by Willow Faust
Clare stares at the wave in her mind: dark, dangerous, with jaws like a shark that bites chunks of her brain and spits them back out in the depths of the ocean–spits it back out because sharks don’t like the taste of humans, she reminds herself, they only attack when they’re confused, or curious, or smell blood. But she doesn’t dare touch the ocean now, it’s dangerous in other ways.
She pinches herself, but she still feels like she’s drowning, like her brain is being
attacked. The presentation at the front of the classroom flickers, a large photo of The Great Wave off Kanagawa providing the only light in the dimly lit classroom.
She tries to figure out what her teacher is saying, but only fractured glimpses of words fill her water-clogged ears: landscape, boats, form. Instead her mind travels to the words help, Clare, help, help me; a voice snuffed with incoming waves, water in lungs.
She pinches herself, but the classroom is drowning now. She glances frantically at her classmates; they sit, staring at the Great Wave, bored, careless, stoners in the back, eyes half-closed, teacher’s pets scribbling notes, eyes wide open. She wants to scream, Guys, we’re drowning, the classroom is filling with water, can you not see? Do you not care? Do you not feel the misty storm air, the salt water on your tongue? Can you not hear the cries for help? Can you not help me help her?
Mount Fuji, the teacher says. Boats, caught in a wave.
Help, the people in the boats must be screaming, Clare thinks. She knows exactly what the desperation sounds like. HELP, HELP ME, HEL–
The teacher switches the slide. Starry Night, Van Gogh, she says. It’s possible he was
inspired by Hokusai’s The Great Wave. See the same pattern of movement?
Movement, Clare thinks, like a wave crashing down, drowning, like limbs fighting, like
legs running from the sand to the ocean.
Starry Night was painted from Van Gogh’s view from his window at the Saint-Paul
asylum, the teacher says.
Why was he there? someone asks.
He was depressed, someone else answers, knowingly.
Clare wipes her silent tears from her eyes. Drowning. Her shark-infested mind. Those dangerous waters. Her friend. She dares a glance at the empty seat next to her, she pinches herself. She thinks about movement, and the teacher switches the slide. Wait, Clare wants to say, wants to reach out and claw back for the waves and movement, and why can’t the ocean just pause for a moment, pause like a painting, so she can take a breath?
Willow Faust (she/her) is an English major studying in California who likes to write fiction pieces about real emotions. When she’s not procrastinating writing her novel, she can be found baking, on a tea party with her cats, or on Instagram @willowfaust and Twitter @willoowf.