Whale Song Lullabies
“Serene” by Sewkhy Tan
They're stuck again, hands and heads intertwined, neither of them willing to concede in their weekly game of Twister. Mom says it's the only way she can get my father to touch her, besides their nightly scheduled twenty-second hug. His idea, because it's supposed to be as good as taking melatonin. My mother admits that she rarely sleeps through the night, and instead of waking us, she listens to podcasts about dolphins and whales and wonders what it would feel like to be surrounded by the pounding pressure of deep water.
Everything she says to me while we wait in the parent drop-off line feels like she’s trying to say something else, but it’s a language I don’t understand. I rush through my work, handwriting barely legible, so I can look up facts about sea animals. Mom hums while she makes dinner, my words lost in the sound of chopped vegetables.
It’s my turn to flick the spinner to call out the color and the body part. My sister refuses to participate, says it’s cringe, like totally gross. She hasn’t had her first kiss yet, an though I’m four years younger, at ten, I’m already thinking about girls, enamored by their hair, the way their arms and legs glide through space, how awkward I feel standing in line at the drinking fountain, sweat like dew across my forehead.
Mom lifts her left hand, stretches for a blue circle underneath my father’s arched body. He’s a bridge and she’s the boat, and gravity hungers to bring them together. Quick, Dad says, and I flick and flick, calling out red left leg, green right arm, yellow right leg, right, right , right until we’re spinning in circles, and they come crashing down, foreheads meeting, both of them humming while I tell them about how sea turtles lay eggs, how the mothers leave their unborn buried and waiting for the sea to call them into its depths.
Middle of the night, the pressure of some faraway sea pushes on my mind, so I get up to pee, but the light in the bathroom creeps out the crack in the door. My sister stands in front of the mirror, lips pursed, waiting for something liquid. Down the hallway, I hope my mother sleeps, held by the shadows of the deep.
About the author
Tommy Dean is the author of two flash fiction chapbooks and a full flash collection, Hollows (Alternating Current Press 2022). He is the Editor of Fractured Lit and Uncharted Magazine. His writing can be found in Best Microfiction 2019, 2020, 2023, Best Small Fictions 2019 and 2022, Laurel Review, and elsewhere. Find him at tommydeanwriter.com and on Twitter @TommyDeanWriter.
About the artist
Sewkhy Tan is a 21-year-old Cambodian mixed media artist born and raised in Phnom Penh. His art is versatile, vivid, playful, and often surreal or dark. It addresses issues including mental health, living in a developing and rapidly changing country, and other things that live in the dark recesses of his mind. Sometimes it fuses traditional Cambodian techniques and topics with modern approaches, and at other times draws on his love for anime, fantasy and storytelling. His work has been exhibited locally and showcased internationally. While he is a skilled traditional artist and can sketch, draw and paint, he increasingly utilizes digital techniques. Instagram: @sewkhys_art.