SHORT STORY: Where the rocks meet the sea

 WHERE THE ROCKS MEET THE SEA

        By: Rae A. Costa

    edited: July 2024

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 afternoon sun and lifts a hand to shield her face, blinking furiously against the onslaught of sand. Her arm flops over her eyes and she naps. Her breathing is uneven, 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 and his red swim trunks sag under the water’s weight. Rivulets cascade down his legs and over defined calves. He shakes it 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 and slaps at his ankles. He searches for flat rocks and skims them across the water’s surface. They bounce once, twice, sometimes three times, and then are swallowed by the 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 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 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 there.

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 watches, helpless and frightened, as he strides to the water’s edge. It swirls playfully around his feet, tugging and teasing, and then rises above his knees. 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 quietly in the sand waiting for her heart to calm and for the last traces of her dream to dissipate.

The sun is lower now, but not by much. She has dozed for only a short time. She stands, 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 the ocean air, whispering her forgiveness, but still, it stays mute.

Painstakingly, 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 towards the end of the rocks, 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 waters and never return. She wonders what it felt like for Tom.

The sound of laughter drifts to her upon the chilly breeze. Behind her, children scramble onto the jetty, 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 lets the salty mist rain down upon her face.

As the laughter and tiny voices grow near, she reluctantly turns around. She smiles at the children as they scamper about but feels no happiness. She had always wanted to be a mother. They had made plans to start a family. Let’s have two, a boy and a girl! Tom had declared, but that was before her miscarriage and before they knew she would never be able to carry a baby to term. She rubs a hand lightly over her empty belly and wonders if a baby would have been enough to save Tom.

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 still warm dunes towards home.

💔

Living on the beach was Tom’s dream. He spoke of it often and with such passion that it soon became her dream too. How soothing it would be to fall asleep to the crashing of real waves and not those from a sound 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 reflecting in the crystal suncatcher dangling in the window!

However, she no longer finds joy in any of that. The incessant pounding of surf and screeching gulls are a constant source of irritation. The ocean winds bring only dampness and the rotten fishy smell of seaweed. During the last storm, the suncatcher blew to the ground, shattering into tiny shards. 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 at his pillow. She wears his sweatshirt, but his scent has long faded, and her eyes remain moist from a night of bad dreams. Angst and despair linger long after she climbs out of bed. She wraps herself in her robe and slides her feet into her furry 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, but now a life tainted by grief. It's 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 instead but sees only the reflection of a heartbroken woman. When she finishes eating her bowl of oatmeal, she will leave the bowl in the sink and go into the bathroom to 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 years old, but her face deceives her.

Together, she and Tom had 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 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. Maybe today she will finally know peace.

On the beach, though, nothing has changed.

Waves continue to roll in, dumping beach sediment along the shore and then taking it away as the tide recedes. She reaches down and picks up a small, white shell similar to the one Tom had given her during their first beach walk together. To commemorate the moment, he said, as he pulled it from the sand and handed it to her. She reaches up and touches the shell hanging from a string around her neck.  She tosses the one in her hand back into the water, watching it tumble away with the tide.

Mounds of seaweed are still strewn across the beach. 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. The same ocean that she once loved when Tom was beside her. The same ocean that held so much hope and promise. She rages against the forces that move it, demanding them to give her back her husband. He is hers! She screams and screams until her throat is raw, but nothing changes.

For hours she walks the beach but finds nothing. She’s exhausted and her heart aches. She curls into the sand, overwhelmed by desperation and shaking with despair.

Tom is in her dreams again, like she knew he would be.

His tattered 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 frolic among the waves but limps, with head down, along the shoreline. He has bruises and jagged cuts on his back. She asks questions, but he does not answer.  

Seagulls, noisy and selfish, circle overhead, riding the wind currents far out to sea and then back again. Tom shuffles through a pile of kelp and a swarm of flies rise into the air. They engulf him and he disappears into their mass. When the flies have finally settled, she sees him far ahead now, 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 pounds and her blood thunders through her veins. She is hysterical, with her breath coming in ragged gasps. She jumps to her feet, lightheaded and sweating underneath the hot 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 into the great expanse of sea.

Then, just past the end of the jetty, past the point where the waves begin to surge, she sees him for real. His body bobs in the current and his red swim trunks lay bright against the blackness of 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 propel her backwards, grabbing at her ankles and yanking her under. She tumbles across the hard sand as the waves wash over her, depositing her in a heap back onto the beach.

The ocean is against her, but she is determined. It will not take her husband from her a second time. She will not lose him again.

She climbs up onto the jetty, slipping and falling. The barnacled rocks scrape against her hands and knees, drawing blood, but she does not care. Nor does she care about the sign warning her of the dangers of being too far out. She rushes past the sign, to the very end. Tom, floating on his back staring into the sun with sightless eyes, drifts away.

“Tom!” she cries.

Waves hurl themselves against the point. They seize her as she jumps off the end of the jetty and pull her deep into the foamy sea. Violently, they smash her into the rocks. 

            The jagged rocks rip at her clothing, peeling away her exposed skin, then the tide abruptly thrusts her upwards. Her head pops above the surface, 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 behind them. The sky is brilliant with the colors of the setting sun. Magical and surreal. She smiles.

            But then the current grabs her again, sucking her under, and the waves slam her headfirst 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 brushes against her cheek. Soothing, 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. Gently 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 tangled and broken bodies float just above the ocean floor. It is peaceful here. The water is warm and blue, like his eyes. Oceanus. He caresses her face, and they kiss sweetly.

She likes it here with him.

And here they’ll stay, just beyond where the rocks meet the sea.