Nu

The Weight of Morning

The boat struck Nu across the mouth.

He had no mouth until it struck him. Then there was a lip beneath the keel, a jaw taking shape in the black water, and above them two eyes opening to a light that should already have been elsewhere.

The sun’s boat was sinking stern first. One steering oar stood upright; the other dragged beneath the surface, drawing a crooked furrow through Nu. A man knelt in the middle of the deck with both hands clamped around the little red brightness at his breast.

“Under the stern,” the man said. “Quickly.”

Nu gathered a hand beneath him.

The water accepted the shape of fingers, then forgot it. The boat tipped. Its passenger slid against the rail, and between his fingers the light spilled in thin red lines.

Nu made the hand again. This time he held its shape until the heel of his palm struck the hull.

The man caught the rail. “Both ends.”

“You have come to me before, Ra.”

“And I have left you before.”

Nu brought his other hand beneath the bow. He felt the boat’s whole length: a timber sprung loose near the stern, the sockets of the oars, the slight trembling of the passenger. Beyond them, above them, a slit of pale light marked the place where morning ought to begin.

He lifted.

The boat rose level. Water poured from the rail; Ra loosened one hand from his breast and reached for the fallen oar. The red light lay against his ribs like an ember pressed into ash.

Nu lifted higher. His shoulders followed his hands. Around his shoulders rose the water that had never learned where he ended.

“Wait,” Ra said.

The slit widened.

Through it Nu saw a wall of dried mud, a jar beside a doorway, a small foot protruding from a sleeping mat. He had known the earth when there was no dry place upon it. Now here was a child who could leave a foot outside the bed and expect to find it there at morning.

The water reached the doorway.

Ra thrust the oar sideways against Nu’s wrist.

“Down.”

The first dark thread ran across the threshold toward the mat.

Nu lowered his hands.

The house vanished. The slit narrowed to a line. Water fell away from the horizon, drawing long strands back into him, and the boat came down so sharply that its passenger was thrown to his knees.

The ember struck the deck.

For an instant it illuminated the grain of every plank. Then Ra caught it, and the boat was dark again.

Nu held still.

“Again,” Ra said.

“You saw what came with me.”

“Yes.”

“Then ask another thing.”

Ra looked up. His face was old, but not as it had been when he first fell against the rail. The skin had drawn tight across the bones. Beneath the hand at his breast, something small scraped and turned.

“There is no other morning.”

What the Water Keeps

Nu let the boat settle deeper into his palms, away from the pale line. Here no threshold resisted him. He could surround the hull and make it steady.

The timbers stopped creaking.

Ra sat on the deck. His shoulders lowered, and for a moment Nu thought the rest would be enough. The god had crossed the dark; let him cease crossing. Nothing would fall if there were nowhere left to fall.

Then the loose steering oar drifted against Nu’s thumb.

Its blade had become smooth. Nu remembered the notch it had made in his lip, but he could no longer find the notch in the wood. As he watched, the blade lost its edges. A long pale shape remained in the water, then only a paler patch.

Ra reached after it. His fingers closed on nothing.

“Give me the boat,” he said.

“I am holding it.”

“Higher.”

Nu raised the stern a little. The surviving oar knocked against its peg; its sound was small and hard, and Nu held the boat at that height to hear it again.

But at the bow, the carved curve was fading. Water lay over the rail without a ripple. There was less rail beneath it now.

Ra dragged himself forward and struck the wet wood with the heel of his hand. Once. Twice. The third blow went through the place where the curve had been.

Nu closed his fingers around the hull.

His knuckles met above the deck. Within the hollow of his hands he kept a space that the surrounding water could not reach. He felt the boat press against his palms, still narrow, still separate. He could hold it so.

A red seam appeared between two fingers.

“Open them.”

Ra’s voice came faintly through the clasp.

“The boat is keeping its shape,” Nu said.

The red seam sharpened to gold.

Inside his hands something clicked. A small hard sound, followed by a scrape along the wood. Nu felt six points move where the kneeling man’s weight had been.

“Open.”

Nu eased his smallest finger aside.

Light pierced the gap. Through it he saw a beetle braced on the deck beneath a round glow. Its forelegs strained upward. The glow touched the roof Nu had made of his hands and stopped.

He widened the opening. Black water poured toward it.

The beetle slipped. One foreleg struck the deck, and the light lurched sideways.

Nu shut the gap.

The scraping resumed. It travelled from one end of his fingers to the other, searching the enclosure. Every time it stopped, he feared it would not begin again.

He could keep the boat. He could feel exactly how much pressure would preserve it. The sun would remain in his hands, and the little foot beyond the horizon would remain in darkness, beside water waiting at the door.

Nu loosened his grip.

He did it slowly enough to feel the boat move: the keel dragging along his palm, the surviving rail pressing into a finger, the six small feet bracing at its centre.

This time he turned his hands as he opened them.

Empty Hands

The water rushed over his wrists.

Nu kept his palms beneath the hull and let it pass. It pulled at the broken bow. He cupped a finger under the weakening timber, but did not close his hand over the light.

The beetle straightened.

A gold reflection ran along the remaining rail. Where it reached the ruined bow, Nu could see the wet grain again. Not restored, not whole: a thin, splintered edge, but an edge.

He raised his palms.

The deep rose with them.

Nu stopped. A weight gathered around his arms, vast enough to lift the boat and the house and every other thing beyond the narrow light. All he had to do was keep rising.

Instead he let the water fall from his elbows.

His right hand sagged. The boat tilted, and the beetle skidded against the rail. Nu brought his left palm across beneath the keel. He held that little length of wood while the broad shape of his shoulders ran away into the dark.

For a moment he could feel only the boat.

Then his elbows found their shape again, lower than before. He lifted his hands another span. Water peeled from his forearms in heavy sheets.

The pale line widened.

There was the doorway. The jar stood where he had seen it, with a dark mark at its base. The thread of water across the floor had stopped short of the mat.

Nu drew his wrists together beneath the keel. The water between them streamed downward. The boat shuddered, but the sun stayed upright.

Light touched the doorpost.

The beetle pressed its forelegs against the bright sphere. Nu felt the change through the wood: a movement forward, away from the centre of his palms.

He followed it with his hands.

The bow crossed the threshold of the sky.

Warmth travelled into Nu’s fingers. The boat was lighter now, pulling against him. He curled a fingertip around the stern to keep it steady, and the movement stopped.

On the deck, the beetle turned toward him.

Nu uncurled the finger.

The keel slipped across his palm, rough all the way to the last splinter. Then its weight was gone.

He held his hands up a little longer.

Above them the boat passed into the brightening sky. Beneath them the water lay dark and deep, still touching every part of him. Nu lowered his empty palms until the light no longer reached them.

Beyond the doorway, the child stirred.

One foot found the floor. Then the other.