"What is Born" by R. M. Bundridge

What is Born

by R. M. Bundridge

The sack of meat would do nicely, yes. Their oxygen was a touch different from its own, but after a brief period of time–approximately fifty five seconds–lungs would begin to repair themselves from the drowned flesh. A regrowth is what it could provide, not for the memory of the child. Ocean birthed or not, it was a game of survival. The flesh had found it. Chosen it. 

Oxygen was a bitter source of life, like barnacles on the underside of ships.

Slowly, with a similar texture to grazing algae, the underside of its new skin began to fill up. It shaped amphipod-esque edges into their new fingers–smaller than they would like, but big enough to get things done. The sleeve–no, arm–took some adjusting on the left side, but the right was no problem at all. It was finding each individual toe which took some prodding–if a sac of flesh stumbled upon it now, they would swear up and down to their bigger sacs of flesh it looked as if bees were attempting to break through the boy’s (boys? And what is this?) blue little toes. The thing would scream about the vacant eyes and how a crab wandered over from one side of the head to the other (which it quickly disposed of down its resolidifying gullet). Teeth poked through gums shortly after, like worms from the sand.

Algae over his lungs, and it inhaled the bitterness like a boy (is that what it is?)

The sun filled its new world when the eyes were found: enough contorting had been done to accidentally rip a tiny bit of flesh behind the ear, but it was so early in the healing stages, the bit would heal; it had never been this close to the sun before, above the surface level. It existed in the water as an unknown, a creature feared. Sharks turned away. Whales were too big and dumb to see it, so that’s when it would crawl in, and become it, and kill it. Survival. But the sun had always intrigued it–how it even knew the true name of the ball of fire, it didn’t know, the existence was just there, in the tip of its edges. What did it mean to watch every single thing live; die? Survive? 

It needed to know, and the ocean had become too predictable.

When this little being stumbled upon the rocks in which it was laying, and the tips of appendages caressed it with an understanding beyond its experience. It was an offer from the ocean, for both of them.

Now, little particles of broken plastic and rocks burned the underside of its new legs–they were different from crawling inside of a crab’s legs {not nearly as fun as having the range of an octopus} but it was a fast learner, and soon many of him would be learning all kinds new tricks. It would accept the offer and know all which the sun touched. 

Behind its ear, the tear had stitched itself back together.

—

Marnie noticed the boy picking his way up from the rocks before Mommy and Daddy did. The boy looked bad. Not just bad. Wrong. He was too pale, and it made her wonder if this was his first time outside. Judy from school said parents used to keep children inside if they were ashamed of them. Like Marnie’s brother (her mom just said he was an angsty teen, though, whatever that word meant). This boy should have been inside. 

He looked as if someone had taken markers and drug them across the length of his body. Purples and blues shone in the sun like uncared for berries.

There were many parts of him that didn’t corporate with how old he looked (maybe Judy’s brother’s age): his limbs were moving like a baby, and he slapped himself in the face a couple times in trying to make the first step down to the rest of the beach; the first step took him so long, and it happened, and he was falling. The boy landed hard on his butt. From there, he was closer to her, and what she saw next were his eyes. 

From the towel over, a boy gagged. 

Somebody else was watching him? A part of her wanted to be the only one.

“That kid doesn’t have eyes!” A girl from two towels over (who was also younger than her! Nobody asked you, kid!) screeched. The little girl begged her dad to look, look, look by tugging on his swim trunks so hard they almost slipped down.

All heads turned to her Boy From the Rocks who wasn’t just hers anymore because what wasn’t working a moment ago (his legs) were pressing through hot sand to the closest bodies, and Marnie watched as, what should’ve been her secret, spilled slime from his eyes over and into the mouth of the child he could grab first.

The sand erupted like that old movie her dad made her watch with that Bacon guy, something about murmurs. Parents grabbed their children, and children grabbed their floaties or snacks they hadn’t finished eating. 

My dad wrapped his whole arms around my torso and yanked me up from the ground. I couldn’t scream or resist (I wasn’t ready to leave the beach). I did watch, though, as we jostled against other people in the crowd.

The Boy From the Rocks was still spilling vacant eyes into–yes, my god, it was the boy who gagged. His flesh was bubbling out and over the sides of his mouth, steaming in the heat of summer. The Boy From the Rocks put his hand deep into the kids mouth and brought out some of what was cooking.

A thought wormed its way into Marnie’s skull, like the nesting batch of flies in the fish she’d found earlier that day. It cut itself open, spilled all along the inside of her brain:

It’s making room.