When the alarms, signaling the breach of dams that keep the ocean away from the shore, go off all at once, do they sound like: a) trumpets blaring from below the waves; b) a category five hurricane making landfall, or c) a classroom bell, a bedside clock, so mundane, mamma I want to sleep some more, it’s not time to wake up yet?
When you hear those alarms going off, do you: a) run up the stairs to the blue and white nursery that you have painted yourself, joyful colors smearing all over your dress and fingers, with its stuffed bears, rainbow mobiles, and the perpetual smell of sweet milk and baby powder; b) rush out of the door as you are, in slippers and an old nightgown, scampering into the night like a terrified lemming with no sense of direction; or c) stay in bed and wait for the rushing cold waters of the Atlantic to swallow you whole because, seriously, how long can the wretched shitshow be allowed to continue, someone has to come and extinguish the lights, and you’re way too tired for any of this?
When you don’t run up the stairs, is it because: a) the water is coming in fast, and you want to live, oh so very much, even if a minute ago your body seemed not to care either way; b) you need both hands to swim, to hold on to the raft, to the rescue boat, to grab onto anything that would keep your head, your gulping mouth up above the waves; or c) in that moment of panic you’re five again and have always been a child and have never been a mother to anyone, and all you want to do is screw your eyes shut and scream, scream, scream?
When the rescuers on their inflated boat pull you out of the waves and deposit into some school gym or aircraft hangar or an empty hotel where all the lucky ones who escaped the waves are brought, and the people start asking where’s your son, your precious baby boy, do you tell them: a) he was right here in my arms, just a minute ago, oh God help me find him please; b) you’re mistaken, I never had a child and my womb remains barren, blessed and at peace; or c) behold, he’s now a prince of the underwater kingdom, teeth of corals, crown of fish bones; he’s waiting for me in his realm of sunken cities, where crabs feast on the bones of the drowned and the statues weep bleeding tears as the world we’ve known collapses into the endless, rolling waves.
