In Deep

They say we know less about the sea than we do about space, and, like this native mystery, it is harder to understand one’s own self than it is to unravel what we see around us. Introspection is a fluid thing like water. Look into your reflection in that water. Watch the ripples break it into pieces. There is so much to know about the things far beyond that face, just like the things far beneath the surface of that rippling water. However, entering the depths provides so, so many challenges. You may not survive it, if something goes wrong.

 It is hard to understand the strange and alien things you may see in the ocean and in the mind. The misunderstood is the very essence of scientific discovery, though. If you’re not a scientist, the misunderstood is not an opportunity, it is magic. It is fear if you look for too long. Change how you think and it could be curiosity, but can you handle looking towards that light, the world outside the proverbial cave?

 I am prepared for the potential of death. People tell me I think about death too much. Silly. Nobody tells the ocean what it should do. They think they understand me. One should never assume they understand something just because of the great bounds they’ve made in researching a part or a like thing. I will admit, and you may have deciphered this from the words I write, that I feel somewhat detached from the concept of humanity. Maybe I spend too long staring out into the depths, through cameras on our research probes and the windows of submarines.

 Like now.

It is the sixteenth day of the extended research trip, and a smaller portion of the team, including myself, have again been sent down in the construction we have lovingly dubbed “Sunny”, a scientific research submarine built to withstand the pressures of the deep sea and transport human passengers. We maintain one atmosphere of pressure in the craft, but there are special lock-out chambers for divers to transition between the pressure of the sea and the pressure of the submarine. That is what I prepare for now.

I’ve trained long and hard for this. I have never been content with sitting back and analyzing numbers. I have to go out there myself, get up close with the object of our research. The ocean and I have an understanding, at this point. It could kill me at any moment, but chooses to leave me be, perhaps as fascinated by me as I am by it. Now, I prepare to meet it again.

Properly equipping myself takes some time, and waiting in the pressure chamber takes some more. I am not the impatient type, fortunately. I can’t be in a job that requires patience. Two others wait with me. This is a risky mission. Our remotely controlled probes have been unable to decipher much about the anomaly we inspect, so now we go in person. I volunteered for this immediately.

When preparations are done, we set out into the deep.

One might expect the deep ocean to be silent, and empty. An abyss. It is neither of those things. Sound travels better through water than air, and in the ocean it surrounds you. Furthermore, there can be no emptiness in a place filled with matter such as water, and there are multitudes hiding in the shadows even when you discount that fact.

The first part of our dive yields no results. We maintain contact with the submarine, but have nothing to report. Then I feel something unexplainable.

It is like a humming reaching into my bones and coursing through my blood. My mind… stops thinking right. Before I know it, I’m following it. Thoughts seem distant. Reason is muted. There’s a voice in my ear, trying to reach me. It fuzzes out. The anomaly, I remember distantly, has this effect on technology… on technology… did I not consider that it is technology that keeps us alive, when suggesting this? This crosses my mind for only a moment. I force the thought to return. Would my equipment fail if I go further? They’re frantic now, the people back on the submarine trying to contact me. There is another voice, though.

Come. I will preserve you for this boldness.

So I follow the sensation again.

Welcome. We have never spoken like this, but things can change. I am changing.

The ocean and I, we have an understanding.

I remember you.

We are alike, because I have become more and more like it. Less human.

Look.

My light flickers out, but my limited vision from that is soon replaced by a large, swirling figure. It is just beyond human, eyes surrounded by hurricanes, robes glittering with coral and flowing as no cloth ever could. It is beauty, mystery, rage, calm, terror, life, and death. It speaks to me, as it never did before.

You. You are one who watches me. I watch back. Hello, Kandace.

I cannot say it back but it seems the ocean knows my thoughts. Hello, Ocean.

You make me curious. Why do you keep coming back, into my depths? Why do you always seek me out?

There is an answer to that. People think me strange. They’ve said as much, and I know it from their gazes. That is no explanation, though. My answer is simple. I love you.

The Ocean seems satisfied with that answer. I need no reasoning here, no lengthy essay detailing my inspiration. It has come to know me. Perhaps it knew my answer already, and only wished to make me say it. But… another purpose tugs at the back of my mind. The anomaly. What had caused it?

I only wished to speak with you properly, Kandace. My form is greater down here, where humans do not look. Humans have a way of making sense from nonsense, and you are like them, but you have come to accept the nonsense over time. The misunderstood, you call it? You find yourself different from your kin. You find the difference in the ways they move as compared to you. In the ways they think. You think you are more like me. You are wrong, Kandace.

Wrong? How could I be wrong? These ideas had always felt so right to me, the only explanation I had.

What are you most like? Well, you are like you, Kandace. With you and I, it is not the ways we differ or the unknowns that define us. It is simply that we are the way we are. We can understand another who is unlike others.

I wondered, still. All this for what reason?

I would like to give you an invitation, Kandace. Go on after our meeting, and live out the rest of your life. Bring your gifts and share them with your people, the humans. Come to know them, and know you are not alone.

There was more to this offer. What was the ending?

When your time is done, come to my shores. Once you have lived many years, reach for me. Join me. It has been long since I had real company. I do not want to take anything from you, Kandace, but when you reach the end of this path and prepare to choose another, consider coming again to the oceans. For now, I give you leave to bring the gifts you see from being like water to the world.Water has always been a gift.

I do understand this. I reach my hand out, and accept the offer. The Ocean will return me safely. If I share this, they won’t believe it, but I do not need anyone to believe me when I know what I have experienced.

Someday, I will again travel into the deep.