Drowning on Dry Land
By Eleanor Luke
Cora doesn’t open her eyes while Joe makes love to her. When it’s over, she stretches her limbs, starfish-like across the white sheets of the hotel bed. She’s searching for the cool spots. Joe reaches for her hand, but she pulls it away, splaying her fingers towards the ceiling fan, as if she can catch the coolness and pocket it.
Joe’s resting his chin on his forearm. Even with her eyes fixed on the fan, she feels the weight of his gaze sliding across her, stopping only when it reaches her belly. He’s staring at it, as if he thinks he’ll be able to make fertilization occur by telepathy. She rolls onto her side and forces herself to look at the scar on his left cheek. Tracing it with her finger, she wills it to fade because maybe then her memories will fade too. She was supposed to go with him on his motorbike that day. When Joe was hit by a car overtaking on a bend, she was making love to Ravi with her eyes open, high on his scent of sandalwood. The note she left Joe on the kitchen table didn’t include the word sorry.
After the accident, the doctors said he wouldn’t make it through the night. But she sat at his bedside, counting every beep of the life support machine, commanding his heart to remember how to keep him alive so that when he was strong again, she’d tell him everything. She would! She’d make him understand. Then she’d tell him she was sorry.
Joe reaches out to embrace her but she can’t breathe positioned like this, with one arm beneath her, trapped and numb. She rolls onto her back, leaving him grasping at an empty space. Her chest expands, lungs filling with oxygen. Once she’s sated, she tells him not to get his hopes up again. Says she’s probably mixed up her dates. She’s not good at this sort of thing. His face crumples. Is that what their child would look like right before a tantrum? The same furrowed brow, the same pouting lips? He says she’s not taking this seriously. Doesn’t she realise time isn’t on their side? She spreads her limbs out again but she still can’t find the cool spots.
It’s this warm weather that’s making her like this, she says. Who’d have thought Crete would be so hot in May? She suggests a walk to the harbour because it’ll be cooler there. They can have some wine, some olives, and won’t everything be better then? Joe nods but says she’s to stay off the wine. Because you never know, do you?
They fan themselves with tourist maps as they make their way across the little square dotted with jacaranda trees. A group of women steal sidelong looks at Joe. They probably want to fuck him and for the few seconds that thought lasts, Cora thinks maybe she can be what he wants her to be. But then he reaches out, the tips of the fingers on his left hand grasping for the tips of her right. His hunger for contact is almost as strong as her thirst for distance. The familiar urge to run swells inside her, electrifying her muscles and preparing her for flight. It takes all her strength to anchor herself to the ground. She focuses on her feet. The different points of contact they make with the earth as she walks. Heel down, flatfoot, heel up, toe off… Heel down, flatfoot, heel up, toe off. She thinks how lucky she is that such a thing as gravity exists. Otherwise, she would simply float into the ether.
Step by step, she brings herself down to Joe’s limping pace.
‘It’s the broken pavements slowing me down,’ he lies. The two operations to fix his shattered knee have only made the limp worse. ‘Do you see the mess they’re in?’
They leave the square and turn down a cobbled street. I can do this, Cora thinks. She looks at Joe. At how handsome he is with his square features, blonde waves of hair brushed back from his forehead. His blue eyes remind her of water. Of rivers and lakes and seas. Deep turquoise seas with hidden currents. Churning oceans you could drown in. She shivers, edging away from him in case he drags her under. But he moves closer again, as if it’s a game. He reaches for her fingers. But she must keep this invisible seawall between them so they walk in parallel, first one foot, then the other. Heel down, flatfoot, heel up, toe off… Heel down, flatfoot, heel up, toe off. It’s curious, she thinks, how people fall into step when they walk together, subconsciously coordinating their left and right feet as if under the effects of some secret spell.
The locals are heading to the harbour, too. Men with the collars of their pastel polo shirts popped up. Women with oversized sunglasses balanced on their heads. Children zigzagging through the sea of legs. One of them kicks a football into Joe’s shins and she winces, imagining his pain. But if it hurts, he doesn’t show it.
‘Slow down, Messi!’ he says, ruffling the boy’s hair.
The boy’s parents stop to talk to Joe. He glances at Cora and it’s the hope in his eyes that finally untethers her, casting her guilt away like a weight cut free from a helium balloon. She takes her chance and flees, racing down a back street, adrenaline fizzing out of the tips of her fingers. She knows there’s no point in running from Joe. There never was. But still, she runs and the belief that escape is possible fills her with euphoria. She even blows kisses at the people she passes, laughing at their startled expressions.
At the harbour, she skids to a standstill. There’s a crowd of people blocking her way. She tries to push through but it’s impossible.
‘Come!’ An old woman calls, pointing at her foldup chair. ‘You sit!’
Cora shakes her head. Her escape has been thwarted and she wants to scream or cry or maybe both. Her temples are throbbing, sweat prickling her forehead. ‘Thank you, but…’ She glances over her shoulder to see if Joe’s caught up. He hasn’t and relief makes her soften a little. ‘Well if you’re sure. I don’t want to steal your seat.’
‘You sit and you breathe,’ rasps the old woman. ‘Or you will become like me!’ She laughs, wheezing like a broken accordion.
Now Cora sees what’s commanding everyone’s attention. Against the harbour wall, a makeshift stage has been erected. There are two dancers: a man and a woman. To the left, half a string quartet plays. The violinist, a stout older man. The cellist, a girl who might be his daughter, embracing her instrument with a tenderness that astonishes Cora. She feels her pulse slow as the spectacle unfolds.
The male dancer is dressed in black, with a long cape that billows and swirls and somehow does not end up tangled around his muscular legs. He is the embodiment of lust: not to be trusted. Still, Cora suspects she might trust him anyway and a shiver of desire surprises her. The girl is wearing a long white skirt, a crown of mauve jacaranda blossom on her head of golden hair. The petals take on a luminous quality in the evening light and the sun, an inch away from drowning in the ocean, casts a rich amber glow over everything. The man whirls around the girl and, trapped in the eye of the furious storm he has become, she falls to her knees, clasping her hands in supplication. Her subservience infuriates Cora and she wants to push through the crowd and drag her away. But before she can, the girl launches into a mesmerising solo, pirouetting round and round, creating the illusion of distance, but never moving from the point where she began. Cora stretches her hand towards the ballerina, the optical illusion making it feel like she could pluck her from the stage. Rescue her.
When the music ends, Cora is about to applaud but the old woman reaches over, gently pushing her hands back into her lap.
‘Now Hades will offer Persephone the seeds of the fruit…’ she says.
‘The fruit?’
The old lady nods. ‘The pomegranate. And she will take it, the stupid girl!’
Persephone’s story, as told on the yellowed pages of a book her grandmother would read to her, unfolds in Cora’s mind. ‘But she’ll be able to leave the underworld. To be with her mother again…’
The old woman clasps Cora’s hands with fingers that are more bone than flesh. ‘But she must lie in Hades’ bed forever!’ she wheezes. ‘She will be his forever! Tell me, is it worth the price she’ll pay?’
The old lady cackles, her laughter transforming into a series of rattling coughs. Afraid she might suffocate, Cora jumps up, guiding the woman back into her chair. On the back of her neck, Cora feels the familiar weight of Joe’s gaze.
‘I thought I’d never find you!’ he says.
She turns to face him. ‘I always knew you would.’
He grabs her arm, pulling her away. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
‘No!’ she says, feet anchored to the ground.
The ocean of his eyes is surging now. ‘Cora! For Christ’s sake!’
The audience washes around them, scraping chairs and brushing shoulders. The show is over.
He tugs on her arm, more forcefully this time. ‘What the hell’s going on with you?’
‘Joe,’ she whispers. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘For running away?’ he snaps. ‘I should bloody well hope so!’
She shakes her head. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘Then what?’
She hears the waves crashing against the harbour wall. A cool breeze has picked up, bringing with it relief from the heatwave at last.
‘I’m sorry for not loving you, Joe.’
His face crumples like before but this time, she resists the urge to touch him. She forces herself to look beyond him. At the crowd dispersing. At people going their separate ways. At the seagulls stealing scraps, screeching triumph as they beat their wings, rising higher and higher. She follows their flight across the night sky embroidered with infinite constellations.
Infinity used to fill Cora with dread. Now, all she feels is hope.
THE END
Author Bio: Eleanor Luke lives in Spain with her husband, one teenager, another tweenager, and a small menagerie. Her stories have appeared in The Birdseed, FreeFlashFiction, FlashFlood, Retreat West. Longlist Reflex flash fiction. Top ten Oxford Flash Fiction Prize 2022, shortlist Welkin Mini 2024. When not writing, Eleanor can be found eavesdropping on other people’s conversations. Twitter/X @Eleanor_Luke24.