Charles Brownson

The Sea Charles Brownson

The sea swells like a wet book, rucking itself into long folds and valleys. The water heaves up and sucks away, giving the illusion of flow, movement of the dark water toward some destination, but it is not so. Not far under the surface, the water is as smooth as gelatin. The sea floor is carpeted with wrecks. In the shallower places colorful plants and corals are stitched together by the bright little fish, or in the deepest places by dark clouds, copied by the sunlit ones above. Floating, flecked out by the merciless sun, rising and falling on a swell which is as heavy as time, are the bodies of the dead. One by one they wash up on the beach, only to wash away again on the next tide. Which of them is the one Felix Kurz is looking for?