Mermaid in Chelsea Creek by Michelle Tea

Author:Michelle Tea [Tea, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781938073823
Publisher: McSweeney's

Were there more plants behind those plants? And more behind them? Sophie felt disoriented. Was there a mirrored back wall, presenting an infinite illusion? Sophie reached her hand to touch it, but her hand kept going. Through more plants and more plants and more. She made her breaths shallow, just little breaths, like teeny sips of air. Didn’t plants and trees help make more air? Wasn’t that what was so great about them? If Sophie looked close she could almost see the leaves making the air in front of her, the thinnest fog drifting out from the green. But was that air? Sophie tried for a regular breath and choked. She poked a bit deeper into the forest, a claustrophobic panic rising within her. Where was the wall?

As far back as she could see, Sophie caught a rustle in the leaves. A tremble, a rough shaking, a creature scampering.

“Hello?” A tiny voice quavered, and Sophie jumped, then screamed. She watched the leaves in the distance quiver as the creature dashed away, deeper into the grove, deeper and deeper, the trees trembling and twigs crackling in the quiet, deeper and deeper the thing scurried until it was gone. Somehow.

Sophie’s last breath felt like someone had taken a can of hair spray and blasted it down her throat. She pushed herself back out from the plants, shocked to see how deep she had crept into them. Pushing through rows of vines, their leaves prehistorically large, slapping her in the face, blocking her view, she ran. Her Vans slid on the undergrowth, tripped on low vines. She wanted to scream but could not take a breath to. Was the forest growing before her? Not a forest! She yelled at herself inside her freaking-out mind. No forest inside a little trailer! Finally, Sophie could spy her grandmother’s disheveled couch. With a cry she hurled herself out from the plants and onto a pile of sheets, gasping and wheezing at the cool, clean air around her. Sophie was surprised to taste the drip of salt that hit her lips, and lapped at it hungrily. She hadn’t even known she was crying.

As she caught her breath Sophie felt a tickle on the inside, someone peeking in on her. Was Angel checking in or was it something else, maybe even the plants themselves, conscious and prying? Sophie tried to make herself iron on the inside, lead, metal, wood, anything, but she could feel the tickle worming its way into her, deeper and deeper, the feeling spreading. From her seat on the sofa it just looked like a wall of plants, but the harder she looked she could see them shimmer. Sophie hopped to her feet and ran for the door, stumbling on a pile of old magazines, the pages curling in the damp heat, curling like the leaves. Outside the trailer, Sophie ate at the humid air, oblivious to the junkyard stench. She lapped at it like a great bowl of water. Ronald watched her leap down the wooden stairs, her legs as wobbly as his.

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