Kayak Creative Writing

Sirenidae

The cave’s shadow fell over me as I paddled into its mouth. After squinting through the sun, the sun off the waves, the cavern was doubly dark and rimmed in after-image shades of violet and green. Emelia’s yellow kayak threaded through the gloom ahead. I lingered at the mouth of the cave, remembering the strange calm that had fallen over the water on our approach. The wind had fallen, the waves became even and flat. The sea was holding its breath, like a whale surfacing before a dive. In that calm I had felt something brush beneath my boat. I had peered frantically into the water, Emelia had promised there would be no sharks. The sun was bright off the water, impenetrably bright, and only between the mild rocking of the water could I glimpse …show more content…
Her arms are laced around my neck, she is kissing my mouth. She is leading me by the hand. She is trembling. I ask her if she is cold. She only shakes her head from side to side. She is still grinning. She swims ahead of me until she begins to step up an incline. I follow after her as she emerges from the water. “We’re here!” she yells and raises her arms up in a ‘V’ above her head and takes a step backwards. She disappears with hardly a splash down a black orifice of water. Her hands slide down into the water, until they are enveloped by black water. Fear was thick in my skull as I stared down into the well Emelia had disappeared to. Blood pounded in my temples as I sank myself slowly into the water. This water was colder still here, but once I was past a corner I saw light again, it was not the impenetrable darkness I had feared it was. I swim towards the light, and I feel Emelia brush beside me. I turn my head, but already she is swimming away, into the dark. She brushes me again on the left now and I do not understand how she is swimming so fast. I sweep my arms like oars towards the light, I need another