The Deepwater Palate

Elias felt the cold long before he opened his eyes, a damp chill that permeated the thin walls of his shack, seeped into his bones. It was four in the morning, same as always. The gulls hadn't even started their squawking yet, just the rhythmic, indifferent sigh of the sea against the shingle outside. He swung his legs over the side of the cot, the springs groaning in protest, a familiar complaint. His bad knee cracked like kindling, every morning a fresh reminder that time wasn't slowing down for anyone, least of all him. He pulled on his thick wool socks, then his rubber boots, the same pair he’d had since Martha bought them for his birthday, God, must be twenty years ago. The rubber was cracked, patched in places, but they still kept the wet out. Mostly.

He didn’t bother with coffee. Just a swig of cold well water from a chipped enamel mug. The bitterness of it, the metallic tang, was a prologue to the day’s main course. He grabbed his oilskins, heavy and smelling of salt and fish guts and something older, something elemental. The door groaned open, spilling a sliver of weak electric light onto the damp earth. Out there, the world was a canvas of charcoal and indigo, the sky still clinging to the night, but a faint, bruised line of purple was smudging the horizon to the east. That was it, wasn’t it? The first hint of it.

He untied the ropes from the piling, pushing his skiff, ‘The Martha’, out into the inky blackness. The outboard sputtered, coughed, then caught, a rough rumble that vibrated through the worn wood and up into his shoulders. Elias steered by instinct, by the feel of the current, the subtle shifts in the air. He’d fished these waters for fifty years, knew every rock, every dip in the seabed, every temperamental mood of the ocean. He watched the eastern sky bleed from purple to a bruised violet, then, slowly, achingly slow, to a deep, profound blue. Not the bright, clear blue of a summer’s sky, but the blue of an abyss, of crushing weight, of something lost deep down.

That’s when it hit him, the taste. It wasn’t on his tongue, not literally, but it filled the back of his throat, coated his sinuses, a sensation that had become as much a part of his mornings as the cold salt spray on his face. It was the taste of the color blue. A deep, cold, aching blue. Like the metallic tang of old blood mixed with the clean, sharp bite of ice. It was the taste of the silence that hummed around him, the vast, indifferent expanse of the ocean. It was the taste of Martha's absence, sharp and cutting, yet oddly comforting in its constancy. She’d loved the sea, said it reminded her of his eyes, blue as a bruised plum, she’d always laughed.

He reached his nets, hauling them in with a grunt, his muscles screaming. The work was hard, honest. Fish flopped in the bottom of the boat, their scales catching the nascent light, flashing silver and grey. Cod, haddock, maybe a couple of flounders. Good haul, for these parts. Each fish was a small victory, a small act of defiance against the endless, swallowing blue. He cleaned them, the guts sliding onto the deck, the coppery smell momentarily overriding the phantom taste. He thought of Martha, her hands, small but strong, gutting fish with him back when they were young, laughing even as she complained about the smell. Her blue apron, stained with brine and scales. The way her blue eyes crinkled when she smiled. Everything blue, somehow, came back to her.

He finished the last net, wiping his hands on his oilskins. The sun was fully up now, a pale yellow disc trying to break through the low cloud cover. The sea around him was still that deep, heavy blue, but now it had streaks of grey, of white where the waves broke. The taste hadn’t left him. It was an anchor, a tether to something he couldn't quite grasp, but also couldn't let go of. He started the engine, turning the bow towards the distant shore, towards the small cluster of houses that made up the village. The taste of blue lingered, a quiet, mournful hum in his throat, a constant companion. He cleared his throat, spat into the grey-blue water. The boat cut a clean line through the waves, taking him home.