THE OCEAN AND THE BAG AND THE BAG OF THE OCEAN
by Kara McMullen
WHAT IF THIS IS A STORY about a woman who visits the ocean, maybe for the first time? Physically she won’t be described in great detail, but she does have straight dark hair with bangs that hang in her eyes. There is a small indent on her left nostril from when it was pierced in college, and her teeth are not as white as she would like.
In the story, this woman travels to the ocean with another person. Maybe a man named Tyler, who has calluses from rock climbing. She likes him okay. He is a convenient person to make the trip with. The thick skin on his palms is cracked and gray and reminds her of her dancing feet, shoved into pointe shoes, years ago. Whenever she touches his hands, she briefly misses ballet.
The woman is named something that starts with an M—Margaret? Maggie? Something less like a name, something like Map?—and wants things she can’t have. It is one of her defining traits. Partly these are simple things that she’s trained herself to not indulge in, things like a slice of pepperoni pizza or a beer at 4pm on a Wednesday. Others are unattainable because of her circumstances: a cat, which her lease does not allow; a high powered, elite blender that she cannot afford. A talent for macrame, an entrepreneurial spirit, an ability to bake and decorate a three layer cake while wearing a shapeless linen dress.
Map also wants things that are less straightforward. A boat, although she lives near no body of water. The boat should be aluminum, something lightweight so that she can maneuver it herself with paddles, but it should not be a kayak. It should be painted white inside. Map wants to row the boat out to the middle of a watery area— a lake or a large river, or maybe even the ocean— and then she wants to lay down in the boat and look up at the sky. She will be completely surrounded by blue and white. She will feel like she is being cupped and lifted towards the sky, and the feeling will be overwhelming. She wants to forget everything that is not blue or white or the sky.
Map and Tyler live somewhere in the middle of the country and so they have to turn either left or right and then drive several hundred or a thousand miles to get to the ocean. They both feel full of purpose on the way there, like they are headed somewhere in an important and meaningful way. Although it remains unspoken, they both think that they will somehow be different after this trip. They see their future selves as strong and powerful, with none of the small sadnesses of everyday life. Those people, the ones they will become, floss regularly and practice Buddhism.
In the car, while Tyler is driving, Map looks at his profile and feels a surge of something warm and pleasant. Her hands feel suddenly moist and her heart speeds up and she looks out onto the flashing fields of yellow grass, the interminability of which characterize this part of the country. After a few minutes, she opens the window and feels the sharp sting of the cold air rush over her face. Her hair dances and her eyes water and she feels the cold travel through her body until it nestles somewhere between her pelvis and her rib-cage. She reaches for Tyler’s hand, resting on the gear shift, and then rolls the window back up.
They arrive at a hotel after sunset and before they check-in Map insists on walking to the beach in the dark. Together, they run through the sand that is still warm from the heat of the day. The moon sits on the water and folds its light into the waves. When they come back inside, they go to the hotel bar where they order oysters, and a burger for Tyler. Map probably has a salad. The oysters taste like the brackish, foreign smell of the air that Map has been using to breathe all night. She sips champagne or a dirty martini or even just white wine, and she is confident in her decision.
The next day Map wakes up early. As she opens her eyes, she feels a deep excitement inside of her, and for a moment she remembers Christmas morning, sitting next to the tree before any presents have been opened. She pulls on her jeans and her sweater—she decided that she could no longer wear sweatshirts when she turned thirty—and then slips on her sandals and eases out the door quietly. She doesn’t want to wake up Tyler. Even after the beach in the dark and the oysters, and the sex afterwards that included eye contact, she wants to experience this alone.
Seeing the ocean in the daylight for the first time, Map feels a sense of great peace. Picturing herself telling the story to friends later over coffee, she knows that she will say that, exactly. I felt a sense of great peace. Map smells the air and feels the moisture hit her nose and her lungs, and then turns her head up to the sky. The sun has just risen and everything is pink. When she looks at her own hand it is also pink. Her arm is full of goosebumps. The waves are ebbing and flowing and pounding. She listens to the sound, which she finds demanding, but in a positive way. She thinks that if she listened to that sound long enough she, too, could become a vast thing made up of nothing but water and salt. Like she could mold herself into any shape she wants. Like whales could swim inside of her.
Here is where it becomes obvious that there is not much plot to the story. Map feels quiet and big and small and maybe a little horny. She feels what most people feel when looking at the ocean. She wants to push herself into it and be completely different afterwards but also mostly the same. Taking off her sandals, she walks up to the lapping edge of the nearest wave. As it surges towards her she runs away for a second and then, changing her mind, stands completely still. The contact of the water on her toes makes her decide that she needs this always, that somehow having the ocean near her could change her life for the better.
Moving here or somewhere like here might make sense, but she feels entangled in her life as it is. Swimming would be too cold, and finding a boat to rent is a project that she isn’t ready to commit to. After thinking of no better way to have the ocean, Map gets to her knees, and then, slowly, lowers herself so that she is flat on her stomach. Laying down on the damp mirror of sand brings her closer to the thudding and from that place she decides that she will get a bag and put the ocean into it. She’ll carry the bag home, keeping it safe from leaks or spillage, and she’ll be with the ocean always in that small way.
There’s a part at about this point in the story where she tries to use a grocery sack she has in her pocket. That doesn’t work because it’s full of holes. An image of her with a sodden bag that has three or four tablespoons of water so that it looks like she’s holding a jellyfish. She leaves the beach and goes to the store. At the store she buys a box of Ziploc bags and then she drives back to the beach to fill one up with saltwater. Ballooning and full, the bag becomes another character. The bag might talk.
Map lifts the bag up and it is heavier than she expected, the weight of a small child. After she’s held it close to her skin for several minutes, she leaves the beach and returns to the hotel. She reunites with Tyler, and soon it’s time to eat again. Laughing and talking, Tyler and Map enjoy the rest of their weekend. Ocean in the background, they take photos where they smile showing teeth. Separately, they scroll through these later, after the trip is over. They sit in the hot tub long enough to turn pink and then red. On the drive home, Map holds the bag of the ocean on her lap. Tyler doesn’t understand the bag and Map isn’t able to explain why it’s important. She talks for several minutes about the ocean and the bag and the bag of the ocean, but after she’s finished they both feel that she’s explained nothing.
Once Map is alone in her apartment again, she looks at the objects she’s chosen to surround herself with. The globe that still shows the USSR instead of Russia, the takeout menus on the fridge, and the frog shaped jar of loose change. Strands of her dark hair woven through the cream-colored afghan on the couch. She’s glad that instead of moving to it, she moved the ocean to her. Later, she falls asleep with her cheek pillowed on the Ziploc bag, now body temperature. She dreams all night of an insistent throbbing noise and wakes up exhausted but with a sense of great peace.
KARA McMULLEN is a writer and person from Colorado who currently lives in Portland, Oregon. Her fiction has appeared on the Harpoon Review, Ohio Edit, and Storychord, and is forthcoming in DIAGRAM. You can find out more at karamcmullen.com.