The Skeleton Woman

"There is an Inuit tale about a woman who, for reasons no one remembers anymore, was thrown off a cliff into the sea by her father. She was eaten alive by the fish, who took her eyes and her flesh, until she became nothing but a skeleton haunting the waves.

Despite the abundance of fish, all the fishermen avoid that region, afraid of the skeleton woman. But one day, a foreign fisherman, unaware of the local legend, feels something heavy tug at his line and thinks, "I've caught a big one," believing his luck was about to change. 

That happens to us sometimes — we hook something bigger than we can handle.

With the skeleton woman on the line, he starts to pull, and the more he pulls, the more entangled she becomes. Until — to the fisherman's horror — she is entirely inside the boat. Terrified, he tries to escape: he sails the boat to shore and then runs home in panic. But the skeleton woman follows — the two still somehow tangled together. When he reaches home, the fisherman simply accepts her presence and lets her in.

By candlelight, she no longer looks so scary, and he begins the process of untangling her. He could have waited for the sun to rise, but it is exactly here — exactly where we are — that the work must begin. In the middle of the effort to free her from the line, he grows sleepy and allows himself to fall asleep, even with a monster in his house.

The skeleton woman watches him sleep.

She already knows.

Women are comfortable with death — they understand cycles.

Sometimes, when human beings sleep, a tear escapes from the eye of a dreamer. We never quite know what kind of dream causes it, but we know it's either sadness or longing. And that's what happened with the man. During her watch, a tear slips from his eyes.

That tear is like a river, and the skeleton woman drinks it — drinking until she quenches the thirst of so many years. That bond begins to feed on vulnerability: I'm suffering, but I'll let my pain bring you closer.

The skeleton woman hears his heart beating — like a strong drum. She comes closer, pulls out his heart, and drums on it from both sides as she begins to sing. And at that moment, her body regains flesh, eyes, and hair. She slips into bed and lies beside him, skin to skin. And then she gives the great drum — his heart — back to his body.

And that's how they woke up: still entangled, but now in a different way.

People swear it's true. And that that's all they know."

I am the fisherman. 

I am the skeleton woman.

I am also her father. And I am the cliff, the sea, and the fishing lines. I am especially the haunted streams.

(And so are you.)

— For B.