Lines in the Sea

On harvesting nights, we are shunted into aluminum skiffs, their outboard motors dangling like dead limbs in the salt water.  Fuel is a privilege reserved for people who don’t stink of desperation and low tide. The lapping waves are illuminated by the sickly green glow from the processing plants, an industrial halo that never sleeps. We take turns with the oars, aiming for a dark patch of water about a half mile off shore.

Steam twists lazily off the surface of the ocean, coating our skin in a salty sheen. Most of the harvesters have stripped down to tank tops and shorts, with long rubber gloves and boots to protect them from the worst of the acid burns. Some of us wear surgical masks or bandanas across our mouths and noses in an attempt to ward off the effects of the carbon dioxide fumes, but by the end of a twelve-hour shift on the water, not one of us will leave unscathed. Headaches. Heart palpitations. Hacking coughs. Once, an old man collapsed and I held him down while he seized so he didn’t capsize the boat. You hear about people surviving submersion, but not the infections that follow. The administrators were supposed to supply each boat with an emergency oxygen tank after that, but most of them are either empty canisters or padlocked to the deck. They don’t trust us not to waste it.

“Switch,” the crew lead calls, and someone thrusts an oar into my gloved hands. I paddle in time with my counterpart, trying to keep up without overexerting myself. With each stroke, little drops of ocean water sprinkle down into the boat, peppering my bare legs with pinprick burns. I made the mistake of wearing pants and long sleeves once on a harvest to try to protect my skin, but I became so dehydrated I had to crawl off the loading dock at the end of the day.  

“Stop!” calls the crew lead, and I rest the heavy oar on the metal edge of the skiff. We drift forward with the current, gliding over the top of the green line that separates the sterile shallows from the harvesting zone. 

“Grab the first barrel, and get to work.” A large plastic cylinder is heaved into the middle of the boat. We each grab a long-handled strainer, and begin to skim algae from the murky water. Scoop. Squeeze out the water. Dump into the barrel. Repeat. When the barrel is full, we twist on the lid, clip it to a rope, and push it off the side of the boat to bob in the water behind us. By the end of the night, it will take all the strength we have left to muscle the haul back to the loading dock. 

I lean into the rhythm of the work, trying to ignore the red burns rising on my skin, and lose myself in daydreams of before. I think about the times before water rationing, when hot days meant lemonade in glass pitchers and swimming pools filled with cool, clean water. I remember seeing real animals from my bedroom window; wild turkeys and deer on the side of the road, eagles aloft in a cloudless sky, even fish darting circles in the pond behind our house. I remember having a cat when I was little; how her tail used to hook around my leg as she leaned against me. How we fed her ground up meat from a little tin can.

It all seems so far away from me now. When I tell my children about stories from before, I see the doubt in their eyes, and I begin to doubt myself. Is there such a thing as wishful remembering? Maybe my memory has degraded like my body under the fumes and the heat.

Two barrels in, and my heart is already quickening to a pace that makes me nervous so early in the shift. I work on my breathing exercises, trying to slow down and maximize my oxygen. Work is scarce, I remind myself, and this is nothing compared to the last job. I push back the images of hypodermic needles and sterilizing pens. Of women lined up on rows of cracked hospital recliners, tubes attached to every vein and nipple. Plasma. Marrow. Breast milk. Even organs, for those desperate enough to brave the knife. Medics never wasted anesthetics on people like us. Every vial we put out meant another meal to consume, while our fluids were peddled to the highest bidder; rich recluses seeking nutrients and panaceas while the rest of us fought over dried algae pulp and recycled water. I will gladly sport my acid burns and arrhythmic heartbeat if it means I never have to spend another moment in that chair.

The sky is lightening, mellowing the harsh green light from the processing plants. As the sun rises, I will limp home to my children with another shift’s worth of algae-based meal squares and a handful of water tokens. I will smear a clay poultice on my burns to quiet them long enough for a fitful sleep. I will wake as the sun sets and will myself back to the loading dock while the children wait their turn at the water station. And as the green line of algae draws closer with each stroke of the oar, my eyes will drift up to another line, a pale gray horizon so far distant I have to wonder if it really even exists at all.   

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Jen Gardner is a writer and student in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She began writing as young adult as a way of processing grief, and much of her work has centered around themes of death and darkness. As an adult, her writing has been further inspired by long, dark winters in the Pacific Northwest and Southeast Alaska. She loves to explore the balance between shadow and light, and find the beauty in their overlap.