Flash Fiction
On the 26th of July, the internet delivers me a short-form video announcing Sinéad O’Connor’s death. Kara says we should surf in Sinéad’s honor on the 27th. I set my alarm for four forty a.m., and by five, I’m wading into the South Jetty. That’s the best part of yurt life, rolling out of bed onto the beach. I cinch my wetsuit up, scrunching, pleading, scooching, then paddling out past the break. The Pacific is fifty-three degrees but feels like thirty-three. Ocean water gushes through my wetsuit as heavy brooding sets roll in. A night beach is unsafe for femmes. But I haven’t been femme for twenty months now, twenty moons. I hup my torso over the middle of my surfboard so my ribs catch the grippy wax. I flop down and dangle my fingers, wrapped in thick tubes of dense neoprene. It’s hard to look sexy surfing the Oregon Coast. It’s not Blue Crush. Everyone looks like a Teletubby. I rest my frozen ruddy face on the grit and feel milky in the predawn. Lesbians refer to her as the Great Mother. That’s a nice idea, but to me, she is beyond gender. The ocean stands in for the allness of all. Sinéad knows.
Sinéad never knew me, but she knew what was most important about me: my pluck and rage. I paddle into the first decent left and do a hard push up to stand. The wave surges under me, green-gray, then I hit the water and roll like a gas-station hot dog. Kara hoots from shore. I paddle toward her liquid obsidian curves with slow strokes, clumsy in gloves, peeling a long rope of slimy bull kelp off my calf. We ride easy waves all morning. I want to put my hands on Kara’s hips and feel what the ocean feels. I used to convince myself that Sinéad and I were connected through the ether, despite the distance, age gap, and cold, lying miasma of the news. We were connected directly via Sinéad’s singing, her primal candid sounds. When Kara catches her next wave, I let out a raw yell in Sinéad’s honor.
I lie flat to paddle. I push up, plant my feet, wobble, ease into my ancient-feeling knees. A wave gathers under and lets me ride for what feels like thirty minutes but is probably more like thirty seconds. Surfing is somehow the truest proof of physics and its refutation. I dive out clean and come up grinning, wiping salt out of my eyes. Kara smiles, and her cheeks glow pink. Her thighs flex as she straddles her board. I know I shouldn’t do it, but I do. I duck underwater and drag my mouth up the inside of her ankle.
“Shark!” I growl. If I’m being honest, I wanted more than one bite.
Twenty minutes later we are up at the parking lot. We stumble into the back of her van, and she cranks the heater. Have you ever taken off a wetsuit? What a humbling time. Still, I kneel before her.
Steam rises off her shoulders. Her hips spill over as she pulls her suit down. I try not to stare at her back dimples. I am feral, uncurling. My fingers shake as I strip off my suit. I yank the chest zipper away from my neck and over my shoulder, which always makes me feel like I’m giving birth to myself through my own collarbone. I pull my wetsuit over the hardened ridge of my mastectomy scars, then stuff it into a giant blue IKEA shopping bag.
I keep my mouth on her through all of it. She drags her nails through my hair while I reach up inside her. The van’s back window has a flimsy little red curtain that keeps falling down while I touch her. For thirty minutes, I am maddeningly close, but every time I get into a rhythm, the curtain slips, dropping sunlight on my shoulder. I keep reaching up to flick it into place. I jam my thumb and get thrown off my game. I know my orgasm has hightailed it and is probably halfway to the Heceta Head Lighthouse by now, but I double down anyway, arching my body in contorted shapes around her. I feel Kara gasp and tighten around my hand. A little red leaks out.
Then we’re boneless, tracing lazy shapes on the steamy windows. We smoke one of her cigarettes: mugwort, yarrow, mullein, and linden. We lie in a warm, lavender haze. Kara draws cute things like twins, castles, and dogs with floppy ears. I know then her childhood was gentle and churro-filled with headlights. I think about life more in terms of taillights: people, places, and things left or leaving.
She hands me two pouches of channa masala. She plugs an electric kettle into her cigarette lighter to boil water, then pours it over freeze-dried chickpeas, onions, and tomatoes. We wait while the curry reconstitutes itself. We are in love a little bit. We eat from the pouch, cross-legged on the mattress. The van smells like cumin and lemon cleaning product. The parking lot fills up with tourists all around us.
I step out to grab a dry hoodie and joggers from my truck. I tug them on and stand watching the gulls, letting the briny wind whip my face. Kara’s voice drifts to me like birdsong. She’s laughing in the van at something on her phone. I hear the ocean roar behind the dune. Some people you know can’t stay. Even before they leave, you feel the tug. Knowing Sinéad is gone doesn’t surprise me, but things will be harder here without her. I don’t know what Kara wants from me. I’ve spent so many years bracing against loss, I forgot we can also move toward what we want. I think that’s what Sinéad would have done.
The van door slides open.
“You coming back in?”
Liam Whitworth is a poet, experimental filmmaker, and curator from rural Oregon. He has performed at The Moth, the Segerstrom Center for the Performing Arts, and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art for Marina Abramovic’s 2011 show The Artist Is Present. His work has been featured in Pitchfork, Oregon Humanities, The Oregonian, Tin House, Lambda Literary, and Arcosanti, and internationally at more than sixty film festivals