot and Adam talked until Adam’s voice started to give out. He still felt drained, cold, and hopeless. He also really needed something to drink. Spot didn’t have any suggestions but one – for Adam to open the box.

“I already opened the box, remember? That’s why I’m here. The box was empty except for a drop of water. Then the flood came.”

“And I told you – this a waterwood box, Adam. It will be empty…until it gets wet.”

Adam didn’t believe Spot. Then again, Adam was talking with a fish in the middle of a vast ocean. Still, thinking about the box at all brought him close to tears. If he could have survived without using the box as a float he would have let go of it a day ago. The waterwood box brought this trouble. But he didn’t have many other options. So, Adam opened the box again. Spot was right. The waterwood box was not empty.

Chapter 3
Adam Opens the Box (Again)

The first thing Adam pulled from the waterwood box looked like a single leg from a very large pair of pants. The outer layer was covered by a scaly, pale blue fabric that shimmered in the sunlight. The inside of the garment felt like wool, soft and warm to touch. “What do you think this is?” he asked Spot.

“Hmmm…I don’t know. For your arms maybe?”

Adam let go of the box and put one arm, then the other, into the fabric tube. Not only was the fabric warm inside, it was dry, too! But having both his arms inside the thing didn’t feel quite right to Adam. Despite his sense that he wasn’t wearing the tube properly, Adam hesitated to take it off because he didn’t want his arms to touch the cold water again. Then, Adam had an idea.