VALERY KONINGSBRUGGE

The water felt cold at my feet despite the summer sun. Ripples followed me as I ran across the clear blue liquid. The sun was unbearable because it was searing my back and reflecting off the water to shine in my eyes.

I am the leader of a pack of Wayfarers, but I am treated like an errand boy. I never get the moment to appreciate the water that I run on. It is ultimately a platform for us, but it is an environment for the Floaters.

We do not enjoy its presence, especially when it is angry at us and lashes out at us in the form of never-ending waves. But I find it so fascinating that we would not live without it and therefore, we coexist parallel to it.

The sweat that poured from my pores could not be told different from the water that splashed against my bare legs. My seaweed string nearly slid off my waist, exposing my private parts if it did. It was our only form of clothing and it was so useless and substantially common that I hoped it would slide off and sink into the water. I wish I could sink into the water. I always wonder how my life would have turned out if I was born a Floater instead of a Wayfarer. Would it be better? Probably. But I was proud of my upbringing and the life I've cared to live as a Koningsbrugge.

Floaters have many more jobs than Wayfarers. All we do is travel and spend our shells on necessities to roam the Earth. Shells are the currency of the ocean. They are spent at markets. Markets are located in underwater stations which is where I've been running tiredly towards. I'm not too tired though because I've been waiting for my little companion to catch up now and then.

Her thin feet barely caught the water, barely had to implant itself into the liquid. It was much harder as an adult as time wore out my feet and my mind would wander with them. The girl's name was Molly. She didn't talk much, but neither does anyone in my pack because they're all children. I am the leader of children that are basically mute. I have tried to teach them to speak, but their mouths, tongues and throats are silent in voice and quiet in pronunciation. Molly, specifically, is an ultracrepidarian who thinks she knows better than me and displays it through writing it on stone.

I am the errand man of the pack because it is my responsibility to take care of them, but this errand run was not with the purpose of buying necessities from the market. I had to purchase a crate of binoculars to bring back to the settlement above water. The settlement for my pack is a huddle of inflatable beds, designed and produced by the Floaters. Floaters didn't recognise the potential in air, so we had to convince them. Now they make everything out of air for our livelihood because we are never in debt. Shells never run out for us because we can find them washed up on rocks that etch from the bottom floor when the water is more shallow. We are the rich, but we are not the makers. Whenever we wanted to travel, we would deflate the beds and carry them on our backs; the synthetic seaweed material slipping at times because of our perspiration.

I reached the pipeline opening, my feet skidding to a stop. A broad stack of glass swiveled open and the pipe mouth rose a few feet above the surface, enough to avoid the water. Glass had been discovered and is still made by smelting sand over the underwater volcanoes. This is also another job of the Floaters which I am fortunate not to be doing. A bubble popped upon the pipe's transformation, probably from the compression of air, and for a moment I thought it was one of mine. I knew it wasn't because mindlessly blowing bubbles only serviced small, delicate bubbles. No other Wayfarer has the gift that I carry. I can blow bubbles from my mouth that can entrap people if big enough. I don't know where or when I adopted the talent, but it was the only thing I was proud of. Even if others were disgusted and repulsive of it.

Molly expressed a silent call of patience to me. I could tell she was playing a game with her feet - hopscotch or something. It annoyed me that she was wasting time, but she had insisted she come with me to buy the binoculars this early in the morning. I always went to the market early; less customers and opening venues with fresh stock and sales. Less consumers would be the reason for the emptiness around this pipeline. I was purchasing binoculars for the pack because the iceberg was close to melting down to the mystery. Not long ago, a pack of Wayfarers discovered an iceberg, only covering ten metres of land area. It is the sole iceberg in the known world.

The smartest Wayfarers and Floaters studied the iceberg, from under and above water. They came to the conclusion that something lies at the centre of the iceberg. Cracking into it could risk unnecessary exposure. So the tribes have waited and waited, and soon, we will see what manner of revelation lies under the ice.