Tides by Meg Pokrass

Last night my husband rolled over in bed and, in a panic, demanded I let the baby sea turtles in.

“They’re too hot,” he said. It was midnight. I looked at him, wondering if I was dreaming it up. We lived in the desert and our dog died last spring and he was having nightmares. I would have been angry at his tone, but I hugged him and told him that one day we would love another dog.

He went back to sleep, and I stood in the corner of the bedroom watching him. A slice of moonlight angled through the window and as he snored, spittle on his chin shone like a beacon. His mouth caved open, and I could imagine baby sea turtles crawling out.

In the morning, he claimed to have no memory of the dream. “I think baldness looks fine on me,” he said, staring in the bedroom mirror.

I could have hugged him and suggested we drive to the shore, but I knew he didn’t want me to feel sorry for him. Instead, I googled “baby sea turtles” and watched videos of them swimming from a sheltered cove to the sea.

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This afternoon he plunks down his glass of stout and the dark liquid gushes out like a wave.

“What are you looking at?” he asks. It’s as if sometimes his face remembers how to smile.

“Baby sea turtles,” I say. In one of the new YouTube videos, a hatchling dives into a wave and rides the current out to sea.

“They’re hatching at a lower-than-average rate thanks to rising waters,” says a voiceover and I turn off the sound. He holds out his hand to me and I accept it. Spider veins sprout from deep within his flesh and liver spots stain him like water lilies.

“The nice thing about the tides is that they create new water,” I say, and he agrees. I hook his fingers into mine: he’s easy to grab. I can smell the sadness in his breath and snuggle into his hip. With his arm around my shoulder, I’m aware of how the path outside our door only leads to an artificial pond.

It’s always been too hot in this kitchen, I think, imagining how stuck a small animal might feel. We live in an arid landscape where water evaporates as soon as it is released.

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We agree to sell our place in the desert and buy a small cottage on Padre Island in Texas—a place known for its sea turtles. If there is a structure available, no matter how tiny and flawed, we will crawl inside it and make it work. I imagine us doing this together and my heart grows calm—as if lulled by the image of baby sea turtles swimming next to us as we sleep.

With a beach life in mind, the two of us sit at the computer, feeling excited. However, on the real estate websites all the places we could possibly afford read SOLD OVER ASKING.

I go back to watching a video entitled “Swimming Frenzy” in which sea turtle hatchlings rush into a patch of water where they will be less susceptible to shorebirds.

“Maybe it was never about the dog,” my husband says. There’s a spin cycle in his eyes, as if the old water has finally been drained away.

“We need to be patient with ourselves,” I reply, as he strokes his scalp to comfort the few remaining hairs.

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MEG POKRASS — Meg is the author of The First Law of Holes: New and Selected Stories (Dzanc Books, 2024) and eight previous collections of flash fiction and two novellas in flash. Her work has been published in three Norton anthologies, including Flash Fiction America, New Micro,and Flash Fiction International; Best Small Fictions, Wigleaf Top 50; and numerous literary magazines including Electric Literature, New England Review, Five Points, Washington Square Review, and Passages North. Meg is the founding editor of New Flash Fiction Review, festival curator of Flash Fiction Festival UK,and founding/managing editor of the Best Microfiction anthology series. 

Art by KARISSA HO — Karissa is a writer and painter. Her work has appeared in Red Ogre Review, Humphrey Magazine, Radar Poetry, and JMWW, among others. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she studies English literature and economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a very fast walker.