When God Opened Her Eyes

She appears to be kneeling. An outline. Neon red. Blood, against the absolute blackness.

—Shhhh, Monk says. Shhhh.

He must have fallen asleep. A different sort of darkness.

—Huh? he says.

—Quiet, Monk whispers. Don’t move. Anxious. His loose black shirt. And the slender golden crucifix.

He sits up, blinks. Says, —Huh?

The woman appears to be kneeling. The woman appears to be a woman. The ocean floor barren. Behind and to either side of her. A bleak wet desert snuff-colored. For miles. And miles. Nothing. Before her about twenty feet of nothing. And then the Plinko. Hovering a couple of feet above the surface. This weird world of gloom. Her eyes huge. Pupils expanded. And this so dramatically as to have done away with iris. With sclera. Just a bit of opaqueness viscous. Reacting to the incredible pressure. This sudden intrusion of light. Otherwise just wide-eyed blackness. One third of her face invisible. Eaten. Consumed by the outer darkness.

But yes.

The outline of a skull. A spectral sort of band, red. In spectrum argon meeting, bleeding into ultraviolet. Coloring what is her neck. Which falls unmistakably into shoulder. And this—in red—unrolling to define her back. Which rounds to inform her rear end. From the curve of her shoulder two brilliant red lines descending. At a bit of an angle. Perfectly vertically. An arm. Terminating in nothing. Meaning that she does not have hands. Or that her hands are not illuminated. Ever. Or, maybe, just presently. Maybe her hands are dug into the sand. Only he, Asan, has been told that this grey desert, the bottom of this nameless trench, is more rock than sand. Where inverted islands are separated from each other by interminable stretches of Abyssal Hills. And these alienated by their endless Plains.

A fish, negatively buoyant, floats in front of the window, suspended in this inverted space. Another, partly silver-black and white, flashes on and off, its bioluminescence fantastic and mysterious. Here. Where an animal’s eyes often evolve to become so large as to not only become the creature’s dominant feature, but, in appearance, ridiculous. More humorous, it has been pointed out to Asan, because these eyes, despite their size, are essentially worthless.

This is not true of the woman before them. Like a deep sea fish, her eyes have evolved not as a consequence of sunlight, but of bioluminesence. And in part her own. Sensitive not to the monochromatic blue light from the down-welling sun, but to the broader range of color that does not exist except as the result of chemiluminesence.

What would humans? Or, Asan thinks, What part of me …. What part of myself would evolve solely as a result of my own thoughts …. Of reflections turned inward?

There is a creature beside her. The animal uses its fins to stand. Is this a pet? This is only his first dive. Asan understands absolutely nothing. But even way down here. At the bottom of everything. So much life. Strange mollusks. Starfish. Large animals, these, with arms curled so that they assume in appearance a human skeleton’s ribcage. Factor in their descent. Their slow, deliberate plunge through the various depths of the ocean’s identified zones. And Asan, so submerged, has seen more different life forms in these past several hours than throughout thirty years walking the earth’s surface. He wants to ask Monk what she is, but it is clear. He knew.

Asan knows.

There is enough red, though. By degree of gradation. Although the Woman occasionally flickers. Not like a broken bulb. No. But as though she were the faulty socket. Still, Asan makes out that Her arm is in front of her leg. Clear, the red outline of her thigh. Her hamstring. And Her knee, which rounds at its cap. Here begins, or is so concentrated—who knew / who knows—a thicker, a duller, a less radiant red. Which intensifies to mark Her abdomen. And this swelling to outline the considerable heft of a breast. Which is, of course, incredibly buoyant. Directly beneath this the suggestion of Her other knee, raised.

Asan makes to look for feet.

It is as he has thought. Given the impression of her position fully formed, one foot is obscured. But the other is visible. It glows right there before him. Her toes like Christmas lights. Although this—Her toes—might be more of an illusion. The power of suggestion. This being all very foreign.

A plan in the heart of man. How this is like deep water. And how this takes insight. A person of understanding. To draw forth from the wellspring of consciousness. Of perspective. Asan had read this, or something like it, somewhere before. Here we are. Unique, eternal aspects of awareness. With an infinity of potential. Yet we. As a race. A species. The most dominant. The most powerful creatures to have ever lived. Look how we have allowed ourselves to evolve into an unthinking. Into an unquestioning blob. It is pathetic. One does not have to read about this particular phenomenon to know that it is true.

The submersible, which Monk had long since set to ‘stealth’, awakes. Something in the system triggering a needed response. Asan knows nothing about technology. Even less about science. The Plinko was developed. Tested. And, ultimately, trusted. If something happened to Monk, there is a button. All Asan has to do is press this button (which, the size of a hockey puck, is centered upon the main control panel) and the computers will take over. He will be delivered to the surface.

This is the extent of his knowledge. His understanding. Which, as it has been explained to him, is fine. He is not there to operate anything. Rather, Asan’s purpose is to ….

…. This. Asan’s purpose. This was never articulated. Yes. Within his contract—which runs twenty-plus pages—there are hundreds. There are thousands of words. But none of these state why he, specifically, has been selected to participate in the Mission. But it is implied—if you carefully examine the Benefits and Bereavement clauses—that he is here primarily to see what will happen. To a human being. Who, after penetrating the skin of the sea, descends to depths that, even one generation before, were considered unfathomable.

He knew that it would be totally dark. That the temperature would drop. He knew something about the bends from Radiohead. That there would be life. What he doesn’t know are the specifics. That which Monk knew. That which Monk knows. Pressure one hundred times one percent of volume …. How this latest submersive is reinforced with 12 cm acrylic by 900 m something or other which equals ….

It is not so much that Asan is confused, as he is disinterested. (It is that sort of thing.) He is the crash test dummy. Asan is an ATD. If he perishes, no one will mind. But the Plinko. If something happens to Monk, Asan is, it has been determined, capable of pushing a button. Of resurrecting one impossibly expensive piece of technology. Monk is what Corporate considers Talent. Asan, if considered at all, is not considered anything.

Whatever had happened—oxygen being released into the chamber / something mechanical owing to heating or cooling—the vessel made a great enough sound. Or caused enough by way of fluctuation. A disturbance that the Woman registers …. No. Owing to Her stillness, the Woman most certainly was abreast of their presence. What happened is that the Woman became uncontrollably alarmed. The Plinko awoke in her instinct.

It is strange, what happens next. Asan is certain that the Woman is human. As human as a creature like She can be. But physically? If not physiologically exact? It matters not. The Woman is human. Arms. Legs. Hands. Feet. Three dimensions. All that. Perhaps the visual is a result of the submersible’s highly specialized lights. But the Woman, as opposed to darting off like a fish—or running, like a person—seems slowly to fade from view. Her body flattening. And the red like the air inside a balloon popped. Dissipating. Her side—or sides—turning the silver of a mirror, reflecting, Asan is fairly certain, some blue spectrum of light cast from the Plinko.

And then, like that, the Woman is gone.

Or, Asan thinks, maybe She is just not visible.