Sea Ballet

George pauses rowing. He admires the parade of sails decorating the horizon past Fort. The vessels choreograph series of tacks and jives. He believes sailing is the oldest form of art—older than even mankind. The wind must have driven effortlessly across the sea then, as it still does. Only, no one witnessed it, much less rode it, or mastered it—as these captains have.

“What’s wrong?” Elle says, as her grip tightens to the weathered wooden bow of the dinghy. Her quick reply to their change of pace is her first sign of nervousness and George notices.

His vision faces the stern, but he hasn’t heard any fidgeting behind him. From his first memory away from land, she wouldn’t notice the blood gathering between the splintered wood, as she braces her fear—she is a girl—and even he was scared the first time.

“One more cage,” George says. “Do you see the sails?”  

She hasn’t—on her first boat ride, their ability to float, still captivates her. Now is the perfect time for a ten-year-old to figure out the mystery of buoyancy. The change of speed doesn’t distract her for long. Her gaze locks back on the hull—carried by the tide; her hair stretches towards its muddled reflection.

“Are there more crabs on this side of the river?”

“I don’t know,” George admits. “Mr. Bubba claims so, and he’s who taught me, when I was your age.”

Bubba is George’s neighbor, a gentleman who stands around six feet three and his shoulders hang with the gravity of old age.  George thinks he is at least two hundred years old. He’s lived in the same house—the one he lives in now—since before the lot, two down, belonged to George’s grandfather. Their first few crabbing trips, Bubba taught lessons in skill and safety between sharing baby stories of George’s mother. George learned the ropes quick, harnessing his life, on the water.

“Three years, and you haven’t tried by the dock?” Elle watches as he swipes beneath the buoy with the oar and hooks the line connecting the cage. “Or his?”

Every cage feels loaded on the first tug; George hopes it isn’t stuck in the mud. “What’s wrong with over here?” He can see the mouth of the river—the sailor’s grand canvas—more fully, with his cages’ current positioning.

“You’ve only caught four today; that’s not enough for dinner.”

As the cage closes its distance to the boat George feels the catch’s strength through the line’s frequency. George expects the cage of frantic blue crabs to surface soon and prepares for the chaos, ignoring Elle’s premature criticism. The crossing isn’t for the crabs, but himself—meditation as the sea’s water churns beneath him.

“George! I thought you only did this with a handful—not the whole family reunion!”

Over forty crabs land in the boat this time; George baits the cage and tosses it towards the marsh, reveling in his master catch. The crabs’ energy—out of water—always impresses him. Unprovoked, the crabs are tranquil. When faced with danger, their efforts become over powering, yet aiming in all the wrong directions.

They unleash war upon one another. The strong climb the corpses of the slain: anything to protect only themselves. Freedom remains perpetually out of reach. George considers them the fools of the sea.

“Don’t worry,” George says, “We have dinner.”

“They’ll pinch you. Or worse—me!” Elle is all but a bow mermaid for the dinghy now.

A warrior—climbs the ladder of dead and wounded. George nudges the day’s champion into a bucket, and proceeds to recapture the lot. The way they latch to one another ensures a quick process.

“They’re too busy fighting themselves,” Elle notices.

on the way back, George recalls Mr. Bubba explaining this phenomenon, the first time he witnessed a full boat: as the crabs climb over one another, the supporting slope collapses—making escape impossible.

“How come they don’t work together?” Elle asks.

  George secures a knot around the cleat on Mr. Bubba’s dock.  

“Just because,” he says—it’s not a total lie. “I’ll be back.”

George delivers Mr. Bubba the owner’s cut (fifty percent), to his patio after each expedition, even when there are only a few crawlers in the boat. He knocks and then puts eyes on Elle as he waits—plenty of time to convince himself, he’d feed the man, even without their deal. George feels indebted by the knowledge he was given.

“Quite the load today,” Bubba rattles the bucket-full, with consecutive boot taps. The crabs, still ripping at each other, fall from the bucket walls. “You almost even need a lid.” He rubs George’s head out of excitement. Rough, as one pets a dog, behind their ears.

“Even fools are profitable,” George mutters under his breath, his neck angles toward the ground as he steps out of reach, shrugging his shoulders. He assumes it’s an old person thing—one he’ll never understand.

“I’ve gotta run today,” George says aloud, blocking thoughts of the old man’s inevitable loneliness. He’s never seen a visitor’s car in the driveway. “Elle is on the boat.”

“Not anymore,” Mr. Bubba says, pointing towards the dock—the empty dinghy. “Looks like she walked. Why’re you dragging her along now, anyhow?”

“Filling my crew when I can,” George jokes. “She’s been hanging around the house the last few weeks. I figured I’d teach her,” he says and follows Bubba to the kitchen with the day’s catch.

“How’s your mother?”

“Do we have to talk about her?” George surprises himself in his word’s honesty.

All anyone wants to talk about anymore is his mother. He feels his sole purpose shifting as he relays her updates: to the doctors, the neighbors, his teacher’s, even Elle, and now Bubba. The trouble, he doesn’t know either.

“She locked her door,” George continues. “Eighteen days ago, now.”

George told the doctors he would call if anything changes, he quit going to school, and surrendered to his imagination.

“Shh.” Mr. Bubba holds a finger over his lips, signaling for silence before granting his wish. “What shall it be then?”

The two of them hold still a few moments.

“The sails?” George needs the low down.

“Stick to crabbing,” Bubba spits back, “Maybe pick up fishing. There’s no money in it. Did you become a rich man overnight? You think you can waste time pansy-flipping with the wind, and still take care of your mother? It’s a brilliant dream to turn to, between cages.”

“I should check on Elle,” George says and runs for the door. For Mr. Bubba—George decides—the cages aren’t placed in relation to the sea’s greatest art.

Despite the sun’s heat, George’s mind dances with the wind’s melodies; images of sails drift through his consciousness. He aims the dinghy’s bow toward the river’s mouth—the Atlantic Ocean—a great canvas for his story; he rows without fear. As his mother’s house shrinks in the distance, he doubts he will return.

For six hours he rows a flawless rhythm, absent any distractions—liberated. All he can make out of the island is the lighthouse’s silhouette, four flashes over the Fort. It doesn’t beacon him home, as he expects it to.

The ocean’s hum lulls him to sleep, his body coils in half the length of the dinghy, his feet brace the wood’s wobbly nature. A generous falling tide aids his drifting course, until the tide too rests for the night. George sleeps until sunrise. When he wakes, land is gone.

            With a hall-of-fame pep talk, he convinces himself the stench in the bucket is normal—his only food, spoiling with the sun’s heat. By late afternoon, his stomach growls and grumbles for hours. He plugs his nostrils with the middle and index fingers on his left hand, his right reaches for his meal—the first he’s had in two days. A chain of crabs reveals themselves over the bucket’s lip: four crabs long before the danglers fall. George admires their strength in the face of imminent death.

Drawing the pain out if possible, to feel alive—never knowing when to let go. He plucks the crab’s less-edible legs from its body—its last minuscule of energy dissipates, just before he pierces the soft-belly-shell region with his thumbs. He pries the meat from each crevasse—a job much easier when the crab is cooked. George feels this is how crabs want to die—alive. With the second and third crabs, his difficulty eating them no longer lies in their smell or taste, but he doubts his theory on the crab’s dying preferences.

            With the second’s flippers and claws dissembled, and only a few legs attached, he sets the crab beside himself, to live. The third crab—he lifts and crushes its skull between his jaws, relieving any of its pain. The mutated, living crab’s motions increase significantly before it dies; without the strength to lift itself, George imagines it scaling the wall with renewed life.

If only his mother had such the will to live.

But maybe the crabs’ exertion in their dying moments, the commitment in their death grip, and the all-out frenzy and war, has nothing to do with a desire to extend their lives or feel alive. He pictures the anchor/base crabs from thirty hours prior; it seems a distant memory.

            Not all the crabs fight to escape. George remembers his feet. They were still; the crabs touching them were still. The crab-pile’s bottom layer never stood out before now. The ones lucky enough to carry both their claws, clinch a neighbor on their level between one, and reach out with the other, to catch someone above their station. Those with one claw, who stay low, weave their legs meticulously around anything they can reach, focusing their claw on snagging an independent thinker.

Their dying comfort comes from unity, what Teddy imagines as love. Huddled with their family members and friends, they accept death and embrace it together. The crabs who disagree suffer by the majority’s inability to perceive an escape route. The crabs, most able to escape, often never have a chance, because someone can’t let go. Many of them, trapped in circumstances, like us.

            George dumps the remaining eleven crabs into the floor beside him; they are less alive than he expects. He hopes they accepted their fate from the bucket, and lays with them. He dreams they protect him, encasing him in their web woven of love and peacefulness, steadying the dinghy before it capsizes.

            His second night at sea is a nightmare. His energy from the meal repaid tenfold to the sea by midnight. George fears the sky’s ruthless fury, as building-sized columns of future storms settle over he and the crabs. He recalls his mother’s stories of his Grandfather’s adventures. Would he have eaten the crabs? Talked to them? Slept with them? How did he prepare for storms? How did he die? Did it hurt?

            The swelling sea crashes into George’s dinghy, presenting rejuvenating hope for the crabs; only two still breathing.

The boat takes on water, which is almost welcomed. George wallows in his own vomit, unable to lift his head. The raindrops fall heavier and more often, and it becomes impossible to sleep. The crabs wash out of the boat in passing waves, only two remain; the two still alive. One’s claw, trapped in George’s net, the other holds on, no crab dies alone, if only they knew when to let go. George musters strength, enough to free his companions.

The crab, wedged in the net, George notices motionless without the aid of the waves. Does the breathing crab realize its vulnerability? Is it afraid? Before he untangles the claws, he noticed which one is locked. It isn’t the dead ones’ inability to let go, threatening the life of the other; it’s the living crab, who won’t let go. George settles back into his familiar, almost comfortable position. He doesn’t have the heart to save the crab’s life, if it wants to die.

Is the other crab it’s mother?

A familiar image lodges itself in the back of George’s mind—the sails. George longs for direction. He must go where the wind takes him.

This is George’s revelation.

Before the winds’ final choice, a light—brighter than anything—burns the backs of George’s sealed eyelids. He hears a voice.

“You’re mother’s worried sick, I’m sure!”

George opens his eyes and the light dims. A twenty-seven-foot sloop’s main sail blocks the sun in a heave-to position.

“My mother?” George asks the boat; he hasn’t yet seen a captain. 

Has his mother opened her door? For him?

“I’m sure she’s worried sick!” The voice calls back. “What are you? Twelve? Thirteen?”

George drifted 9.44 miles in two days before the sloop crossed his path. His return trip to shore was a quarter the time—even in light wind. George knows the life one lives dictates their experiences.

He dreams of the specific vessel—the boat whose cargo provides a much-improved bed on his venture home. George recognizes the sloop although, without relation to space and time.

The old sea-dog captain carries him just past the fort, to the edge of grass by the fishing pier. The captain’s VHF quit working in the storm George bobbed through. The captain looks around for someone/anyone to help the boy; no one appears. No one knows he is there or alive. The captain doesn’t stay and risk discovery any longer.

By noon—four hours later—George wakes on the hill and recognizes his location. He doesn’t believe it, but he is home. To the right, he gazes past the final curve of the island, the familiar sight of vast, unlimited opportunities: live or die as you please. He puts his heels to the ocean and ventures up the river bank; his legs slink with experience of the open sea.

George walks just under a mile home. His house looks as if he never left. No one is on the dock with binoculars or waiting at the window. He debates whether he will go inside. His nerves freeze his hand above the door handle.

How is this supposed to go? Is his mother alive?

Lights flicker from the second story window above George as he ponders going inside—but doesn’t. He is no fool. Instead, he backs away considering his companions. George thinks of the crabs.

George refuses to hold on any longer, dropping all personal attachments, releasing his spirit to the winds.

Had George walked inside, he may have held his living mother once more. He would have held his mother, every day, for eternity. Both trapped by the confinements of unlimited time and their inability to let go—of each other—of anything.

George rounds the corner of the house as feet float toward the dock—if only Elle could see this. The variety of the sails is beyond George’s comprehension. There are sails in every shape, any size, and as many as the captains can lash to their hulls. George inhales the salty air, attempting to process this newfound satisfaction.

A small-distorted pentagon dances with familiar elegance—George places himself, now, as well as the heroic sloop—she is The Sea Ballerina.

He was the choreographer—all along.