On Such A Full Sea

This chapter begins with a description of the climate in America. It often gets very hot or extremely cold, and perfectly glorious temperate days in between are only legends now, passed down by the elders. B-Mor is purported to be ideal compared to the open counties, because there are places people can go to get relief from the extremes. They have “indoor gymnasiums and pools, and the subterranean mall busy with shops and game parlors and eateries, where people naturally spend most of their free time” (13). The people have become so used to such comforts that it causes pandemonium when they are cut off from them for any period of time.

Last year, there was a period of several minutes where the air conditioning, sound, and lights in one of these underground malls went to backup power because of a power plant mishap, and people panicked, practically trampling each other until the regular soft lights and songs resumed. The narrator admits that the people are no longer fit for a harsh and difficult life. In addition to B-Mors and the people in the open counties, there are also the Charters, who are a wealthy upper class. Unlike the Charters, the people of B-Mor work hard and feel a sense of pride in what they do and how they live. They’ve toiled for over 100 years, keeping up the community, ensuring that things are clean and safe and well cared for: “B-Mor works because we work, our sense of purpose driving us that extra measure, that extra hour” (16).

Sometimes, paintings of Fan and Reg appear on walls as murals. They are quickly washed off, before anyone from the directorate can notice them. The narrator talks about what B-Mor looked like when the original settlers were bussed in to populate it, and how American cities had been abandoned. It was a good place to settle for the former residents of New China. Their old city had been so polluted that the water was literally “fouled beyond all known methods of treatment” (19). There were pools of waste and air so toxic that it seemed like everything was burning. When the ancestors of the residents of B-Mor first came, the air here seemed fresh and clear to them, easily more livable than their past location.

After Fan and Reg disappeared, more people began to vanish. The difference was that those people were officially dispatched, with announcements from the governing body, and those people’s relatives did not disappear. They held ceremonies for the vanished, almost like funerals. The narrator tells of how the original settlers helped each other rebuild the city, going from house to house and renovating. The chapter ends with the narrator asking, “Have we not done the job of becoming our best selves?” (24).

Fan left soon after the last big flood that hit B-Mor, after several storms, back-to-back. A number of people perished during this last flood, including Joseph, a friend of Reg. Joseph was a boy of 12 who lived on the same block as Reg. Although significantly older, Reg, 19, liked to hang out with Joseph and play soccer.

Joseph had been watching his brother and his brother’s friend on the afternoon of the storm. They had been stuck inside because of the rain, bored because the Wi-Fi was out, when there was a break in the storm and the sun shone. The boys begged Joseph to play outside, and he agreed, so they went to the park. At the park, the rain began again, but they decided to remain there and play. Soon, a shallow pool had built up near the entrance to the park, excess water coming from a nearby overflowing stream. The pool was filled with fish, and the boys decided to try and catch some.

A hidden drainage pipe that had been clogged up with branches suddenly cleared, causing the water levels to drop, but the boys did not notice until it was too late. Joseph watched as his brother’s friend was sucked under the water. Ensuring first that his brother was safe, Joseph dived in after the missing boy. He did not know that the boy had been taken through the pipe and out the other side, alive. Joseph was not so lucky, and got stuck in the pipe. It took emergency services an hour to extract him, and by then he was dead.

There was a great deal of grief on the blocks over Joseph’s demise, as he was a very well-liked boy. Fan had gone to the ceremony, along with most of her clan, and had been strangely silent for much of it. At one point, she comforted the younger brother, who had been blaming himself for asking to play outside on the day of the storm. She was very solemn and composed, not only touching the boy’s shoulder but also bowing to the parents and making an offering of money to help the family. There is talk of how lifelike the corpse of Joseph appeared, almost too lifelike, as though he was about to “pop up at any moment and ask for a sports drink” (32).

Fan spends much of the wake standing near Joseph’s brother. At some point, Fan leaves the boy’s side and walks toward the buffet line. She utters the words “[w]here you are” (35). The citizens form their own opinions about what this phrase might mean, who she’s talking to, and whether or not it’s part of a larger phrase.

Later, a video of the moment Fan left the city is released, as part of a hijacked advertisement on the grow facility page. In the video, Fan is dressed with a pack and an umbrella in a style usually popular out in the open counties. The sentry scans her and checks her out. Another camera shows her walking out of the main gate and taking the access road to the main tollway. The narrator says that the story of what happened after this moment is not part of the official record and has been retold by many different people.