Albert

I killed a child today.

He's dead.

He was only 4, and he's still with me now. I haven't been 'blamed', per se, and I'll never be prosecuted; strictly speaking, it's not my fault. I had no control over it.

That doesn't mean I don't feel remorse, though.

But I'll do it again, for certain. This isn't the first time it's happened, and it won't be the last.

He has no idea of the agony left behind.

He's senseless, peaceful. It hurts now, of course, but he'll be forgotten in 90 years time, a vague folded photograph of a single suffocated life. I won't forget him though. I'll rock him back and forth 'till he disintegrates to the Earth again.

I've always been a drifter, I've never settled anywhere. A perpetual, seasonal nomad. The world that you know is a beautiful place, churning out new colours and slowly decomposing in time and space, but I'll never call a single country home. That's not how it's meant to be for me.

But I am well-known.

I was once the people's emperor, their special friend, the ancestor, a child, but those people are are dwindling now. New people, hateful people, treat me like garbage. A hideous, aching wasteland, that's how my soul feels. Sometimes I shudder with it, the sheer carelessness, though I try and swallow it down.

You've met me before, many times.

I remember you, in amongst the millions of other faces.

You probably find me fascinating. Most people do. You know my name.

I know yours.

I am deeply alone, but never lonely.

I give and give and give, things that aren't always mine to give, but I take too.

I've taken Albert today. I claimed him quietly from a rocky cove. He's not the only one, but he is the youngest. I've known him a while, too, just like you.

Do you understand me?

I speak many types of language. I want you to understand me.

I need your help, and others like you.

I'm choking.

Look quickly, before I change and drift away.

​

*I squeeze every coast in my arms at once, for a brief moment.*

*My cells fall from the clouds*

*Churn as tissue in the rivers*

*Foam to organs at the sea mouth*

*And surge, in a body a thousand leagues deep, ferociously between the continents.*

*I've killed before. I'll kill again, and I'll be here for thousands of years after you.*

*I've always been here.*

I am the sea.

Hold up a shell and listen to me.