Muid

He tapped on the window.

Diving was a daily baptism; he sank like a divine stone, bubbles rising to the surface of the River Thames, popping and releasing his prayer to some unnamed god looking down on London. It was his thirteenth dive this month, but this time, this time felt different. This time, he would find what he’d been searching for.

Down there, one would do best to go gloveless, to see not with one’s eyes but with one’s fingertips. He’d found an enormous amount of cans, bottles, glass—careful, touch softly, be wary of sharp things—plastics, and metal. But, what he was searching for was his cat, Muid.

Why she’d leapt from the railing of the boat into the water, he couldn’t say, but he dived in after her, and although the white streaks from London’s bright lights reflected off the tranquil surface of the Thames, below, it was a hollow, disorienting pitch. The water felt like sludge, heavy and immobilizing, and when he’d resurfaced, empty-handed, his cry of anguish had been eaten up and digested by the night.

Thirteen days without his girl. She was dead. He knew it, for no living creature could survive for so long without oxygen, not even his hardy Muid. Still, each day, he dived— one end of the safety rope clipped to his suit, the other to his boat—treading water until his legs were jelly. And at night, after a cup of hot tea on the deck, he’d sleep a restless sleep, Muid’s yellow eyes pleading with him to save her—dreams where his mask and suit would fill with water, and he’d wake with stinging eyes from tears and the Thames.

On this thirteenth dive, the typically calm waters of the river were cross. It was a miserable day, and grey clouds as weighty as wool sat heavily above the River Thames. Even in the water, he felt the river’s foul mood. Less than an hour in, he lost his bearings, reaching for his safety rope only to discover it no longer there.

To his great relief, a light shone through the darkness.

As he swam toward the sun, he imagined his cat Muid as a panther in the Nile, swimming toward the light of an Egyptian moon—to breathe—to reach the shore and live out her next eight lives. But a coiled truth sprang at him: he was descending, and the light was not coming from the sun as he’d thought, but from a dome at the bottom of the river.

Too late to resurface, his air supply nearly depleted, he had but one recourse—he approached the light emanating from the structure and peeked into a brass porthole on the side.

There, at a cedar table, sat a woman in dungarees, drinking tea from a Blue Willow cup. The man was taken by her beauty, vowing then and there to marry her, should he survive. Then, he looked across to the opposite end of the table, and there was Muid, lapping cream from a saucer.

He tapped on the window.

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Thank you for reading Muid!

xo Seany

I used British English in this story for fun. Leave me alone. ;)

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