Episode 6: Breathe

From Episode 1…

There was once an ocean, on or in which life can never drown…

Episode 2…

…but there was a sticky, steaming storm smearing the lines between itself & the sea—thrashing & heaving as if crying beyond its cloud’s control. You’re tossed between waves, and the salt water seems to both draw & combine with your fresh tears & anxious sweat, teeming not because you’re afraid of drowning, but because you know you can’t drown in this unique ocean, and therefore, have to live through this.

Episode 3…

…And so you feel everything. You feel memory in the water like how felting is the process of separating & relocking the fibres in wool. This is why you can’t sink—the fibres can always be felt & then felted. They begin to build a raft in the shape of a body—a place where you’ve felt both safe & turbulent, often at the same time. It’s made from the blue fibres of the ocean. Relieved, you climb on top of the raft, suddenly feeling painful memories, hearing negative self-talk, tasting dryness in your mouth, stroking the rough canvas of your cold hands, and smelling a sharp chill in the air. The raft begins to sink, tilting you back into the water. It bobs upright in front of you, as if another being, and you instinctively take a few strokes to swim to it. Despite your frustration, you hug it tight. But then you see something: a loose fibre between its shoulder blades, right where the back wall of the chest cavity is. You pull it free & see that the part of the thread inside the body-shaped raft is not only green but also dry…

Episode 4…

You pull the thread further until it’s completely free of the raft, noticing that it’s half blue & half green. The blue end was woven up near the forehead of the raft, and the green portion near the heart. In trying to keep afloat, you fumble & drop the thread into the waves. Miraculously, it seems, the thread bobs like a buoy, green end beneath the waves. When you pull the thread from the water, the green end is dry, as if naturally waterproofed. You lie on your back & slow your breathing to calm, deep breaths—you’ll float this way—and begin to unravel the threads from the raft. You then begin to craft a new one…

Episode 5…

You begin by folding & braiding the threads into a new raft—the blue portion of the thread inward & the green outward—hoping it will float. And it does! Although it seems to take on a traditional raft shape, it expands as if filling with ocean water instead of air, creating a waterbed. The fibres stretch until the raft is translucent; you can see through it, including the vibrant plant & animal life beneath the sea.

Because it’s still afloat, you climb aboard. Anxious to locate land, you scan for a horizon that you haven’t yet been able to see in the dark. In the distance, the sun is a touch of tangerine slice above the inky water, separating the ocean from a moon-mist sky. And there, hardly visible in the opposite direction, is a mountain range like shards of amethyst.

With nothing to use as paddles, you propel the raft forward with your arms. But something strange happens as soon as you do this—it begins to deflate, and your body sinks as if the raft were slimy quicksand. When you pause, it reinflates & continues expanding—achingly slowly and seemingly slower as seconds tick by. You know why this is, but you’re weak with hunger & thirst. How will you resist the urge to paddle?

Episode 6…

You realize that you’ve slowed down time. Seconds feel longer when we’re truly in silence. And you notice something that frustrates you at first. The raft isn’t moving—it’s filling. But with what?

You look around you but there’s no direct air source. With a heavy sigh, you peer down & shake your head, but a sudden air bubble beneath nearly topples you over. Frowning, but with a theory, you breathe in deeply & out again forcefully. Another air bubble! The raft isn’t filling with water like you once thought; it’s filling with your exhales! Yet you quickly realize that drastic, harsh breaths will wear you down in minutes. And it’s a long way to those amethyst mountains. You must breathe deeply & slowly to create enough breath to expand the raft across the water. You see & feel a way. You begin to breathe & magic comes to life…

Tune in next month to find out what happens next! And…