By the time they reached Ocean City, Missy had decided not to investigate anything for at least one hour.
She lay on the beach watching the Atlantic Ocean.
The sunlight turned the water blue as a thought and the sand to gold, as if someone had whispered a secret to it.
For perhaps three whole minutes, Missy felt she had it figured out.
Not completely.
Just enough.
The ocean was vast.
People were complicated.
The universe was strange.
And somehow all of that seemed perfectly acceptable.
She smiled.
The world appeared organized.
Reasonable.
Almost cooperative.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a gull arrived with terrible urgency.
“I have important news!”
“What news?” asked Missy.
The gull looked at the sea, then at the sky, then at the sea again.
“Everything is still impossibly strange.”
“That’s not news,” said Missy.
“I know,” said the gull. “I just thought you might need reminding.”
Missy pushed herself up on one elbow and studied the visitor.
The visitor was a very official-looking gull.
The sort of gull who clearly worked for some department that humans had never heard of.
“Identify yourself, dear bird!” Missy said.
“Why?”
The gull sighed.
“Nobody ever asks how I identify.”
Missy blinked.
“Really?”
The gull looked disappointed.
“Everyone points and says, ‘Look, a seagull.’”
“You are a gull?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is?”
“Nobody asks.”
Missy folded her arms.
“What are your pronouns?”
The gull brightened immediately.
“Thank you.”
Then they cleared their throat.
“Verbs.”
Missy stared.
“Verbs?”
“Occupational verbs.”
“I don’t think that’s a thing.”
“It is if you are employed by the coast.”
The gull opened a small notebook with a seashell for a bookmark.
“Common occupational verbs include Investigating, Circling, Screaming, Loitering, Scavenging, Gliding, Interrupting, Departing, and Returning.”
“Those are just things gulls do.”
The gull considered this.
“Fair.”
“Some gulls spend their entire lives Screaming.”
“I have noticed.”
“It is respected work.”
“And some are Investigating?”
“Yes. They investigate shells, shoes, sandwiches, suspicious towels, and unattended emotional states.”
“Unattended emotional states?”
The gull narrowed their eyes.
“You were having one when I arrived.”
Missy laughed.
“I was thinking.”
“Exactly.”
The gull scribbled something in the notebook.
“What are you writing?”
“Potential outbreak of certainty.”
“I wasn’t certain.”
“You were sitting peacefully on a beach.”
“That’s not a crime.”
“Not yet.”
The ocean rolled quietly behind them.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Missy asked, “So what is your occupational verb?”
The gull became unusually quiet.
The wind moved through the feathers along their wings.
The Atlantic stretched endlessly toward the horizon.
Finally, they answered.
“Elsewhering.”
The word settled between them.
Missy repeated it softly.
“Elsewhering.”
The gull nodded.
“It is rare.”
“What does it mean?”
“It’s difficult to explain.”
“Try.”
The gull looked toward the place where sea and sky almost became one thing.
Then they spoke.
“Elsewhering is what happens when you’re here, but part of you is listening for something beyond the horizon.”
Missy said nothing.
“It’s following a question without knowing the answer.”
“It’s reading one more chapter.”
“It’s boarding one more train.”
“It’s taking one more road.”
“It’s believing there may be something beautiful around the next bend, even when you have no evidence whatsoever.”
Missy smiled.
“That sounds familiar.”
“It should.”
“Why?”
The gull opened the notebook again.
Under the heading Occupational Verb was written:
Elsewhering
Below it appeared a list.
Known Practitioners
Missy
Bob
Several philosophers
One bear
An alarming number of musicians
Missy squinted.
“How did you get that list?”
“Coastal records.”
“That explains nothing.”
“Most records don’t.”
At that moment, Bob the Cat appeared from behind a dune.
He sat beside Missy and glanced at the gull.
“Oh,” said Bob.
“You know them?” asked Missy.
“Of course.”
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