A red sign with a glaring skull warned of land mines in the dunes. The dunes ran for a half mile, alongside gray craters. Beyond them lay a frothing shoreline. But from the dark edge of the forest Aaron saw only the submarine. Aaron knew the old rotting submarine struck a sea mine decades ago and had beached. The blast had torn open the stern, leaving an ugly wound in its steel surface from which its metal guts spilled forth onto the gray sand. And Aaron could not stop looking at it. The wreck called to him, even from half a mile away. It was so beautiful yet so alien that he felt, overpoweringly, that he must see it, and touch it, up close. And so he began to walk toward it.
“Aaron.”
Hearing the voice of his father, Aaron stumbled to a stop ten paces from where the sand began. He knew he should not be walking out there. And yet as he turned to face his father his eyes lagged behind his head. The metal carcass sparkled brightly under the cloudy sky. It was studded with sharp salt crystals and carpeted by soft algae and now seemed to him so close that maybe if he just leaned over he could reach out and brush it.
His father huffed. “Aaron, land mines. Come on. It’s not safe out there.”
Aaron, having dragged his head back at his father, had to squint to see the man. Even just ten steps away, his father’s normally imposing figure had suddenly become a shrunken miniature. Aaron blinked, but the small outline of his father still bled into the edge of the forest, a forest which now in his eyes looked small and distant too. He could barely make out the features of his face. Aaron easily turned back toward the enormous submarine, which now, though he knew it still lay half a mile away, consumed his entire vision. He took another firm step into the cold sand. He relished the sight. The conning tower, adorned with a bent crown of antennas which danced in the gusts of wind, soared into the sky. “Can’t I just… take a look?”
His father’s reply came all muddled. It didn’t matter, anyway. And then he was running through the pitted sand, where the thin rusted rods of mines stuck up here and there, half-buried like teeth. That did matter, that strange, dizzying, beautiful wreck. He had to see it up close. It called to him, pulling him closer, magnetically, like a piece of metal had been embedded in his chest. And then he was right in front of it.
The submarine smelled like blood, dead fish, and wet salt. The normally deep, booming shout of Aaron’s father was now nearly imperceptible. That whisper was no match for the cold constant winds which sounded through its flaky rust holes like air through a flute. It was no match for its rhythmic heartbeat, a length of chain, long since detached from its anchor, banging the side of its monstrous hull. Aaron reached out and touched the gritty, salty metal.
And it was warm. And soft. Softer than metal should be. His blood rushed to his hand. In a moment his body was numb everywhere except for his hand which he thought had never been warm, not until now, not this kind of warm. Then it was hot. It was so hot that it blinded every other sense. He felt his heart push more blood, faster, each beat landing in time with the vibration from the chain which now thrashed the side of the wreck over and over as the wind blew against it, a wind which no longer whistled through the little holes but screamed so loud it cut new ones. And in the scream he heard his name, echoed, over and over again.
Aaron only touched the broken-down submarine for a moment. His father, having sprinted after him, seized his arm and ripped him away. They shouted at each other, but his father—whose grip was firm, calloused, and inescapably cold from years of work—simply dragged him from the old ship.
The chain struck the hull, much quieter now. Aaron heard it even as they crossed the dunes the same way back in silence.
“Dad, I swear the submarine said my name, it said, Aaron, Aaron.”
His father did not speak.
“But dad, it said my name. And it was hot, and it said my name.”
Aaron’s father paused, both of his big boots balanced on one little footprint in the sand. “I ought to never let you come out of the goddamned house.” He steadied his balance by moving one boot to the outline of another footprint in the sand. “That imagination of yours is just trouble. For you and me both…”
His father’s voice cracked and he trailed off, but his cheeks and ears still burned a feverish, uneven red. Aaron stopped talking. They resumed their slow walk. He rubbed his hand on his shirt, but the salt clung, gritting under the skin.
That night Aaron awoke choking, with salt on his tongue and his palm slick with spit. His sheets smelled like brine. Wind and rain pelted the little window of his little dark room, and droplets licked the inside edges of the thin wood frame. He lay there and listened to the rain. And his heart beat rhythmically, almost outside his chest, like the chain.
Aaron came to his feet and grabbed his glass from the nightstand, rinsing his mouth with water. He opened his window partways and spit it out. But his mouth still tasted of salt and now he could swear he could hear the chain, distant and quiet but also discernible, and crisp, making its way directly into his room along with the rain which now pooled on the windowsill.
Aaron shut the window, mopped it with a rag, went back underneath his brine sheets. But he could not sleep, laying there in the dark, still tasting salt, and now metal. He could not sleep, listening to the wind and the rain and that chain, distant, quiet, but most certainly there. He lay there, his eyes burning the ceiling, for half an hour. At last he resolved to try rinsing his mouth again. He reached for his glass but it was empty. He stood up, pulled on his shirt, and padded his way down the creaking steps outside his room.
Downstairs near the kitchen sink where Aaron filled his waterglass, the door to his father’s workshop stood half open, swaying back and forth on its hinges, blown by gusts of winds from within. Aaron set his glass at the edge of the sink, crossed the room, and looked inside. His father had left a window open, through which now the moonlight, wind, and rain poured in. Aaron stepped inside the dark room.
Aaron hated coming in here. His father built metal bodies from scrap. There were piles of half-made figures, with ribs of bent rebar and joints bolted from scavenged hinges. Some were small as dogs, and some loomed twice his height, as tall as men. Some were hooked to the ceiling. As Aaron walked through the cramped room, his shadow mixed with theirs, laying across the floor like a second set of bodies.
On the bench by the window, on top of a pool of collecting rainwater, lay a plate of curved steel, studded with sharp salt crystals. Aaron touched it with his finger and felt the grit grind his skin. It was the same as the submarine’s hull. And it was strangely warm.
When he let go he shivered. Above him another figure dangled from a hook, unfinished. It had carefully bent iron rods for bones; it had hundreds of wires like capillaries which ran from its hands and feet into its hollow chest, where, unconnected, they danced in the gusts of wind. In the darkness he thought he saw the faintest motion in its empty eye sockets.
The top drawer of the bench was half open. Inside were sketches, on bright white paper, which sponged the water from the open window. Aaron slid the heavy wooden drawer further open. There were hundreds of pages. Silhouettes of machines shaped like men, their black ink bleeding in the water; rough figures crossing a field, their metal hands lifting up rods out of sand; maps of the coastline covered in dots. And then there was another page, off to the side of the drawer. It was different. Written in red. The figure was rendered with incredible detail, on yellowed paper with frayed edges. And it was smaller, younger, like that of a boy.
“Aaron.”
His father’s voice, low and sharp, came from the doorway. Aaron turned around, startled. His father’s eyes glinted, and his large hand gripped the doorknob tight.
“You shouldn’t be in here.”
Aaron pointed to the window. “I didn’t want it to get wet.”
His father crossed the cluttered room in three strides and slammed the window shut, placing his large frame between the desk and Aaron. “Fine. But go back to bed.” He paused. “Now.”
So Aaron went back upstairs, back under his brine sheets. But he could not sleep, still tasting salt and metal. In the distance, muffled, again, he heard the faint rhythm of the chain.
At dawn he went back. The wind had blown over the little red sign, whose skull now glared only at the mud. Gulls circled overhead. Aaron found the footprints he had left the day before undisturbed and still dry, though the sand around them had melted into mud. They led across the dunes to the submarine which once more reached out across the half-mile stretch and invited him closer. He heard its voice again. Aaron. Aaron. He stepped into the footprints one by one, small foot into small hollow, fitting perfectly, until the submarine was all he could see.
“I came back,” he whispered, though he had no sense of speaking. Aaron. Aaron. “Yes, I’m back.”
He reached out again to the metal, which seemed to bend out towards him too, its soft surface embracing his hand once more. The chain rang out again in the cold, cutting wind, which swirled around him. Aaron. Aaron. “I’m here!” he yelled at the metal, “I’m here!” he yelled again, his calls drowned out by the screaming winds. But his hand did not grow warm, like before. At once he felt his freezing body, his wet shirt blown tight to his ribcage, which was cold and hard, like steel. Aaron. Aaron. “Why won’t you listen to me!” he shouted, but the metal chain merely beat louder and the winds blew harder. It was cold. He needed to go home. He removed his hand from the salt-gritted metal which no longer clung to his skin. Oh, Aaron… He took a step back, but his bare foot caught on a thin, rusted rod, a tooth half-buried in the sand. It clicked.
Then Aaron saw light, blinding, roaring, exploding up and through the sand, and warmth, warmer and more complete than he had ever felt before. He could not think. Then he felt nothing at all.