WHERE THE ROCKS MEET THE SEA
By: Rae A. Costa
The sand is warm.
She wiggles her toes deeper, until she
feels the dampness of the sea. A spray of salty mist blowing off cresting waves
stings her eyes. Tiny grains of sand scratch her skin as she wipes her face with
the back of her wrist. Sand is everywhere. It irritates her sunburnt skin. It
chafes her raw when she moves. It is in places it shouldn’t be. She hates it
here.
Rolling waves crash against the shore. One
after the other, bringing with them mounds of briny kelp torn lose by their turbulence.
Kelp flies swarm over the decaying piles left stranded by the high tide. Tom
once told her that the female flies, Diptera, he called them, will lay
their eggs in the seaweed and the larvae will feed upon it when they hatch. She
doesn’t care about the flies or the seaweed. It smells. She hates it here.
She lies back under the baking sun. She lifts
a hand to shield her face, blinking furiously against the onslaught of sand.
She flops an arm over her eyes and naps. Her breathing is ragged, coming in
tiny puffs. Her chest heaves in protest and she shivers.
He is in her dreams again, like she knew
he would be.
Fresh from the ocean, his eyes shine, and
she calls him Oceanus. Saltwater drips from his bronze, muscular body.
His red swim trunks sag under its weight, with rivulets cascading down his
legs. He shakes water from his blond hair, playfully spraying her with
droplets. She squeals with delight. She likes it here with him.
He dances freely along the water’s edge, leaping
over the tide as it slides towards him. He searches for flat rocks and skims
them across the water’s surface. They bounce once, twice, and then are
swallowed by waves. He shouts to her over his shoulder, but the wind whips his
words away before she has a chance to hear.
She stops to watch the setting sun. It dazzles
her with its display of colors. They swirl together like a kaleidoscope.
Shifting from the pale hues of yellow, orange and pink into the deeper, richer tones
of blue, red, and purple. It’s a magical moment. Dreamy and beautiful. She watches
in amazement.
She turns to Tom, to ask him if he sees
the dolphin leaping out of the sparkling surf. Like an acrobat, it flies into
the brilliant evening air, flipping and spinning, before splashing again into
the gleaming waters.
But he is not beside her.
She spins wildly in every direction but cannot
find him. She screams his name over and over and then she hears him. His voice faint,
dying on the wind. Far down the beach, he is standing where the rocks
meet the sea. He beckons to her and points to the ocean, out towards the
horizon where the light has faded. She tries to run to him, but her legs are
heavy and sluggish. She struggles but sinks deeper into the sand. She cannot
move. She is helpless.
She watches as he strides to the water’s edge.
It swirls playfully around his ankles, tugging and teasing, and then it rises
above his knees. And now, he stands waist deep. He looks forlornly out at the
ocean and she follows his gaze but sees only an empty horizon. The sun has fallen
over the edge of the world. The last rays of her light have left and the water
shimmers black.
Tom is gone.
She awakens gasping for breath as she always does. She has dreamed this dream every day for the past
three months. Her suffering is as excruciating in her dreams as it is in life. Images
of Tom move painfully behind her closed eyelids. She lies quiet in the sand waiting
for her heart to calm and the last traces of her dream to dissipate.
The sun is lower in the west, but not by
much. She has dozed for only a short time. She stands up, brushing away tiny
sand particles clinging to the moisture on her skin. She shakes out her hair
and sand showers down upon her bare feet.
The waves continue to roar, but less
fervently. They have retreated even further during her nap but the tide will
soon turn. In the meantime, she walks the shore, inspecting every clump of
seaweed, every shell, every rock, begging them to reveal their secrets. She
listens carefully but hears nothing. She breaths in their scent, whispering her
forgiveness, but still, they are mute.
She combs the beach until she reaches the
jetty. Once the jumble of rocks was a place of love and lust. A place where she
said, yes, when Tom proposed. A place where they made fervent love under
the stars. And a place where they planned their future. But now it has become a
place of grief. A place of shattered dreams and a place of eternal sadness.
It is the place where Tom leapt into the
sea.
The rocks are wet and smooth as she climbs
on them. Her foot slips on their polished surface and she lands hard on one knee.
It is not the first time she has fallen. Her knees and elbows are tinged with
the yellowish browns of fading bruises. She should know to be careful, but
perhaps the pain of stone meeting bone is her penitence, her punishment for not
being able to save her husband.
Tiny crabs scurry away as she climbs
higher atop the jetty. She searches, examining every crevice as she zigzags her
way across the rock, but she finds nothing.
Out on the point, she gazes into the sea
and feels hopeless. Goosebumps prickle her skin, and she wraps her arms around
herself. She wonders what it would feel like if she were to keep walking. Past
the rocks, past the space where nothing begins. She wonders what it would feel
like to jump into the ocean’s chilly waters and never return. She wonders what
it felt like for Tom.
The sound of laughter reaches her on the ocean breeze. Behind her, children
scramble onto the rocks, screeching in delight when they find a crab, snail, or
other crustacean clinging to the rocks.
“Hey, lady!” one of them shouts. “You’re
too far out!”
She knows this.
She saw the sign telling visitors not to
go past this point, but she did anyway. The waves have returned, colliding against
the tip of the jetty, spraying funnels of water high into the air. She spreads
her arms and feels the mist on her face and then, reluctantly, she turns around.
She smiles at the children as they scamper about but feels no happiness. The
waves crash hard against the rocks and within her heart.
She retraces her steps, across the rocks
and back onto the flat beach, searching as she goes. She walks on, past the spot
where she slept. The indentation from her body already full of windblown sand.
Further she walks until the sun has disappeared below the horizon. The sunset
is glorious, but she does not notice. She is spent.
The evening air is cold and blustery. The
waves lap at her feet. There is nothing more to be seen this night. She turns
away from the vast and selfish ocean that refuses to relinquish her husband,
and trudges across the dunes towards home.
**
Living on the beach was Tom’s dream. He spoke
of it often and soon it became her dream too. How soothing it would be to fall
asleep to the crashing of real waves and not those from a sleep machine, he’d
exclaim. How pleasant to hear the gulls in the mornings as they gather on the
beach right outside our front door! How
refreshing is the sea breeze against our skin! And how radiant are the colors
of the setting sun as they reflect in the crystal suncatcher hanging in the window!
However, she no longer finds joy in any of
that. The incessant crashing of waves and screeching gulls are a constant source
of irritation. The ocean winds bring only dampness and the rotten smell of
seaweed. During the last storm, the suncatcher blew to the ground, shattering into
tiny pieces. And she only notices the sunset because it signals the ending of another
awful day.
Day after day, week after week, her
routine is the same.
She awakens restless and angry, with legs
tangled in sand filled sheets. His side of the bed is cold and she clutches his
pillow. She wears his sweatshirt and her eyes are moist from a night of bad
dreams. Their angst and despair linger long after she climbs out of bed. She
wraps herself in her robe and slides her feet into her slippers. The
floorboards creak as she walks across the bedroom.
On her way to the kitchen, she pauses at
the mantel and straightens the picture frames. Smiling faces of her and Tom. A happy
life together once upon a time. A life she can neither forget nor one she wants
to remember.
Tom’s ghost follows her into the kitchen. In
silence, he sits across from her at the kitchen table, but she cannot bear to
look at his empty chair. She stares out the window and eats a bowl of oatmeal and
sips hot tea. Afterwards, she will go into the bathroom and brush her teeth. She
will shower, but no matter how much she lathers, the sand refuses to be washed
away. She will stand in front of the mirror and find another new wrinkle,
another frown line. She is only 26, but her face deceives her.
Together, her and Tom made this house into
their home. A safe space where they shared their love, hopes, and dreams, but
there is nothing here now that brings her warmth. Wooden chimes hanging on the
porch clack incessantly, while fine specks of swirling sand pelt the windowpanes.
She draws the curtains and sits in the dark, numb, and abandoned.
She hates it here, but she cannot leave.
Not while Tom is still out there lost at sea.
When the sun has begun its journey
skyward, she ventures outside to begin her daily search. She pleads with the sea
to give her back her love, prays that it will somehow make her whole again. Maybe
today will be the day it hears her. Maybe today will be the day it finally releases
its grip on her husband and she can bring him home.
On the beach, though, nothing has changed.
Waves continue to roll in, dumping sand,
shells and other debris along the shore and then taking it away as the tide recedes.
Mounds of seaweed are still strewn across the sand. She can hear the buzzing of
the flies. Diptera. She kicks and stomps on the seaweed as she passes
and swats at the flies as they rise angrily into the air.
She hates this place.
The sea assaults her senses. She cannot
stand it any longer. She shakes her fists, striking out at the sky, the wind,
the dunes, at the entire world around her. She shrieks with fury. Her hostility
spews forth, directed at the ocean which she once loved when Tom was beside
her. She rages against the forces that move it, demanding them to relinquish
her husband. She screams and screams, but nothing changes.
For hours she walks the beach but finds
nothing. She’s exhausted and her heart aches. She curls into the sand, shaking
with anger and desperation.
Tom is in her dreams again, like she knew
he would be.
His ragged swim trunks drip saltwater as
he trudges through the sand in front of her. A piece of kelp is knotted in his
wet hair. He doesn’t dance among the waves but limps, with head down, along the
shoreline. He has bruises and jagged cuts on his back. She wonders about them
but he does not answer.
Seagulls, noisy and selfish, circle
overhead, riding the wind currents far out to sea and then back again. Tom
steps over a pile of kelp and a swarm of flies rise into the air, engulfing
him. She loses sight of him. When the flies have finally settled, she sees him
far ahead standing on the jetty.
He beckons to her, and she feels a sense of urgency, so she runs. Her feet barely touch the sand. She runs and runs, but he
is still so far away. The wind picks her up and she flies with it. Tom is
calling. She hears him now.
“I am here!” he screams.
She awakens to the sound of her own scream,
but already the wind has carried it away. Her heart is pounding and her blood
thunders through her veins. She is panicked with her breath coming in rapid
gasps. She stands, lightheaded, sweating underneath the late afternoon sun.
It is low in the sky, brilliant and
blinding, but through its dazzling rays she sees him. He is standing where the
rocks meet the sea, shimmering like a mirage. He lifts his hand and points.
There, just past the end of the jetty, past
the point where the waves begin to surge, she sees him. His red swim trunks
bobbing in the water.
She runs, fast, towards the jetty. Sand
sprays out behind her churning feet. She splashes into the water and pushes against
the waves. They push back, grabbing her ankles and pulling her under. She
tumbles across the sand as the waves roll over her, depositing her in a heap back
onto the beach.
The ocean is against her, but she is
determined. She will not lose her husband a second time.
She climbs up onto the jetty. She slips
and falls and barnacled rocks scrape against her knees, drawing
blood, but she does not notice. Nor does she notice the sign warning people of
the dangers of being too far out. She rushes past the sign, to the very end. Tom
is floating face down, arms spread, drifting away.
“Tom!” she screams.
Waves hurl themselves against the
point. They seize her as she jumps off the end of the jetty and into the foamy sea.
They pull her into their violence, pounding her against the rocks. They snatch her
away, but only briefly, before cruelly sending her crashing into them again and
again.
The tide thrusts her towards the
surface. Her head rises above the horizon, above the dunes and, for a moment, she
sees her life again as it once was. Her and Tom, laughing on the front porch of
their dream home, while the suncatcher sparkles in the window behind them. The
sky is brilliant with the colors of the setting sun. Magical and surreal.
She smiles, but then the waves grab
her again, sucking her under and slamming her head into the rocks. She gasps,
but there is no air, only saltwater, and it fills her lungs. She fights against
the blackness of the water and the blackness in her head. The waves are
relentless, beating her against the rocks until there is nothing left of her.
She wonders if this is what it felt like
for Tom.
Then something touches her cheek. Tender and
familiar. She opens her eyes and Tom is there, like she knew he would be. He
takes her hands, entwining his fingers with hers, soft, like lovers do. He pulls
her away from the battering waves, away from the rocks, and into his arms.
“I am here, my love,” he whispers.
She grabs him tight, and they sink beneath
the roiling waves, deeper still until their entangled bodies float just above
the ocean floor. It is peaceful here. The water is warm and blue, like his
eyes. Oceanus, she whispers. He caresses her face, and they kiss sweetly.
She likes it here with him.
