IN THE WATER, UNDERNEATH

Damien Angelica Walters

 

Holland Island is a low island in the Chesapeake Bay. It's basically a glorified mud pie, made of silt and clay instead of rock. The island was named for one of its first European residents, Daniel Holland, who settled there in the 1600's. There was a fishing boom in the late 1800's, and Holland Island became a busy place. Over 360 people lived on Holland Island in the early 1900's. By 1920, erosion was already taking a major toll on the island. Most of those islanders moved on, taking everything with them, even their houses. One house, which was built in 1888, remained through the years, as the sea came up closer and closer to its threshold.

 

Why are the Chesapeake Islands sinking? One reason is basic geology. The islands were created by Ice Age glaciers, which pushed up bulges of land. Over thousands of year, those bulges have been settling. Another reason is climate change. Ocean levels are rising, which means the death of small islands. Holland Island hasn't just sunk—it has eroded, because it's made of unstable materials.

 

The house became an obsession for Stephen White, a retired minister. He formed a non-profit organization to try to save the house and spent thousands of dollars of his own on the project. He tried to save it with rocks, with sandbags, with timbers, and by sinking a barge offshore to use as a seawall. The wind and waves destroyed them or ignored them. White fought the sea for fifteen years, but in 2010 the sea won. The house collapsed and now is completely underwater.

 

What remains of the island is marshy and during high tide the island completely disappears. During low tide, it's a useful resting spot for seabirds. For Stephen White, it's a reminder of failure. Along with the house, Holland Island was home to a graveyard. White was deeply moved by the message on a young girl's grave. "It said, 'Forget me not, is all I ask'," White said. "And I didn't. I still haven't."

 

***

Touching the silt of my shore, he whispers, You are mine.

He wants me to believe that I have always belonged to him, but once I was my own. Holland Island, I say to myself. I say it to remember, I say it so I don’t forget I had a history, had people who made of me their home. They loved, slept, dreamt, fished, lived.

And they left me because of him.

It would be easier for me to give in, to forget the laughter of children, to forget the warmth of footprints, the slide of a boat returning to my coast, but I can’t forget the way the empty houses fell one by one. When the last finally tumbled to the ground, the boards creaking and crying out against the destruction, I did what I could. I opened myself, made a womb of silt and clay, and pulled it in. A desperate hiding place. I cradled it with lies: everything would be all right, they would come back, they would take care of us.

But there is no they anymore. There is only him.

He tongued open my center, slipped inside, swallowed the wood, the mortar, the walls. Slowly, so slowly, as if I wouldn’t notice, but I heard him taking his meal, the sound like mirthless laughter, like cruelty.

Alone now, I think madness would be preferable. Then I could give of myself freely, not knowing or caring what I was losing.

I’ve beseeched the moon, begging her for respite against his tides, but she answers with nothing but the pale of her light. A silent betrayal, yet I should not be surprised, for she was ever his willing accomplice.

You are mine, he says, as he crashes against me. You have always been mine.

I know, I hope, he believes he loves me, believes he is returning me to his embrace, but it hurts. He’s biting into my soul, gnawing my self into shreds. I struggle to hold what’s left, but he is relentless and hungry, always hungry.

He devours me bit by bit. Undoing. Unmaking. With gentle susurrations and rage’s force. For a long time, I told myself he was remaking me into another shape. I don’t believe it anymore, for if he is taking my pieces to make another whole, that new creation is insensate and holds nothing of me inside.

Mine.

Once he was life and health, not diminution and gluttony; once he listened to the shape of my shore. I try to remember that he did not ask to play this part, only accepted his role. But when he has reduced me so, it’s hard to believe such a thing is or was ever true.

I hate him.

By day I have the company of birds—terns, herons, pelicans—but every year, they are fewer in number. They chatter and squabble amongst themselves but ignore me when I speak to them. They care naught of my plight and will notice my passing as but a small annoyance and when I’m gone, they will seek a new place to roost. Still, their presence is a small comfort and better than solitude.

When I’m gone, will anyone search for me? Will anyone remember?

He brushes against me, retreats, brushes again. Teasing and taunting beneath the heat of a sun that brings no solace.

My lover, my enemy.

Should I hate the fishermen for abandoning me, for taking their boats, their children, and their wives away to land strong enough to withstand his brutality? They called him the Bay, the Chesapeake—they call him that still—but he cared little for their names.

When they first realized what he was capable of, what power he held, they tried to keep him back with walls of stone. He laughed at their efforts. Was he angry because they hooked his fish, dredged his oysters? He welcomed them once. I know he did. Is his nature so capricious? I’ve asked him time and time again, but he refuses to answer.

One afternoon, he caught a child unaware. I tried to hold her feet within me, to anchor her in place, but I wasn’t strong enough to keep her safe. He pulled her into his depths too fast for anyone to do anything but scream.

They loved him, they respected him, and he repaid them by destroying their homes and their children.

No, I cannot blame them. The memory of their touch is the only thing that gives me the will to fight.

For fight I do. I will not release my name, for that is what he wants. He wants me to forget who I am, to become only a footnote in his existence, and I will not.

I will not.

Am I a fool to think my name something worth remembering, something worth holding onto? To want to stay here instead of surrendering and becoming merely something that was?

But I’m afraid. I’m afraid I’m not strong enough. I’m afraid one day there won’t be enough of me left, and then, will my ghost join that of the little girl he took? Will he even allow a ghost of me to remain?

I think not.

He is far larger than I ever was, and far stronger. His strength is brute, callous; my heart is fragile and filled with too much fear. He demands submission, and I yield because I have no choice.

Always mine.

The birds fear him too and take to the sky as he creeps closer. Would that I had wings for escape, would that I had a place to hide. I gather my will. Hold myself together—each bit of clay holding my heartbeat, each grain of silt, my breath.

He comes.

Inch by inch, he takes me. Turns the warmth of my memories to helpless cold. Is this what the little girl felt when she knew she’d never break his surface? This inescapable futility? How long, how hard, did she fight?

He covers me completely, his touch deceptively soft.

Mine, he says as he bites and bites and bites.

Liar, I say. I belong to me.

As always, he laughs. I’m trapped until morning comes to pull him away and he knows it. Not even the glue of bird guano can hold me together against his onslaught. I’m drowning beneath the madness of his embrace, but I fight to hold on. I fight as hard as I can. I say my name as he tears another piece of me free. I say it so I won’t forget, but every night, it gets harder and harder to remember.

So when I taste his salt, I choke it down; if this I must bear, then I will hold a small part of him captive and take it with me into the waiting dark.