Previously published in Parallel Realities Project. Exhibited in the RISD special exhibition gallery.
We will need to bring with us nets of knotted mandolin strings; small rocks of amber tied around our necks to keep off the smell of rotting; hooks carved from the ribs of fish; rope we will make by twisting and braiding seaweed; small globes with the nights painted on them; snow shovels that we may use to drag these things with us until we reach the shore and the weight will be a requirement rather than a burden; gourds bound in groups like grapes, empty and sealed so that when we need breath we can press our lips to their skin, apply our teeth, let the air leak into our mouth like a sweet thick juice; and the dried scales of fish we can toss before and after us like shimmering confetti. Because at some depth the world ends. At some unknown point, there is an edge that we may slip over. We will rest in the hulls of ships that have broken on the rocks or sunk in the marinas; we will make our fires from the litter of maps and guidebooks, and when we can no longer make fires, we will spend our nights in the pink soft phosphorescence of decaying fish.
