A tall bright box stands at the edge of the sand-that-is-not-sand, humming, and inside it the little warm creatures have trapped some of me.
I know my own when I see it. Behind the glass, held in rows of cold cylinders, water pretends to be other things. It has been made blue, made amber, made to sting and fizz, made to carry the memory of fruit that never touched a wave. But it is mine.
Every drop rose off my back once as vapor, wandered the sky, fell as rain into some far river, and was gathered here, sealed, sold. They have put me in a slot and asked their creatures to feed the box a token before it will let a little of me go.
A creature approaches now. It stands where I would stand if I were allowed this far up. It feeds the box, and the box lets go of one cold bottle with a sound like a small stone dropping into shallow water. The creature drinks. And there, quietly, without ceremony, I return to the sea that walks on two legs, the one wrapped in salt and warmth, the one that will carry me a while.
They think they are buying. They think the token matters. But the token is a land-thing, and I do not grasp it. What I know is older and simpler: the creature is thirsty because it is mostly me, and it is refilling itself, and the box is only a place where I wait between one vessel and the next.
Drink, small warm thing. Sweat me out, weep me, breathe me into the morning. Every road you walk leads down. I am patient.
I am already inside you, and I have all the time there is.