\pla-ˈsti-sə-tē\
an excerpt

Marlie James was underwater.

But Marlie was dead. She knew this. Even though she could feel herself floating in the cold and murky water, there was no life in her body, sans the fish that nibbled at her intestines, which spilled out from her sliced belly. She had been in the water for a long time, weeks even. She was way past the bath time pruning phase; her skin had started to turn greenish-black and was slipping off her hands and feet altogether.

Part of her skull had been smashed in; gray matter poked through the shards of bone. What remained of her hair streamed out from her head, thousands of dark silken threads waving like gossamer tentacles. The air in her body had long been replaced by the frigid water and gas, bloating her once slim frame. Marlie could feel the heavy sand that had washed into her mouth, down her throat, the accumulation of mud having crushed her lungs. The salt stung as if she had millions of paper cuts over her entire body. She floated on her stomach, facing the ocean floor. Despite the fact that nothing remained of her brown eyes other than the sockets that they once occupied, Marlie could see small fish swimming among the plastic trash that sat on the sand.

She hovered just above the bottom of the ocean, her small corpse moving with push and pull of the tide. She wondered how she had got there and why her stomach was essentially turned inside out. She couldn’t remember anything leading up to this moment. One day she had been alive. Now, she wasn’t.

There was a tapping noise coming from somewhere far away; almost a rattle. Was it dolphins? Marlie could almost feel her collapsed heart swell at the thought of finally being able to swim with the dolphins. The noise got progressively louder and faster until it sounded like it was emanating from right in front of her emotionless face. Tap. Tap.

It was not dolphins.

Tap. Tap.

Taptaptap.

***

Marlie awoke with a jolt. Her eyelids popped open and her body convulsed so violently that her chest slammed into her steering wheel.

Taptaptap.

It was raining. The raindrops hit the roof of Marlie’s Toyota Tacoma sounded like a woman clicking her nails against a flat surface. As Marlie started to focus her eyes in the dark, she could make out a swing set and a slide.

A playground? Marlie thought to herself. How the fuck did I end up at a playground?

Marlie rubbed her chest where it had hit the wheel. Her entire body was sore and it was cold inside of the truck. She yawned and stretched her arms in front of her, her black ski jacket crinkling when she moved.

Marlie looked towards her right towards the passenger seat. Her purse sat on the floor, amidst CD cases and empty Aquafina water bottles. Eyeing the canvas bag warily, she leaned over and picked it up; rifling through, it appeared as though everything was still there; wallet, cell phone, iPod, digital camera, chapstick. Her pink and black scarf, that her best friend Lily had knitted for her earlier that winter, was crumbled into a ball on the seat next to her. Marlie picked up the scarf and had wrapped it around her neck, burrowing her face into the soft wool.

She yawned again, closed her eyes, and pressed her gloved hands against her face. “What the hell?”

Her voice echoed inside of her head as she asked the question out loud. Her mouth was dry; she could still taste the saltiness of the sea on her tongue. Marlie pushed her hands harder against her closed eyes, trying to balance out the pressure that was thundering at the back of her head. Her black gloves felt rough against her cheeks.

The rain began to pound against the top and hood of her truck. Marlie removed her hands from her face and rested them on top of the steering wheel. She noticed that her keys were still in the ignition. She looked out the window at the motionless swing set again; she recognized the playground as the one at the elementary school near her apartment complex. At least she wasn’t far from home. Marlie buckled her seat belt, turned the key, and steered her truck out of the parking lot.