Mourning Starlight

In the middle of the end of hope, a man fights in a muted world of terror and grim ink. Surrounding him is nothing but frothing steel gray water that mocks and hisses in his ear and batters him again, and again, and again… but below, he sees through salt-stung eyes the mysterious blue-black depths and kicks furiously away from them. Finally, he breaks the surface, blinking water from his eyes—wait! Something new has appeared! A piece of formless white floats not three feet from his head. Desperately, he reaches an arm out to catch hold of slippery plastic, maybe part of a cheap chair or table from the deck of the cruise ship. This mundane trash is his lifeblood now. He floats. The waves, irate at their failure to sink him, tear away at his shoulders to no effect. They scream in his ear, and he imagines an upset child denied a toy or another piece of cake after they’ve had their fill. Still, he floats, and now he waits. Around him, the man sees nothing but open water. Where did his ship go? The passengers? He has no answers, and his eyes drift closed in sheer exhaustion. 

He awakes to a tranquil night and tastes the leftover tears from a child’s tantrum. The dark cobalt water around him is nearly tropical, and his eyes still burn from salt. He has become used to the gentle rocking of the once-violent waves, but sorrow now settles into his bones. He won’t delude himself: he is trapped in this endless sea, and there is no hope of survival. No hope of land, drinkable water, or food—but above all, he mourns his family. Instead of crying, the man looks up at the clear sky and sees the stars. Maybe they’re his tears, scattered high above and glistening. However, the ache in his soul and his limbs doesn’t prevent him from seeing the beauty of the cosmos above. As he studies the arrangement of the tiny glowing orbs in the night sky, their orderly chaos steadies him. The stars have been there for millennia, and he is simply visiting them. He has never felt this small in his life.

The water whispers around him curiously. Having had no company but the heavens above, the ocean is intrigued by this strange man. So, he tells her a little story as he gazes upward. 

“I have a daughter. Evie. She’s four, and she loves everything about life. Every time I come home from work, she runs into my arms, and nothing can break her smile. She wants to know how my day went, and I tell her, and she tells me what she did at preschool, and I wonder when I lost that enthusiasm myself.” A little wave sprays up into his face and he tastes brine, but he knows that the ocean is no longer mad at him. Instead, he senses pity. He continues. 

“My wife Maria is a high school math teacher. I don’t know how she does it, teaching algebra and geometry to unwilling teenagers, but somehow she finds joy in that.” 

Another spray of salt. 

“You don’t know what math or teenagers are. Why are you interested?”

He feels a current of longing far below, and he realizes how lonely the ocean is. She may have a wealth of creatures lurking and thriving in her waters, but none talk to her. They don’t share their joy or fear or hopes as his little daughter does with him.

“I see. They take you for granted. I feel that too, sometimes. I’m a nurse. I work late into the night often, and even though I help people get better and enjoy my job, I sometimes feel as if people don’t see me for what I do.”

Tiny waves dance around the man, gently sympathizing. 

“Do you love your fish? And the other creatures and plants? I suppose they’re a part of you, so you don’t have much choice.”

The ocean swells subtly, conceding. 

“It must be strange to be an ocean. So many humans use you as their waterway, and the only thing you get in return from us is pollution. You’re becoming ravaged by oil spills and plastic waste, and we don’t even seem to care,” the man says sadly. “It’s so easy not to care when you live on land. Hardly anyone sees the piles of trash until some environmentalist posts a disturbing photo online, and we talk for a few weeks or days, and then someone raises a moderate amount of money, and then people forget again. Maybe it’s in the back of our minds, but that helps no one. And you’re unable to protect yourself; that’s the worst of it,” he continues.

The tips of the waves froth more now, and the man senses anger. This feeling isn’t mere annoyance, but the deep rage the ocean has kept at her very core. Ice fills his veins, and he knows she could make him disappear right now if she wanted to. There would be no trace; he would be obliterated so completely and finally that no fancy scientist’s machine or radar would ever find him. No diver would survive the depth he’d be thrown to. He would be crushed like the ant on his countertop that he had squashed beneath his fingertip just a week ago without a single misgiving. But he shared part of his life with this lonely vast sea, and she’s thankful for that. So the waves settle once more, and he breathes a sigh of relief. Even though he steeled himself to the fact that he would die out here, he is still scared. He doesn’t want to die. But the darkness still surrounds him, and the stars that burn light years away are out of reach.

“Did you know that the light from those stars started to shine millions and billions of years ago?” The man asks the ocean, feigning calm. “To me, that feels lonely. Seeing that light is like hearing about a party after it’s happened and realizing you hadn’t been invited. They’re not burning now; they burned long ago before my ancestors were even born, and for all we know, they’ve already fizzled out.” 

The swooshing of a breeze over gentle waves ruffles his hair slightly, and he can smell the ancient knowledge of the ocean. It’s something more than what words can say, for this sea is older than language. She’s older than humanity, or mammals, or the little single-celled bacteria that first called her home. And so, alone in this great expanse with no company but waves and foam and salt, he understands that she mourns the starlight too.