Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine #6

once was.”

The tour guide droned on as they made their way back to the catamaran. It was all stuff she’d heard a hundred times before from Brad.

They came around a shelf of reef and her thoughts were stopped by the sight of that same gelatinous, humanoid creature she had seen out snorkeling. There were several of them standing in a circle, fish bones in their fin-like hands, looking like a highway crew. One would pick at the reef while the others watched; then another would take a turn. A small school of black and white striped angelfish surrounded them, both obscuring and revealing them at different intervals.

Breathe in.

Karen pushed her face to the thick glass.

She exhaled, fog coating the curved glass.

“Look!” she said when she found her voice.

“Look!”

The shelf was almost gone, they could turn around, they could all see.

“Look!”

“Ah, yes, folks, please look out the right side windows here, someone has spotted the elusive green sea turtle.”

Karen could no longer see the shelf, but the endless blue-black of the ocean came into sight and there it was, swimming majestically toward the surface, the green sea turtle. The confined space sparkled with camera flashes. The excited murmurs of the tourists drowned out the guide for a moment.

Karen sat back.

“Good eye,” the tour guide said, winking at her.

Karen pressed her forehead to the glass and looked out with the feeling that she was losing something―that she might have already lost it. But she couldn’t define “it.”

Soon, the vessel was docked and Karen was the first to climb out and enter the cabin of the catamaran. Lunch had been cleared. She filled her water bottle from the cooler and drank, wiping the beads of sweat from her forehead. Less sweat than before.