Follow the map

The sea is made of our saltwater tears, he muses. As the man drifts to sleep he watches himself dive into a sea lying below. Sunlight separates a path for him to swim and the currents carry him towards the place where light hits the ocean floor. Despite its warmth, these waters are forlorn to him. He descends lower with his palms together, longing for something that he cannot wholly remember. The further he sinks, the younger he becomes, and deeper into his memory he travels.

On the bottom of the sea, puzzling shapes and lines scatter in all directions like a treasure map. Pictures of life above water, a mountain, a cliff, and a tree, pave the surface around a young girl deep in slumber. Her face rest peacefully as if a part of her is drifting elsewhere in another world. From where he stands, it is all a painting to him, a portrait of a young girl waiting patiently underwater.

His eyes follow the footprints that lead from her body to the drawing of a single tree that stands alone. As the sea currents push forward, he imagines the branches blowing with the movement of water. With his finger, he traces a ring around the tree, again and again, as if it had become real before his eyes.

Without awakening her, he lies down and closes his eyes to sleep near her, hoping to meet her there in another place, another dream, wherever she travels to in her sleep.

-written by Heeya So and featured in Hymn to the Immortal Wind by MONO

Black velvet cake