Where Sea Ends, Sky Begins

The air burns.

My skin scrapes against the hot black asphalt, its roughness tearing bloody scratches into my scales. With an eye turned to the sun scorching me alive, I flop helplessly upon the ground.

So thirsty. I can’t even see water.

Above, white gulls circle, wild eyes searching the earth, perhaps for me. I can hear their mad calls, can imagine their mocking laughter as they sweep down to tear me apart… I spring up desperately against the stifling heat only to collapse on my side once more, fleshy gills twitching hysterically. Another pyrrhic victory. My belly, rosy raw and bloody, rises up and down in vain.

Cars rush by with their metallic screams.

The ground shakes violently, and my eyes dart around in their sockets, desperately searching. There is no escape for me here. I am trapped, the birds on one side and the cars on the other. I close my eyes and imagine their thick rubber tires, horrible noise and foul exhaust, my gruesome end beneath them… Tired, my mouth comes ajar and the flames rush in to eat up my insides. My skin sizzles against the searing ground as my eyes finally close.

For a moment, I am alive.

Seconds pass, then minutes. My tail relaxes against the ground as my belly stills. I can feel myself being lifted up, crawling out of my parched skeleton, the grooves of my skin unfolding and crinkling as my body is born anew. I can feel myself carried away to a land of soft blues and grays, where there is no blood and no hurt, no heat and no thirst.

I dream I am a butterfly, a strange and weightless creature drifting across the sky. I imagine my soft wings drying in the sun as I break free from my chrysalis, my slender stalk-like legs, my strange eyes, my delicate antennae. I imagine my first unsteady flaps with newly stiffened wings, heavy and hesitant, before I begin to glide across the plains, lighter and lighter…

Yet still, some part of me fights it. Some part of me wants to go back to my world, where I lie there suffering. My little wings are still beating, but with them, my fins twitch wildly of their own accord. Stop. Stop. Don’t take me away…

I let go.

I lie there, still, unmoving. The cries of gulls and the roar of passing cars begin to fade away, as if the world is loosening its grip on me. For a moment, there is peace. For a moment, I am no longer trapped on land but slipping back into the ocean. For a moment, I ponder if death is really this easy, how everything feels a little lighter–when you care a little less…

I feel water.

Something cold and moist licks at my stomach, soothing the bloodied scratches. It breathes into my shriveled body, coursing through me like a current. I can almost hear the waves bellowing. I can almost taste the salt. Slowly, like an apprehensive hand, the ocean stretches toward me farther and farther, drawing me back to where I belong. It rocks me gently, pulls me back a few inches. Another few. I feel the smooth blanket of foam pour over me, and my little body flutters to hold on. Then, a wave engulfs me whole and pulls me back to the ocean’s embrace.

I am swimming again.

I am soaring again.

I feel myself rolling upright, sinking down, my tail steering so effortlessly that I feel like I am flying. I can imagine myself zigzagging through the coral forests like a butterfly flitting across the blooming flower fields. All the colors… There, the water breezes past my skin like a gentle gust of wind. And I know all of it is true, so true, that at last I come to and take in everything around me.

So why then,

When I open my eyes,

Am I in the sky?