Winter in Malibu

She walks on the cold sand of the Malibu beach in winter.

She never gets tired, the soles of her feet press on the cold damp sand and she keeps walking. Later, with the tide, her footprints are washed away.

Where are you going? 

I have never fallen in love, but you have, many times. I don’t know why we are here now, walking up and down the Malibu beach in winter. I don’t really care much for the beach or the palm trees, but you do. “There’s something strange about palm trees,” you used to say, “they are captivating and eccentric.”

We first met in highschool ten years ago. You haven’t aged, I have. You have the same long black hair up to your waist, the same round cheeks when you smile, the reflection of sunlight in your black eyes. The marble soft skin I never touched. 

Today, you are not smiling. You will stare at the ocean waiting for the sunset. Your long turquoise dress waves in the warmth of the Malibu wind. Your familiar scent comforts me like the pomelo blossoms of my childhood home.

In Calculus class, I remember I told you—. I had whispered it into your right ear, the one with a tiny mole on the pinna. You moved your hair behind your ear when I approached. 

You stare at the sea, I stare at you. You will stare at the sea, until the beginning of the sunset. Half of your face is lightened orange and the other half is drowned in a shadow. I can see the bumps, the contours, the pimples and the fuzz on the orange half of your face. I can see the map of the forbidden city. 

In this forbidden city of my dreams, I look for you, but I will never find you. I walk by a house painted a warm pink color next to a teal painted house. I walk under the canopy of telephone wires and the waveish sound of pigeons taking flight. 

I walk on the stone pavement of a narrow alley that smells of dirt. I walk past the wine and cheese shop that’s always closed. I see my reflection in the showcase windows of deserted deli shops. The various types of sausages and ham hanging from the ceiling. I walk past the leaning wall of a brick house. I touch the warm wall.

 It is always sunset in the forbidden city or maybe sunrise. But, it’s orange. Everything is always orange. 

I hear the distant sound of rhythmic drums. I walk and walk and look for you everywhere. I walk past a barbershop without a barber. His white hanging from the door, awfully clean and pressed. 

I shout your name, but I never hear back your voice. The echo of your name bounces off the old walls.

There is an old street vendor by the side of the road. She sells everything you are looking for in this forbidden city. The old street vendor of the alley is very old, she is deaf and blind, she is as old as the city and her skin has many folds. She offers me a seashell, but I don’t have any money on me. I pick up the seashell. She asks for a piece of my soul.

I never loved someone. I had interests, don’t get me wrong, but I never acted on my interests. I let it slip away from my fingers on purpose. I had done it so many times that by now it was almost a reflex. Once I had it in my fist I would just let my fingers slowly open up and drop it altogether like it didn’t matter. Like meditation. Letting go of your thoughts, emotions, feelings.

She stares at the sea, letting her hair play in the wind. The seagulls swing in the sky with their awkward broken shapes. She will stare at the sea until the very end. 

I never had that strange desire so many have and so many write about. I never longed for someone. Someone mortal. Just the bones, and the bones and the bones. 

It takes two to three minutes for the sun to disappear once it starts to set. It takes the same amount of time to lose consciousness without oxygen.

I first met you in calculus class. You told me I had a cute smile, but I pretended to not hear you and kept on solving the derivative of lnX. I liked you because others thought you were attractive and because I thought you were better than me in math. I almost fell for you when one time you solved a question faster than me, but I knew I was smarter than you. 

It’s ten years later and you are walking up and down the Malibu beach and I don’t like the palm trees. Their slender and naked trunks pointing at the sky and their needle sharp leaves, I never liked them, and I never liked you.

I hate how they look. I am sitting on the beach covered by sand and I am looking at the palm trees and you are walking and walking and walking. When I look at their tall trunks I feel small and little, belittled by their slender tall trunks pointing at the sky, as if to say something I can’t understand. And, you keep walking. 

You will stop walking once the sun begins to set. You will stare at the farthest point where the sea meets the sky for three minutes. 

What do you see?

Half of your face is showing the map of the city of my dreams. The same city I keep exploring, walking on its roads under the heavy spring rain, looking for a turquoise colored dress.

I walk past the wooden door of my childhood home. I can smell the pomelo blossoms. There are bricks in the alley as goal posts for children who once played soccer here. They are gone, it is raining heavily and I am looking for you.  

The old street vendor by the alley has a red umbrella with hashed edges that look like forbidden inscriptions. She points at me even though she cannot see. “What do you want?”

She points at my heart, lightly tapping on my chest with her long yellow fingernail. The rain has stopped. The sun begins to rise or set, and everything is orange. The inscriptions on her umbrella are now golden, reflecting the sunlight. “But how?”

When I was in grade seven my mother bought me a seashell. We were traveling to a city by the sea and I saw a seashell in a tiny gift shop by the main road. It was one of those coiled shells.  

I took it in my hands and touched its rough outer and soft marble inner surface. I pressed it against my ear and heard the sound of waves.  

There is no one here but us and you keep walking on the cold damp sand of the beach. Sometimes a tiny black crab is washed away, struggling to get on its back,  and sometimes a seagull screeches. 

I don’t care who you are now, what you have studied in University, your job, who you have married and the number of your children if any. I don’t care about the wrinkles on your forehead and the tremor in your hands and the purple hue underneath your skin. I don’t care about the old age that shrinks and shrinks and shrinks you. I don’t care about you. 

You have not aged. You are walking on Malibu beach in the winter of 2023. You wear the same turquoise dress that waves sideways and is up to your calves. 

I can’t have you walk and walk on the cold sand forever. I can’t have you stare at the ocean for a sun that never sets. 

I take the seashell up to my mouth as I should and I whisper — like I did ten years ago in Calculus class. The sound of my voice and my words are preserved for eternity in the coils of the seashell. I walk to you and put the seashell next to your ear, the same ear with the black mole on the pina. 

You turn your head toward me, your face partially covered by your hair and now fully lightened by the setting sun. It is the first time you have looked at me. There is no curling of the lips, but a wrinkle in the eyebrows and a half open mouth. The city of my dreams, the forbidden city, is burning. The silent flames are erasing all the memories, the canopy of telephone wires, deli shops and the pink and teal houses. The houses move out and move in by themselves in the flames and crumble and fall. The whole city is lit in the night and it burns and burns and burns. It was always sunset afterall. 

What do you want?

For you to leave.

What do you mean?

Set yourself free. 

But how?

It’s easy you just—

—just what?

It’s night. The sun has set. 

It takes two to three minutes for the sun to set. It takes the same time for you to lose consciousness without oxygen. You start to see things, hear things, smell things that are not really there and then its total darkness.

The forbidden city of my dream is gone, destroyed. The city is now charcoal rubbles and white ash. 

You run as fast as you can toward the sea. I can see the soles of your feet as you run, they are intact, even after all this walking up and down the beach for the past ten years. Your black hair merges with the night and the stars and your body disappears in the tar waves of the sea. I sit here, on the cold sand of the Malibu beach in winter and look at the fine line dividing the sea and the sky for three minutes. My fingers slowly open up and the seashell slips and falls blunt on the sand. It’s now any seashell among other seashells. 

You just let go.