The Man in the Ocean

The man stood trembling on a pale bank. A good twenty yards from where the tide lapped upon a steep wasted shore. He shook and shivered in a steady rhythm, squinting at the breakers beneath the grey overcast. Specks rained sideways, cutting at his forehead like needles. A light mist settled in. His stomach contorted and inverted inside. A pointless phrase from a pointless memory repeated in his head in step with each breath. A sudden thought offbeat had him choking his spit. His oversize boots laboured through the fine soft sand, that squelched like a banshee underfoot. The wind sang like his wife, tuneless and without measure. His arms were wrapped tight against his body like a gunshot victim. He thought of the dreadnaught he left behind. His saturated woolen pullover had gained an extra kilo. He was lamenting the arduous task to take it off. The dunes behind him were shallow, providing little consolation from the chasing squall. The wind was thin yet obstinate and his ear curls ached. The aerobic sand flew up against him, slicing at his bare shins unforgiving. He huddled his shoulders inward, turning his back to cheat the gale, as he would protecting an infant cuddled warm in his breast. Sand had collected below his tear ducts. He fingered at them with precision, then gave in and rubbed broadly as a toddler would sleep. His lips were chapped despite the spitting rain. He replenished them with his tongue, catching on the flakes, tasting the thin film of bitter salt. Seaweed had washed ashore overnight and stank high of beached cuttlefish. What he would give for a scrap of petroleum jelly, the kind that sat forever on his beside, lasting years and never failing to supply a small swab on his index finger to apply on his cherished wife’s supple lips for each night’s ritual. His ears stung still, as the relentless chilled air shrilled past. His sight had not shifted from the breaks, though his thoughts had wandered. He pictured the mud hearth from his bark shack. It was still glowing when he left. It was not a day ago, the fire crackling and snapping had filled him with comfort, though the foreboding wind whistling the top of the chimney was heard echoing down the flue and had blotted baby black pockets of dread in his chest. His guts sank at the seaside, recalling why he had left, why he stood on the beach waiting. ‘Just a moment though- just this one last moment before the plunge’ he thought. He took a moment to indulge. A moment’s respite, like busying oneself in a kitchen, saving as many breaths possible, sparing precious seconds for rest disguised as business, waiting anxiously for it to dissipate, before the courage emerged and served to lumber him stiffly forward a few steps more. His head tilted backward, inhaling deeply through his nose, and out softly from the mouth.

“First thing’s first,” he whispered softly under breath.

He sat down like a schoolboy and began unraveling his bootlaces and prying his boots off with his palms, sparing his anesthetized frozen fingers. He plonked them neatly beside him, feeding them his stubborn damp socks after a frustrating negotiation. He stood with a sigh clenching his toes and fed his arms out of his jumper’s sleeves before lifting the hem overhead.

“Ha!” He fashioned with a huff. “Was rather painless.”

He stood steadfastly, refusing to shiver. The nerves inside his sinus began to chill in a bazaar pang he could register at the top of his brain. The weightless air consumed his cavernous nostrils quickfast, like fluting breeze through barren cavities that dripped clear fluid and chilled his nose numb all the more.

“Bloody hell,” he said in a gentle guff, smearing his running snot down and across his upper lip in a quick swipe and sniff. “Damn bloody hell.”

The time had come. ‘Enough dilly-dally’, he thought. He made for the water. There was little calm in the whitewash by the shore. No reprieve for the thundering calamity of waves just forty yards beyond. Their impact grew louder with each step. Past the breakers were white caps cruising diagonally down the coast. This journey would be unforgiving from the get-go. The rain had not let up. ‘Such an ordeal’, he thought, ‘but what of it?’ He reached the hard sand. The first bubbling wash hurried his bare feet with the weight of a cold anvil. The frigid water rushed his system.

“You—bastard!” he protested through his clenched teeth. The white froth hissed back retreating.

He took a moment and found his resolve. He made for the water again, dredging through the whitewash, rendering his long legs lifeless. The first wave hit his waste. His soaked shirt stuck to his torso. He collapsed in begrudgingly to his shoulders, creating an annoying air bubble in the dryish top of his shirt clogging his sight. The icy surf hit again in a humbling charge. He heaved repeatedly. He dunked his head under. Submerged, he held his eyes closed tight in a fitful panic. His head was in a bench vice. His hearing blurred for the ferocious tide above. His lungs failed him, shrinking from the subzero shock. The ocean swell stirred him over and under, with a thousand razor blades pressed against him in suspense. He surfaced with an almighty gasp and struggled forward flailing his limbs about helplessly in and out of the dead water that sucked him out for another spell. His body consumed the hard cold, crushing him tightly like carbon to a diamond. The tide sucked dry; he was now ankle deep facing an indifferent 10-foot wall. He was hammered into the sand bar and dragged underneath against the coarse sand leaving the pink grazes you might find on a baby’s dank behind at the end of pitiful day filled with broken plans, spent loose change and shameful neglect. He wound up back in the whitewash on his hands and knees like playing ‘dogs and cats’. He started again. This time he dove through the waves before they broke. He paddled forward like a sprog until his feet could touch the floor no more. Now he was truly in the ocean’s hands; alone. He thought of fire, and then a lame joke once told to him. ‘Let me not die with such a stupid thought’, he prayed. ‘Let my last thoughts be of some kind of honour, or heroism or delight - delight for tragedy like a stoic or happy Sisyphus’. He swam on. He duck-dived the breakers and found the surface for air with thankful relief each time, re-emerging with eyes closed in a spiritual grace. The waves did not yield. He turned briefly to check his progress and was immediately disheartened. Do not do that again, he thought emphatically. He dived another break and emerged, and without a moments respite, was smacked square in the face with another set. He pegged his nose for a moment in comfort, as his spiralling legs tread the water ardently. The waves did not yield. He swam on with his head above the ocean’s glassy blue-green veneer. ‘Make it passed the breakers first’, he thought, ‘then for the easier water beyond’. Another. And another. And another.