Ade Grant - The Mariner

He plunged into the icy water, legs first, but a blink later it was over his head, rushing into his nose and ears, keen to fill his every being with chill suffocation. The world transformed to one of numbness, yet still he heard the Wasp in its panic.

No. If you want me, take me now. If not, then I’ll be gone and you can take the rest. Or go back to sleep. You won’t need to be afraid any-more, but you must choose.

There must be a reason.

The anchor sank, dragging the Mariner down into the depths. Five feet. Eight feet. His head began to hurt as the pressure worked on him, pressing down upon his chest and head.

Ten.

Fifteen.

I can’t come back. Only you can.

Blood began to bloom from his face, but still the Mariner kept the air clutched in his lungs. He opened his eyes, but the water around him was dark from blood. It didn’t matter, there was no more use for vision.

And suddenly like a light bulb within his head-

“Everything’s gonna be alright.”

She cradled him at the dining table, his head upon her shoulders. Between them his arm stretched out, lined with angry red remnants of the self-harm the night before.

“You should have woken me,” she chided, but with the calm administrations of love and acceptance. “You should always wake me.”

He nodded, “I know. But sometimes I feel so wretched I can’t.”

She reached out and applied a plaster to one of the larger cuts. “It’s ok. I know how you get.”

Wincing slightly from the contact, he felt both ashamed and confused. Why did he get like that? Why did his mind spiral out of control? When they were together, he never felt any of those paranoias that plagued him during the dead of night, so why not wake her?

Because you hate yourself , he thought. Because a long time ago, you were taught you weren’t worth giving air.

“I think you should try that therapist my friend recommended,” she said as she applied the final plaster. “Edgar Shelton or something, the one based in London? He’s good with complex cases. I’ll tell you what, you make the appointment and I’ll come with you, have a coffee while you go in, then we’ll get some lunch when you’re done.”

Despite being exhausted from countless treatments in the past, he agreed. Anything to stop hurting his wife over and over again.

She smiled, the act beautiful upon her sad face.

“Everything’s gonna be alright.”

And in that moment, he knew she was right. He would go to this therapist and get fixed. And then, free from demons, he could finally be the husband this angel deserved. This woman with boundless strength who kept him afloat, even when he tried to force himself to sink.

Life wasn’t all bad. His self-hatred ran deep, but there was more to him than that. Much more, and when they kissed she banished all those thoughts away, the graze of her lips infinitely more powerful than any pill could ever be. She was more than his wife. She was his sanity.

She held him tight, and without hesitation he held her in return; two soul-mates lamenting the flaws in humanity, determined to overcome them together.

“Without you,” he whispered in her ear. “I’d be lost, and I’d never find myself again.”

She pulled away and looked him in the eye, and in that moment dismissed his fears, neurosis and paranoia. The demons retreated to somewhere down in his psyche, where not even he could knowingly reach, a place where a suffocating boy was forever trapped.

“I love you.”

He smiled, knowing it was true. “I love you too, Grace.”

In the depths of the ocean, as the weight of the whole sea bared down on him, the Mariner released the air in his lungs. He wasn’t screaming. Nor was it a reflex of the immense pain and strain that ruptured his internal organs.

He was laughing.

He wasn’t a monster, just a man who’d had all his goodness stolen and all the evil left behind. He’d been lost, and now, in a strange way, with thoughts of the love who’d been robbed from him, the love he’d been seeking without knowing, he had what he’d needed far more than truth. Because in life there is no truth. Only context.

He was home.

The anchor continued to descend, deeper into the chill black sea, and as the pressure crushed his skull and popped his heart, the Mariner died.

The Pope hurried across the moors. In the distance he could see Mindless idly wandering, members of his flock sucked dry, any trace of the Wasp removed. They ignored him. Monkeys sought infected monkeys like the jealous beasts they were. Parasites like him were free to go as they pleased.

He looked out over the cliffs perceiving the Waterfall. It was all coming to an end. The Pope had witnessed the growth and decay of many cocoons and many wasps, and although this one was particularly protracted, it wasn’t unusual.

Stupid monkey. He had thought all the blame lay with him, and the Pope wasn’t going to dissuade him from that. Wasps awoke, it’s what they eventually did. Just because this one had woken too soon, didn’t mean it was that monkey’s fault. It was like the brain blaming the kidney for its cancer.

True, some of the blame could fall upon the Pope himself. His children had condemned him. Oracle had been particularly harsh with her words, ungrateful wretch that she was. He’d been glad when he’d felt her die. Stupid child. How dare she, who’d only ever known one cocoon, criticise he, who’d out-lived many? How dare she condemn the way he fed? True he’d fed often, carelessly some could say, but that was how he’d amassed such a grand brood.

It had been a splendid cocoon to feed within, even as it crumbled, and a juicy Wasp too. Sad it was now time to leave, but best to get out. The Wasp, sickly to begin with, was now dangerously ill. If it died, it might take him down with it.

Another glance at the Waterfall told him the distresses being played out. Good Monkey. If the eye of the Wasp was distracted, he should be able to slip out of the cocoon and into the Soup. It wouldn’t be long until another species was impregnated with Wasp larvae, and then another world, another feeding ground, would grow.

He giggled and rubbed his hands together with glee. Time to start afresh.

A growl stopped him in his tracks.

He turned and looked into twelve separate pairs of eyes.

The giggle died in his throat.

“You found me,” he said, a sinking feeling in his many guts. “I thought that Monkey meant trouble.”

Yes , they said. We’ve been searching for you.

“Following the infection eh? Clever. Hundreds of Wasps and I’ve never been caught. How did you know he’d find me?”