There Are Flowers In Atlantis

        She wants me to walk into the sea with her.

        I know this, even though she does not say it. She has been my wife for long enough that I know it from the look in her clear blue eyes, piercing as they gaze into mine.

        At the edge of the shore Margaret stands, her deep green dress loose on her willowy frame, its hem stained dark by seawater. Her golden hair is whipped into a frenzy by the salty wind, and its curly strands engulf her. Behind that tangled curtain of hair, her eyes shine, bright like lightning against the looming gray sky. With a pang, I am brought back to the day we met, thirteen years ago on this very beach, long before she was my wife or even my girlfriend. On that day I believed she was a mermaid, a classical painting brought to life to roam the swirling waters of Maine. It was a sweet thought then, a brief symptom of love-at-first-sight. But now I am unsettled by it—for on this day, it feels not as if she is leaving home, but returning to it. And she wants me to join her.

        So I go. 

        Pushing against the howling wind, I walk to her, kicking off my shoes and letting my blazer slide onto the sand as I approach the sea. When I reach Margaret, she greets me with a soft smile and slips her cold, pale hand into mine. I tilt my head in a silent question, at once asking are you sure? and why? and a million other questions. But all she does is shake her head and squeeze my hand, letting me know that we can go whenever I am ready. I trust her. So I nod, grip her hand tighter as we begin to walk, and let the crashing waves sink their teeth into me without mercy.

        We walk until the waves climb up to my chest, and as the current roughly sweeps my feet out from beneath me, I know that there is no turning back. There is an aching, dreadful heaviness in the pit of my stomach as the reality of our situation hits me like a speeding train—that the water is too strong, that there is nothing we can do to fight it, that we will soon be swallowed up and forgotten. But despite this, there is not a trace of fear in Margaret’s eyes. With a tug of my waterlogged sleeve, she pulls me under the water. Chest tight with panic, I twist and struggle, before realizing—

        I can... breathe? 

        My eyes fly open faster than I can think, and I reflexively brace myself for the jabbing sting of saltwater, but there is no need—I feel nothing but a slight chill, as if opening my eyes on a blustery winter day. So I begin to gulp in air as if I’ve never tasted it before, and it’s so delicious and sweet that I don’t even stop to question how this is possible.

        As soon as I feel I’ve gotten enough oxygen, I begin to look around, even though I’m sure that the sea will be bare, with these currents and temperatures. Maybe a few minnows and some driftwood, but no more.

        I couldn’t be more mistaken.

        All around us, flowers bloom, a faint, amber light emanating from their petals that gently sway in a million colors.   They are like no other flowers that I’ve seen before, and I am mesmerized. I could have looked at them forever, drawn to their warm, undulating glow like a moth to a flame—

        But again, Margaret tugs on my sleeve, pulling me along towards our unknown destination. 

        The flowers pulse, the cold water flows over my skin, and we carry on.

⤝◈⤞

        It felt as if we had been swimming for days. 

        I should have dropped dead by now, if not from exhaustion, from hunger or thirst, but by some miracle, I am alive. We had swum for longer than I thought humanly possible, and yet my limbs never tired. And though we never stopped to eat or drink, my stomach was always full, my thirst always quenched. It seemed to be the same for Margaret, who swam ahead of me, a guide through this strange sea that can’t have been the same as the one we walked into so many days ago. 

        I know that now, deep in my bones. I think I had begun to notice it when I saw the flowers, saw their colors and their swaying and felt that twinge in my stomach, that feeling that 

        nagged at me,

                whispered in my ear,

                        told me that something about this place was 

                                                        different.

        I don’t think that I was certain of this until now.

        Now, as we are swimming towards a magnificent castle, glittering like a pirate’s lost treasure from an alien land. Countless spires reach towards the water’s surface, at once rugged like mountains and intricately constructed. Delicately manicured gardens of coral and seagrass and those odd flowers surround the beast of a fortress, and they wave at us, alluring and inviting. 

        What can we do but go to them?

        So we swim, slowing our pace to a leisurely drifting as we reach the castle. The plants brush against us, grabbing at us and pushing us along, and I swear that I can hear them whispering softly. Their words are always barely, just barely too quiet to grasp, and they fall away like sand through a sieve.

        Soon we are upon the massive, rock-carved castle doors, and they smoothly glide open—as if we’ve been expected here.

        The castle, this entire undersea land—I know there must be a name for all of it. It’s another one of those inexplicable twinges in my gut. But although I could tell myself that it’s all in my head, simply my brain trying to make sense of this incomprehensible madness, there’s no use in lying. This place has a name, and if only I could just remember it—

        Margaret, as if she knows what I’m thinking about, why I’m hesitating, takes my hand and smiles encouragingly, motioning for me to keep swimming. 

        I trust her, like always, and go, even though I’m starting to feel another twinge, because there’s something unnatural about the way those gates opened. It’s a feeling that refuses to go away, sticking in the back of my head like a tumor. Does Margaret feel the twinge, too? The answer is hidden behind her unreadable face, calm and still as stone.

        The lavish hallway we swim through abruptly comes to an end at an unremarkable set of French doors. Fashioned of hemlock wood with knobs of carved sea glass, they are eerily familiar, and then I remember. These doors are the doors to our bedroom back home, and it all floods back to me—how we bought the house on a whim knowing that there was a slew of work to be done, and there were those French doors, and weren’t they just beautiful! But those knobs, oh they just had to go—and sea glass knobs, wouldn’t they look so wonderful! So we hopped in the minivan and drove to the beach, because what would sea glass knobs be if we didn’t make them ourselves? And we made them and screwed them onto the doors, and the one on the left always wobbled and sometimes it fell out but it was ours, always and irrefutably and eternally and forever—

        Suddenly, Margaret yanks on the knobs, sending the doors flying open with a loud clack! 

        We watch as the knob on the left slowly drifts to the ground. Overwhelmed by curiosity, I enter the room first, briefly glancing over my shoulder to find Margaret following closely behind. 

        At first glance, the room is just as I left it, but as with everything else in this mysterious place, something feels off, something I can’t pinpoint. Perhaps the dresser is a half centimeter too far from the bed, the wall is just a hair darker than sky blue—nothing important, nothing of significance. I try not to think about this as Margaret and I dress for bed and climb under the soft covers. The sheets still smell like her lotion, I think idly as I settle in. The sweet, tropical smell of coconut and pineapple envelops me, lulling me into a half-sleep. I’d always thought the scent to be too strong, but Margaret insisted on using it, saying that when she smelled it, she could close her eyes and pretend that she was at the beach in Hawaii. I smile at the memory.

        Minutes pass with no sound other than that of our own breathing, and I hear the sheets rustle softly on Margaret’s side of the bed. I crack one eye open as she leans in to kiss me on the temple. 

         “Good-night, Richard,” she murmurs. 

        I realize that it’s the first time I’ve heard her speak during this impossibly long swim, and I roll onto my side and wrap an arm around her. We lay there in silence for another moment before I whisper back, “Good-night, Maggie.” 

        Our hearts beat close to each other in the darkness.

        And just as I’m about to drift off, it comes to me, that name that’s been hovering on the tip of my tongue for so many days. 

        Atlantis.

        How could I not have thought of it before?

        Finally at peace, I fall asleep in Margaret’s arms.

⤝◈⤞

        I awaken in a sterile white room with machines beeping all around me. I jerk up, frantically searching for Margaret, and wince as countless tubes are yanked out of my body, sending the machines ito a frenzy. But I barely hear it, because where is Maggie? And people clad in blue scrubs burst through the door and plug me back in—

        In an instant, the world goes dark once more.

⤝◈⤞

        In time, the doctors tell me what happened. 

        They tell me, ever so gently, how my wife went swimming in the frigid Atlantic Ocean one Wednesday and never returned. How they were never able to find her body, even after days of searching. How my sister found me lying unconscious in the bathtub the night after the funeral and called 911, convinced that I was dead. 

        I shake my head, repeating the word no under my breath until it loses meaning. 

        This cannot be real.

        The doctors chatter on about how it could benefit me to see a therapist, but I barely register their words. Soon, they begin to walk away. I panic and lunge forward, sputtering nonsensically about Atlantis, and crash to the floor, a crumpled mess of tangled limbs and tubes. 

        I weep as the doctors flood back into the room, surrounding me.

⤝◈⤞

        A nurse comes in the next day, offering to help me choose a therapist. With no energy left to resist, I oblige, and she schedules me an appointment with some mousy twenty-something named Bella Brown.

        Bella meets me at the hospital on Monday. She asks the usual therapist questions, and I respond curtly. I know she’s only trying to help, but her mousiness—it irritates me.

        As she packs up, I ask her about Atlantis.

        With a mix of kindness and pity, she tells me that it was all a dream, created by my brain to cope with the loss of my wife. 

        And at that moment, I believe her.

        I believe her until that night, when I stand up to use the restroom, and under my nails, the only place where the nurses haven’t checked, I feel it, I feel it, I feel it.

        That familiar, grating crunch of sand.

        It falls to the ground like tears of some cruel god, and I stare at it there.

        Stare at it, knowing that my wife is somewhere in that Elysium of the ocean, and that at one point, I was, too.

        In Atlantis, where flowers of dead souls bloom.