Marine biologist Leah sinks down to the ocean floor with her team during a research trip in a submarine and remains missing for six months after the accident. When Leah returns home, her wife Miri is overjoyed. But Miri soon realizes that Leah has changed. After so long a period of silence, picking up where they left off as a couple would not be easy under the best of circumstances; but Leah has changed in fundamental ways, and Miri is forced to confront a new reality.
Armfield draws on collective and archaic human fears: the sea, but also outer space, other people, God, madness, the subconscious (our "sunken thoughts"), and dementia. The unknown is embodied as a physical idea - the submarine or Miri and Leah's apartment, which - surrounded by a rippling darkness - appears eerie and unfathomable. Just as she did in her stories in Salt Slow, Armfield brilliantly depicts the two women's relationship: slander out of self-preservation, tender feelings, rituals, anger and grief over lost joys - all the small moments that make up a fervent and lasting love.