The Bittersweet Sea

  The rippling sun bled out for her, its flaming orange lifeblood seeping through the sky. The thundering waves wept for her, sniffling as they receded in a hiss. The cattails whispered her name as they rustled bitterly in the stale July breeze, as a puddle of artificially flavored tears melted from a half-eaten popsicle on a desolate beach dock.

 --------------------------------------------

  The beating of Avlane’s heart was heavy, a muffled drum of memory inside her chest being pounded upon incessantly by a mallet who took form as her dreams. She opened her eyes. Spines of works from Camus, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard greeted her solemnly from an oak shelf across her bed, which now held a stain of sweat, as did her T-shirt which stuck to her damp back.

  It was another day, another nothing, another insignificant speck of monotony masked in mirth compared to the interminable presence of time. The Another Day held hard laughter, brief sorrow, and all the other broadcasted feelings in the limited spectrum of shallow emotions. Only she knew how to live, -or at least she was close, very close. They were so very close to living. Not the living that everyone claims to be doing, the beach days with friends, the getting ice cream, the swimming, the making sandcastles under the Florida sun. No, they were looking, and so close, to finding something else.

  Sighing, Avlane rose from her creaking bed and walked over to her bookshelf, tucked Ray Bradbury under her sweaty arm, when a piece of crumpled cream construction paper fell out and landed at her feet. She held still, holding her breath, knowing already what would read on the card. Printed in a fashioned cursive, “In memory of Anna Wes...” was written on the invitation, and in a nauseating surge, the dreams flooded her drowning mind. 

    The rippling sun, the thundering waves, the cattails, the dock, and the popsicle. The scene spun in her head, daunting her. 

   “In memory of Anna Wes…” the card read. Anna was slumbering with the fishes.

--------------------------------------------

Anna’s head was always submerged underwater. Before the saying became quite so literal, it never failed to describe Avlane’s peculiar companion. It was as if she were drowning, yet so captivated by the civilizations of creatures lurking where she could not, that the resolve to save herself was out of the picture. The first time Avlane had seen this queer look that by most was deemed dull and despondent, she wanted to delve into the murky waters with her, instead of rebuking her to emerge from them. And indeed, when asked, Anna took her there. To the land where hues of coral reefs colored the seas, the land where its sleek inhabitants would roam around in serene tranquility; the land that could only be seen by drowning. It was the Bittersweet Sea, and once Avlane had asked...

  “I wonder what others would think...of this... If they-”

 “They won’t.” Anna’s reply was as soft as the glossy waves beneath the dock. She was sucking on an ice pop she’d scavenged to find in her fridge filled with expired frozen leftovers.

    “They’re too scared.” She said as a matter of factly. “They’re too scared to think that everything they’ve done, everything they’re doing, is practically useless. They’re too scared to look for a better answer, like we’re doing-” She bit into her popsicle and winced at the cold in her teeth.

“ ’Cos it’s a lot harder than drinking a few beers at the beach, laughing themselves silly, and calling it a day and claim they’re happy.”

   The two girls sat with their legs dangling over the dock as the sun rippled in the sky above. Avlane turned to her eccentric friend. 

“We’re looking, but just how close are we?” 

Anna stayed silent, with a retired look on her face that illuminated the crow feet at her eyes, which she was far too young to have. 

“I’m thirsty.” She said finally, changing the subject, which annoyed Avlane. Nothing was awkward for Anna, prolonged silences and intense staring were all the usual for her. But for Avlane, she couldn’t stand it.

“I’ll get water.” She rose quickly and walked off the dock, feet burning from the heat of the baked wood underneath her, and face flushing with impatience and embarrassment.

She returned to the dock, and found Anna’s thirst already quenched. 

  The memory reverberated in her. It resonated in every fiber of her being, every molecule, and every atom in her body. It sent echoes through the cobwebbed hallways of her mind, and shook her abandoned towers of identity. She picked up the card that was lying at her feet, stuck it in a page inside her shabby book, and blinking back tears, she headed for the beach.

  Clearwater, Florida, was in fact, a perfect place for the cowardest of the cowards who couldn’t venture a toe into the Bittersweet Sea, with more than enough superficial trinkets to entice anyone to believe that their knock-off version of living was the real thing. Walking through the neighborhood, Avlane could see them all.

  There were the Screen Addicts, which were the most prevalent of the population, who posed and posted, and posed and posted, giving little care to the glimmering emerald beach behind them, but rather the outcome of their perfect picture. There were the Nature Philosophers, that stared into the sunset and acted like there was something they knew that others did not, as they felt like they should know something others did not, considering that they deserved to hear some of nature’s whispered secrets in return for their futile meditation. There were the Vociferous Beer Drinkers, and Zealous Volleyball Players, and Eager Puppy-Dog Tourists, -all of them as far away from the Bittersweet Sea as the East from West.

   Avlane had once belonged to them, running from her father’s deteriorating drinking habit and the flying fists that followed them, by indulging in the superficial treats the world offered. Yet the feast the world had prepared for her, and all its other ravenous inhabitants, never seemed to fill her, and consuming the amusements of adrenaline always left her stomach empty. But when she took Anna’s hand into the Bittersweet Sea…

  The Bittersweet Sea was a land that thrived with life that could never be held so vibrantly on the surface. The caves held treasure, the mermaids sang, and the fish danced in formations, their silver coats shimmering. Yet when visiting the Bittersweet Sea, one saw that the surface was a dry and drab place, bland in taste and grey in color. And once having a hint of the Sea, one would have to endeavor earnestly to find it once more; to find the Bittersweet Sea amongst the bland and grey world.

  Nothing could mean anything to both girls, until they could venture there again. Nothing could mean anything to both girls, no, nothing on the very planet, until they could find something real, something that truly meant to live, something that truly had a purpose. And so, they spent many sunsets at the dock, reading from previous beings that had visited the Bittersweet Sea, tuning out the Hawaiian music from the next door's Bluetooth speaker, and sucking on popsicles until their mouths were blue and green. They searched as the spotless white boats sailed, they searched as families fished, and they searched as the unforgiving heat beat at their tanned backs. 

  Now it was just her, Avlane, and nothing meant anything to her, until she could venture there, to the Bittersweet Sea once more. Unless it was Anna. Nothing could mean anything to her, no, nothing on the very planet, until she could find something real, something that truly meant to live, something that had a purpose. Unless it was Anna. Now it was just her, Avlane, reading from previous beings who visited the Bittersweet Sea, it was just her tuning out her neighbor's music, and it was only her mouth that turned blue and green eating popsicles. It was just her, Avlane, searching as boats sailed, people fished, and as the sun beat upon her tanned back, and hers alone.

  There was none to comfort her, none to tell her pain was temporary when her father struck her. There was none to rejoice with when epiphanies or revelations came, and there was none to gaze and ponder the vastness of the heavens with.

There was none to travel with to the Bittersweet Sea again.

  Walking to the beach, Avlane would see her in 7 different faces, hear her clear as a bell in the midst of the hustle and bustle of voices, and feel her. She was a heartbeat away, just a step behind, but whenever Avlane pivoted around, she disappeared as if there was nothing at all.

  Her bruises ached as she pitched up her parasol. They ached as she sat on her towel, lumpy with the sand underneath. They ached as she pulled Fahrenheit 451 out of her bag, and they ached as she flipped to the pages with faded pink sticky notes stuck between them.

  “Get outta the damn house. And get over your goddamn friend. She’s dead, for the hundredth time. Jesus,” Her father had said last night before he struck a blow. He reeked of alcohol, his syllables slurring as his left eye drooped, then twitched, then opened wide and red. But Avlane didn’t care much for him or the bruises he gave. It was audacious for him to think that Avlane gave him a second thought. As for his words…

   How could she forget? How could she forget when every night, she comes running back to the dock, two water bottles in her hands slippery from condensation, to find the waves, the cattails, and the sun mourning? How could she forget when the half-eaten popsicle lays abandoned, melting on the dock, taunting her? How could she forget when she sees Anna’s head peering back, her somber face smiling, crow feet pulling at her eyes, before she leaves? How could she forget when every night, she sees Anna’s body, nipped and nibbled by the fishes, calling out to her? How could she?

How could she?

  Suddenly, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered at all. Nothing mattered except that Avlane had to get back, onto the sun-scorched dock, where she and Anna had once looked for answers, those impossible answers, the impossible answers that they could have sought together. The impossible answers that fed Anna to the fishes. But Avlane didn’t need answers. No, what she needed wasn’t the answers, or the cruel Bittersweet Sea, it was Anna.

   She was sweating, -and not because of the summer heat. Cold sweat trickled down her neck, down her forehead, she felt every drop as if it were poison. The sweat felt like blood. She was shaking, her hands calling for not the answers, not the Sea, but for Anna. The shaking felt like seizures. And her chest. The weight of answers, the weight of the entire Bittersweet Sea, was upon her, and her breathing was quick and shallow. The weight felt as if the wispy fingers of her dreams were solidifying into unforgiving hands that wrapped around her neck.

  She stood up, her legs trembling, and her eyes focused on the walkway which would lead her out. Out from where everybody laughed at nothing, and watched nothing, and drank for nothing. She needed to get on the dock, closer to Anna, closer to something that could fill her at this moment where the world was clashing in on itself. She ran.

  Her knees wobbled and her head spun, but all she needed was to get on the dock. She could hear nothing, feel nothing, and see nothing, but the weight upon her chest. Indeed, she saw nothing on the very face of the earth at the moment, not even the angry, blaring truck with blinding lights that barreled her way.

           ----------------------------------

The rippling sun sang euphorically for her, its flaming orange lifeblood seeping through the sky in celebration. The thundering waves rejoiced in shouts for her, giggling as they receded in a hiss. The cattails whispered her name in pride as they rustled sweetly in the rich July breeze, as Avlane saw a popsicle held in a callused hand of a girl with crow feet around her smiling eyes, and the Bittersweet Sea behind her.