annual.quest

CHAMBER I / JANUARY / 14°N 61°W

The Descent

I

Pterois volitans

lionfish · I

We descended the first time on the fourth of January, and the water held the color of a bruised pearl. The reef was sleeping. We left a coin on the second ledge, and a tin compass beside it, and a note written in indigo ink that said begin — a single word, undersigned, unsealed.

At twelve fathoms the light failed. We continued anyway, because that is the year's first instruction: do not turn back at the first cold register of the dark.

CHAMBER II / FEBRUARY / 18°N 64°W

The Slow Tide

II

Amphiprion ocellaris

clownfish · II

February is the month of the slow tide. We marked the lacquer-line at fourteen fathoms, and the kelp wrote our names in green script on the sand. Not all months are descent; some are the long horizontal drift along the shelf.

CHAMBER III / MARCH / EQUINOX

The Vernal Reliquary

III

Pomacanthus imperator

emperor angelfish · III

The equinox arrived as a brass plate of light at twenty fathoms. We set the second reliquary down and let the angelfish circle three times before we surfaced.

CHAMBER IV / APRIL / 22°N 67°W

The Long Pelagic

IV

Forcipiger flavissimus

longnose butterflyfish · IV

April we did not descend at all. The water was too warm, the sky a lacquer of mid-day brass. We rowed out and wrote the year's fourth chapter on the surface, in chalk, on the deck.

The chapter washed off by sundown. The page is the day, not the ink.

CHAMBER V / MAY / 24°N 70°W

The Trigger Hour

V

Balistoides conspicillum

clown triggerfish · V

At thirty fathoms a triggerfish unlocked the gate. We had no key; the gate was not for us; it opened anyway. May is the month that gives without asking.

CHAMBER VI / JUNE / SOLSTICE

The High Sun Below

VI

Acanthurus leucosternon

powder-blue tang · VI

The solstice descended with us. At sixty fathoms the sun was a coin pressed into a book of dark velvet. We held our breath through the longest day of the year and wrote nothing — the page was the silence.

CHAMBER VII / JULY / 16°N 60°W

The Reef at Noon

VII

Zanclus cornutus

moorish idol · VII

Noon at the reef. The moorish idol cut a banner across the water — black and gold and white in the order of an emperor's pennant. We followed it for thirty seconds and lost it forever.

Some chapters are written by the things that get away.

CHAMBER VIII / AUGUST / 19°N 65°W

The Lacquer Hour

VIII

Pomacanthus paru

french angelfish · VIII

August we stayed on the surface and lacquered the boat. The grain of the deck took the color in three coats, and at the third coat we understood that the year had been the third coat.

CHAMBER IX / SEPTEMBER / EQUINOX

The Autumn Reliquary

IX

Ostracion cubicus

yellow boxfish · IX

The boxfish is geometry made flesh. We met it at twenty-eight fathoms in September and were given a small, square lesson in carrying weight without complaint.

CHAMBER X / OCTOBER / 20°N 71°W

The Stone Garden

X

Rhinopias frondosa

weedy scorpionfish · X

October the reef wore its stone garments. The scorpionfish rose like a hedge that had decided to swim. We did not touch it. We did not name it aloud. We marked the day, and ascended.

Some entries in the ledger are entries by virtue of being unwritten.

CHAMBER XI / NOVEMBER / 17°N 63°W

The Currents Shift

XI

Hippocampus erectus

lined seahorse · XI

The seahorse arrived at forty fathoms and stood in the column of cold water like a bookmark left in last year's ledger. We kept the page.

CHAMBER XII / DECEMBER / SOLSTICE

The Final Surfacing

XII

Lampris guttatus

opah · moonfish · XII

The moonfish rose with us at the year's last fathom. December: a brass disc lifting through indigo water, the sky still a fathom above, and then no fathoms at all — the surface, the horizon, the unmoving line of the year's end.

We sealed the ledger with gold-leaf and indigo-velvet, and a single coral-lacquer dot for the year that had carried us. Mark it.

The Reef Procession