ATOLL

ATOLL
copyright AUG 2006
Wordcount: 2393
This story was written for my husband.


Sky and wind were all around him, reeling and arcing with his every movement. The late evening sun seemed reluctant to release its hold on the sky, and showered his back with painted golden warmth. Beneath him, the frothing blue depths hid their wonders. He tasted salt on his lips and spray fanned against his ruffled wings, calling him onward, though he had already flown farther than any of his kind had ever tried. He raced ahead of the growling thunderheads, ignoring their ominous insults, paying no heed to the surging warnings of his fickle love, the wind. Lost in his joy, he immersed himself in the spinning glory of flight. He was free, he was magnificent…, he was completely in his element…, and then his element betrayed him.

The wind tore into him, ripping and clawing at him like a crazed jungle cat. His right wing wrenched violently at the shoulder, but he barely had time to register that red-white pain before his body crashed into the rabid, black waters below. His glorious wings quickly became his doom as they gulped in the angry black foam, and began to pull him down. He had known sunlight on silvered wings, and he had known only how to soar, but the ravenous waves introduced him to a new world…one that was cold, and dark. As the waters covered his head and the awful silence took hold, he wished only that he had not been so alone….

* * * * *

There was a reluctant glinting of scales in the lower currents…dull and apologetic, like the gleam of a fishing lure. She moved warily through the waters, her pale skin covered with yellowed bruises and ragged cuts, her eyes haunted, barely seeing. She drifted through the darkness, seemingly unaware of the occasional scales fell that from her lower body…or that her tail fluke fluttered in tatters as she shivered through the depths. The sharks had done their damage. She did not know if they remained behind her, or followed in her wake, but she did know that she could not go back. She tried not to focus on her all too recent past. She even briefly entertained thoughts of allowing the currents do their worst…but she simply could not convince her body to cease its instinctual movement.

When the currents shifted suddenly, and she found herself trapped in a weighted net of feathers, she panicked, thinking initially that the sharks had some how added this to their vicious arsenal. Then she saw his face, and felt the jolting touch of his cold hand against her skin, and the fear left her, to be replaced by a certain wry calm. She could not very well sink into watery oblivion when his life was in her hands. With a sigh of bubbles, she wrapped her sore arms beneath his, and slowly dragged his unresisting body to the surface, leaving eddies of phosphorescence in her wake.

After the storm’s tantrum, the swells, though still large, began to calm. At the surface, he coughed badly, but did not awaken. She looked at the strange being in her arms, watching as the movement of the waves fanned his wings out around them, and considered her next move. Her nearest and only option lay miles away in the deepest ocean. There, the sheer, skeletal remains of a collapsed volcano had given birth to an abundance of life that did not exist elsewhere. If she was lucky, and if he survived, that circular paradise might just prove to be the haven they both needed to heal. For now…

* * * * *

He awoke on a large, flat rock in the center of the atoll, just above the clear, lapping water. He could see down to the white, sandy reef below. The cliffs that nearly encircled the whole cove rose above him, fierce and gray yet crowned with green mist, and the scent of earth and flowers drifted down to him. His entire body had been covered with a blanket of sun-dried seaweed, and his injured wing had been bound in kelp and driftwood. She watched him with great curiosity as she bobbed gently in the current, holding onto the rock with her fingertips, her hair mixing with the foam. Shyly, she reached out to him, offering what food she could find…shellfish and some coconuts that had fallen from the cliffs. He stretched out his hand at the same time, and at his accidental touch, she felt the same jolt as before. His eyes widened in surprise and he caught his breath…he had felt it too. After a moment of hesitation, he reached out again, this time catching her hand firmly in his own, holding onto her as if he would never let her go.

It was as though the turbulence of the earlier storm now existed within every cell of her body. She felt as though she were caught in an amazing and powerful undertow that left her spinning and falling and singing and glowing all at once. She suddenly had no memory of her past --perhaps it never really existed after all. It was as though she had always known the warmth of his hand, and the quiet fierce look of his eyes…and the slow, cautious smile that caught her up and literally threw her into such an absolute wonder of happiness that her heart wheeled and soared in her chest. Her entire sense of self felt completely out of control, and from the dazed and mystified look in his eyes, she knew he felt it too. They held each other’s shaking hands with a fierce desperation, eyes locked and smiling, and rode out the gales within their souls, as the sun glittered gently on the waves.

* * * * *

It took them weeks for their emotional Charybdis to calm, for the revelational feelings to soothe and relax enough to catch their breath…At night; they slept on the rock, his wings for a cloak, her tail wrapped around him, a perfect fit despite their different forms. Neither could believe in the reality and truth of what they had found, and as they held each other and dreamed, one would often awaken and be compelled to continuously touch the face, the hair, and the lips of the other, as if to assure that this love truly existed, and that it would not disappear.

In those weeks, his wing healed, and he soon began to test his strength again. His first impatient attempts at flight were a sputtering disaster…and there were many days when he would drag himself from the surf, glaring at the water as though it were conspiring against him. She would smile and soothe, and help him dry his wings in the sun, and he would close his eyes, and hold her close, breathing in the salt scent of her hair. Neither of them noticed the changes at first…but each brush of skin, and each kiss altered them somehow…She awoke one day to find a white pinfeather in her scales…Thinking that she had somehow caught the feather on herself as she slept, she tugged it free, only to cause herself a twinge of pain in the process. While he noticed a dull throb beneath the skin of his throat, he gave little thought to its cause. What did get his attention, however, was that one day he discovered that he had grown webbing between his fingers.

The atoll was a generous provider…and daily shared its bounty within its walls…Fruits and coconuts often floated within reach…but even with its wonders, and even with their great love, sadness began to take its toll…His wings had healed at last, and while he flew to the cliffs and brought back flowers for her hair, and told her of the strange and wondrous creatures on the heights above, she could not see them for herself…When she disappeared beneath the waves, he could not follow, for his wings were not suited. Even their brief times apart brought each such an onslaught of physical pain that separating for any reason was delayed as long as possible…each would watch the other enter their element with tears running down their cheeks and choked gasps. Each knew the seasonal squalls would return soon, and though they did not say it, they knew that even the atoll would be a dangerous place to stay when the weather turned again.

* * * * *

Little wonder that she had forgotten the other dangers her world had to offer…The simple enchantment of the sunlight, the gentle waves, and the warmth of his smile did much to lull her memories…but as the clouds began to darken again, she knew that the time had finally come to part. If he left now, he could find a safe refuge inland and she could ride out the winter storms in the depths. When the spring came, they could find each other again…

He was opposed to it, of course, and angry. He would not leave her, he could not live without her -- there simply had to be another way. He kissed her, and tried to get her to look at him, but she broke away. She was physically sick with grief, the idea that he would not be there, that he could not hold her, that she would not feel his breath upon her neck…it was too much to bear. Unable to say anything more, she half-fell, half-dove into the water…swimming to the bottom of the cove….letting her tears mingle with the ocean…she did not see the sharks enter the clear waters of their haven, their gray-black bodies sinuous blots above the white of the sand reef. She did not see the lazy, easy grace of their heads as they swung back and forth in the current…but there was no doubt that both of those eight-foot horrors had seen her…Her body radiated distress like heat, and the sharks moved toward her, mouths agape in ghastly grins of white and red. Her lips tingled and burned with the remembered contact of his kiss. The tingling began to run through her body in currents. Suddenly, her hair seemed to be defying logic, as it began to lengthen and move against the flow of the current, twisting and seething around her -- first brushing against her body, then wrapping itself around her, inhibiting her movement. She was so distracted that she was not aware of the sharks until they were nearly on her. Serrated teeth veered toward her face, and she only just managed to bring her tail up to crack the first shark in the head. The shark turned away, displeased and uneasy, but she had forgotten its companion. The teeth of the second shark connected with her right side, but the awful tearing of teeth never came…Her hair, not content with merely binding her entire body had begun to harden in layers around her. The second shark attempted to shake her, trying to tear something free, not understanding what had happened to its easy meal. It spat her out in disgust, trailing long strands of her hair from its maw. She began to sink, almost wholly encased in the black shell of her own hair. The first shark returned, at full charge just as the last wispy lock passed over her eyes. The last sight she saw was not the shark’s mouth coming directly for her face, but a strange shadow just beyond the ravenous creature…and then the lock of hair over her eyes solidified.

He had thrown himself into the water before he could think. His body was still reacting to their last contact, and pulsing shocks of energy coursed through him. As he went under, he felt the feathers in his wings flatten and merge into each other, and in moments, his wings had adapted into flukes. His throat ceased to throb underwater as four-gill slits appeared on either side of his neck, and he found that he could breathe. He launched himself at the first shark, winging through the water as he had flown through the clouds, and ripped at its gills. The monster began to bleed, and ceased its attack on her, allowing the black shell to settle onto the sands. The shark‘s companion, alerted to a far more interesting meal, closed in. As the sharks struck at each other, he grabbed for her carapace, and stretched out his wings.

Once more on the surface, he dragged her dark sarcophagus onto their rock, and fell down beside it. He called her name, and tried to dig her out with his hands, but to no avail. What had shielded her from the attacks kept him out too. At a loss, he knelt beside it, his hands and forehead on the dark shell, calling her, begging her not to leave him, to come back…

The sun came out, as it always did, beautiful and glittering, but he could only see a blinding brightness beyond his tears. Its warmth dripped unnoticed down his back, drying his water-borne wings, teasing at his hair and the back of his neck. As the light slanted onto him, his wings began change…feathers began to emerge once again from the sleek skin, and his gills smoothed back into his neck and disappeared. His hands slipped forward as the shell of his beloved abruptly caved inward. Sunlight danced over the shining darkness as her black chrysalis begin to soften and melt, trickling around her and into the water. She lay before him unharmed and safe, and changed. She unfurled herself, and then curled her tail beneath her hips so that she could sit up and look at him. She brought her fingers to her lips, where the last hints of his kiss still tingled. Delicately scaled butterfly wings arched from her shoulders, reflecting the light and the wonder in his eyes. They each smiled at the same moment and reached for each other, and for a long, long time, they held onto each other, feeling their synchronized hearts beating under the others’ skin. It no longer mattered what they had been before, it only mattered what they had become, together.

Then, he held out his hand, and she took a deep breath…and they opened their wings… and ascended to the waiting sky.

--Never the End --