"Over Down Under"

    When I decided to die, I didn’t think I’d miss the constellations.

    Because here in limbo, there aren’t any. Only a scattered sea of stars. They bob as I steer my old fishing trawler between them, an indigo cosmos glittering and rippling in my wake like water. A biting blizzard rakes my hair, stiffens my fingers, and powders my steering wheel white.

    Something slaps the hull. I blink snowflakes from my eyelashes and peer overboard.

    A sea lion, caught in my net. I haul him onboard; he smacks to the snowy deck, brown blubber quivering and dripping liquid ether, deep purple like the plum trees in Dad’s backyard.

    The sea lion shakes off the net and sniffs my tackle box, asking, ‘You have any fish here?’ 

    ‘Nah. Sorry, mate.’

    ‘Why the fishing boat then?’

    I point over the bow, past where the stars end. A dark, inky void waits for me. ‘Sailing there.’ 

   The sea lion flinches, eyeing that horizon. ‘And where’d you come from?’

    ‘Down Under. You?’

    ‘Galápagos.’ He watches another star fall behind. ‘Not many fish around there lately. I kept looking. Got too tired, too hungry. Sunk. Ended up here.’

    I tug my sleeves down.

    ‘You know.’ He heaves himself upright, dangling his flippers over the frosted railing. The trawler wobbles. ‘You’re too young to be dying.’

    Snow slides across the deck, unearthing two fishing poles by my feet. Something frozen inside me cracks; words pour out.

    ‘Lost my dad last week. Fishing with him was the only thing keeping me going.’ Tears thicken my voice. More freeze on my cheeks.

    Sometimes Dad and I just lounged on the deck, fingers plum-sticky, chatting until constellations winked through the darkness.

    My trawler passes the last star, its light fading.

    The sea lion gazes overboard. ‘There are other reasons to keep going.’ 

    ‘Like what?’

    ‘Dunno. That’s the point. You keep living to find them.’

    All the stars we’ve passed linger behind us. Even through the lashing blizzard, I can make shapes in those tiny dots: fishing poles hanging over a harbour, brimming tackle boxes, trees heavy with plums for the picking.

    ‘And until then, I’ll fish with you.’ He pauses, then adds, ‘Mate.’

    Shadowy tendrils creep from the void, eating at my trawler like dozens of uninvited thoughts.

    I free myself from the snow, tugging the steering wheel, but it’s frozen stiff. 

    ‘Wait.’ I yank again. ‘Wait, no!’

    ‘You don’t turn things around.’ He shakes his head. ‘You flip your perspective. Look down.’

    I do, leaning over the railing. A golden glow warbles underneath our wobbling trawler. Shiny fish circle its gleaming depths.

    He nods at it. ‘Down Under, right?’

    I nod too, holding my breath. We lurch forward and our trawler flips upside-down.

    We burst through an ocean. Drenched, salty and warm, gasping first breaths of briny air.

    My wheel defrosted, I steer us towards the landscape ahead: a city’s golden glow, a harbour bridge, opera house fins, and an inky skyscape of constellations winking over Down Under.