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Some call the world “Earth”. My world was water. The bottom of the pond was gelid, no matter the weather or heat above. I used to lie there for hours, watching the golden sunlight race towards the surface before refracting into a million sparkles. 

Did you know that sunfish and minnows have their own language? Their unblinking eyes, their twitching lips, and the opening and closing of their gills are speeches and musings. Each one has a name, a little life unfolding. I tended to the bulrushes and the water hyacinths and watched them grow lavender, tall. I unspooled myself, the same as the pond around me. I remember being loved by the residents of the water. I remember loving them. 

She came one day with sundress rustling and looked at me from above, brushing the surface of the pond. I opened my eyes, really opened them for the first time, and saw her brown eyes tinted gold in the aqua. There was a curiosity so earnest that it cut me to pieces. This wasn’t the sisterly love I felt for the fish, or my motherly love for the bulrushes. Now, my world was wherever the wind whistled, wherever she laughed. Splash. 

The woman’s gold stare held a frightening depth. She would often come to paint near the pond, wondering aloud and smiling to herself. I watched the waves of her hair flowing in the breeze. Sometimes, she would kneel by the pond, talking to the sunfish or scattering the minnows with splashes. A slate grey hat, like the rocks swirling through

me, was always perched on her head. Her sweet humming filled me, her voice crystallizing me bit by bit. 

After the head come two arms, and a torso, and two legs. 

Water takes the shape of the container it’s in. My shape was human. 

It happened when the seasons started changing. She came to paint with a flower- printed scarf and steel-tipped boots. 

Splash. 

I reached so far forward with my arm that I left myself behind. A sloughing sensation as sediment spilled off my shoulders, as the surface turned to stinging wind. The rocks within kept me anchored. So this is how it feels to stand. She walked towards me, mouth parted. 

“_______?” 

Splash, splash, splash. 

The pebbles sloshed me forward suddenly. I reached my arm to her again, the end of it dripping as I tried to keep the five-finger shape, offering, inviting. She took a step back from me – her stare lost its depth, clouding over in anxiety, a breath, another breath, she scanned me up and down, took two steps back. 

”_______!” 

I just sank. 

When I dragged myself up again, she was gone. Her steel-tipped boots left prints in the soil when she ran. I let the water swallow me again, lips sealing above my head.

Splash. 

The minnows swim circles around me, chattering happily. The stalks of the bulrushes swayed lazily. The pond didn’t feel right anymore. She took the world away with her flower-printed scarf. 

I’m still waiting. 

Golden sunlight races to the surface. It almost looks silver in the evening. I try to let my body go, to return to swirling aqua and stones and peace. My monstrous shape clings like the water hyacinths. 

I lift my head. 

Splash. 

I poke just the top of my head out and hear humming. When the seasons change, she comes to paint with a sundress and a slate-colored hat. “————-!” 

There’s a new voice. A whoosh as the little boy pulls his arm back, then hurls something. 

Splash, splash, splash. 

The pebbles skip across my skin before dropping into the water. I cradle it in my body, the scent of petrichor filling me like the gold of her eyes. I look up, expecting the familiar, beaming sunlight, only to see the boy’s face peering past the rim of the pond. He looks just like her. Something twists in a way I can’t describe as he waves a little hand to me and speaks.

“—————-?” 

Even the liquid does not dilute the curiosity in his voice. She races to the edge and grabs him away. The rustling of the sundress is still the same. “___!!! ___________?” 

I raise my shoulders out of the water and smile. The biting of the summer glare paints my skin into light. He points at me as her eyes widen in surprise. Her golden stare. 

I let go of all: 

this body evaporates. 

My world is here.