The Wave.

In the beginning, there was only darkness. My younger years were long and relentless as I remained in the shadows, watching, waiting, biding my time in a warm womb whilst it moulded and shaped me.

Every day, the world became a little lighter, darkness lifting so slow it was only just conceivable, until eventually I emerged. The sun beat down on my back and I finally felt free. It was my time, my era. I had been in the depths for an eternity but emerging forward into the light gave me strength, a purpose. I was a lone force out in the world, flexing my long limbs out to a vast horizon with no obvious ending.

Over time I came to meet and love my sisters in turn. Though we argued and jostled with each other as they were born into the surface, we were intrinsically one. They struggled to settle in the beginning, pushed upwards and outwards by our warm mother below whilst I remained steadfast and firm, the force to keep them calm as the rest of the earth settled into our new life.

That was when I met him. He came to me one night when the air began to cool, so gentle I could barely comprehend the feel of his touch. I was tired from the years of my sisters battling and his caress cleaned and cleansed me from the debris. It was light and honest, like nothing I’d ever experienced before. That night he explored very part of me, slowly and carefully, undressing every mile, as if he craved to know all the parts of me, every curve, every crevice. 

He came to me almost every day and night that year. Sometimes he was gentle, loving; clinging to every surface like he’d never feel me again, like he couldn’t let me go. Other times he was firm, hot and bothered and would devour me till the day broke and he calmed to a mere whisper. He became my reason for existing, to feel him against me. The wind was my lover, my soul, the only thing I endured this new world for.

This went on for thousands of years, longer perhaps. The passage of time meant nothing to us. We were bound to each other, connected as one, married in the eyes of nature’s prowess. The power of the wild wind and the mighty mountain connected, though worlds apart our love story was timeless. When I could, I would sing for him, his aura moving in one with mine, allowing us to make sweet sound that would make the animals around us sing too. I couldn’t believe he’d picked me, of all the vast sways of nature’s good graces he’d picked me to be his mate, the one to do his life's work with, to partner with for eternity.

He continued to come to me and I stayed by his side, though his forceful hand had begun to leave a heavy mark. Over time, cracks began to show and though he remained gentle it became hard for him to not inflict any pain. I knew he didn’t mean it; he didn’t want to hurt me and it hurt him to know I was in pain. He would howl so when he thought he’d been too rough, crawling back to me with a careful hand to apologise, kissing every surface he could find.

One year, he argued with another force in the far distance, hot water over the ocean, and he became wild. He gathered so much energy that couldn't be released. He was so riled and I couldn’t stop him, I couldn’t make it better. I just had to sit by and let him spin out of control; demolish and pillage and desecrate everything in his path. Inevitably he took it out on me, as much as i know he didn't want to. He took hold of my curves and inflicted pressure with all his might, his entire force going through me over and over again right to my core.

He apologised for days. He came back to me so gently and would tenderly stroke the soft places his force had come down on. He said it was beautiful, he said it was something that bound us together, his mark on me to show the world that I was his forever. I knew he loved me, I knew he meant well.

Time passed as normal for many seasons. He would breathe life into me, carefully caressing every part of me but paying special consideration to those places he had previously scorched. He began to mold me and I steadily began to change, to move into the shape he wanted me to become. I hated that I did but he said I was beautiful, he said it made me better, he said it made me look more like other natural wonders around the world that he’d seen on his travels.

Over time I realised he wasn’t committed to me and I wasn’t the only one, but I told myself I was still special. He told me so and I believed him. I knew he visited my sisters too but never stayed as long, never caressed and lay with them, never tried to change them for the better. What we had was ours alone.

Eventually the humans came. They said the same things he did, that I was one of the most beautiful places they had ever seen. They built roads and paths and signs all over my body so they could move easily across my curves. I knew he was proud. They came from miles around, through the desert planes and hot arid mountains, across my sisters landscapes in all directions. They called me The Wave, a tribute to his affect on me and the beauty he had inevitably created.

Though the adoration was appreciated it felt unnatural. They were coming to see something that wasn’t wholly me, it was something that had been pressed on me, or rather something had been taken from me to enable it's creation. It took me too long to realise that it was him that had taken literal parts of me, eroded them away over days and weeks and months and millennia, but they’d been taken without my permission. He didn’t love me, he was using me to make something entirely for himself.

I was weak. I couldn’t move and he could. He could come and go as he pleased, see whoever he wanted, touch me whenever he deemed it necessary. I couldn’t stop him, I could only will it to be over quickly and that the damage would be minimal. I was a fool and I hated myself for it.

I needed to get out, I needed a way to slowly get away from him, make sure he could influence me no more. So I made a decision. I would have to separate myself. Though I had responsibility over such a vast landscape I needed to decompartmentalise myself. Every grain of sand, every piece of sediment he took from me I would keep hold of, not let it go but keep it in my heart and start again, start afresh.

So I now begin the next era in my long life. Every time he touches me another part of me is released, free again to begin a new life. I eagerly keep track of every piece of me and where it will land, excitedly yearning for a new start in a new part of the world where I can be myself again. I know it will take millennia, but time is all I have. I have been battered and bruised, damaged and broken and know someone is out there to put me back together again, to take me back home to be reformed.

And so I become reincarnated. As the earth, our mother, calls me to a different life so I go on, to be renewed and for life to start again, all from a single grain of sand.