H.M. Wheat

Deep Sea Omens

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2026: VOL. 41.

The first oarfish washes up on the beach overnight. Most of the island finds their way to the beach to see it, a slimy stretch of silver scales, well over twenty feet long from tail to protruding mouth. It takes fourteen people to lift the great fish up off the ground for a picture for the local paper. 

“They say oarfish are a sign,” Carmen’s neighbor says. She was old when Carmen was a child and speaks with the kind of cigarette-hoarse authority that makes you stop and listen. “They’re deep-sea fish. They only come up when something bad is going to happen.” 

“Something bad?” Carmen asks. She fiddles with one of the belt loops on her jean shorts where the stitches are loose. 

“Earthquakes,” her neighbor says, squinting at the group of people standing over the fish. Someone has proposed butchering it and using it for meat, and there are several vocal protests to this—the meat is too gelatinous, the fish might be diseased. “Tsunamis. That fish is a bad omen.” 

Carmen looks at the fish, the large black eye, sprout of red fin down its back, flaccid in the sand. It doesn’t look like an omen; it looks like a dead fish. 

“I hope not,” Carmen says. She lets her fingers slip from her belt loop under the hem of her shirt, resting over the fat of her belly. At home, there are three pregnancy tests sitting on her bathroom counter, all of them positive. Omens. 

“It’ll start attracting cats if we leave it here,” the Methodist pastor says, hiking up his waders before squatting again to grab the fish by its mouth. “Help me throw it back in the sea.”

“It’s no use,” Carmen’s neighbor says. “It’ll just wash right back up.”

❧

The walls in the clinic are the color of sand. Carmen sits on the edge of the examination bed and lets the nurse draw her blood and says, when asked, “My last cycle was about two months ago.”

Judd left the island six weeks ago. He’d wanted Carmen to come with him, had begged her, told her they’d have a better life with more opportunities on the mainland. His parents had left three years earlier, and he’d only stayed so long to be with her. Couldn’t she make the same sacrifice for him now? 

Sometimes, when Carmen was eating boxed macaroni and cheese at her kitchen counter in the evenings, she wished she’d gone with him. But she couldn’t imagine living so far from the water, in an apartment hundreds of feet above sea level, concrete as far as the eye could see. Her career options might be limited to the nail salon where her mother had worked before her or the grocery store down the street, but there was nowhere on the island that Carmen couldn’t hear the tide. 

“We’ll get the results back in a couple days,” the nurse tells her. It’s not lost on Carmen that it would be faster on the mainland. “You think you’re gonna keep it?”

The nurse is a girl Carmen went to high school with, so maybe she’s thinking Carmen is too young to have a baby. Maybe, for her, missing your period is still cause for panic. Or maybe she’s thinking about Judd, and how unlucky Carmen is. 

“I don’t know,” Carmen says. The nurse presses a cotton pad against her skin as she pulls the needle from her arm. “Maybe.” 

“I’ll send in Dr. Webber,” the nurse says. “He can talk with you about your options.” 

While Carmen waits for the doctor, she wishes her mother were still alive. Her mother would be here, now, in this yellow room, holding her hand. Her mother would say that whatever choice Carmen made was the right choice. Carmen can almost feel her mother’s palm against her own, if she closes her eyes. 

The doctor gives Carmen pamphlets about abortion, adoption, and what to expect as a first-time mother. He refers Carmen to a single mothers’ group that meets at the Methodist church. Before Carmen leaves, the doctor tells her, “You don’t have to do this alone. You have a village here to support you, if you want it.”

Judd has called four times since he left the island. Carmen has let it ring to voicemail every time.

❧

Carmen is at the nail salon when the clinic calls a few days later. She listens to the voicemail after work, standing in her kitchen. The nurse, voice tinny and professional, explains that the blood test was positive. The nurse invites her to return for a physical exam and suggests Carmen begin seriously considering her options.

Carmen makes a list at the counter. Keep it. Adoption. Abortion. Call Judd. She scratches out the last item. She tries to imagine her stomach swelling and growing, tries to imagine the fetus taking shape and growing into something she could name. She can’t; it’s just a collection of cells.

Naomi comes over after her shift cleaning houses in the rich neighborhood. She smells like bleach and fresh linen, even after changing into one of Carmen’s old t-shirts and a pair of shorts. After dinner, they walk down to the beach where the oarfish was found a few days earlier. 

The tide seems higher than normal, lapping at their ankles. Carmen holds her sandals in one hand and a bucket in the other as they look for sea glass for a mosaic Naomi’s been working on. 

“Mr. Greyson said that deep-sea fish like that don’t come to the surface very often,” Naomi says. She stoops to push some wet sand aside, revealing the aluminum of a soda can before a wave buries it again. “He said the fish was probably sick, anyways, and wanted to see sunlight before it died.” 

“My neighbor thinks something bad is going to happen,” Carmen says. When Naomi glances back at her, Carmen says, “Like a hurricane.” 

“God forbid. The whole island would be wiped out.” Naomi finds a piece of sea glass in the sand and smooths her fingers over it before dropping it into Carmen’s bucket. 

“Maybe not a hurricane,” Carmen says. “Maybe something else bad.” 

“Like what?”

Carmen chews on her bottom lip. The skin is dry and thick, and Carmen peels it off with her teeth. She tastes blood in her mouth as she says, “I’m pregnant.” 

Naomi stares at her. The water is cold as it rushes up around Carmen’s ankles, and she sinks into the sand as it recedes. Naomi says, “Shit.” 

“I know.” 

“Does Judd know?”

“No.”

“Well,” Naomi says, squatting down in place to dig her fingers into the sand, “are you going to tell him?” 

“I don’t know,” Carmen says. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” 

❧

On her way to the nail salon in the morning, there’s a commotion down by the beach. The only news van on the island is parked near the pier, crooked across two spaces, and Carmen can hear a murmur of concerned voices rising over the din of the waves. Half of the island seems to be crowded down on the beach, blocking the sand from Carmen’s view, and she thinks her neighbor must have been right. The oarfish washed back up. 

She detours away from the nail salon, leaning her bicycle up against the post office as she pads down to join the crowd at the beach. Naomi’s frizzy curls stand out among the other heads, and Carmen wends her way over to her, close enough to hear the news reporter speaking into the camera. I’m reporting live from the pier, where, as you can see… 

Carmen elbows her way to Naomi’s side. “What’s happening?” 

“Dude,” Naomi says. She grabs Carmen’s arm and shoves through the crowd, closer to the sand, and then stops as they break through the line. She gestures beyond the news reporter and Carmen gapes. 

The beach is covered in oarfish. As far as Carmen can see, up and down the stretch of land from one end of the island to the other, are dead oarfish, sinking into the sand, reflecting the sunlight back into her eyes. Carmen covers her mouth with her hand. Near her feet, the bulbous head of one of the fish stares up at her with its big, blank eyes. 

“It’s unclear what may be causing the phenomena, but authorities are reportedly looking into it,” the news reporter says, his back to the field of fish corpses. “An expert from the mainland has been in contact to share some theories, and…” 

Naomi squeezes Carmen’s hand. “I think your neighbor was right,” Naomi whispers, pulling Carmen back through the crowd, away from the oarfish. “Something fucked up is going to happen.”

❧

“Experts say the island is sinking,” the news reporter says. Carmen turns up the volume, standing in her living room in fuzzy socks, pasta burning on the stove. “There’s little precedence for something like this, but according to Jeremiah Kingston, the signs are there.” 

Carmen has an appointment at the clinic in three days. They’ll do a pelvic exam, the nurse said on the phone, and then the doctor will explain her options. It’s not as simple as the list Carmen made a couple days before. Her options are branching. In-clinic surgical procedure or a pill to take in the comfort of her own home, each with its upsides and downsides. Open or closed adoption, with a local couple or a couple on the mainland. Raise it alone or give in and call Judd. 

Carmen needs to make a decision quickly. Assuming conception happened the night before Judd left the island, Carmen is seven weeks pregnant. After some cursory reading, she’s pretty sure the pill is only an option for the first ten weeks. If that’s the route she chooses. 

The expert is on air. His hair is slicked back, shirt buttoned up to his throat, grainy footage indicating he’s recording with whatever camera was built into his computer. He says, “Looking at the data, it’s absolutely clear to me that the island will be fully submerged before the end of the month. You need to start evacuating immediately.”

❧

Carmen’s appointment is cancelled. 

“I’m really sorry,” the nurse says over the phone. “Dr. Webber is the only one qualified to perform the exam, and he’s, um. Leaving the island.” 

“I guess he’s not planning on coming back,” Carmen says. She has flights pulled up on her laptop, but the prices are astronomical. Even if she pulled everything she had out of savings, she still couldn’t afford to leave the island right now. 

“No,” the nurse says quietly, “I don’t think he is.” 

An article from the paper that morning featured an interview with the Methodist pastor, who was in the process of packing up his mansion to flee the island. God gives us the tools to save ourselves, he’s quoted as saying, when asked how he was planning to support his congregation during these trying times. I can only pray that everyone uses those tools as God intended. 

“You should call Judd,” Naomi tells her after Carmen ends the call with the clinic. Naomi flips through stations on the television, but nothing is airing anymore; it’s all emergency news footage, oarfish receding back into the ocean, tide swallowing the beaches. “He would probably fork over his left arm to get you off the island safely.”

He would, if Carmen asked him. The problem is that Carmen hasn’t decided what to do about the pregnancy. If she asks Judd to do this for her, then it feels like she’s committing to it. Judd will insist that she keep the baby and insist on marrying her, and Carmen’s not even sure if she really wants to be a mother. She thinks about her own mother, raising her alone after some mainlander got her pregnant and then never thought about her again. Maybe her mother would have been happier if she’d had a partner to help raise Carmen. Maybe not. 

“I don’t know if he could afford it, either,” Carmen says. She turns her laptop around to show Naomi the ticket prices, and Naomi blanches. “Anyways, I couldn’t leave you. I’d never forgive myself.” 

“I would forgive you,” Naomi says. She reaches across the couch to tangle her fingers with Carmen’s, giving them a tight squeeze. “Seriously. Call Judd.” 

“But…” Carmen points at her own stomach. She’s bloated from drinking soda earlier, but she’s not visibly pregnant. It’s strange to think that something else is occupying her body, displacing her organs, siphoning nutrients from her placenta. 

“You can figure it out with Judd,” Naomi says. “If you want. Or you can use him to get off the island, get settled on the mainland, and then ditch him. You don’t have to decide anything right now. Just focus on getting off the island.” 

Carmen looks at her phone where it’s resting face down on the coffee table. She thought she might have heard from Judd by now, that he would have seen the news and at least called to check on her, but there had been nothing. She’s spent so much time dodging his calls that she’s not surprised. 

“Okay,” Carmen says, tightening her grasp on Naomi’s hand. “But only if you can come, too.” 

❧

Judd picks up on the first ring. “Carmen?”

He sounds good. He sounds the same.

“Car?” She can hear him breathing. “You there? Is everything okay?”

Carmen opens her mouth, then closes it. Doesn’t he know? Her whole world is sinking. 

“Carmen?” he says again. She hangs up. She holds the phone in her hand, shaking, trying to remember how to talk to him. She doesn’t have to tell him anything, she remembers. She just needs to ask for help. 

She dials his number again. He answers immediately. “Carmen? Did something happen?”

“Yes,” Carmen manages to say. Judd sighs like he’s relieved to hear her voice. “I hate to call you out of the blue, like this, but…” 

“What can I do?” Judd asks. “Do I need to fly back?”

Maybe she shouldn’t be surprised that he doesn’t know. He’s never cared for watching the news. “The island is sinking. So, I guess—well, maybe you were right. I should have gone with you.” 

“Sinking?” Judd repeats. His voice gets a little more distant, fuzzier over the phone line. He’s put her on speaker. “What do you mean, it’s…?” 

Carmen waits. She can hear his intake of breath when his internet search loads and he can see the articles, one after another. The island of Kikayon is sinking, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. 

“I have a bit in savings, but the prices are so jumped up,” she says. “Naomi thought about trying to charter a boat, but that’s even worse, even if we split the cost. I know we broke up, but—”

“I’ll call my parents,” Judd says. “They’ve got some money.” 

“Thank you,” Carmen says.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Judd says. “I love you.” 

Carmen should tell him about the pregnancy. She imagines the full moon outside her window gathering up all the tides, preparing to let them go in one big wave to swallow the island whole. Instead, she says, “I love you, too.”

❧

The beach is almost gone, just a sliver of sand still visible in the mouth of the ocean. Carmen can see the shoreline from the empty nail salon and counts down the seconds it takes for Judd to text her back. Still nothing. Flights all sold out. Looking at boats now. 

One of the other nail technicians is sitting at a manicure table, painting her nails with a glossy pink gel. When she catches Carmen watching her, she says, “I’d pay for the product, but I’m pretty sure we’re all going to be dead next week, anyways.” 

Everyone who could afford to leave the island is already gone. In a couple days, the airport will be shut down permanently. The docks are emptier than Carmen has ever seen them, no more fishing vessels coming and going. On the news, the mainland expert on sinking islands had said, “It’s so sad that people are choosing to stay on the island, but I guess it’s hard to leave your home. I only hope they come to their senses before it’s too late.” 

Efforts had been made to send rescue ships, but they were based on a lottery system. Tickets had been sold out before Carmen could even decide if it was worth it. 

“Maybe I’ll go home early,” Carmen says. Someone emerges from the hardware store across the street, pushing a cart full of lumber. He must be building a boat. 

“Sure,” her coworker says, setting her nails under the UV light. “It’s not like anyone is worried about getting a manicure right now.” 

Her phone buzzes on her walk home. Secured a boat. He’ll be there Saturday.

It’s Monday. Carmen squints out over the rising tide and spies an oarfish floating in the crest of a wave, eye turned to the pale sky, rocking up against the sidewalk. I’ll pay you back. 

You don’t have to, Judd says. I’m just glad I can help.

❧

By Friday, the island is almost gone. Carmen sits on top of her roof next to Naomi, watching the water lap at her shingles. The phone lines had gone down two days before, but she clutches her phone against her chest anyways, thinking she should have told Judd after all.

“Do you think you could fight someone for a spot on the boat?” Naomi asks, stretching out one leg so her bare foot grazes the water. They’d pried Carmen’s back door from its hinges when the water was at their knees a couple days ago, and it was propped up between them on the roof with a cooler full of rations strapped to it. 

“Fight someone?” Carmen repeats. Her neighbor is on her own roof, thirty feet away, reclining on an air mattress. When she catches Carmen’s eye, she mouths, Omens. Told you. Carmen looks away. 

“If it comes down to it,” Naomi says. “There’ll be limited space on this boat Judd chartered, but there’s a lot of people still on the island. No way the boat guy is able to calmly pick us up without anyone else trying to board.” 

Carmen considers it. She tries to imagine decking her neighbor in the face, condemning an old woman to a watery grave. She can’t quite picture it. 

“It’s okay,” Naomi says, like she’s come to the same conclusion Carmen has. “I can fight for both of us.” 

Naomi glances at Carmen’s stomach and amends her statement. “All three of us.” 

Naomi would be a good mother, Carmen thinks. She’d be protective; she’d always know exactly what to do. Not like Carmen, who can’t even commit to something to save her own life.

If she could, she’d reach down her own throat and scoop out the cells developing in her belly, drawing them up through her esophagus to drop into the ocean. Maybe the cells would bubble up when they hit the water, thickening into sea foam. Maybe they would summon something from the deep, rising rapidly until its shadow overtook what was left of the island, a silvery fish that stretched on for miles. Carmen would look into its flat blank eyes, and it would thank her for the sacrifice. She’d touch the place where its mouth splits open and draw it wider and wider until she could shove her shoulders inside and crawl through the long body, settling deep inside its belly, where things were warm and pink and wet. The fish would sink below the water and carry her away from the island. At first, she would think it was taking her to the mainland, but it would be so dark inside the oarfish, and it would just keep getting darker. They wouldn’t be going to safety. They would be going back into the deep. 

❧❧❧

H.M. Wheat is a graduate of the University of Souther Mississippi’s MA program in creative writing. She is an assistant editor and reader for Folklore Review, and previously worked as an editor for Product Magazine and The Southern Quarterly. She has been published in The Beacon, Riveted Literary, and Fiction Attic Press.