Determinant

Aubade: Diving Bell

3 a U B a D e : D i v i n G B e L L Though their work is complete, the diving team will remain in the confinement of the saturation chamber for an additional seven days so they can gradually and safely return to standard atmospheric pressure. —New York Department of Environmental Protection already he stirs in the dark, a waxy heaviness in his arms and legs. The oxygen-sweetness he’s held sparking between his neurons, sucked like butterscotch and sipped at for days—now it has almost faded. Had he dreamed Boyd’s face, pale and star-eyed on the monitor? Come in, Boyd had said. Can you hear me? Come in. He’d heard, ears cradling the cool thin vibration of the voice, felt the words crawl like string inside the curl of his own white-pink ear. time has grown strange— the water dark as lead, its heft on the bulkhead, the clocks all ticking different times under the great streaming city. The ions clutch and release and at night he hears the creak of water whispering to inanimate steel— the million gallons, the metal shell. ...