The water is cold and thick. When I was nine years old, my mother gave me a gold chain. At impact our jaws are broken, our arms and legs severed, our feet crushed. Our hands peel, sinking to rest at the bottom of the ocean. A hundred pairs of transparent gloves, waiting to be recovered.
Skin floats everywhere, a new form of jellyfish, seemingly harmless.
But no one will be untouched. We are pushed inland, the ocean knowing we will be needed by those left behind. Our remains are wretched. By the time we roll in my body is nothing more than strands of muscle, tendon, a patch of skin clinging to my cheekbone and eye socket. One blue eye is miraculously intact.