Joan Groves - The Last Island

Then I did the math. An air bubble with a one-inch diameter at thirty-five thousand feet—one thousand atmospheres—would have a diameter of one thousand inches on the surface as it expired with only one-thousandth the density of its origin in the Deep.

Manta, the lesser of the leviathans, swam in the shallow deep as the greater of the leviathans descended downward.

Upon the belly of the Deep a blob of jellyfish, Cyanea capillata, at 0.077 inches was ascending upward on its single life’s journey from the Deep to the shallow. With each pulse of its bell the blob would, without growing, ever increase in size until at the surface what had been an almost invisible blob would be a seventy-seven inch Lion Mane jellyfish with two hundred thirty feet of invisible tentacles inlaid with billions of deadly poisonous stinging cells. Upon the surface, it would float, glide, drift mindless—but not at the mercy of time and tide.

They that go down to the sea in ships; that do business in great waters;

These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.

For He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.

They mount up to heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.

They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end.

Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distress.

He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.

When and where I grew up it was required that the Bible in the King James Version be memorized. It was not so much a requirement as it was the practiced way of life. I do not know how but I know why Psalm 107: verse 23 to verse 29 was recalled. It was my prayer.

The shipworms had in silence reduced the slaver to digestive by-products. The iron-eating bacteria was reducing the U-Boat to a rust stain in silence. In silence, the jelly blob of life was trekking. The more we toiled, the more we labored, the more we worked; the more we became evermore wordless. Words were no longer the agents of our communication and for the most part were little more than an archaic artifact of our petrified past. Words had a past which had purification and we were seeking a purified future.

But the more silent we became; the more the Deep gave voice.

Manta threw out a question. It was as if a well-spring had been tapped. “Has anyone else noticed the restlessness of the island spirits?”

I was thinking it but the Deacon said it. “Island spirits?”

Manta retorted boldly but calmly, “Yes, island spirits.”

The island environment had been less calm then usual but the season was changing.

The Deacon commented, “It is just the change of season. Island spirits have nothing to do with what is happening.”

Then Manta added what he knew. “Yeah, how can you argue against hygrometers, thermometers, and seismometers? They put black numbers on white charts and so each day we have a new truth. Right, Deacon?”

The Deacon was put off by this slap. Then he said, “Truth or no, that is not the point. The point is there ain’t no living spirit in the water or in the air on this island. And, there ain’t no spirit living between or among the three elements. The air is changing because of the migration of the direct rays of the sun, the water is counter-current because of the seasonal change of the Antarctic Circum-Polar Current, and the land is heaving because of deep-water seismic activity. It ain’t truth but it is fact by the numbers.”

“What lies between the numbers?” Manta asked.

They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.

I was praying.

“Do you think that we can get this dive completed before the season’s change? We are coming close to the end of the good weather,” John Henry said.

“The easy dive weather is about over but you can dive in any weather, it just may not be easy diving,” Manta answered.

“I agree. We may not get optimum dive conditions but the dive can be accomplished. Also, other than weather there is time. If we do not get to it first, somebody may just stumble upon it and blunder into our plans. It may end up on a fireplace mantle, as a spittoon, a meaningless gift, or an evil icon. This dive has to be weatherproof and it can be made so.” The Deacon declared his opinion.

For He commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.

I prayed.

Just then there was a low bass rumble that seemed to push the already high tide higher.

John Henry looked over her left shoulder and a wave had piled on top of another wave and was breaking over the coral reef.

Then she spoke. “I don’t know which of you has the correct understanding grasp of all of this or any of this, but come what may, there are going to be impediments that are within us, large and small, and impediments outside of us, large and small, that we have no insight into and never will see until it is before us in our adventure. That higher-than-normal breaker was the last event consequence in a series of unknown sequences. In what we are about to do, that is what we must be concerned with in order to be successful. We will never know the before and must not be concerned with the after. The moment, each moment, is our only concern. Each moment has to be our objective. The tides will be less, the tides will be greater—it matters not.”

The broken wave crest weakly rippled to shore.

They mount up to heaven, they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble.

I prayed.

The ship was being ever more perfected for the sojourn.

We worked and refitted the ship. We retooled the facilities of the ship. The ship and the ship’s equipment were not only made perfect to the most stringent maritime specifications but were made to exceed the specifications by exponential factors of ten. It was unspoken but it was known by all that this was going to a last dive.

The Deacon began talking to all of us. “The ship looks good and it looks tight. We have put a lot of good hard work into this. It is as if we have a new ship. Except for head and mess there just ain’t that much there that was there to start with from the beginning.

“The last thing we have to do is to install and get this digital visual system up and working. If we can get eyes under the water before we splash and if we can have a scout topside during the dive we will have two tactical advantages.

“We have all seen and have fore-knowledge of what is down there and yet it has eluded acquisition and the main reason is time over target. The laws of the dive have always been the same and sighting has always been the joker in the deck. Not this time, pilgrims. Many have dived, many have drowned—but not this time, pilgrims of the Deep. We are going to be the first to dive into what we have seen. We are going to dive into what we know. We are going to dive into charted waters. The dive will lead directly to it and then the dive will lead directly here from whence we began our pilgrimage.”

He had converted John Henry and Manta. None of the three saw the dive. They all saw it.

Manta saw a reestablishment of the original unity. John Henry saw the establishment of a new unity. The Deacon saw the dead one.

They that go down to the sea in ships; that do business in great waters;

These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep .

I prayed.

This I knew: in the great waters most of the works of the Lord are not seeable. Below a few feet, the great waters eat up the light. In the great waters, most of what is there is transparent and at best only translucent. The rest is encased, hidden, or indistinguishable.