Scallop Vision

"When will you get I can decide things for myself!"
"Ann, it's not like you have a good record of sensible decisions!" snapped Mom's voice.
"I'm sick of the way you treat me!" This daily verbal exchange between my parents and me repeats incessantly within my head. Hands meld with the wooden tiller, anger guiding the 20 foot sailboat along its floating path. I'm oblivious to the sea, sky, wind or shore.
Not let me go sailing after school? I'd been looking forward to being out on the water all day and they weren't going to take THAT away too! The small craft advisories posted for fog didn't both me. I'd aimed Brina's bow parallel to the coast intending to skim across the water for a few miles, come about, then return to harbor. My preferred route would have taken me into Roundabout Sound's creeks and inlets, perfect mini-worlds in which to escape overbearing adult behavior.
"See?" I say to invisible parents, "How's that for sensible thinking!"
Gaining facial lines must be proportional to loosing common sense, all part of the againg process adults go on and ON about. Always telling me not to make mountains out of molehills and look at them!
Earlier Mom said, "Why am I being so unreasonable? There's a small craft advisory out and Spirits' Frolic begins tonight. Tell me you want to get lost in the fog with Spirits!"
"You can't seriously think I believe in that! First Santa, the Easter bunny, they trying to get me to be more careful by telling me 'seven years of bad luck' if I break a mirror, now this. It's all Make Believe...stop treating me like a two year old. Spirits or whatever you want to call them living in the sea don't play pranks on boaters." The kitchen door slammed behind me.
I'd grown up hearing the story of how the sea dwelling "spirits" create the fog that adults view with such trepidation. Studies showing that seasonal weather conditions ideal for natural fog creation occur every fall hasn't lessened their mystical beliefs. Supposedly the "spirits" use the fog to befuddle mariners so they can play "tricks" on them. Every year boaters make sure to be in before dark to avoid the "Spirits' Frolics".
Moisture invades my self-absorption, extinguishing stormy thoughts. Barely sliding through the opaque tapestry of muffling fog, Brina seems a barely tangible patch in the impalpable haze.
"Where'd this come from?" I vaguely remember clouds and good visibility. Now humidity saturates and floating without direction sends fear prickles though my body.
CCRRUUUNNNCCCCHHH!! Flung forward into bursts of golden, silvery-white light terminating in blackness..I'm next aware of salty-flavored water lapping around my head. There's water in the boat! Fully alert, I leap to my feet nearly capsizing. Grabbing a styrofoam coffee cup, I fall to my knees and frantically bail.
Finally the water level lower, I crawl towards the hole, wondering how bit it is, how to patch it, and what that squirting noise is. Focusing through the darkness I see dozens of soft-shell clams, also known as piss clams because of their ability to squirt filtered water back out, emptying my boat. A warm pinkish glow pulses from the damaged hull. I see radiant gelatinous forms wedged in the hole. With the help of barnacles bonding their edges to the boat, jellyfish are keeping the water out! Brina herself floats in a glowing vibrant blue extending several feet away. Luminescent scallop eye blue-it's as if thousands of the bicuspids glow just below the surface. Suspended in blue, fish briefly appear, then disappear into darkness.
"Relax little one," a voice says, "we're here to assist you. We never do harm, only good. Please allow us to help you."
Pinching causes pain, as doesn holding my breath-talk about a realistic dream!
"You're not dreaming, little one. We're as real as the Stop sign at the intersection of Route 27 and Sounding Lane. Open up to us and we'll guide you safely through this fog. Send us away and you're on your own. It's your choice."
"You're part of a dream. I hit my head and you're figments of my imagination. Anyway, real or imagined you're evil, that what everybody says," I need to get control of this situation! This is all just too weird.
"Do you always believ what 'everybody' tells you? What about the fight you had with your mother earlier?"
"How do you know about that, I am dreaming...GOAWAY!"
Instantly alone, waer coming in as rapidly as before, I rip off my sweatshirt and jam it into the hole. No emergency kit on board...why not? I can't waste time thinking about such things, I've got to do something quickly. A sweatshirt isn't a particularly effective way of stopping a leak.
"You need to think calmy," my inner voice says, "try the relaxing breathing techniques you've learned in yoga."
Forcing myself to breath in through my mouth and out through my nose I notice the current flowing towards, beneath, then beyond Brina's stern. There is an obvious current yet the boat is motionless, as though held at anchor. What the...?
"Help!" my plea whispers into theheavy moisture laden atmosphere. Drawing in another, deeper breath, "HELP!"
Abruptly a radiant gold-orange glow appears interwoven within the brush strokes of water droplets.
"Are you ready to trust me?" the same voice queries.
"Yes, please help me."
Immediately all is as before. Clams, jellyfish and barnacles keep Brina afloat, while scallops' vision illuminates the way. Dogfish, skates, bluefish and eels pull a net around the stern, grab a line and swim in unison. Brina glides purposely forward.
"Thank you," I look around to see who I am talking to, "why no pranks?"
"That has never been our way, but just as you close your mind to your parents, your kind closes their minds to us."
"Oh...I'll have to think about that."
Abruptly I'm out of the fog and Brina pushes ashore.