The Ocean Is Not An Ocean (Part 1)

I

Noah sped along the driveway, the quiet rumble of the engine thrummed against his fingertips. The wind tore through his dark hair and whipped his cheeks. Rounding a corner, the grey sea came into view.
White foams churned the ocean surface, lapping up the shore, stretched and receded like a cycle of chalky flowers growing and dying. He imagined the blooming petals catching light, winking a thousand silvery sparks before crumbling onto the sand, hissed in annoyance, and retreated. Then came another wave, and the motion repeated itself in an illusion of eternality.
Something was flickering from afar. A blur of white fell from the sky—a woman. The ocean yawned its mouth, swallowed the being. Like a pebble dropped on a lake surface, the impact made was small, unnoticeable. It was a too quiet death for a human— obnoxious, prudent creatures they were.
A disquiet sensation overwhelmed him. Before he could pin down the perturbing emotion, he was swimming halfway across the ocean, diving deep into the spot where she had disappeared into. Fighting against the current, he hurled both of them onto the beach.
He wrapped her in his dry coat and asked how she was. To his surprise, she laughed. “I almost died,” she said. “I thought I won’t, but I could feel death’s grip on me halfway through the drowning.”
He asked if she was planning suicide, to which she denied. “There is this lullaby whenever I gaze at the ocean. It is the sweetest, most sorrowful song I’ve ever heard, so I traced it to its origin – and then I leaped.”
“From where?”
She smiled like it was obvious. “Bitterblue – the whale I sailed the sky with. She’s a lovely thing, you should have looked at her.” Following her finger, he did catch the tail of a blue whale before it was lost in the thickening clouds.
“I can finally paint my own drowning,” she murmured to herself, a steady, faraway look on her face as she gazed across the roiling ocean. Something flipped in his chest. He frowned, placed a hand over his heart. It stilled. He asked where her home was, and she replied Savoh.
“That was over hundreds of miles away,” said Noah.
A sheepish smile graced her pale face. “Bitterblue got too excited. It’s hard to control her unless I have my hydrangeas– she only eats the one I grow”
He told her he had an apartment nearby, which she agreed to stop by. Since his motorcycle was wrecked in his haste, they walked some miles to the nearest store. The man gave them his car when Noah presented his business card. She peered at him, asked, “You’re one of those filthy rich businessmen, aren’t you?”
His eyes stayed on the road. “Why, did it offend you?”
Clutching his coat tighter, she shook her head and said, “Not if you have good taste, which, I can tell you are by your refined clothing.”
Noah forced down the beginning of a smile and focused on driving. The rest of the journey passed by in silence.

***

The sound of water running filled the empty apartment. Noah was in the kitchen cutting cauliflowers and potatoes, the savoury scent of stew wafted through the air. The door to his bathroom opened as the girl paddled out in his shirt.
He told her food was almost ready.
Back leaning against the armrest of his couch, she stared beyond the balcony wordlessly, the tiles wet from her soaked hair. Noah turned down the stove and draped a towel on her, gesturing for the hairdryer sitting on the sofa. He didn’t want her to slip over the puddle and hit her head later. Humans were fragile creatures; he would hate to have someone die on his watch. Several moments passed, but she made no move to dry herself, attention fixated on the grey sea.
Noah sighed inwardly.
Retrieving the towel, he began wringing her hair dry. His fingers worked through the wheat strands, watching as they flew and fell along with his movements. An odd sense of intimacy lingered in the air. In all his immortal life, he had never dried anyone’s hair, let alone a stranger’s. This was new to him, but not unpleasant. She stood up when he was done, strode toward the kitchen, turned off the stove, and began distributing the portion. Receiving his share, they ate across the marble dining table. It wasn’t necessary to ask for her name, they wouldn’t cross path again, but something nagged at his mind, and the question left his mouth before he could work on the impulse. She answered without looking up from her stew.
Fleur Rose.
That was the name of the girl who drowned herself in a winter sea.
“That’s a very floral name,” said Noah.
“My old man was a florist, “she replied.
He waited for her to continue, but she said nothing more. He told her she could stay the night, there was nowhere else she could go at this hour of the day. She thanked him and retreated to the guest bedroom. She didn’t ask for his name.
That night, Noah couldn’t sleep. Even with his heightened hearing, there was no sound coming from her room, he worried she still suffered from side effects from her drowning, but it was ungentlemanly to check on her while she was sleeping. When morning came, he knocked on her door, only to find the room empty. The white dress in the dryer was also removed. The only trace of her presence was the scribble of gratitude stuck on his fridge. There was nothing else.
Running his fingers on the paper, his eyes roved over to where the ocean was. Their hushed whispers slipped through the crack of the balcony door. He remembered sealing it before he went to bed last night.
He wondered if she was listening to the ocean’s lullaby again.

***

He never expected to see her again, yet here he was, somewhere in Savoh with his wrinkled suit jacket tucked in the crook of his arm. The night air was crisp, white smoke curled from his lips. The bar music and drunken human noise drifted over as he navigated through brick alleys and cobblestone pavement that comprised the maze of Savoh – the city of ancient dreams and modern nightmare.
Just as he was doubting the chance of running into her, she emerged around the corner. She was dancing atop a car roof with wobbly legs, laughing and singing. Long, flowing hair swished as she spun. The lamp illuminated a halo of light behind her back, casting her face in shadow.
Her laugh, bubbly-sounded, settled comfortably in his chest. Noah didn’t know how long he stood there watching her dance. Until she slipped.
“It’s you again, Mr. Fine Coat,” she said with a smile when he caught her just in time.
“You’re sober,” he remarked, detecting not a hint of alcohol in her breath.
A coy glint entered her eyes. “I only drink in the morning. It’s daytime that needs some fantasy, not the night. Everything in the dark becomes a fantasy.”
Taking hold of his arm, she pulled him away from the street and said, “Not you though, the night doesn’t have her grip on someone like you.”
He didn’t know what she meant by that, he asked, “Where are we going?”
She threw him a smile, saying nothing. Noah let her tug him forward by the sleeve. Snow began falling steadily as they trudged past closed stores. He resisted the urge to dust her hair from the snow. Snaking through dark arcades and steep slopes, they winded through several rugged blocks before arriving at a run-down villa. She told him her room was on the second floor.
Flipping on the switch, he found himself amid countless potted plants, canvas, tapestries, and lucid posters. Books lie askew here and there, unfinished paintings leaned on chairs, sketches scattered across the kitchen counter. She was poor, that much he was sure, but this little den of a home was designed with care. The items were cheap, but not tasteless. As he was busy raking over her room, she threw a “make yourself home” over her shoulder and disappeared into the bathroom.
Noah didn’t know where to sit. Tiptoeing through her beaded pillow quilts and a vase of orchids, he knew he looked ridiculous and out of place in his business suit. This was the home of a dreamer, and he was never one. Yet, something about this cramped apartment soothed his nerves and sent a fuzzy, tingling feeling to his stomach. Looking out, he was not surprised to find a balcony opening to a full view of the ocean; more plants sat at the ledge, filling the air with a natural, earthly scent. She shouted in her shower that there were vegetables and fruits in her fridge. “I think there’s a pie somewhere too,” she added.
Rummaging through her kitchen, there was indeed a meat pie, and enough ingredients to make jellied desserts. Sleeves rolled, he set himself to work. She paddled out, hair wet, and peeked over his shoulder, asking if that was pudding he was making.
“Jelly,” he said, taking out the steaming pie. “I reheated the pie.”
They set the table, gave thanks, and dug in. She hummed in delight as she ate, biting around the fork with a satisfied sigh. Distant dog barking and human noise filled their silence. When they were done, he rose from the seat.
“Are you leaving?” asked Fleur Rose, face unreadable.
He glanced at the soaked patches of her shirt, said, “Where’s your hairdryer?”

***

Noah saw in her a charm, the cold gaze roving streetlight, the fireplace, the clouds, the sprouting plant from the fissures of the wall, then fixed upon him for a moment before moving on – a peculiar, tenuous light, a flicker of interest, but never warmth or passion, that set her apart from the world, transported her in some metaphysical space no one could enter, and she, confined, could not out. Steel. She had steel for eyes. He had a conviction, in moments of distracted silence, that they would remain with him until the very end — no, perhaps even then her eyes would follow him. He wanted to see how far she could go in self-exile, how wild she could burn for her art, and if he could burn along with her too.
Retrieving the dryer in one of the drawers as she had instructed, he moved to dry her hair, as he had the last time. She tucked her knees in her arms, a lilting tune escaping her lips. It was whimsical, with a tint of remorse, reminding him of the winter sea — the notes rising and falling like tide. It drifted through the open window and wall fissures into the outside world, swirling with the snowflakes – a song that would undoubtedly lure in lower faeries, when they still existed at a time before.
He turned off the hairdryer as the song came to an end, the last note hung between them like spiderwebs, suspended in the air. Playing with the small flower bud nestling in a creamy vase, she asked again, “Are you leaving?”
Noah considered for a moment. “I’ll stay if you want,” he said.
She looked up, surprised. “How long?”
“Till you fall asleep.”
Ducking her head, he saw a flash of her hidden smile. When she went to bed, he settled on her couch, picked up a book and started reading. For a long time, he heard her tossing and turning in her bedroom, sheets rustling.
Leafing the book with a piece of paper scribbled with his name, he left when traces of pink and orange streaked the sky. Looking back, he saw a shadow filtering through the floating curtains at the balcony.


II
Fleur Rose was a painter.
She wasn’t always one, but she had wanted to become one since she could hold a brush. In her eyes, the modern art world was subdued, dull, and bleached of colours; whereas hers was vibrant and alive, the colours blended and danced and fought each other for dominance. Someone once told her that her painting was screaming in rage and rue and everything that reminded him of long nights when shadows stretched too far and the silence hung too heavy; it haunted him.
But Noah was different. His eyes, always devoid of light, motionless and watchful, would follow her every movement. She sensed in him a strange power, pulsating but untapped, like a quiet beast. The power to do what – she did not know, only that it took form in his pensive frowns when he cut up her steak, the nervous glance he sent her when she set the mug on the table too hard, or his overall jumpiness when handling glass-items, as though he was afraid the barest pressure would result in the total destruction of the utensil. Sometimes, she thought he looked at her as one would gaze at a butterfly on the road, stepped but not dead yet. She recalled him cornered by the macho stray cat she brought home one day, listening to her tape recording, undisturbed. Later, he volunteered to bath the cat, came out of the bathroom with bleeding arms, and when the vet said the cat was diseased and would not live for long, he paid for the most expensive medical services and cared for it for a week until the cat died a painless death. Afterwards, he had a little tomb erected by the orange tree. She couldn’t understand him.
“Are you a cat-lover?”
“Not really.”
“Then why bother?”
He paused. “I have time to spare.”
“Don’t you have something else to do?” she asked, brushing frost from the bubble around her hydrangeas, added, “You own companies, there must be things waiting for you to sign or calls you need to make.” Giving it a firm pat, the bubble quivered but didn’t break.
“I am, but I don’t have to do every work myself, do I?” He didn’t look up from the book he was reading, the golden glasses perched neatly on his nose were taunting. She was tempted to snatch it off. Legs stretched on her couch, he looked rather at home.
“So you could take care of cats I pick up on the streets?”
“Those are time well-spent.”
She thought of the time he saved her from her drowning, and how he had been staying over at her apartment every other day. When she asked him why he wanted to keep contact with someone like her, he shrugged, saying she needed someone to dry her hair. “You’re going to catch a cold one day. I am sure of it.”
Fleur Rose did not press for more, sensing that if she did, whatever that was tying him here would be gone. Still, she probed around the question as she would a new plant species, wary yet intrigued. So, she said, “even if you have people working for you, surely there must be something deserving of your immediate attention. What else would they need you for?”
His eyes flickered to hers, grey irises glowing like molten silver in the candlelight. The barest trace of a smile ghosted his lips. He answered evenly, “As a matter of fact, they don’t. That’s why I’m here.”
Brushing her hair back, the black paint smeared her cheek and ear. Undeterred by her mocking, he said he sometimes donated to aquariums – he liked looking at the fish there.
She scoffed. “The becoming of aquariums is people trying to keep a fragmented ocean within their cupped palms. By storing seawater in a jar, they are hoping a mini ocean would grow out of it.”
Closing his book, he fixed her a long stare, the glasses glinted like two moons. Pointing at her painting, he asked why she bothered painting when there was only so much she could draw on her canvas board. “Surely whales exceed the frame of this little, white plywood board,” said Noah, with an exasperating air of inscrutable countenance.
She rarely painted with people in the room, for she demanded absolute silence when she painted. But when he didn’t react to her setting up the canvas next to him this morning, she began to paint without regard to his presence; so fixated was she on the movements of her brush that she forgot he was there to begin with. Noah was strange. His scent blended in with the rest of her perfectly, but she could still separate his from hers if she wanted to. He smelled of cloves after rain and dusty teddy bears – a boyish innocence.
“I’m telling you this black, white, and grey whale is swimming in a palm-sized jar because it’s my whale, my reality. And I’m calling her Rafu.” Leaning back, she imagined each dash, curve and stroke floating apart, rearranging themselves and skirting across her walls, dancing on her kitchen counter and tiptoeing her canvas. When they stilled, she went over the invisible trails, broad strokes swept through the canvas in up and down motions, the swiftness betrayed her confidence. He came to stand behind her, observing the painting with narrowed eyes. Despite their proximity, she could not feel heat radiating off his body.
His gaze raked over the splashes of grey ink dispersing on the white cloth sprinkled with marble dust and silvery splatters, resembling that of constellations. Harsh brushes sailed past dark flames and forked tongues, roasting a crooked skeleton in a jar. It took Noah a while to grasp that it was the remains of a whale represented with touches of shadowy dashes.
Ocean blue – a kind of blue that was not quite blue. Translucent at day and impenetrable at night, the embodiment of sin and innocence, imprisonment and liberation – a beautiful, hushed void of cloudless heavens. It was a living thing, she declared with pride, as though she was the one who invented the ocean and all the mysteries it held. The ocean was the one thing she could not wish to imitate and incorporate into a canvas.
Gentle whispers echoed in her eardrums, interrupting her speech. Chasing the source, she found herself pressing an ear against Noah’s heart. Upon her curiosity, he produced a conch seashell from his chest. It was ivory, twirled with gold and silver linings to form lengthy, indecipherable symbols. What she heard was the murmurs of waves lapping shores, encased within a seashell in substitution of his heart. He told her he had lost it during a journey to bargain with the Siren Queen, that the sirens were made to love only once with each heart they collected. He suspected one of them must have snatched it while he was distracted. “They were lonely creatures,” said Noah, as though that explained anything.
Lifting a seashell to her ear, she let the soothing language of the ocean flowed through her being, imaging herself as the siren who stole his heart. She asked if he missed it. He pondered on that for a while, and said he didn’t because the seashell was a good enough replacement. “The sea resides in me, it follows wherever I go like a clingy friend.”
She offered her heart in exchange for his shell, but he turned his head with a complicated expression, saying the heart was not a heart if one gave freely — it was simply a broken thing unfit for another ribcage.
She argued it was a fair bargain, despite his repeated refusal. Exasperated, she set aside her brush and tossed the painting across the window, which was followed by a human yell and a loud crash. She announced, “My human touch is inadequate. The ocean is not an ocean when I painted it.”