ABSTRACT
Lately, life has felt a bit like the bottom of the sea, when I brushed up against it, diving down with my eyes held tight, open against the water that tried to close them, and my lips shut tight to prevent my breathless, contorted heart from escaping. I had such a strong desire to see it clearly, the bottom of the sea, to define it within me: the smooth, caressing seaweeds undulating just beyond my reach, or the fine, silty sands recoiling at the slightest touch, or the firm outcrops of rock capped with fronded greenery. And smooth patches, ever so slightly textured like the breasts of a trembling young woman, silky tangles of vegetation, hard surfaces softened with swathes of downy fuzz; these things stayed with me—when I surfaced again to breathe, everything concretely defined in the sunlight—like waking dreams, or like a child’s memory of a world, or part of a world, seen only through thick, frosted glass. No sound came from it, and it was so far away, and it would have been so wonderful to live there, wandering weightlessly in the oblivion of the rocking waters.
