He came along like a dragging log. He knew, very well, where he was being taken. Thibault had practically refused to enter the ocean before.
He understood now- that it was vast. Open. Scary.
Even more scary standing in front of it, even with maman swam between the arms of the cliffs. Uncomfortable, uneased, unsure. Even so, he was her boy, and he would follow her until he learned if he could learn.
"I comin', ma.." looking ahead to her, then down to his heavy-stepping feet, he pushed towards the water. Until his feet got wet. Until he could feel sand pulling underneath him. For as confident as his steps became, or perhaps only giving in to his death fate, his eyes and pouty face looked as if he were being asked to figure out how to work a lawnmower alone.
Whatever that was.
He went incredibly still once he was wrist deep.
"....."
"What I be doin' now?"
With a heavier step forward, he tried to walk to her, his limbs lifting up comically high- far higher than he needed to like he reached for the sky! He big and he brave!
But he had a secret bigger than that!
hewasnotverybrave
"I gon' be doin' what you be doin'?" His eyes big, curious, moving gears.
"I not-" his poor voice stumbled, "I not scared," he tried to reassure his maman. He wished her to see that he was all brave and happy!
Though Thibault was far from all brave and happy.
"Okay," he said, looking at the water and feeling its weight pull at his legs. The farther he went, the more his body felt out of control. The more the small ripples and waves came at him, the harder he put his next foot down and slower he lifted it.
"Maman," he looked down at his feet now with every stride. Big, focused eyes and a frown. He spoke to her through it. This was- a big deal to him. His legs went deeper, deeper.. "It cold."
The sudden muffle of his mouth now heard. "MN!"
A step forward, and it appeared that Thibault's feet no longer were touching the bottom of the water. Suddenly, his legs scrambled fast and his chest was resting at the waters surface. His life depended on him kicking! He needed to kick! Kick! Kick!
He was not moving.
He was floating.
Shellshocked. He stopped moving, and like a zombie, floated towards maman, fluffed up like a pufferfish. No mind.
Only float.
Maman looked at him, but Thibault's eyes themselves were not moving. Convinced that the sea was an anchor that wouldn't dare him leniency. The sense of danger was gone, because long had he been eaten and dead. This fate, this was death. They were in the afterlife.
After a long silence, filled with nothing but the angel song from his mothers voice,
"Maman."
His eyes dragged to move, finally looking to her.
"Am me floatin' 'cause I'm a boy?" Maman wasn't floating. Was it because she was magical? A woman? Or maybe she wasn't dead. Just him.