I arrive at ‘The Watery Grave’ well before low tide and wait, for some time, for the water to ebb and slough off the rocks below the surface. It has been a scattered few weeks, with my shadow and the stranger (a shadow, of sorts, himself) a potential in any dark corner or unchecked crevice. Neither manifest and I wonder if I am lighter for all that the stranger is weighed down- able to move through the world with greater ease.
I don’t doubt that they are following, though, so I park the bike in a storage facility, in a room my family has rented but forgotten. There are pictures of me there, as a child, as a young, healthy man. I spend longer than I should, and then I set a course for a destination I have avoided many times, for having often been in the area.
‘As the sea pulls away from Clementine Rock, one might stop to marvel at the life left scurrying in the tide pools, this round’s losers of the reincarnation cycle. Marvel carefully, reader, for among those pools is a dark, lifeless place: ‘The Watery Grave,’ one of the world’s many dead-ends.
‘The Watery Grave’ is among the most literally named entries in this humble tome, having taken dozens of lives over the course of the last decade despite guards, warnings, and razored deterrents. It has developed twin reputations- one being that it is a spiritual place and the other being that is a challenge to survive. Those combined aspects are a catnip for a certain type of mid-twenties white college-goer, the kind of person looking to add to their repertoire of hostel stories or personally meaningful tattoos.
The spiritual stories describe the main cavern as a natural sanctuary, a wide, smooth room, cut off from the world by the ocean itself and totally still. Totally dark. Some, who have stayed a while in those depths, hear the ‘The Watery Song,’ an aural hallucination or a blessing, depending on who you ask. The challenge, assuming one has packed for their stay, is surviving the entry and exit, a trial that involves wading into the failing tide and riding the sinking water as it lowers you to its terminus, where a winding tunnel, sometimes just 3’ wide, leads to the sanctuary. This is the difficulty, a race against the water as it begins to rise again, faster than many think, cold, dark, and unrelenting.’
I step out to Clementine early as well, hefting my water-proofed bag over my head and slipping into the sea’s potholes, ending life there with sharp crunches. ‘The Watery Grave’ is easy enough to find- the ranger’s latest deterrent, an iron cage, has rusted and pulled away, standing like an apocalyptic tree in the waves.
I begin the descent, slowly, treading water and sputtering. The way down is narrow and sharp, lined with clams that click and clatter, that cut my arms and my feet until I am churning a pink froth. I consider going back, finding some other way to throw the stranger, but by the time I lose my nerve I see that I have sunk too low, that the only means of escape would be rescue.
The descent further narrows, a place where the clams have clambered over each other to squeeze off access. My bag will not fit as it is. I try to strip things out but the water drains quickly, it drains so that I am hanging by the bag itself for a moment. Something gives way and I fall, shredding the skin from my shoulders.
In time, I feel the bottom.
I start in the tunnel as soon as there is an inch of water to breathe, away from the sunlight, to a place where shadows cannot be cast.
-traveler
