Into the Deep - 10thDoM RoM Deep Sleep. Deep Space. Deep Shit. (M1, C2)

As she gazed at the azure blue cylinder in the center of the room and watched the wispy transparent sea creatures puff their way up and float back down a little over and over again, she felt her cheeks flush with the awareness that someone had fixated his gaze on her. Through the bright tank, she glimpsed two dark eyes, partially obscured by tangled tentacles as they flowed effortlessly through the cylindrical divide. She caught his eyes for just a moment before looking down, pretending that she didn't see him seeing her.

She dug through her shoulder bag and lowered her eyes, a futile attempt to hide her face that had turned beet red and the sheen of sweat had appeared on her brow. From the cavernous bag, she pulled out a small, brown leather-bound journal with unlined fibrous pages. A thin, prettily braided string wound around the tattered booklet, and as her fingers fumbled, the braid caught and the book fell to the floor. No one seemed to be looking as she knelt quickly to catch it, but she felt like all eyes were on her. She glanced around quickly to see if anyone had noticed, or maybe to see if he was still staring at her. She stayed close to the ground for a moment, pretending to look for something else while she recovered. She could still feel his dark eyes sliding over her.

Most of the pages were scattered with smudgy penciled lyrics and thoughts, beginnings with no ends and ends with no beginnings. An occasional sketch graced a random page, every handwritten entry bearing its own unique font. There was no order to the journal, just as disconnected as her thoughts at any given moment, and there was no place for penned entries as she was unconsciously seduced by the impermanence of pencil. When she was truly herself, she was all stream-of-consciousness with strong boundaries but many offshoots, trails that veered and crossed and always made sense to her in a linear fashion but that she couldn't explain to anyone else. She often wished she could simply plug a USB cable from her brain to another so she could be understood, even for just a moment.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and stood, feeling the blood rush and enjoying the momentary darkness that had always followed any sudden movements. As she opened her eyes, the blue-black haze and sparkling stars ushered in a feeling of being in space. It always reminded her of the Dutch bedtime lullaby her grandmother used to read to her as a child:

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe---
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!"
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in that beautiful sea---
"Now cast your nets wherever you wish---
Never afeard are we";
So cried the stars to the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam---
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
'T was all so pretty a sail it seemed
As if it could not be,
And some folks thought 't was a dream they 'd dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea---
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
~Eugene Field

There had been many deep sleeps induced by the lullaby and her grandmother's loving touches - to one eye, then both, then her forehead. She'd always imagined three tiny men, sailing in a tiny wooden shoe through a space so deep it wasn't known by earthy beings.

When she turned to move on to the next jellyfish tank, she'd forgotten all about the dark eyes of which she'd been all too aware less than a minute before, but many thoughts had matriculated through her ever-swirling mind by then, and she had moved on. The smash of her body into his and the startlingly loud, "Ooh!" along with the clattering of leather and pencil and bag hitting the ground shocked her back into reality. At the same moment, they both uttered words:

"You must have been somewhere deep.."

"Shit."



Into The Deep

We're falling into the deep
Our eyes can't fall asleep
We’ve been counting the days
We've been falling from grace, now

Our meeting was so sweet
Just open up your eyes
It’s like everybody said
This shit’s bound to be a mine, now

And it’s only ‘cause we breathe
Oh, we feel each other there
And it’s only ‘cause we know
We belong somewhere

The sky’s beginning to weep
The lights are falling through air
Smiles remembered always
Or was it simply a phase, now

The stars will sing us to sleep
Our eyes are too tired to wake
Don’t be counting the ways
To float off into space, now

And it’s only ‘cause we breathe
Oh, we feel each other there
And it’s only ‘cause we know
We belong somewhere