The Weight of a Thousand Oceans

by Jillian Webster

  He brings the steaming pot of stew over to the table. “Potatoes.”

  She grabs a handful and throws them in.

  “Maia, what do you wish for your life?”

  She shrugs her shoulders. “I’ll stay here.”

  “By yourself?”

  “What choice do I have?”

  “Maia, come sit down.”

  They walk over to the living room. He groans as he lowers himself into his favorite chair and she sits on the ottoman in front of him.

  “Honey, what do you want from this life?” her grandfather asks.

  “I want to stay here—with you.”

  “You and I both know that’s not entirely true.”

  She anxiously repositions herself on the seat.

  “I see the longing in your eyes, the boredom, the restlessness. I’m an old man now. We’ve traveled these islands extensively over the last handful of years and you’ve seen your options. There are a few. There are people here, Maia, small communities. Why don’t we plan another visit to the Northern Tribe? They said we were welcome back anytime.”

  Maia stares into the fire.

  “I’m not going to be around forever, Maia.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?”

  “So, what will become of you, darling? I have to know that you won’t be left all alone.”

  “I don’t want to join that community.”

  “And why not?”

  She hesitates, her heart suddenly pounding. She can’t tell him the truth. She won’t. Not now—not ever.

  “Maia?”

  “They’re boring.” Lies. “Old. I’ll just grow old and be boring with them.”

  “Better than the alternative. You can’t stay up here alone, Maia. Maybe you could stay up north a while until you meet someone and then come back here. Start a family? That sounds nice, doesn’t it?”

  “Maybe for some people.”

  “But not you.”

  “I don’t want to live with the Northern Tribe with all those old men and ‘procreate.’ Where are all the young men anyway?”

  “They’ll come.”

  “That’s not the point. I don’t want to sit around and make babies. I want to be a part of something.”

  “Darling, that is being part of something.”

  “But I want more than that. I’m afraid I may spend my entire life waiting to live.” She looks up at him. “I don’t want to escape through books anymore, Grandpa.”

  He lights his pipe. Swirls of smoke plume above his head, painting the air in alternating streaks of gray. “You have the same spirit as your mother.” He leans back into his chair and smiles. “Sometimes I look at you, and it’s like you are the same person. She lives in you, Maia. I’ve always felt this.”

  Maia inches her seat closer. “Grandpa, I keep thinking … I feel very strongly that there might be something more out there for me.”

  “What—as in, outside of these islands?”

  “Yes, Grandpa. I feel it every day. Every night I have these dreams—”

  “Don’t be a fool, child. You don’t know how bad it is out there, how lucky you are to be here. The communities here are small, but there are communities. And they have given you an open invitation up in the Northern Islands. The few people possibly left out there would give anything to have what you have. Don’t be silly.”

  Her eyes well up and she looks away. “Yes, Grandpa.”

  “Don’t do that. I don’t understand! I’ve worked my entire life to give you everything you could ever need. Look at this place! Go north for a few years, meet some people and come back here. Start your own community. That’s being part of something. You’ll never need or want for anything.”

  “But what if I do? What if I need more?”

  “The adventures you’ve spent your childhood reading about are fiction, Maia. Fiction. Do you think there are adventures out there? Because there aren’t. There is famine and death. It’s a bleak, decaying world out there. How could you desire that?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “What don’t I understand? Explain it to me.”

  “I want to love it here, and in a way I do.” She turns and looks at him, tears spilling from her eyes. “But, Grandpa, these trees … these trees I’ve grown up with have become like bars in a jail cell. The fire we keep going is like the burn I feel in my heart every day I don’t pursue what it’s been telling me for years. I could go north and settle and wait to find someone to partner with, but every night I will wonder. I don’t want that, Grandpa. I want life—my life. And I know it’s out there, I know it.”

  “Baby, you don’t. The only things you know have come from books and a very secluded section of a remote island. You don’t know what you want yet. You’re young. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. It’s beautiful up north. And people are trickling in from Australia and the other islands. I don’t doubt for a second that some young man will be on one of those boats. You could be happy here. And it could be really bad out there.”

  “I know … it could.” She bites her lip as years of stagnant, unspoken frustrations swirl inside her gut like poison. “So, what … I’m just supposed to sit up north and what … wait? Wait for some guy, who may or may not ever come, to make babies? Like some sort of hog in an incubator?!” Her voice now bordering on shrill, she suddenly becomes quite aware she may ruin her validity with hysterics.

  Her grandfather rolls his eyes and chuckles. She hates when he laughs at her, especially when she’s serious. She glares at him until he finally looks up at her with a silly grin on his face, making it nearly impossible for her not to smile.

  “Don’t say it.” She crosses her arms.

  “You’re so dramatic.”

  “Grandpa!”

  He puts his hands up in surrender. “I know, I know. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m serious. I know it could be bad … but, it could also be magical. I could meet people, and I can defend myself. You’ve taught me that. I can shoot an arrow, work a gun and throw a spear like the best of them. I can hunt and fish, make a fire and find food. You’ve spent my entire life teaching me everything I know. I could find life, Grandpa. And if people are out there rebuilding, I want to be a part of that. I want to make a difference.”

  “Darling.” His face becomes very serious. “It is more likely that you’ll find that up north than out there.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Neither do you.” Her grandfather grunts as he hoists himself out of his chair and walks back to the table where he’d left the pot of stew. After returning it to the kitchen, he tosses a few more logs under the stove. He grabs the counter and hangs his head.

  Maia stands and watches him. “I know it sounds crazy. I know. But I feel strongly about this. I feel it in my bones.” She sits back down on the ottoman and bites her nail. This isn’t going well.

  “Maia.” Her grandfather’s voice sounds quietly from the kitchen.

  She turns to look at him.

  He smiles tenderly. “I hear you, okay? I do.”

  “I just don’t feel I have a choice. It’s like a pull … a yearning.” Her clenched fist clutches at her top.

  “And where is it pulling you?”

  She gazes at the fire, its flames dancing in her eyes. “Out there.”

  Four

  Slowly raising her arrow, Maia aims for a fat wood pigeon weighing down a scrawny branch above. He stares blankly at her, cocking his head to one side.

  “Stupid pigeon, it’s a wonder you’re not extinct.” She squints and closes one eye, aiming for his chest.

  Panting sounds from below and a stick drops at her feet.

  “No,” she hisses.

  Huck barks, startling both Maia and the pigeon. The bird lifts off the twig and flies away. She lowers her head in defeat.

  Huck’s face peers up at her, his tongue swinging from his mouth from his wagging tail. He barks again and picks up the stick, impatiently dropping it once m
ore before backing up in anticipation.

  “I don’t see you for days and this is when you show up? Nope. You owe me dinner.” She starts walking and Huck picks up his stick and follows.

  Trudging along the familiar path, Maia enters a clearing where a small platform overlooks the rolling countryside with the ocean horizon nestled between the mountains in the distance. A broken road weaves along scattered farmhouse roofs peeking above a thick carpet of green, swiftly choking out any last remnants of man-made structures left to rot.

  Maia sits down to dangle her feet off the side of the cliff. Huck stands next to her, sniffing into the air.

  “What’s up, boy? I’ve missed you.” She strokes his thick black coat. His large tongue hangs haphazardly from the side of his mouth, its curve like a smile. No matter how hard Maia tries, she can’t stay mad at him for long. “You silly mutt, dinner is on you tonight.”

  She looks back out to the horizon. “What do you think, Huck? Anyone out there?” She squints her eye and raises her thumb. Sliding it back and forth, she covers and uncovers the slice of ocean between the mountains. “There has to be.”

  When Maia was a child, her grandfather would take her out into the bush every day. Hours and hours they would spend in the wilderness as he taught her about the world.

  * * *

  “Do you think this is the most beautiful land in the world, Grandpa?”

  “Could be. The world is a massive place, child. The mind could never imagine how beautiful some of these places used to be. Mountains so high, oceans so blue…”

  “Sounds magical. Can we see it?”

  “See what? The world?”

  She smiles bashfully. “Yes, Grandpa, I want to see the whole world.”

  “You are just like your mother.”

  * * *

  “What do you think? What if there’s more out there? A city perhaps, full of people. A new generation of souls re-creating a new world? I want to be a part of it.” Her heart sinks. “But then again, what if there isn’t? Then I leave all this, all I have—for nothing.”

  Huck whimpers and rests his head on her lap. She wraps her arms around him, her heart aching. “I know … me too.”

  She lifts herself to her feet. “Come on, let’s check the traps.”

  One trap, two traps, three traps later, she is still empty-handed. Now closer to sea level, she hesitates at a fork in the trail. To the left is the way home, and to the right—an old, abandoned sea town.

  She turns right.

  Together, Maia and Huck follow the winding trail until they reach the remnants of a crumpled road consumed by clusters of large, floppy weeds. Lifting her chin in defiance, she steps out onto the cracked asphalt.

  Huck whines nervously, cowering behind her in the bush with his tail between his legs. After all these years living on a mostly abandoned island, Maia’s grandfather has still maintained that she never travel the open roads. Too dangerous. Huck whimpers again from the bush.

  “Huck.” She snaps her fingers.

  Walking down the battered road, Maia constantly scans her surroundings as Huck trails nervously behind her. They approach a mountain of rubble from a collapsed overpass. She considers turning around as the thick brush encasing the pile would be all but impossible to work through, but her curiosity overpowers her.

  Carefully scaling the ragged boulders and broken steel to the top, she peers over the edge to find the abandoned village on the other side. She cautiously descends, and after much coercion, Huck follows.

  They wander along the deserted street. Smeared signs of once-loved cafés hang from rusted chains and sinking, dilapidated awnings. Thick moss engulfs the rotted wood while gnarled cobwebs shroud the buildings’ shattered windows. Rubbish and shoes and clothing litter the streets, covered in layers of dirt and dust and rot. Downed utility poles slump across the road, hanging neglected and useless like the signs and village themselves.

  Now she remembers why she doesn’t come to these places anymore. This village, this remnant of an expired world, only serves as a painful reminder of her complete isolation. Everyone is gone, and she is left with the mire.

  She steps over an old car tire onto a crumbling curb, approaching what used to be a clothing shop. The large display window has been busted open, and a fallen mannequin with an outstretched hand reaches through the broken glass. Maia crouches down, delicately touching the tips of the model’s cracked fingers. She slowly wipes the dirt from the mannequin’s cheeks and nose. Then with a swipe of her thumb, she rubs the dust from its open eyes. They stare blankly ahead—vacant, numb, forgotten.

  Left behind.

  A baby’s cry echoes in the distance, jolting Maia from her daze. Huck sits panting in the middle of the road. His ears perk as he looks in the direction of the cries.

  They follow the sound to a house near the edge of the town. Maia sneaks behind to watch from behind the trees. Sarah is sitting with Henry on a blanket on the lawn while Collin cooks something over a fire. He looks over at his wife, smiling while she coos to their baby and kisses his head.

  Lost in her own world, Maia remains motionless. Huck paces the ground, sniffing under dead leaves and branches. He lifts his nose into the air, then darts towards the couple.

  “No, Huck!” Maia hisses.

  At first, Collin and Sarah are startled by the large creature running towards them. Sarah plucks Henry from the ground and cradles him in her arms.

  “It’s okay. I think he’s friendly,” Collin says as Huck runs up to him with his tail whipping back and forth. Shielding his eyes from the sun, Collin gazes in Maia’s direction. She shrinks down. “Maia?” he calls out.

  Damn. “Hello.” She smiles as she steps from the tree line. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to spy. I was exploring the town when I heard Henry crying. It’s not a sound you hear very often.”

  “Well, don’t be shy. Come on over.”

  “Don’t worry, he’s harmless,” Maia says as Huck licks Collin’s hand.

  “He’s very handsome.” Sarah laughs as she tousles the long fur on Huck’s head. He rolls onto his back and she rubs his belly.

  “He doesn’t normally take to strangers like this,” Maia says. “He must really like you.”

  “Well, he’s welcome anytime. We both grew up with dogs—we love them.” Collin bends over and joins his wife in petting the big black dog.

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Maia says, chuckling as Huck’s tongue flops from the side of his mouth.

  Collin returns to his fire and flips a small piece of meat. Maia hasn’t had meat on the grill in ages. The smell of the small, charred scrap causes her mouth to water.

  “Are you hungry? We’ve got some canned beans and a bit of seagull. Nothing but the best for our guests,” Collin jokes from the fire.

  Maia recognizes that the bird will provide very little meat even for one person, so despite her hunger, she politely declines. “How are you settling in?” Maia asks.

  “Well, it’s a lovely house, but not anywhere we’ll stay for long,” Sarah says as she dabs a bubble of spit from Henry’s mouth. “This neighborhood is a ghost town.”

  “We’re actually looking to make a set-up like what you and your grandfather have,” Collin adds. “I think we’ll just stay here until we find a good place to settle and start building.”

  “That’s a good idea. This town is depressing anyway. I think there are only a few elderly people and a town drunk around.” Maia shrugs.

  “They still have those?”

  “Apparently. And your parents? How are they doing?”

  “They’re all right. They’re inside resting at the moment. Would you like to meet them?” Sarah asks.

  “Oh, thank you—maybe next time, I shouldn’t stay long.”

  “Maia, I don’t mean to be forward, but—your eyes.” Sarah tilts her head to the side.

  Maia looks away, sweeping her hand over the long grass. “Yes, I know. Pretty weird, isn’t it?”

  “
No, no I wasn’t going to say that at all. You’re stunning.” Sarah gently lifts Maia’s chin. “You really are. One blue eye and one green, they’re striking really—unique. You’re a beautiful young lady.” Sarah smiles. “Your mum must be a beautiful woman.”

  “Thank you … she was.”

  “Oh, right. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Happened a long time ago.”

  Sarah changes the subject. “So, I know you’re young … but what’s your story? You’re planning on staying here?”

  Maia stares at them for a moment before answering. “I…” She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s okay.” Sarah waves it off. “You have plenty of time.”

  Maia flashes her an uncertain smile. “Well, I better head off. Will be getting dark soon. I don’t want my grandpa to worry.”

  “Of course.” Collin walks up behind Sarah and rests his hand on her shoulder. “You know where we are. Stop by anytime. We’d love the company.”

  Waving the couple goodbye, the familiar weight of disappointment once again settles over Maia’s heart. She shakes it off and begins the long trek back, completely unaware of a little black fantail following her home.

  Five

  Maia lifts her lantern high above her head, casting a small orb of golden light across the misty, early morning trail.

  “What are you thinking about?” Maia’s grandfather calls from behind, gripping his walking stick as he struggles to keep up.

  Maia turns to face him, and her bow and arrows fastened to her overstuffed pack catch on a dead branch.

  “Here, let me help.” Her grandfather sets down his stick and breaks the tree limb from between her bow and strings.

  “Grandpa, you dragged me out of bed at the crack of dawn to check traps. The only thing I’m thinking about right now is bacon.” A smile spreads across her lips.

  He chuckles. “Honey, if there’s a hog in one of those traps, the last thing we’ll be doing this morning is eating bacon.”