The ocean was dark, an opaque wall of freezing water. Cold hung off the gusts of wind that came through the boat and dripped down, the constant undulation of the waves the only source of life in the frozen sky. Bobbing in the water were an array of white dots, like the caps of jellyfish, plastic buoys all connected by a rope.

            Caspar thrust his hands into the waves. His fingers found their place among the wet fibres of the rope, pulling them in and onto the boat. The hanging oysters started to appear one by one, dangling against the synthetic blue of the boat. Caspar liked to think of them as windchimes for the fish. It was easier to say that, he thought, than pronounce the vowels in pearling farm.

            Pat. Pat. Pat. There were footsteps, dotting the bristling air. Caspar didn’t pay attention to them, focusing only on hauling in the oysters. Before long, there was someone beside him, splitting the surface of the water with their hands and retrieving the ropes.

            It was the halfway point of the swing today, although Caspar wasn’t sure how he felt about that. The only thing that waited for him was the armchair, collecting dust and hoping Caspar would return to sweep it off. Out on the ship, at least, he always had something to attend to. Even if that something smelled like saltwater and metal.

            “Morning.” The woman pulling in oysters next to him looked his way.

Caspar greeted her with a curt nod. “Georgia.” The woman, unlike him, was excited to go home at the end of the week. He could see it in her face. She wasn’t the type of person to keep anything bottled up, for that matter.

“Always so cold in the mornings,” Georgia muttered. “You and the air.”

“Me?” Caspar scrunched his eyebrows together, but didn’t bring his eyes off the water.

“Yes, Caspar. It’s like I’m a stranger every time you wake up.” Georgia smiled. “Like an angry porcupine. And your hair is all spiky right now too. Hah!”

Caspar finally moved his neck, if only to glare at her. He couldn’t hold it for long – he realized how much Georgia’s comments cut true.

Back in the city, he and Georgia were roommates. They shared the swing out on the pearl farm too. Two weeks working, two weeks back. That was how it always was. When they were on the mainland, Georgia volunteered to help with art lessons at the local community centre. Caspar had gone once, to see. She was a completely different person there than when she was out on the water. Her words were mellow, laid-back. On the ship, she relayed to Caspar the things that had built up in the back of her mouth over the last two weeks.

            “Y’know, some of the ankle-biters in that class really do piss me off sometimes.” Both Georgia and Caspar had taken in the oysters by now, picking them off the line and laying them side-by-side in a metal basket. “They’ll get a whole bottle of paint on the floor. Or break all the pencil leads.”

            “Can’t you shout at them?” Each oyster shell clanked against the next as Caspar placed them in. The water dripped through the holes in the basket and seeped into the wood of the ship, turning it the colour of blood.

            “Well then they might get upset, and it’s an even bigger mess, with all the crying.”

            “Hey kid!” Caspar demonstrated, shouting out to the ocean. “Fuck off, will you?” Georgia cocked an eyebrow. “I’m sure they’ll be quiet if you tell them that,” Caspar said proudly.

            “Probably.” A cloud of short, hiccupped laughs enveloped the two.

            Caspar turned around, looking back at the crisscross of wooden boardwalks that made up the gaps from the boat to the land. In the squares of water between most of the wood were more ropes, more oysters. Caspar could see a figure standing there, cast against the sunrise. The lighting was almost perfect, majestic. While Georgia stayed in the ship, Caspar moved over to the figure, attempting to remain unnoticed.

            His name was Levi. He played the clarinet. He was a bit older than Caspar and Georgia and had been working here longer. At the moment, he was extracting oysters meant to create star-shaped pearls. Caspar didn’t speak to him, only worked in his proximity. The pearls that Caspar pulled were also strange shapes. They did it by putting in grains of sand that were already cut to the shape, though it was too small to notice for a human. Ever since coming here, Caspar had realized how silly all the fuss about pearls was. People thought them more natural than the perfect cuts made on other gems. He couldn’t imagine they would still think that if they saw what he did, the farm surrounding him on all sides.

            There was something to the way Levi moved that captured Caspar’s attention without fail. His work was fluid, not a single moment lost to time. Even the droplets that flew off the oysters seemed to land in place. Caspar thought that it might be because Levi was a musician; he had a rhythm so steadily ingrained into his being that it shone through, even in the dimness of the mornings. Caspar was certain he could never do something like that. Whatever the case, he found it hard to take his eyes off Levi.

            It wasn’t love. Georgia talked often about love, and Caspar wasn’t feeling what she described. At the very least, it wasn’t Levi himself that Caspar loved, but the way he existed, the way he affected the things that surrounded him. Caspar was simply a part of that, in a way.

            Caspar returned to the boat, joining Georgia. She held a flat square of metal, with one end thinned and sharpened. It was how they cleaned the oysters of the scum that accumulated on them. Georgia scrapped the blade across the shell countless times, each sweep dislodging more of the seaweed and dirt that had accumulated. They had to be careful while doing this. If the seaweed touched your skin too much, it would give you a rash that was agonizing to work through.

            “Someone’s been ogling,” Georgia snickered, jabbing his shoulder with her finger.

            “And what is it to you?” Caspar groaned, embarrassed.

            “Nothing, but it’s hard not to notice when you stare so much. Poor guy probably thinks he has a crab on his head or something.”

            After Caspar finished cleaning, he inserted the shell into a clamp. The metal prongs stabbed into the oyster and opened it for him. Caspar took another blade – this one was thin and flat. The flesh on the inside was white and filled with bumps that were pearls.

            The oyster would survive, but Caspar still felt the slightest pang as he cut a pearl out. The blade would go in, and the gem would emerge. Sometimes, seeing his reflection in the perfect sphere made all the work worth it. Most days, it only showed him the bags under his eyes.

━

Georgia had been growing more excited about the end of the swing with each passing day, gushing about what she was going to do when she got back.

            “It’s only been two weeks, Georgia!” Caspar said, exasperated. “What is there to be so eager about that wasn’t there before?” Georgia didn’t respond with anything. Caspar could see she wasn’t listening, presumably too lost in her thoughts about seeing the kids she taught when she got back. He looked out at the sea. It was calm enough that he thought he could’ve walked across it, mirroring the black of the night sky above.

            “I’ve never been much for poems,” he announced. Georgia looked back, confused by the sudden pivot.

            “Neither have I.”

            “Whenever I read them, it always feels the same. Everyone is mentioning the sky. The moon and stars are always working overtime.” Georgia laughed, and Caspar had to as well.

            “I think I can understand it now,” he said. “It really is gorgeous. People dream about sights like this.” Around the edge of the dock, the water was clear enough that Caspar could see the starfish at the bottom, even through the darkness.

            “Caspar, check your food.” The sausages he had been cooking were sizzling more than they likely needed to. He rushed to turn them around, wincing at the colour of the bottom side. Georgia had convinced him to bring a portable stove outside for dinner. It was nice, he had to admit, but he had worried about the bugs. He was sure the flies would start swarming around the smell of burning meat.

            He didn’t hear flies, but there was something resonating through the air, sweet and decadent. A clarinet, Caspar realized. He removed the sausages from the heat and scanned the pearl farm. He couldn’t see Levi. The man was probably inside somewhere. But the sounds of his instrument shot through the air and through Caspar’s ears. If honey was a sound, Caspar thought, it would be this. The table moved farther away from him as he was drawn toward the sound of Levi’s playing.

            “Caspar,” Georgia hissed. “Where are you going?”

            “Can’t you hear it?”

            “Of course I can. But what are you doing?” Caspar’s stance faltered.

            “I’m…not sure. I like how it sounds.” He didn’t want to return to the table, not yet. This was the Levi he stared at, the sound of the clarinet floating above the oyster lines. If he could, he would grab it, dangle from it, and see where it could take him. Instead, he sat back at the table and finished his dinner.

            Levi stopped playing soon after Georgia left, but the sound remained in Caspar’s ears long into his sleep. After he woke up for the second time, he figured it would be good to get some fresh air. He moved along the grid of the boardwalks, trying to rid himself of the echoes of clarinet that had been disrupting his sleep.

            On some days, whale-watching boats would come just into sight of the pearl farm. They couldn’t get too close, but you could hear the songs they were blasting far before you could see them. He felt enticed by the boats the same way he was by Levi’s music, like he wanted to grab at it and hold it close to him. They had never seen a whale, at least not close to the pearling farm, but Caspar still watched them every time they came, without fail. He didn’t realize how long it had been since he blinked until his eyes began to tear up. He wasn’t paying attention to where his feet fell either.          

He misplaced a step, his shoe falling just shy of the boardwalk. Too slow to react, Caspar’s body tumbled into the ocean. The water shocked his skin, stabbing deep into it and piercing his lungs with a sharp, ridged needle. Even in the summer, it was cold; Caspar knew that better than anyone, but he was still surprised by the way it seized his arms and legs and refused to let them move. For a moment, his eyes were open in the water. It was blurry, endless, the ocean giving way to a vast nothingness that was sure to contain more life than Caspar could imagine. Just as fast as he had fallen, the salt rushed into his eyes, stinging them shut.

The tide was light, but it pushed Caspar and the boardwalk farther away from each other, separating them in the canvas of bluish green. By the time Caspar had recovered enough to stick his head above the surface, the water had seeped into his mouth and nose. His vision looked like it was melting, the boardwalk only a blurry spot at the edge of his sight. Shaking off the droplets that had settled on his eyelashes, he began to thrash his arms through the water, maneuvering himself through the small waves. Splashes of water froth stuck to his hands and leaked into his open mouth, the small shards of dirt and leaf in it filling the space between his teeth. His waterlogged boot dragged his foot down. Caspar bent his legs and swam as best he could, his hands clutching at the water as they passed in and out in an effort to displace himself forward.

            His hand rammed into a wooden ridge, the edge of the boardwalk; the pain of the impact rang up through his skeleton. He grasped the plank and pulled it toward himself, hugging the wood as he clambered on. With water pouring from his clothes, Caspar tossed himself onto dry ground and sat there. He took off his jacket and laid it out beside him, allowing it to dry. His muscles still felt frozen, unwilling to get him back inside and into the warmth. He rushed inside, finding a blanket to throw over himself. The sounds were surely out of his ears now, replaced by drips of water. He didn’t sleep for the rest of the night, but he stayed inside. He figured the ocean was telling him that he wasn’t meant to leave, not yet. Maybe not ever.

━

A week later, Georgia and Caspar were back to the pearling farm. Georgia had certainly enjoyed the time back on land, using it to meet up with all the kids she taught. Caspar hadn’t told her about how he fell – they didn’t see each other too much anyway. The two talked enough while they were at the pearl farm.

            The first morning they were back at the farm, Caspar went outside as usual. Georgia joined him soon after. It was the same as it always was: pull, scrape, extract. After finishing a line, Georgia always checked the traps left behind to see if any pearls had fallen out. That was where she stole them from.

            “I don’t understand why you don’t like it,” she said. “They sell for decent money.”

            “If I didn’t like it, I would have ratted you out by now,” Caspar replied. “I just don’t care enough to beat you to stealing them.”

            After finishing the second line, Caspar looked out at the array of boardwalks, trying to find a familiar figure. Levi wasn’t there. Caspar waited as he worked through hours, his confusion growing with each second. He didn’t consider what had happened until Georgia told him.

            “I asked around.” She put a hand on Caspar’s shoulder. “He’s not showing up anymore.”

            “What?” Caspar turned around. “Levi?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Why?” Caspar scanned the farm in disbelief. “He’s been working here twice as long as we have. Why would he leave now?”

            “To get away from you, probably,” Georgia snickered. This time, Caspar didn’t share her smile. Hers dropped quickly. “Hey, I’m sorry. I know you liked having him around.”

            He shook off Georgia’s hand and rushed around the boardwalk grid, asking anybody he could find what had happened. Nobody had an answer. Levi had disappeared, not leaving behind a reason or a goodbye. There was only someone else, another worker that took Levi’s spot as if they were the only person that had ever been there.

            Caspar had been planning the entire week what to say when he came back. If Levi played again, he was going to talk to him this time. He would never tell Georgia, but he had imagined listening to Levi in a giant amphitheatre some years down the line, a place far away from the pearl farm. It dawned on him only now what he loved about Levi. It was the dream of what Levi and his clarinet could be, what Caspar couldn’t be by himself.

            Levi or no, there was still work to be done. Caspar continued to extract the pearls, trying to hide how distraught he was. He knew the winds that came through the farm were colder than last week – it was approaching winter, after all – but they felt more biting as well. Like they were mocking him.

There was an especially big pearl in one oyster. It was the kind of pearl that people paid enormous sums of money for. When Georgia left, Caspar took the pearl out from the rest and placed it in front of him.

His hands weren’t moving from his brain, but from longing, or maybe the absence of it, because there was nothing left for him to long for. They picked up a knife and put it to the pearl, cutting through with a single, ire-fueled slice. The shining blade divided the sea gem down the middle.

In the centre of the pearl was a grain of sand. It was how they prompted the oyster to create the pearl, forcing it through the shell and into the vulnerable flesh. It would always be there, no matter how many layers of pearl were put on top. A grain of sand, that was all it was and all it ever could be.

━

It was a while until Caspar found a pearl like that again. By now, he could tell it was going to be big before he even saw it. The bump underneath the oyster’s flesh was tightly strewn over it.

            In the time since, he had managed to deduce why Levi had left. Other people had left for the same reason. It was nerve damage, from the motions of cleaning the oysters. The constant slamming of the metal square against the rigid shell burnt itself into their arms, permanently scarring the movement of their fingers, their whole body.

            The pearl farm had switched methods of cleaning after they figured out what was happening. They left the oysters to the fish now, cultivating whole schools to eat off the barnacles and scum. What they didn’t eat off was the fireweed, the kelp that burned your skin. Caspar had rashes up both of his arms that he wore long sleeves to cover.

            Even though the farm changed its methods, the damage had been done already. Levi wouldn’t come back, nor would he play his clarinet again, Caspar realized. That was the worst part, how each day Caspar struggled a little bit more to remember what the clarinet sounded like.

            Notes drifted above the water and over to Caspar. Whale watchers. The boats were close. He could hear the people shouting, moving to one side, shouting again. They weren’t usually this excited. Maybe they had actually managed to see a whale this time. Even so, Caspar didn’t check. He didn’t need to see, didn’t need to be a part of that. He knew things the people on the boat never would. They couldn’t know how many oysters fit on a line. How much fireweed could sting. How easily a sharpened blade could cut flesh.