Friend of the Tide
Chloe Johnson | Young Artists Issue | Poetry, Winter 2026
Carolina Marsh is the graveyard of the Atlantic. It is forever an in-between, the and of your sentence, collecting decay from both land and sea. Not entirely alive, not entirely dead, rather, both at once. The most organic jumble of beginning and finish. Anything that cannot survive the ocean, eventually ends up in the net that is the coast. Only the strongest of organisms can survive atop the tired, wet earth. And though it is a place where death flourishes, there are quiet protests of life. Persistent flowers that bloom under abducting shadows, careening to drink drops of sunlight. Creatures instinctually collaborating to create a choir. Where some life ends, another must begin.
One of the more strange inhabitants of the area was Attie Hunt. The afternoon air sat so humid-hot it was as though there was steam bubbling up through the ground. It had been sixty days since her father left on his boat, so she counted things in pairs of six. Six snow geese, six mayflies bobbing about, and six saltwater fish her father had surely caught by now. She kicked her bare toes through the water, splashing it onto the bank, onto her once-white dress. She imagined the silver bodies of the mackerel, mouths gaped open so far she could see all the way down their throats and out the other side. She would catch one now, she decided, would look in its marbled eye and see a reflection of her father, standing over his boat, instructing the fish to swim back to her with news of his success. Your father is alive! It would squelch before flapping violently back into the tide, returning to her father, returning to the sea. Attie pushed herself up onto her feet. If I fall in the river, I shall swim out to sea and find pa. She played this game often. The trees around her watched as she moved zombie-like along the shore. They giggled as her feet stammered over branches and undergrowth. Suddenly, her foot skimmed over a cold pile of gunk. She lurched backward, flinging open her eyes. Death just under her nose, running down her throat, gripping her lungs. Her eyes stung with the force of the smell. But as she looked down, she pulled her hand away from her mouth. A fatted deer had toppled over, lying down a final time by the river. Mushrooms cuffed and chained the deer to the ground, pulling it closer to the earth. Sprouts bloomed in the stomach, shooting up through the rib cage, reaching out for the sun. Hundreds of maggots ate away at the brain, Attie watching as each one sucked up any ounce of meat they could find. Every part of the creature was being recycled, rebirthed, and though she smelled death, Attie only saw life. She took great notice of how the deer seeped into the Marsh, absorbing into the pockets of mud. She saw its yellow spirit sinking down into the tar, then being reborn as salt grass. Nothing could truly die here.
That night, she listened to the insistent chorus of cicadas, trying to uncover any news they could be sending for her. She listened to the gush of the waves drumming angry against the shore. A summer moon, plunging deep in love with the ocean, had appeared every night to have an affair with the tide. The moonrays danced with the water. Attie figured this kind of love was inseparable, the sort that was deaf to sounds of other opinions, one that could have only been made by nature. Her mind idled on the image of the deer. It had disappeared just as her father had, slithering away, turning into an idea. But the deer transformed into something new, its soul repurposed. The wind whistled up in her ear, brushing her hair back with its fingers. The palmetto fronds rubbed against each other, and she could hear them whispering her name; Attie. Attie. Attie. Attie recognized loneliness blossoming up in her chest, showing itself as stomach aches and boredom. She refused it, slapping it in the face and sending it away. Attie knew that loneliness was too often the force for giving up, rarely the reason for pushing on. Her father would be back, and she would be there to greet him. No matter if he is man or seashell. She would often find herself running to the ocean’s embrace, the sea opening its arms wide and the wind pulling her braids out. The incoming waves would scoop away any debris lying in the sand, leaving her with new ones to pick through. And when the water spat shark teeth at her, she thought of the sharks swimming around, missing teeth. She asked the tide to take her out to the middle of the sea, where she could turn her head in all directions and not see any castle of land. There, she would return all the teeth she found to all the sharks who’d lost them. When the sea sent its response on the back of a carrier wave, she heard her father’s voice clearly: I will, Attie. I will.
There came a point where it was no longer an option to avoid the voices. These voices that she knew as the beaches and rivers themselves. The idea of her father’s return consumed her. At night, she imagined him as little eddies, or crawfish, each time his face changing to match the new image. Nature poked and prodded at her, testing her, seeing how long it would take for her to recognize it. And as the days passed, she saw it. There had been a night where she was laying against the brush, waiting to be taken by sleep. But as she listened to the hum of the crickets, she heard the salt grass dance. The marsh was awake. Attie rose, dancing short little spindled dances with the trees. The moonlight spotlighted her silhouette moving along the shore. She heard her father playing music on the backs of crickets. She smiled, laughed even. She forgot the utter absence, the without, as if the wetland had pulled it out of her, removing the disease. She closed her eyes and felt the wind take her hand tight, squeezing it and pulling her close. When she opened to meet her father, the pressure faded and she saw only the dark riverbank around her, as if he had fallen back down into the soil.
Now, Attie heard the swamp speak. She figured the words needed somewhere to go, so she absorbed them through her skin, as though they could be swept up and lost to the sea. The ocean’s heavy sighs shook trees. Little stretching puddles of water under grass and brush reminded Attie of the the tide, its crafty hands and way to reach deep into the land. When she stumbled, she was no longer caught by her father, but rather by his phantom, a hard earth that reached out to catch her. She decided to retell stories her father had told her back to the marsh, repeating the words to him. The words from the stories seemed to dissipate into the land, absorbed and memorized, and every time Attie passed the same channels, she heard the words repeated on lines of song. She didn’t mind, hearing her father’s stories recounted, of course. It reminded her of how things used to be, and it was nice believing they had never changed. There was one story he had told of a clownfish, who swam across the entire ocean just to find his son. This particular story sat crookedly in her mind. “Did you travel the entire ocean to find me?” Attie asked the river.
One day, like finding a new type of seashell on the beach, Attie identified a new gaping hole in her stomach. It held a familiar face, that of loneliness, but it wasn’t quite the same. A distant cousin. Attie could only identify this feeling as absence. It was one of the few things the swamp could not cure. It hung up in her throat, like a piece of food lodged in her windpipe, and as the days passed, it grew up into her brain. As she walked the riverbanks, she hung her head low, and heard nothing but silence.
Eventually, Attie identified the sickness. It was the absence of a person to keep her sane. It was the absence of her father. Surely he cannot truly be the earth around me. She ran to the shore, hoping to see his boat, dry hope boiling in her lungs. But as she reached the waterline, she saw no boat and heard no sounds besides that of the marsh calling at her back. Sloppy waves ran for her feet. She closed her eyes and felt the land grabbing her hand, willing her to ease her mind. She laughed for the marsh’s sake. Yet when she opened her eyes she saw her father standing there, comforting her. She watched as his perfect image turned to sand, wisped away by the salt wind. She heard the sand whipping in the gusts, whipping into her ear, and she heard the marsh call her name.
That night, Attie awoke to the waves rubbing her cheek with their thumbs. They had left her a gift. Ten silver mackerel, laid carefully in a line along the shore. Ten fish for one hundred days. Twenty eyes for her to peer into to look for her father. Attie looked around. Surely this was the careful work of a human. But there was no one, just her and the marsh. She listened closely now as it spoke, smushing together her little ashes of hope. She wanted to find meaning in the whispers. As she listened, she heard the melodic voice transforming, as if there were an underlying song overpowering the wetland’s hum. She heard the voice of her father. I’ve been here all along. She turned to see her pa, face wrinkled and soggy, seaweed hair, standing beside her. She watched as the image warped, reflecting her original father to dust, sinking into the earth. She thought of the dead deer, and watched him seep down into the tar.
______________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“This piece is my Trace Fossil because it emphasizes the things left behind when people and animals die. My piece explores the concept of death without outright saying it.”
My name is Chloe Johnson, and I am a sophomore at the Charleston County School of the Arts. I am enrolled as a creative writer and enjoy writing about the marsh and coastal wetlands.
Friend of the Tide
Chloe Johnson
Young Artists Issue | Fiction, Winter 2026
Carolina Marsh is the graveyard of the Atlantic. It is forever an in-between, the and of your sentence, collecting decay from both land and sea. Not entirely alive, not entirely dead, rather, both at once. The most organic jumble of beginning and finish. Anything that cannot survive the ocean, eventually ends up in the net that is the coast. Only the strongest of organisms can survive atop the tired, wet earth. And though it is a place where death flourishes, there are quiet protests of life. Persistent flowers that bloom under abducting shadows, careening to drink drops of sunlight. Creatures instinctually collaborating to create a choir. Where some life ends, another must begin.
One of the more strange inhabitants of the area was Attie Hunt. The afternoon air sat so humid-hot it was as though there was steam bubbling up through the ground. It had been sixty days since her father left on his boat, so she counted things in pairs of six. Six snow geese, six mayflies bobbing about, and six saltwater fish her father had surely caught by now. She kicked her bare toes through the water, splashing it onto the bank, onto her once-white dress. She imagined the silver bodies of the mackerel, mouths gaped open so far she could see all the way down their throats and out the other side. She would catch one now, she decided, would look in its marbled eye and see a reflection of her father, standing over his boat, instructing the fish to swim back to her with news of his success. Your father is alive! It would squelch before flapping violently back into the tide, returning to her father, returning to the sea. Attie pushed herself up onto her feet. If I fall in the river, I shall swim out to sea and find pa. She played this game often. The trees around her watched as she moved zombie-like along the shore. They giggled as her feet stammered over branches and undergrowth. Suddenly, her foot skimmed over a cold pile of gunk. She lurched backward, flinging open her eyes. Death just under her nose, running down her throat, gripping her lungs. Her eyes stung with the force of the smell. But as she looked down, she pulled her hand away from her mouth. A fatted deer had toppled over, lying down a final time by the river. Mushrooms cuffed and chained the deer to the ground, pulling it closer to the earth. Sprouts bloomed in the stomach, shooting up through the rib cage, reaching out for the sun. Hundreds of maggots ate away at the brain, Attie watching as each one sucked up any ounce of meat they could find. Every part of the creature was being recycled, rebirthed, and though she smelled death, Attie only saw life. She took great notice of how the deer seeped into the Marsh, absorbing into the pockets of mud. She saw its yellow spirit sinking down into the tar, then being reborn as salt grass. Nothing could truly die here.
That night, she listened to the insistent chorus of cicadas, trying to uncover any news they could be sending for her. She listened to the gush of the waves drumming angry against the shore. A summer moon, plunging deep in love with the ocean, had appeared every night to have an affair with the tide. The moonrays danced with the water. Attie figured this kind of love was inseparable, the sort that was deaf to sounds of other opinions, one that could have only been made by nature. Her mind idled on the image of the deer. It had disappeared just as her father had, slithering away, turning into an idea. But the deer transformed into something new, its soul repurposed. The wind whistled up in her ear, brushing her hair back with its fingers. The palmetto fronds rubbed against each other, and she could hear them whispering her name; Attie. Attie. Attie. Attie recognized loneliness blossoming up in her chest, showing itself as stomach aches and boredom. She refused it, slapping it in the face and sending it away. Attie knew that loneliness was too often the force for giving up, rarely the reason for pushing on. Her father would be back, and she would be there to greet him. No matter if he is man or seashell. She would often find herself running to the ocean’s embrace, the sea opening its arms wide and the wind pulling her braids out. The incoming waves would scoop away any debris lying in the sand, leaving her with new ones to pick through. And when the water spat shark teeth at her, she thought of the sharks swimming around, missing teeth. She asked the tide to take her out to the middle of the sea, where she could turn her head in all directions and not see any castle of land. There, she would return all the teeth she found to all the sharks who’d lost them. When the sea sent its response on the back of a carrier wave, she heard her father’s voice clearly: I will, Attie. I will.
There came a point where it was no longer an option to avoid the voices. These voices that she knew as the beaches and rivers themselves. The idea of her father’s return consumed her. At night, she imagined him as little eddies, or crawfish, each time his face changing to match the new image. Nature poked and prodded at her, testing her, seeing how long it would take for her to recognize it. And as the days passed, she saw it. There had been a night where she was laying against the brush, waiting to be taken by sleep. But as she listened to the hum of the crickets, she heard the salt grass dance. The marsh was awake. Attie rose, dancing short little spindled dances with the trees. The moonlight spotlighted her silhouette moving along the shore. She heard her father playing music on the backs of crickets. She smiled, laughed even. She forgot the utter absence, the without, as if the wetland had pulled it out of her, removing the disease. She closed her eyes and felt the wind take her hand tight, squeezing it and pulling her close. When she opened to meet her father, the pressure faded and she saw only the dark riverbank around her, as if he had fallen back down into the soil.
Now, Attie heard the swamp speak. She figured the words needed somewhere to go, so she absorbed them through her skin, as though they could be swept up and lost to the sea. The ocean’s heavy sighs shook trees. Little stretching puddles of water under grass and brush reminded Attie of the the tide, its crafty hands and way to reach deep into the land. When she stumbled, she was no longer caught by her father, but rather by his phantom, a hard earth that reached out to catch her. She decided to retell stories her father had told her back to the marsh, repeating the words to him. The words from the stories seemed to dissipate into the land, absorbed and memorized, and every time Attie passed the same channels, she heard the words repeated on lines of song. She didn’t mind, hearing her father’s stories recounted, of course. It reminded her of how things used to be, and it was nice believing they had never changed. There was one story he had told of a clownfish, who swam across the entire ocean just to find his son. This particular story sat crookedly in her mind. “Did you travel the entire ocean to find me?” Attie asked the river.
One day, like finding a new type of seashell on the beach, Attie identified a new gaping hole in her stomach. It held a familiar face, that of loneliness, but it wasn’t quite the same. A distant cousin. Attie could only identify this feeling as absence. It was one of the few things the swamp could not cure. It hung up in her throat, like a piece of food lodged in her windpipe, and as the days passed, it grew up into her brain. As she walked the riverbanks, she hung her head low, and heard nothing but silence.
Eventually, Attie identified the sickness. It was the absence of a person to keep her sane. It was the absence of her father. Surely he cannot truly be the earth around me. She ran to the shore, hoping to see his boat, dry hope boiling in her lungs. But as she reached the waterline, she saw no boat and heard no sounds besides that of the marsh calling at her back. Sloppy waves ran for her feet. She closed her eyes and felt the land grabbing her hand, willing her to ease her mind. She laughed for the marsh’s sake. Yet when she opened her eyes she saw her father standing there, comforting her. She watched as his perfect image turned to sand, wisped away by the salt wind. She heard the sand whipping in the gusts, whipping into her ear, and she heard the marsh call her name.
That night, Attie awoke to the waves rubbing her cheek with their thumbs. They had left her a gift. Ten silver mackerel, laid carefully in a line along the shore. Ten fish for one hundred days. Twenty eyes for her to peer into to look for her father. Attie looked around. Surely this was the careful work of a human. But there was no one, just her and the marsh. She listened closely now as it spoke, smushing together her little ashes of hope. She wanted to find meaning in the whispers. As she listened, she heard the melodic voice transforming, as if there were an underlying song overpowering the wetland’s hum. She heard the voice of her father. I’ve been here all along. She turned to see her pa, face wrinkled and soggy, seaweed hair, standing beside her. She watched as the image warped, reflecting her original father to dust, sinking into the earth. She thought of the dead deer, and watched him seep down into the tar.
______________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“This piece is my Trace Fossil because it emphasizes the things left behind when people and animals die. My piece explores the concept of death without outright saying it.”
My name is Chloe Johnson, and I am a sophomore at the Charleston County School of the Arts. I am enrolled as a creative writer and enjoy writing about the marsh and coastal wetlands.