Shallow Breath

51

Jackson




Kate catches up with Jackson in the corridor, grabbing his arm. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Jackson.’

He presses the button to call the elevator. ‘Kate, the whole lot of you are crazy. Your entire plan is way beyond risky. You don’t have to do this.’

As the lift arrives with a cheerful ding, he steps in, but Kate holds the door. ‘On the contrary, we all have to do this,’ she shoots back. ‘We all have to stand up and be counted. None of us can hide any more. The world is spinning too fast now, Jackson. Every day we wait, we lose more than we can ever replace.’ She hesitates. ‘I saw you in the room just then, when Maya was speaking. You barely glanced at those photos she was showing you. You had your eyes to the ceiling or the window, or wherever. While Desi was staring at them, you weren’t even paying attention. Perhaps it’s time you took a proper look at what’s going on around you, Jackson. Perhaps we’re the ones seeing clearly, while you’re missing the whole point. In order to save them, first you have to care. Here.’ She thrusts a piece of paper at him and releases the door, glaring at him until it closes.

He glances down to find he’s staring at a leaflet for Osaka Aquarium. ‘Ocean, you meet whale shark’, it says on the front, above a picture of a whale shark with a drooping dorsal fin. He opens it up to another picture, the blurb underneath describing how the whale shark swims comfortably in its nine-metre-deep tank.

He stares at it. He knows all too well that, in the wild, whale sharks dive to well over nine hundred metres. That they traverse entire oceans, hidden and harmless in those vast cerulean depths.

Angry and deflated, he stuffs the leaflet into his pocket and concentrates on the lights flashing through the numbers as the lift descends to the lobby. The doors open onto a brightly lit melee of people. He walks distractedly over to a shop and begins to browse random items, with no interest in what they are. All the time, Kate’s voice is buzzing in his head.

He moves from one shop to another, until he is drawn to a restaurant in the far corner. A group of men sit in front of the bar, joking and laughing loudly, downing shots. He takes a stool near them, hands over his money and points towards a bottle that looks like whisky. The bartender pours it and pushes it across.

When he takes a slug, he finds it’s not whisky at all, but something foul and bitter. Nevertheless, he brings it to his mouth again, about to knock it back and ask for another one.

Then he stops and puts the drink down.

He stares into it, hearing Kate’s furious voice. You’re missing the whole point.

He bangs his hand on the countertop hard enough to make the men turn around in surprise. He ignores them, pushing the glass away and retracing his steps to the elevators. Kate is right. It is time to put himself on the line. Time to stand up for what he believes in, and be counted.