Stories Below the Surface

This just published in Bella Grace magazine!

The wet sand spits beneath my feet, as I walk along the shoreline of a sunset beach. Warm colors reflect in the sand, glassy from being licked time and time again by the persistent waves, pulling in and out, in and out. Hypnotized, I plunge into the salty blue. The gentle evening current pulls me out and sends me gliding on my stomach into the welcoming watery arms. The sun is a dazzling orb, solid orange at the top, dripping into the horizon like a melting sorbet, and casting glitter on the surface of the warm water. I turn onto my back and exhale my breath so my body sinks below the water’s surface. If I open my eyes, I can see the rippling mirage of liquid amber trying to penetrate the smooth, cool, darkness of the marine life below. 

How numerous the ocean’s mysteries. How many stories it holds. Undiscovered creatures chalked up to whimsy and fairytales. Sunken ships, out of place in the deep blue, casting grave darkness over the sea plants with their jutting metallic bones. Lifeless bodies that once put up a fight, but were claimed by the strong waves. Wedding rings regretfully lost or willingly forgotten. Lost and withered messages which never made it across the sea. Histories forever made sacred by the ocean’s impossibly impenetrable depths. The best place for hiding secrets. 

The tone of the underwater drone is a music of its own. It is not silent, but laden with heavy quiet. It is not still, but peaceful, a calm that suggests modest intelligence. Full of another kind of life – a life we do not know. Why can’t we be more like the fish? So serene, so purposeful in their watery world with their watery ways. Or the dolphins who play all day and sing and jump with glee? Or the shellfish, who carry on their backs their homes and all they’ll ever need? I long to grow gills of my own and join the sea creatures in their underwater sanctuary. I wonder, what if humans were as obedient as the fish? If only life were as simple as that of the ocean’s profound serenity. If only matters made as much sense as the unquestionable ways of the persistent deep. If only knowledge was as constant as the tireless tide, beating wave after wave. If only kindness were as abundant as the spacious watery depths. What if man were as instinctive as this natural elemental workforce? What if the human kind were as sophisticated as the working, churning system of the sea. . .

I burst to life on the surface, as my angering involuntary need for oxygen breaks the silence of my thoughts and the yearning of my curiosity. Wind and waves invade my senses and slap against my form – a corruption to my ears that were tenderly attuned to gentle sounds, a shock to my body that was caressed by smoothness, seaweed, and salt. The choppy structure of the waves is a liquid spine, protecting the soft contents of the nature underneath. How special it feels to float atop this beauty, knowing a pristine world extends vastly below, just carrying on in the habitual, humble quiet of all it knows.

The sun warms the remnant flecks of sea spray on my face. I swim through its glittering reflection all the way to shore. Prompted by my knees hitting the sharp, shell-filled sand, I stand up and tread to the glassy beach. All I have left of that profound underwater world, runs through the crevices of my body, drips off my stomach, down my legs, and retreats to its rightful home. I take a few steps along the shore, before turning back to the sun. I make a seat in the sand, and stare as the amber turns to red, and the red turns to pink, and the pink turns to purple, and the purple turns to midnight, and the midnight becomes layered with bright, bright stars. I stare into the film of clouds passing over the moonlight, and ponder the distance past the horizon. My gaze falls to the waves, now choppy and scary beneath their magnificent moon. And I think what chilling mysteries this black world must be hiding, that the golden hour ocean could not think to behold.

#ocean #beach #goldenhour #bigblueworld #oceandeep #hopelessromantic #romanticism #imagery #fiction #thebeach #godscreation #marinelife #underwater #mermaid #seacreatures #sea #mystery #poetry