By Ryan Masters
“Whatever is rejected from the self, appears in the world as an event.”
Twenty feet beneath the sea.
I skimmed the bottom of the cove, probing a mosaic of algae, sponges, limpets, and barnacles. My focus skittered like a ravenous crab, picking its way across a vast scatter of storm-tossed stones. It poked its head down holes and peered through a swaying curtain of kelp stalk and rockweed.
Seeking, seeking, seeking the smooth and lustrous wink of treasure . . . nephrite jade.
But for the ticks and pings and creaks inside my skull, it was silent down here. I kicked past an overhang. A fat lingcod lurked in the shadows. Intriguing, but not jade. My brain chugged oxygen from my lungs. Just a few more seconds and I would be forced to resurface for air.
A disquieting alarm rang deep within one of the older functions of my brain. It was not responding to any discernible motion or a sound—simply to a presence. Something was behind me. Cautiously, I turned. I was fac…
