I am lost.
Alone.
Drifting on the ocean floor.
For who am I, without a shell? What am I to the water? And oh, how long its been since the tides have lifted me. For where does one go, without a home?
I see it now. Rolling on the ocean floor. Dead with fish and snowfall. A rolling husk of what used to be.
I am lost, yet here I am, still crawling. Crawling with half-sight. For I am half the hermit that I used to be.
I walk this dead sand, alone. Touching toes with family. Without protection from the rays. No camouflage to keep me from the starfish’s beak. And I lack the words to barter with octopus should it ever question me.
“Why do you crawl naked, young hermit, when you are hardly able to see?”
“I am lost,” I would stutter. “I am lost, and I do not know who I am supposed to be. I’ve no direction, nor armor. My home is gone, and no one seems to hear me.”
But no octopus would hear me. Not this deep. For I am alone. Crawling on death, and the shells beneath me.
So I keep wading. Watching. Dreaming. And visions pass by me. Translucent images saying “I am better than you used to be.” Features that I pronounce without words, “You, sea creatures, you shall be less than what I used to be.”
And so I dream.
Of a home.
A reason to be.
Then I scream.
“I wear the message in the bottle shell, with a seaglass bottleneck wrapped tight around my tail. For I am the message, the writer, and the beauty.”
I dream.
“I wear the shipwreck shell, with a mast that I thrust forward like a trident, and a figurehead sculpted from claws. An artist’s claws. A figure of a water deity.”
I dream.
“I wear the coral reef on my back, and carry its bleach on my own two shoulders. I bring color with every step that I take.”
All these dreams, flowing. Flowing until the octopus comes down to meet me. Screaming, so the creature will lack questions and leave me be. So it will go. Back to the glass ceiling, where deep blue meets kelp green.
Then I blink.
“So, young hermit? Why should I, let you walk naked on the floor of this dead sea?”
“Because I am lost, great octopus…” I say.
The octopus grins, readying its jowls.
“But naked, I am not,” I proclaim.
The octopus blushes white to pink, hiding pigments with laughter.
“You are too, hermit. You have nothing to protect you. You have no home. No family. No protection. You are lost without direction — even the tides have taken your eye.”
And there I stood. Lost, but for once, found. A cloud of blackness fills my eye.
“I am a hermit. Naked, between shells. And this, great octopus…this is all that I need to be.”
If you enjoyed this piece, you can find more of my writing at jinhoi.art