AWOL - A Short Story
This first appeared on my substack Oct. 2021
It started with a bet and a tattoo.
Basic training had ended, I was officially a Marine. Women only made up nine percent of the Marine Corp, the lowest percentage of all the armed forces. So, during the short interim, before I was sent for my Advanced Training, a fellow Leather Neck bet me that I wouldn’t get a tattoo, my first and only. After a round of the thickest nastiest Irish stouts I’ve ever tasted, I took the bet.
I’d just passed one of the most strenuous periods of my life in Basic. Getting a tattoo would be child’s play.
I wanted something beautiful but that also represented my new vocation. I chose a mermaid. One of those old-timey designs that sailors in the 20s would have chosen. I didn’t want to be at this place forever, it smelled like fruit scented vapes and sweat, so I just chose to get the design outlined. The stark black lines stood out on my brown flesh. I was surprised at the lack of pain. Cat scratches hurt more.
I woke up the next morning my mouth filled with the taste of saltwater. At the time I thought nothing of it, surely a hangover symptom. I brushed my teeth and tongue and replaced the brackish water taste with mint.
The craving for sea meat came later. Mama was so happy I was finally home even if it was only for a week before I shipped out. She asked me what I wanted for my last dinner before I left again. Unbidden from my mouth came the words, shrimp, crab, lobster, and squid. I’d never had a taste for a sea cornucopia as I had right then. Mama just smiled and said, “An Admiral’s Feast, anything for my baby”.
When the scales came I wasn’t as surprised as I should have been. In my defense, they started to litter my tattoo first. It was as if during my slumber the tattooist had come in to finish their art. It was beautiful, the scales shimmered opalescent, the colors shifting and changing with the light. But they began to spread.
How hard is it to cover your scales during PT exercises with your squad?
The heat at Camp Geiger in North Carolina was unrelenting. The humidity swole my coily hair. I sweated even standing still. And all I could think about was getting to the water. The cool water even called to me in my dreams. Topsail Beach was twenty-five miles from base. The weekend was two days away. My scales now covered my entire lower body. I showered at two in the morning, so no one saw.
Daybreak on Saturday, I snuck out of my barracks like a seahorse shooting out of the coral. I could think of nothing but the ocean. The sound of waves crashing echoed in my ears like a song I couldn’t get out of my head.
At the beach, my feet took me north. They felt heavy and foreign, and I knew that the water would be my salvation, but I still trudged north. Until I reached a sign.
Ocean City Beach, NC
I made my way down the beach and found the pier. I looked over the sides at the waves crashing against the aged lumber and I jumped into its depths. Never to be seen on land again.
To learn more about Ocean City Beach, NC, the first beach to allow Black people to own land in NC and the Ocean City Fishing Pier which was at the time the state’s only ocean fishing pier that was open to people of color. PLEASE VISIT:
Copyright © 2021 by Kenesha Williams
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at kenesha@keneshawilliams.com
Kenesha Williams is an author, screenwriter, speaker, and Founder/Editor-in-Chief of Black Girl Magic Lit Mag a speculative fiction literary magazine.
She took to heart the advice, "If you don't see a clear path for what you want, sometimes you have to make it yourself," and created a speculative fiction literary magazine featuring characters that were representative of the diversity of Black womanhood.
Kenesha has been a panelist and speaker at StokerCon, the Horror Writers of America convention; Boskone, the longest-running science fiction & fantasy convention in New England; ECBACC, the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention; and BSAM, the Black Speculative Arts Movement convention.
As an, essayist she has written for, Time Magazine’s millennial imprint, Motto, Fireside Fiction, and I Am Black Sci-Fi, among other publications. Kenesha is also a screenwriter who is in pre-production on a horror web series and a short horror film.