Deep Sea Diver Monster by Jeanne Viray
Deep Sea Diver Monster
The first Saturday of each month has become Swim Day, but this is a Swim Day like no other. We’ve been travelling for about an hour, just finished going down winding mountain roads, and Dresden has started to leak.
Water seeps out the edges of their suit, those parts we couldn’t be bothered stitching up again because we thought nothing could possibly go wrong. The suit was meant to be strong enough, the weather wasn’t meant to be so dry and airless. Mich shouldn’t be driving like we were about to give birth. I should’ve worn a tshirt over this two-piece so I’m not ripping my skin off the seat every five minutes, but still, we’re here. Mich didn’t even bother to wear swimmers today. She’s wearing jeans.
We all hear the hissing of the water as it leaks from the suit. I lift my feet from the floor of the car, leaving my thongs to float on the growing in-car pool.
‘Plug it up or something,’ Mich says, gritting her teeth. This, the 1995 Holden Commodore Wagon, is the car her dad will miss when he realises she’s gone and taken it. We left in such a hurry my phone’s only on twenty percent battery. Mich looks back at us again, frowning. Her eyes flicker to Dresden, and she presses her lips to a thin line: ‘Can’t get the floor wet.’ I lean forward and squeeze her shoulder.
I look around. There’s nothing here but KFC wipes and empty chicken buckets. I rip open some of the packets of wipes and hand them to Dresden. The rubber of their suit makes a squeaking sound that sets me on edge, but they take the napkins with a muffled ‘cheers’. With big gloves, they stuff the napkins into the gaps of the suit. It does nothing for the waterflow, but at least it’s quieter and Mich sits back in her seat, more relaxed.
It’s about nine in the morning, I think, but we should’ve reached this spot on the route thirty minutes ago. I fiddle with the straps of my bikini top, but my arms feel too heavy to retie them. I try maybe twice before I give up and lean my head on the seat in front of me. My top begins to slide off my skin. Dresden gurgles a sigh, reaches over to tie my top with a neat bunny-ears knot.
Later, when its cooler and I can actually feel a breeze through the windows, I’ll take out all those brochures on moving out, and government allowances, and first-timers and things. Preparing, in spite of it all.
I check how Dresden’s doing, but they’ve fallen asleep inside their fish-bowl helmet. I watch for a while to see those fish gills on their neck pump in air or water or whatever. It was Mich who actually sat down and read biology books (not that there was any literature on what to do when your very human friend becomes half-fish, and not the Ariel kind). I held Dresden’s gloved hand and gave it a kiss.
Two years ago, Dresden found the old mariner’s suit in their grandfather’s attic. The morning after their Old Pop’s funeral, they’d stayed up in the attic for hours on end, unearthing old letters, plans, board-games. It was terrible the way he died. Dresden hadn’t seen their grandfather beyond a Messenger call in five years. I remembered seeing his wrinkled face, lecturing us on helpful, fun things. How to get stains out of sheets. How to replace a tire. After Dresden, it was Mich who spent the most screentime with Old Pop. If I looked at him sideways, I’d think, yeah, he looked like an older, softer version of Mich’s dad. The weekend we were finally supposed to meet Old Pop — he died.
And then, of course, the suit. I remembered seeing old photos of it. I’m talking older than Polaroid.
First, Dresden tried it out in my house, in the grubby indoor swimming pool. It took fifteen minutes to strip off the pool-cover and I think there was a dead mouse floating in the corner, but Dresden wanted to test the suit. Mum came in every now and then, wondering what we were all doing. Floating in and out. She’d ask how Dresden was doing, and we’d say ‘all right’, and she’d ask Mich how she was doing, brushing her hand through her hair, her thumb past the bruise on her cheek. And Mich would say ‘all right’.
Watching Dresden float to the bottom was so strange. For about thirty minutes, they slid around on the bottom of the pool, dragging their bum across the tiles and laughing in their weird helmet. Spending longer and longer hours in it. Eating dinner in it. Like, as a joke. Putting in lasagne through the hatch at the top, watching it float down and get soggy, but Dresden always ate it anyway.
Every day after school, Mich, Dresden and I would go over to my house. Dresden would suit up and float down, and Mich and I would lounge on the sofa. We’d watch Dresden and share biscuits, leaning on each other, a pair of lazy lifeguards. The first time I kissed her was on one of those after-school days. Mich had blushed a full red, and Dresden had leapt up from the water like a dolphin, screeching: ‘I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!’
Yesterday was a Wednesday morning, and it was very early when I woke up and heard rasping sounds coming from the dark mass on the floor. I’d fallen asleep on my laptop so when I’d woken up, the thing was jolted awake and RealEstate.com flashed on my face. Price range: low to high. Bedrooms: 2. Car-ports: 1. Extras: Pool, pets allowed. Best-friends: 2, struggling.
Peeling Mich’s arm from my neck, I peeked over the edge and saw Dresden with dry cheeks and the skin of their neck glimmering like scales. Lines of scars had appeared on their neck overnight, like they’d been mauled by something since I said good-night to them. I had a two-second fear that maybe I’d done this to them somehow.
The glimmer and the rasping. The glimmer was what struck the most, like from that picture book from primary school, the one we’d always share and steal from everyone else. Rainbow fish.
The red-and-white of the RealEstate.com website had suspended me. Dresden clawed at the sheets around them. Mich woke up. Used her muscles to start to carry Dresden to the bathroom. Water spilled everywhere from the tub. She yelled at me so loud, to get my shit together, to help her get Dresden’s head in the water.
‘Hey,’ comes a bubbling voice. ‘Hey, babes, I’m hungry.’
Dresden pokes my shoulder gently. I take out the fish-food box from the beach-bag filled with towels and snacks and a Bluetooth speaker because that’s what we usually bring to Swim Day. Swim Day, right, it’s Swim Day. Dresden grins as I open the box. I smile a can’t you feed yourself? and Dresden smiles a don’t you love me?
We play a balancing game as I try to slam-dunk-shake the flakes into the helmet from the opening at the top, and they try to keep still. Mich drives over a pothole and the water sloshes out, smacking me in the face. Dresden laughs, a musical gargle.
Forty minutes later, we’re closer to the beach. Large round-abouts have us all leaning to the left as Mich hugs the curb and indicates right. We pass the bright windows of a local art gallery and I think about becoming a landscape artist for a hot second. Buying a house by the sea. Maybe at least 200m from the sea. Would we be allowed? I don’t know. Do we have jobs? I don’t know. Maybe one of us won the lottery. My girlfriend would practice her weights in the garage, one hand holding a dumbbell, the other holding The Jazz of Physics. Our best friend would rise from the water every now and then to restart local horror stories of deep sea diver monsters and tell us if the kraken is real and how alluring are sirens, really?
There are still trains here. We’re at a crossing and before I can ask anything, Mich says: ‘Just two minutes.’ A blue train rushes past. Just a few hundred metres from the beach now, I can see it across the tracks because there’s just a road and a line of houses, and between them I can see water.
Maybe afterwards, we’ll stop by Maccas, but also maybe not. We’ll need to get home. I’ll have to explain to Mum that Mich is staying over again. And of course, Mum will say yes, but she’ll have to hug me again as I become quiet, stuck in thinking. I know Mich has to leave eventually. She has to go back to her dad, like I always have to go back to Mum, because that’s all we have right now, at this age. I almost think about what we’re meant to say to Dresden’s dad, but then I remember, he was okay with it. He understood.
I feel so happy for Dresden, I almost forget they’re leaving.
Now there’s silence at the tracks. Mich rolls forward a little.
Then the crossing starts to clang again. Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, red lights flashing all up into my face. We can’t see the train yet, so we’re stuck waiting. Again. It feels religious. Mich puts the parking brake on and she reaches her arm back to us; Dresden immediately clamps their hand to hers, so I put my fingers gently around her wrist. Feeling the scars there, and the strong muscle that leads up to her forearm and then to her biceps, which I know so well. Trust Mich’s arms to put me in a trance. Because I know what’ll happen when she lets go.
She’ll only let go when the train has passed, and she has to put the car in motion again. We’ll park at the usual lot we go to for Swim Day, and pay the fee. We’ll take out all our stuff and head past the picnic area, to the path between the sand dunes that starts off twiggy and pebble-y before falling into soft, sugary sand. Arriving three hours later than we anticipated, so the beach is going to be packed with people just coming back from lunch. Kids running around. No space for towels so we’ll have to set our stuff down close to the dunes and then walk to the water. On the way, I’ll link all our arms together as I talk about all that I’ve researched, how I think maybe I’ll become a train-driver, or I’ll work three jobs, I’ll do anything, practically anything, so that in the house I’m dreaming of we’ll have money, three cats, hair-dye, racks of clothes, a pool, and people who like us. People who like them. Mich and Dresden. And Dresden will listen patiently, nodding like they believe it’ll happen, and Mich will say nothing because I know what she’s feeling anyway. And then we’ll be shin-deep in water.
The car pulls forward. I lean my head on Dresden’s shoulder, but there’s a metal knob from their suit, digging into my skull, so I stop. Dresden wraps up one of the blankets and places it on their shoulder as a pillow. I shift up to look up at them, peering into the little window of the helmet, and I scrunch my eyebrows. Dresden mirrors me. I press my forehead against the glass and when I take it back, there’s a small patch of oil where my head was and Dresden smiles.
‘I’ll miss you,’ bubbles through.
When I look to Mich, I see only her head whipping back to the front as she starts the car forward, but her hand comes up to her eyes to wipe them.
Executive Producers
Sue White
Daniel Henson
