The Indian Ocean

My dad emerged out of the spell of the ocean My ancestors left us to fend for ourselves when they were asked to fight in the mainland. We had warned our distant relatives that our ancestors were directed to live and hide us under the sea for a reason.

My dad had been asked to be the king by a popular vote on the mainland. They were eager to seek us by using submarines until he carried through his calling to land.

The were dry. The homes were filled with dry this dry that. Even diseases were carried by the dry nuance in the air. It took years before my father could get accustomed to life on land. Painful years indeed. What was a protective cover of his skin was shed off by the dry air and nothing replaced his exposed tissue, but the glazing rays of the sun. This pain was necessary because it promted him to not just scream out loud or speak in jibberish, eventually his sentence contruction became like that of the others. Pain caused him to speak like all. And he talked mostly about was missing us his children. They reminded him of how much he cost the cities and towns by being born alive. They no longer liked life as freemen without him. He was such an imposing figure and he had accepted his fate of leaving the ocean no the mainland. It was no longer a choice that he had. Because being king also exposed those who were around my dad, to a new way of his thinking.

Arguing was a waste of time. So he decided to play along while simmering with hate which he felt could be changed to a worthwhile effort. Once he was in good terms with his fate, life started to make sense to him. He was able to pass laws. Most who were illiterate soon became educated. The buzz around having a man who once was among them but was saved by ancestors who kept him safe under the sea was a huge ego booster to many.

He tended to his scaly fragment of skin which still needed coverage with local oils. The oils were too milf to help him he wailed wash fear and in pain, but we could hear him cry while we were swimming under the ocean. It helped that he was close to the sea because we could daily cluster around the location where he was and pray that he would say the right things when spoken to. Infact it was our mission to answer questions placed to the king our dad. We would send answers as though we knew what they were duelling about. Leaving the ocean is very exhausted, it isn't for the bashful and the weak. My dad was just too old to resume a life on land.

One of the most important laws that was enacted under his rule was, if a father who makes it to be the head of a family passes away, the remaining children and spouse must be killed. Not killed rather be retired because history had shown that fatherless children get used and abused and taken advantage of. The widow has no place or a voice in any walk of life. They approved this legislation begrudgingly. It became clear also that there were a lot of domestic issues that he had to address: food distribution was another issue that needed his attention.

Many felt that those who were rich ate more than their fair share. My dad the wise king exclaimed that, with the Father is always right law (even in death) the food issue will go away.

Once we realized that one of many reasons why my father was recalled was to look at him struggle with being on land. We doubted that they even respected him. It was my turn to be brave.

My family decided that I had to leave the sea and bring back my dad. We would ask to speak him in private. They probably will think that we wanted privacy maybe my dad would want us to join him.. We let them know that the rest of the family was on it's way we just wanted to be sure that it was okay to join my dad.

True to form they let us walk on the beach and it was nightfall. The sand was still warm from the sun that had shone on the seashore previously. We walked until it was okay for us to jump into the water and swam into a cave which we all knew about. I and my dad looked back at the forgiving sky. It was littered with stars. We knew that our role on dry land was over with. We were lucky to escape with our lives.

We suspected that our relatives would escape on that very same night too.

My father whose skin still needed to be taken care of screamed in pain as the salty water came into contact with him. His screams were loud and terrorizing. We kept at it because we knew what we had been through and we knew what we liked. As we swam along seeing shinning lights of the navy crew, we saw our relatives swimming desperate for all of it to end. As if the fish were not on their way out of that island too, we were lucky to not have sharks around. We wondered how long it would take the submarine to catch with us. My dad was weak having been away from the ocean for years, we practically had to swim while shouldering him. They say that where there is a will there is a way. They were talking about us. The way was for us because we made it to a cave which was supposed to be our resting place anyway. Knowing that no humans knew of it's existence, we waited overnight. Literally doctoring my dad who by now was incapable of osmosis, his skin was damaged. We all hoped that he would get over the unexpected results of leaving his life at sea, that all he could do was hope that enough salty water will remind his body of once being anaerobic. Hope is all that we had. Our mission would be a failure and all that sacrifice would be for nothing but a brief moment and time that he spent with people who never cared about his needs.