They say the sea has a way of remembering everything that crosses it. Every ship’s wooden carcass,
every little fish’s grave, every unanswered whale song, every sailor’s rotting heart; it collects history as it
collects lives. And on solitary nights when the wind blows the salt spray north toward the lighthouse
and the starfish hug their sandy rocks and the darkness of witching hour descends, those fragmented
memories resurface, just like anything else lost and buried. I went walking on such a night, when the
moon cast a silver pathway across the rippling water, and I will never stop regretting what I saw.
It was as if the waves had engulfed the stars, cradling those small sapphire lights in their dark
midnight bellies as they hissed along the pale shoreline. In reality, clumps of coarse algae drifted
aimlessly in the tide, fluorescing beneath inches of smooth black water. They clustered around
something floating in the sea a few feet from the coast: something solid and heavy, but slowly breaking
apart. Soaked in seawater, little pieces of flesh would shed from the floater, settling down into the sand
like some strange marine snow. But the algae clung fast to the unmoving figure, nestling in the
hollowed-out cuts on its body, the folds of its tattered clothing.
Mesmerized by the swirling bioluminescence, I didn’t dare step forward, but in the back of my
mind, a small detail registered with soft clarity: fastened upon one decaying finger was a wedding ring,
now illuminated by glowing algae that had worked itself between metal and skin.
It was then that the turmoil of the sea reached a foreign pitch, and a story began taking shape in
my mind, augmented by my restless audience. No one really came to this beach unless they were
intending to sail or to collect trinkets on the shore, and I doubted this man had drowned by gathering
seashells. Upon closer inspection, I saw that he was wearing a suit – dark and heavy with water, but a
suit nonetheless. It was strange for someone to go sailing in what I presumed to be a wedding suit,
unless…
And there was the story. He was sailing out on the day of his wedding to meet his bride when the
accident had happened. Perhaps she was pacing the clifftops near the lighthouse where her father
worked, her fingers choking her pocketwatch as she gazed at the horizon with a furrowed brow. When
exactly had she realized that he would never return?
I could picture it: her dreadful sanguine smile that preceded a permanent fixture of horror as she
tossed herself to the mercy of the sea.
It was a pleasant night, but I shivered.
Something cool and wet grasped my ankles, and I realized that my feet were submerged. I must
have been too entranced to notice that I’d stepped into the sea. Yet even as my heart stalled, I walked
further and further into the waves, toward the waterlogged man. With each step, a cloud of light
bloomed in the dark water.
I didn’t mean to touch him. The sea rose slightly as I approached, and he bumped gently into me.
I barely felt him; the water numbed my skin, and he could have been a clump of seaweed floating
forever in the sea, dragged out further and further by the tide until perhaps he would one day reunite
with the jagged wooden remains of his unfaithful ship.
This is where I have a confession to make: I am just as much of a collector as the sea is, only not in
the traditional sense. Others come to this beach to collect seashells, little pretty spirals and clams that

they can sell – along with their leather necklaces, witch-repellent charms, and sun-warmed pots – to the
few unlucky souls who wander by our town. I’ve found that such trinkets have a habit of
disintegrating; compelling stories are the rarest of all collectors’ items, and they will last forever.
I have always loved the sea, this mythical elixir of death: a vast unending struggle, centuries of
history trapped beneath a labyrinth of currents. It’s swallowed warships, merchants, aircrafts, weapons,
bodies, ashes, and still keeps them to this day, rocking them back and forth forever like a mother and
her infant. But even as it sighs softly upon some misty foreign shore, skirmishes could dye its pebbles
bloodred across national borders. It’s seen the birth of mankind and will long outlive its end. After we
are gone, there will still be a horizon to sail to. The sea will continue its deafening ceaseless violence,
lapping frantically at the rugged gray coast no matter how many stains incarnadine its surface. So how
improbable is it that it truly retains these memories – that when you gaze upon miles of moonlit silver
water, you are not merely seeing a perpetual emotionless expanse, but a collection of souls?
So when I reached out that night and held a corpse’s hand for a few seconds before sliding his ring
into my own, I promise that I meant no harm. I simply couldn’t bear to let him drift away, and cede the
symbol of his unsaid wedding vows to the shifting sand.
I wasn’t doing it for money, either. I am by no means affluent, but I can still appreciate
pricelessness, and I would never sell the ring. Instead, I knew from the beginning that it would make an
excellent addition to my wooden bookshelf, alongside the bottled messages and glass eyes of my
previous exploits.
In fact, I acted out of the noblest intentions. I like my simple life; preserving the memories of the
sea is my unending duty, my eternal tribute to the only collector as great as me.
And yet I’m here, writing this letter to whomever may find it, because these past few days I have
not had the strength to leave my bed. In all my years of living, I have never been this sickly pale, and I
have never been this terrified. For at night, the moon streams through my open window and the ring
gleams hatefully at me through the dark. Yesterday I heard a quiet burbling just beyond my door, and
the day before that, wet footsteps and something that sounded like the holed remains of a wedding suit
dragging against the planks.
One malignant silver eye watches me from its perch in the sky, reflecting beams of paralyzing light
and illuminating creatures I shudder to imagine. It must be roughly three hours after midnight: the
hour of the witch. The world is bathed in unsettling silence, and as far as I know, I could be the only
living soul for miles. I feel like the only living soul in the world.
And I think I have just heard a knock at the door.
I am afraid to leave my cabin. I am afraid to stay. When I close my eyes, I can see the groom and his
bride, reanimated by the witch’s moonshine, reunited in their undead glory as they rise from the waves
and cross the quiet gray sand beach. I can see them trailing rotted fingernails down my walls. To them,
my collection is thievery and I am no better than the ship that failed to bring them together.
Perhaps they are right. But I simply cannot make peace with the fact that this may well be my last
night on earth.
They say the sea has a way of remembering everything that crosses it. And that fateful night on the
beach, I must have crossed the sea, and I fear that it is coming to take me into its deathless midnight
heart.