Where The Water Took Me
Baptism, in fact, won't save them at all.
If The River Doesn’t Cleanse You, Maybe The Spirits Will
In a little house out in the back end of Alabama, Mae sticks her fingers underneath the tap and watches 'til they go pruny. Her mama slaps the back of her hand and tells her to quit wastin' what they can't afford, but Mae ain't listening. She never does. Every day, come three o'clock, right after the school bell rings and the buses bring her back home, she's lookin' for water.
Maybe she was a fish in another lifetime. Maybe she's meant to be some special marine biologist, livin' on the coast. Today it's the tap, but tomorrow it's the sprinklers, and the next day it'll be the hose. Someday, she thinks, she'll find the ocean.
Now, Mae ain't no goody two shoes and she ain't no perfect child, neither. She’s cuttin' corners and crossin' lines and figuring out, as the days go by, that her dreams of the ocean are the same kinda dreams lobsters have when they're in a restaurant tank. They might find some water, but they ain't gonna find the sea. Her mama’s solid proof of that.
She don't like Mae much, always yellin' and fussin' and cussin' 'til Mae goes as quiet as she can. Even her breathing's too loud. Her daddy ain't much better. After he comes home from the farm, shucks off his jacket, and sits on the couch, all he wants is some peace 'n quiet. Except mama makes all that noise, and Mae’s tryin' to cook everybody dinner, so when a pot boils over or the kettle starts screechin', she's the one sleepin' in the backyard.
Goin’ hungry is somethin' those lobsters probably know a lot about, too.
One thing you gotta know about the Matsushima household is that every Sunday is church day. After hymns get finished and the father closes his bible, Mae’s mama tells her to bow her head and pray.
She does, because that's what you're supposed to do, but she prays for that baptism, too. She thinks that if her parents dunked their heads beneath the water, washed away their sins, that maybe they'd stop yellin' 'bout the water bill in the spring time. Maybe they'd let her play in the sprinklers in the summer.
But after Sunday comes Monday, and with Monday comes school, and when report cards come home with a note 'bout Mae sneakin' off during lunch, the fightin' starts up again. Mae’s mama tells her she's bad, her daddy tells her she needs to be good, and when Mae tells 'em both that they should call the pastor, her mama hits her so hard she thinks she hears a choir sing.
Baptism, in fact, won't save them at all.
Time moves on, yet it starts feelin' like molasses. Sticky ‘n inescapable like the damn sap on nearby trees. Mae gives up her dream of the ocean, but she still likes sittin' out by the rivers, and when curfew comes 'round, she don't always listen.
Sometimes she likes to let the mosquitos bite her, watchin' as the pin-prick wounds appear on her skin, just so she knows there are some marks that her own blood don't give her. Creatures in the night that could be kinder than the ones in her house. Other times, she presses her face to the rocks and watches fireflies dance by: imagining a day where she could have a house of her own, stuffed up with a warmth that flickers just like those insects in the distance.
When she comes home, all mud-caked and trackin' in footprints, she knows she's gonna get a beatin'. But these days, that's just life.
When The Water Comes Rushing, Don’t Go Running Home
By the time Mae’s grown up and gearin' to head out on her own, her daddy gets sick.
Not the kind of sick that everybody can understand, but the kind of sick that makes him violent. Her mama's always been volatile, but her daddy's never been too cruel, and everything changes in a heartbeat.
He comes home from the hospital talkin' nonsense, speakin' of devils and demons and countryside illusions that nobody but him can see. The worst part ain't the stories, though — it's the hallucinations. The type of visions that put his hands right through the drywall, pullin' anger out from his stomach, and kickin' into high gear when Mae’s mama says somethin' 'bout callin' the church.
See, Mae ain't no goody two shoes and she's never been a perfect child, but one thing she don't stand for is violence between her parents. They can do all they want to her, because she knows she ain't never been an easy kid, but when it comes down to the talk of love, there ain't no room for a heavy hand or an angry fist.
So, when her daddy steps up to her mama like he's rearin' an ugly head they've never known, Mae slides herself between 'em and says to call the pastor.
Her mama don't waste no time, her daddy doesn't either, and while Mae’s screamin' 'bout baptisms and holy water and cursin' like she's never cursed before, he drives the two of them up to that river she's called home.
The ugly part of all this is that the pastor comes too late.
By the time Mae’s mama points him in the right direction, Mae’s already belly-up and rushin' away with the water. Nobody holds a funeral, because nobody knows what to say, and Mae’s daddy never comes back from that sickness in a way that truly matters.
But, funny thing is, even after all that death, Mae’s mama claims she saw her in the summertime: stealin' a skirt out from her closet, speeding through the sprinklers, and smilin' like she ain't never seen her smile before.
And if you believe in ghost stories, or even just spend some time around the river — she says, sometimes, you can still hear her laugh.
Not God’s Country, But The Devil’s Playground
Mae wakes up miles down the river and slammin' against the nearest rock, but she's starving.
Now, she's been hungry before, but never like this. This is the type of hunger that's beyond her stomach, wrapped into her core. This is the kind of hunger that pulls her right out of those rapids, and into the nearest town.
She couldn't tell you how she did it, all soppin' wet and shiverin' like a dog, but somehow, she'd led a group of men right down to where she started from. Dunked 'em deep beneath the surface, and came up full. She’d kept that up for a few days, 'til she caught wind of strangers whisperin' 'bout some serial killer on the loose. Then, she'd let the river take her once more.
She floated through town to town, before eventually she'd came up with the grand ol' idea to find herself a home. She wasn't a lobster in a tank no more, and nobody was keepin' her from movin' on.
Some days, she'd think of her mama: smackin' her hand out from the tap and tellin' her to quit wastin' what they don't have. Other days, she'd think of her daddy: yellin' 'bout the yellin', and eventually, much worse. But, most days, she'd found that people did right what she asked. Put money in her pocket, clothes on her back. She was kind, because she found no reason to be rude, but she'd be lyin' if she said she ain't bat her eyelashes once or twice to get where she needed to be.
Eventually, some kind salesman got her a spot right on the bayou. A nice ol' house, even if it creaked at the edges and groaned with the weight.
It became the perfect spot for what she'd begun to call fine dining: snatchin' up wanderers and tourists whenever they'd passed by. Just like before, she'd dunked 'em under and sent 'em off with the river, but this time, that hunger wasn't so sharp.
She kept herself full, just like she tried to keep herself sane, and as the years went on, she made that bayou her home. Watchin’ fireflies, followin' mosquitos, and makin' peace with what she had.
Maybe she never found the ocean. Maybe she lost her faith in god. But somehow, even after all that death, she still had the river.
Fallin’ In Love’s Simple, It’s The Leaving That’s Hard
The river brought her plenty. Kept her alive, when nothin' else did. And if it was an easy story, if it was the simple kind, then it might end here.
But some old, legendary hunters came upon Miss Mae, herself, and thought they'd try to take her down. Had she been any typical vampire, they might’a got her. Sent her right back to God’s doorstep, just like they'd planned. Instead, they'd went runnin' back home with tales to tell. Big, meaty news that ran through the mouths of every supernatural aficionado in the US-of-A.
It came knockin' on doorstep, after doorstep, but ain't nobody knew how to kill or rid of Mae Matsushima.
Where the big and bad failed, the bigger 'n badder got called in. A phone call rang through the line 'til it found Mister August Lovelace. The thing to know about August, here, is that he ain't no typical cowboy, nor is he any typical hunter.
As story goes, family lineage brought August a gun. Not any old typical gun, but the kind that never misses. Not once, not ever. If you dig far enough into the story, or read between the lines, you might wonder if he's got any deals with the devil in the mix.
However, fact is, it all comes down to a fae. Tricky things, those fae, because ain't no good luck come without a price; and boy, does August pay. Every one of those damned bullets knocks some years off of his lifespan, so every one of those bullets better count. And he was fixin' to make this one last, except nothing's ever that simple… And it especially ain't simple in love.
Mae wasn't tryin' to fall for him, 'n he sure wasn't tryin' to fall for her, but in the due process of figurin' out how much that bullet was worth to his life, he ended up figurin' out how much Mae was worth to him, instead.
For a while, things were peachy. Sweet. The sort of love that people only dream about, but it came with a problem: it came with a lie.
No hunter in their right mind was gonna let Mae off scot-free, so August told every hunter he could that ain't nothin' could kill her, not even that gun. Better off leavin' her be, he'd said, and kept sneakin' his sweetness in on all those seconds nobody was lookin'.
It could've lasted forever, in Mae’s eyes. All those pretty little seconds, added up to the rest of their lifespans. But August’s a man of logic, Mae’s a woman of dreams, and at some point, things were gonna come crashin' down. He just didn't want it to crash down on them.
The breakup wasn't no normal breakup.
It left Mae bitter, and angry; not understanding how even now, even after all that death, the river couldn't give her this. The world, yet again, had to wrench somethin' back away from her.
But she ain't give up on her mama, she ain't even give up on her daddy, and she sure as hell wasn't givin' up on August.
Even if he was miles and miles away, she'd still love him 'til the day she died. Not the day he did, but the day she would. Even if he dropped dead tomorrow, she’d still be thinking about every yesterday spent with him.
So, she made a promise: she'd stop killin' those stupid hunters, and leave 'em scramblin' back to August with love letters, instead. Nothin’ they knew 'bout, but pieces of their time that only he'd understand. And if she had to go a little hungrier, a little emptier in the meantime, she'd do it.
Because maybe that blood used to be worth the trouble, but it sure ain't worth her heart.
Kalea Miyoshi is a Japanese-American poet currently based in Southern California with work inspired from both lived experience and fiction. His works aim to extrapolate on his journey in gender, trauma, sex, and love, with hopes to abandon censorship and encourage transparency.
