The Sound of Blue

Eli never learned what color the ocean really was. People told him it was blue or green or gray, but those were just words — words he couldn’t trust. The ocean, to him, was a sound, a presence, a constant rhythm in the world. When he stood at the edge, the crash of the waves drowned out everything else. The wind, the salt on his skin, the sand slipping away beneath his feet—those were the only things that mattered. They were like memories he could never quite hold.

Sometimes, he asked strangers at the beach, “What color is it today?”

“Blue, mostly. With silver near the horizon,” they’d say.

“Green, when the sun hits it just right,” another would offer.

One woman had said, “It’s the color of longing, maybe.”

Eli liked that answer best. Longing was something he understood. It was familiar. Longing had lived in him since the day his mother passed.

She’d always told him the ocean was blue. They’d sit together on the porch, her voice threading through the morning sounds, and she’d say, “Can you hear the blue today, Eli? The ocean is waiting for us.” But she didn’t wait long enough to show him.

When his mother died, it was quiet. The kind of quiet that filled the space she left behind, a silence so deep that it echoed louder than anything else. Eli had been sixteen, the last to understand what it meant to need someone in the rawest way — to need her voice, her touch, the light she brought into a room. The silence she left was a weight he couldn’t lift. So, the ocean became his refuge. Not for the color, but for the rhythm. The waves seemed to understand what it was to lose something. To long for it. The sound of the ocean was the closest thing to her voice he had left.

Every weekend, he’d walk to the shore. Sometimes, he’d stay for hours, just listening, letting the waves fill the silence in his mind.

One afternoon, he stood at the water’s edge, his feet barely skimming the foam, when a voice broke through the quiet.

“I’ve seen you here before.”

Eli turned, startled, feeling the soft edge of the wind on his face. The voice was young, warm, with something deeper beneath it.

“I come often,” he said.

The woman hesitated, stepping closer. “Why?”

Eli paused. The ocean seemed to hush, holding its breath with him.

“I’m trying to remember something,” he said quietly.

She sat down beside him without a word, as if she understood he wasn’t looking for comfort, just company. Just presence.

“What are you trying to remember?” she asked, her tone gentle, patient.

He felt her rhythm beside him, steady and calm. It was a contrast to the waves, but it held him the same way.

“My mother,” he said, the word feeling unfamiliar on his tongue. He hadn’t said it aloud in so long.

For a moment, the woman was quiet. Then she said, “I’m Mira.”

“I’m Eli.”

And they sat together, the silence between them not empty, but full of things unsaid.

The following weeks, Mira returned. Every time, she sat beside him without pushing, without asking too much. She just shared the stillness of the shore with him. In time, Eli found himself telling her things he hadn’t spoken aloud in years.

“Sometimes,” he told her one afternoon, “I come here to listen. Listen for her voice. The ocean sounds like her sometimes. Distant, but always there.”

Mira nodded, her eyes on the waves. “I think it’s the rhythm that stays. Even if the sound changes, the rhythm’s always the same. The rhythm of longing, maybe.”

Eli smiled faintly. “Longing,” he said. “That’s a good word for it.”

“I’m an artist,” Mira said, her voice brightening. “I paint what I can’t see.”

Eli glanced at her, intrigued. “What do you mean?”

“Like this,” she explained, pulling out a small sketchbook from her bag. “I try to capture the feeling of people. Not just their faces, but the way they take up space. The shape they leave behind.”

Eli thought about it for a moment. “You could paint me,” he said, half-joking, though his voice trembled slightly.

“I will,” she said seriously. “I could.”

It became their ritual — their days spent by the ocean, the quiet stretches between words, the waves syncing with their breathing. Mira painted, and Eli spoke when he felt the pull to. Sometimes it was about his mother, sometimes about the silence she left behind.

One afternoon, Mira said, “I’m going to paint you, Eli. But first, I need you to tell me about her. Tell me what she sounded like. What she felt like.”

Eli closed his eyes, letting the memories rise. He spoke of his mother’s voice, how it used to wrap around him when she read to him at night. It was soft but strong, like the warmth of a blanket. He spoke of her laugh, quiet but full of joy, making the world feel safe again. Her hands, always smelling of vanilla and old books. He told her about her stories, about how she used to say, “The ocean is waiting for you, Eli. The ocean is the color of home.”

When he finished, Mira was silent for a long time. Then she said, “I think I understand.”

Weeks later, Mira handed him a canvas. Her fingers gently pressed the edges, guiding his hands to trace the texture beneath his fingertips. It wasn’t just the colors she had used; it was the shape of her absence. The way it felt to not have her, but to still carry her. He didn’t need to ask. He could feel her presence in the way the paint swirled, in the way her voice seemed to echo faintly.

“What color is she?” Eli asked, his voice barely above a whisper as he ran his fingers over the canvas.

Mira’s voice was soft, almost a breath. “She’s the color of home.”

Eli stayed still, his fingers lingering, and for a moment, he didn’t need to see. He felt it — the rhythm of her voice, the sound of home.

Years later, after Mira had moved away and Eli had become the head librarian at the local library, the painting still hung above his bed. It was the only thing in the room that never changed. And though he never saw it, never could, he didn’t need to. Every night before sleep, his fingers traced the edges of the canvas, and somehow, in the stillness of that touch, he heard her voice again. The rhythm of it. The sound of home.