Author: Adele Evershed

Revelation 21:1 “ and there is no longer any sea”

Fifty miles from what used to be shore, Jonah found a whale still inky black and awesome. He said it was an omen. Of course, Jonah meant it was a sign from God, but he was kind like that, knowing I’d lost my faith he kept his to himself. He only prayed when he thought I was asleep and stopped talking about the second coming altogether. I wished I could still believe, but then I wished so many things and wishes, like prayers, were a waste of time in this new world.

I read a story once about a young girl who found a whale washed up on the beach and tried to claim it for herself. But the people came, and they each wanted a part, ripping its flesh and taking it away to cook with butter and wild garlic. And they weren’t even starving.

I can’t remember the name of the book, what happened to the girl, or even what happened to the whale, but in this story, we were starving, so we ate what we could and dried some in the unforgiving sun before it started to rot. By that time, we didn’t even notice the stench as we were already used to the smell of letting go.

Jonah wanted to stay until I had the baby live in the carcass of the whale, like his namesake. He reasoned we had the dried meat and a few cans for emergencies. At that time, it was still raining. What he didn’t say was nobody would venture this far out—waste the fuel to try and cross the Big Dry—so he thought we’d be safe from scavengers.

So we stayed, and I grew blubbery, peering through the bars of the whale’s ribs as the stars went out one by one. By the time I went into labor, the rain was only falling on a Sunday—as Jonah gathered the bowls, buckets, and tin cans to pour the water into glass bottles, he sent up a prayer of gratitude. When he looked at me, his eyes were full of ‘I told you so,’ and I was happy he still had something to hang on to.

Our daughter was born en caul, a mermaid birth, and like any mermaid stranded on land, she did not survive. Jonah was inconsolable, castigating himself for not christening her. He tried to dig a grave with his hands, but the sun had baked the ground shut. It was then I told him about my dream–how I had seen our baby born away on a ship tethered to a giant beast that swam into the clouds, taking her to heaven. So we rewrapped her in the caul and placed her in the belly of the whale. Before we left, Jonah said a prayer, and I added, ‘Amen.’ It was another small lie, but it was all I had left to give