Clams, quahogs, mussels, mud. The smell of something dying and something being born. Something green and black and slimy, like sludge, slurry. Protein rotting. Eel grass, slick rocks and seaweed, bladderwrack. The air is heavy with moisture and salt. The wind picks up suddenly in gusts and calms again, balmy. Sometimes there is fog so thick you can't see in front of you, at night shining a flashlight only makes it harder to see through.
There is shoreline all around but no open ocean. There are coves, bays, and salt marshes. Soggy ground, inlets. Cow ponds and cow paths and corn fields, old barns and stone walls and rotting wooden gates.
A strange, watery place. Water all around, in front and behind, East, West, and South. Salt water. I have salt water in my veins.
A place lots of people had lived before, where other people's memories clung to the slimy rocks and pylons of the dock, other people's lives depended on the fish they caught and the oil they left puddling in the cove where the kids learned to swim.
What happened there before that? Were there always boats in the cove and paths in the woods and fields of corn? What spirits live in those trees and stones vines and ivy grass sumac and clover moss. What ever happened there?
