To Be the Water, Held by Him

Eugene laid with his back to an old log. Wisps of white settled above him. When he looked out too, the whitecaps of brisk wind and old men piloting boat’s wakes left him shuddering, as if he could only look out through the white of his eyes. To his left a family laughed. They had brought a bb gun, and one around his age had rappelled up, defying gravity, the side of the cliff face they had all taken to get down here. The kid, standing menacingly above, threw down branches which his siblings tried to shoot in the air. To the right side of the rocky beach, two older men sat drinking bears. They had boated here. And every time a snowy sleek yacht passed in the distance the two men stopped their conversation to stare, one eye full of hope and the other full of hate. Together they made two normal sets of eyes, as they sat sitting in their rusting metal hull.

Eugene smiled. Between Sausalito and that fancy hotel for rich people he had a second home. Driving 45 mph, bending around gut-dropping curves, there was a shoulder. And beyond this shoulder was a low fence that never managed to reflect the beaming sun. Beyond this fence were old beer bottles and a shoe. But beyond that, a rope was tied to a tree. No, no - his story doesn’t go that way, don’t worry. The rope dangles down the near-cliff. And at the bottom lies the stone beach. With a perfect view of the city across the bay. Eugene lied on that rocky beach and let it form in the shape of his body. Descended in stone, he was stagnant. His mind wandered and recurringly he snatched at the string that dangled behind it, because some trails it could take would lead to a flooding of his stone shell. 

He looked up at the sky and was faced by the immensity of it. If he could just reach up there maybe it would feel smaller. But he couldn’t. So he just stared and imagined a ladder up into the clouds. A cloud caught his eye. He saw a bunny, its puffy white legs extended and retracted a million times as it hopped along. He was the bunny, hopping along home from school, and to the beach. He saw himself in a meadow wandering. So many things over which to hop! It was all so exciting. 

The sound CUZHSSUSHH broke him from bunny heaven dreaming.

-Shit, said the kid who’d thrown the branch, that’s my bad.

Eugene raised his hand to say it was okay. He opened his mouth to say something to the boy who was near his age but he choked on it. The boy stared at him with sapphire eyes that set the whole forest behind him on fire. The beach was the only refuge from that totality, and the stones protected him. All this was caught in the back of Eugene’s throat, set on fire and letting him squirm. The kid just raised his hand back.

Eugene looked back at the sky. In it, he saw a rope-swing, like the one that had been at his elementary school. He saw himself climb the log, with permission from the adults and his older cousin holding the swing up. He saw himself grab on and stare down. The floor was miles away. Such are the perils of swings. But he was courageous. He held on and white-knuckled, flung himself off the log. His screams bounced off the laughs of his parents and aunts and uncles, and he let himself fly until the rope swing came up on the other side and for a brief moment, the clouds were in his hair and the trees were all beneath him. He plunged back down, and his feet grazed the dirt as everyone cheered. He swung a couple more times, him the giant towering over the land. He was a dragon now, a dragon treasuring the rope-swing, treasuring the freedom of flying and sitting on the knot which held it to him. He breathed fire and burnt away all those who dared steal his gold from him. 

Now he was back on the rope swing and the parents were gone. He was a little bit older but not much. He had conquered the beast of the swing, and was its merciful, fire-breathing ruler. He gleefully went back and forth on it, letting the fear empower him. In the passing world he saw traitors, elves, cunning figures, in the shapes of his classmates. They grabbed at the rope swing and laughed. They spun it out of control and pushed his dragon's lair out of whack. On the next coming-down, these thieving scoundrels smacked his gold pile and left him, the tumbling dragon, to hit the dirt beneath the swing. The dragon cried tears of cold while it was laughed at and pushed out of the way. Its tears of gold made it a fortress, and surrounded it.

Later he came back to the swing. The same boys were on it. This time the dragon had retaliation planned. With its gold suit of armor, it charged into battle and spewed fire. The dragon socked one of the cunning elves in the eye and sent it to the doctor’s office. The dragon’s cold exterior hardened into the skin underneath, began to shed off, and the majestic dragon was left with a statue in its likeness, a statue unwilling to cry, who took no joy in its protection of the swing for years later. And the dragon's shell stayed wrapped around him into middle school.

He came back to the beach thinking about the dragon and watching the clouds go idly past. He was unwilling, at least for the moment, to immerse himself into a cloud again. For now, all he could do was watch. He existed in a constant state of ambiguity, he thought to himself. He felt that reflected in his dragon. He had grown and in this growth he was no longer the boy on the swing gleefully free, the weak dragon in the dirt, or the statue of gold who had socked his classmate in the eye, but all of them, barely. He couldn’t be one, and he couldn’t be all, but he was in-between, just watching clouds go by. 

The men to his right grumbled. Men younger than them, wrapped in white pants and white shirts, glided past in the distance sipping on champagne. After the grumbling the two men swallowed their beers and smiled. They swayed and let the boat sway with them. The boys next to him laughed. The oldest was a couple years older than him but had been sanded down by winds, his hair was stiff and the spots under his eyes wrinkly, as he played with the youngest. These two watched the men on their metal crinketty boat and laughed. And the one who had thrown branches up above, just smiled down on them all. His teeth splayed brilliantly through splotches of yellow when he and Eugene stared at each other.

The world faded away into mist when another cloud caught his eye. It was the shape of a mug. Eugene was the water floating in it, turning from scalding to warm to lukewarm, to cold. The tea dissipated through him and together, he, the tea, and the cup, became one in the hands of the boy up on the cliff-side. He held it patiently as steam extended and the warmth overwhelmed both. But as steam stopped, and the heat on his hands faded, Eugene and the chamomile were spilt over the side and dropped into an abyss. 

Now he was the cup in his own room. It was ninth grade, and his friends were all there laughing. He could see them clearly - all of them. They pointed at him, the cup that Eugene’s mom had given him earlier that year. They reached out and tried to grab him. He, the cup, was pulled away and smacked on accident against his chair. He went thundering down and shattered on the floor into a million pieces. He looked up and saw the kaleidoscoped world above him, shone through a million lenses yet definitely cracked. 

A wave crashed near him. His feet chose not to retract, frozen in place, and so he felt the mist splash and cover them. He chose to forget the cup for the moment being. He looked around again. The oldest and youngest boy were eating together. The one at the top of the ridge still stared down. He stood in the shadow of an acacia tree, one side of his face submerged in black. His hair too, was dark, and covered his head in a messy mop. Together, he was almost fully concealed in the darkness looking down at his siblings. He caught Eugene’s eye and they stared at each other again. The boy laughed and waved. Eugene laughed awkwardly and choked on his spit again. He raised his hand and the boy smiled and started moving.

Eugene looked away quickly and went back to the sky. A man made of clouds stood powerfully up there and he stared down at Eugene. Eugene was the man, but instead of running on the clouds like before, he plummeted onto the beach. He fell through the atmosphere, flailing, reaching for something to hold on to. But he just continued falling until he struck the cold rocky beach. Eugene sat up sweating a little bit. He closed his eyes and imagined all of it going away. Meanwhile, the cloud above him was swept by the wind to the other ends of the city.

The sounds of crunching rocks made their way towards him.

“You mind if I sit here,” someone asked. Eugene recognized the voice from the apology earlier and opened his heavy eyes.

“Ya,” he said, “sure.” The boy's hair was still dark in the foggy daylight and hid his eyes from view as he sat down.

“Do you like looking at the clouds?” The boy asked. He laughed through saying, “Mister Loner, didn’t even say anything when I said hi.”

“Ha, sorry,” Eugene forced out. He continued, “But ya, I like looking at the clouds, I guess. I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to explain,” the boy said as he lied down. He looked up and then hit Eugene on the arm, saying, “Look, that one looks like a dog. Imagine being that dog and running free through those clouds, hopping over breezes and chasing other clouds.”

“Ya. Imagine,” Eugene said. He stared at the clouds and he and the boy made their spot on the sandy beach, looking up into the sky and pretending to be so far away, despite both of them being happy right where they were.