The Tempest

The water of the great Atlantic claws at the sides of The Conspiracy. Tense air circles and tugs at fabrics and hair. The nameless man crunches a letter in his hands--fueled by an emotion untouched by his soul for decades. This was before his beard turned salty and age stretched his face to be a water rippled version of his past-self. His eyes lay anchor to his maple eyes with a thought swirling below the depths of moments that passed him by. The splinter scarred hands wore rope burns for skin. Clothes hung loose like options rather than commitments. His sun soaked skin seasoned with sea spray was freckled and worn.

Smoke scattered skies carry away his wishes shackled with hopes. In the likes of wings longing to sprout to fly the wind back to a familiar land. A land that visits him in his dreams. A land that harbors his heart. It called to him in recollection like a shore pulling his mind back and back again.

The fire's heat stirred his nose to smell the past. A circle of family gathered round the end of day. He imagined the turning spit and sizzled pork spinning it's ballet. The family watched and laughed at stories and songs they poured like the tea they made. The memories were warm like the stones they would rest their feet. Crickets and owls sounded from the distant hills and the light from their home showed them the path to their beds. This was what gave his blood its warmth.

Emeralds were green in jealousy of his farmland hills speckled with sheep. He saw those hills just last night while scrunched on a stiff cot, contorted like dancing slippers in his daughter's shoebox, but now only swirling waters in every point of a compass arrow mock is mortality. Grey, with the ire and power beyond his comprehension, both sea and sky shake hands on the horizon to deal souls between themselves. Two thieves he saw once as friends who dazzled him with sunsets and pearls now promise him to the harvester of souls. A thousand instruments would sing upon the waves, birds, and air. The lights of the night gave direction and stories. The sea gave food and transit to his dreams. Now two friends were like conspirators plotting his darkness. A wind that once whispered comforts now howled a war cry against his plans. This was the tempest that gave threats and promises that first appeared upon the lips of loved ones worried about such a voyage.

A thought crossed his mind in the night that perhaps a prayer should be addressed to heaven. Slumber seduced his brain to save it, like the coin he still carries from when he was 10. It is one he found it in the garden. A rather odd place to find loose change, with heads facing up no less. The luck it brought seemed to store up the other side of the scale for today. What good does a coin do that doesn't get spent? No heaven uses the currency of rust and dirt. A spent prayer seems more valuable now.

Days past where he sacrificed the baker's temptations and savings for a chess set, for a bit of comfort of weight in his pocket. He seemed to get the kinder side of luck for many years in all sorts of odd ways. The coin, the receiver of the credit, but now perhaps a bearer of judgement.

The Conspiracy gurgles at the sea as salt water finds any gap to slip. The galiant waves had once bewildered the nameless man in all their possibilities unknown at his cottage, but now they mimic familiar hills, but in their icy blue. The foamy bubbles appear in specks of white. With a craving of regrets and anxieties and a wonder of what memories he missed on making, Nameless holds tight to his paper. The plunge of eternity now at his door. He steps to the Threshold of the After and he could only hope for heaven along with his fears of hell.

Days beyond, and no-name below, clutched to a broken floating slab--a letter caught in a snag. It climbs a lapping beach to a water's border upon the high tide to wait till the sunrise-- bathing in silt and radiance. The calm waters and gentle placing with no telling of the violence it had birthed from.

A nameless woman finds near her garden such a slab on her pebble beach. It was the adopted orphan of driftwood branches and sea glass upon the shores of the homeland. She sat upon the homemade bench that oft was used for sunrises and twilights. The late morning breeze with a promise of afternoon warmth held her as she rolled the edges of the paper brushing her hair behind an ear.

"For the Love I have for you will always be...

-Yours Truly"

The crunched and white sea stained paper said wearing the scars of yesterday--wrinkled with the beauty of a face you've loved for years. The words swirled like the strands of her tired shawl. An understanding landed upon her soul.

Salty water graced her eyes, and no words spoken. She glanced her vision upon a sight coveted by he who was familiar-- green hills with a speckle of sheep. A home she knew his spirit longed. The windswept fields and gardens around the house welcomed everyone who saw them. Children amongst the bushes picking berries in songs of conversations. An easy place to call home. A hard location to watch grow small on the horizon as it becomes only a name on a map. Goodbye is the hardest thing to say. The second hardest is hello. At least to the unknown when we know it is not familiar.

A life spent well in pursuit of dreams. A wife now the receiver of opportunity and a coin weighted to the slab within the paper. Nothing to do but say hello to a different day and a give a goodbye to yesterday. And here appearing on this day, the coin faced the other way.