Drowning

I used to love the ocean. I loved the way the waves washed over me, a gentle caress on my sun kissed skin. I loved its ever-changing nature, the way the sand stirred beneath my feet as if alive. Inhaling and exhaling with the tide. Most of all I loved how it carried me. The way it lifted the board beneath my feet, washing me to shore. My friends called me the ocean’s lap dog. I suppose it was true. Surfing, for me was like a never-ending game of fetch. The ocean drew me in, then sent me back again to shore. I was faithful, of course. At dawn I returned to its side, and at dusk, as I collapsed exhaustedly onto my bed, I dreamt of the beautiful, sunny beach until the next day, when I would return again to the water’s embrace. The ocean was a part of me. I knew it as well as I knew my own two hands. I could navigate the waves the same way I could navigate the tiny, busy streets of the town. I knew its moods, its good days and the bad. And I knew how to find, in its vastness, tiny pockets of calm, and how to harness the patches of unrelenting harshness. Or so I thought.

I always thought the ocean was my friend, and for a while I wondered why it had betrayed me. Why it had chosen to take him away. How could something so beautiful could be so cruel? I would ask into my pillow. At night I dreamed of the ocean, and by day I returned to its side. But now, instead of its beauty, I dreamt of the unrelenting cruelness beneath the clam. The wolf in sheep’s clothing. The dreams woke me violently in the night, leaving me in puddles of cold sweat and vomit.

The ocean had always followed me. Only now, it was haunting. An uninvited guest plaguing every crevice of my mind. The alcohol helped, but there was only so much you can drown out. I supposed it was ironic, poetic, even, in its own cruel, twisted way, the way I let myself drown in the liquids. He had drowned. And now, so was I. I returned to the ocean every day. But now, instead of submerging myself in its violent hands I sat on a bench on the edge of a walkway. Edward Cameron Gaine, 1984-1991, read the bench. I sat there and watched the ocean.

I watched as they came in the morning. Boys and girls, young and old, carrying worn, salt stained boards between their bodies. Heard their laughter as they ran into the water and let the current carry them away. Sometimes outsiders came, they looked at me, sitting quietly on the bench. They would smile, “it’s beautiful isn’t it? Should be a good day for a surf!” I would smile back and nod, “Of course.” But inside I was screaming. Because beneath the glistening water was a monster. A monster cloaked in all its loveliness. A siren that did not sing. Beneath the blue-green surface lay a deadly darkness that I had once thought a friend. A predator in waiting for the next innocent little boy to fall into its clutches. I wanted to shout at them not to go. Had tried, once or twice to warn them. But an old man’s warning was worth nothing more than a penny to the younglings.

They looked at me as if I were crazy, excusing themselves to a waiting friend, or mother, or some appointment of importance or another. I wondered if they knew that the crazy old man would watch over them as they strolled across the beach and into the water. That the crazy old man would keep watching as they swam further and further out, until they were but a tiny spec in the distance. I wondered if they knew about the cold, burning hand that clutched my heart as I watched them fall right into that old enemy’s hands, only letting out a breath when they were safely back to shore. I supposed not. I supposed it was better that way.

I watched over them all. Everyday from the first light of dawn until the ocean swallowed the sun in the evenings. And now, as I set out into the ocean for the first time in fifty years, I swam as if my life depended on it. I swam with the force that I had done only once before in my life, a long, long time ago. Only this time I would not lose. I would not let the monster take another innocent life. I would not let him go. The waves pushed me back mockingly. It was still a game to the ocean. Another evil disguised in a game of fetch. Come to play again? The ocean seemed to crone, I thought you’d learnt your lesson.

I kept going, my strokes were as strong as I remembered. The aching in my wizened bones seemed to ebb into the water. I would reach him this time.

Never again. Never again. Never again.

Sometimes in the night, the wind rose and the whole town seemed to shiver. The soft pounding of the waves turned into thunderous cracks, hammering into my head like a thousand marching war drums. On those nights I raised the bottles to my lips and drank, and drank, and drank. Until the pounding of the waves turned into distant thunder, until I completely and utterly forgot the ocean’s horror. On those nights I remembered those memories I had fought to forget. I remembered the way the water had used to brush over my cheeks smoothly, nourishing my body with pure calmness and exhilaration. I slept soundly on those nights, and dreamt those wonderful, happy dreams my tiny, boyish mind used to dream.

The guilt hit the next morning. Guilt so heavy it was almost blinding. How could I still love the thing that had taken my son’s life away? How could I, when I was still living and breathing while he was… The guilt consumed me. If I had only listened, if I had only not been stupid enough to see what was happening. I had been so excited to introduce him to the magnificence of the waves that I had turned a blind eye to the greying clouds that blew in through the night, the winds that rose with the sun that next morning. I had turned a blind eye to the gaps in the waves, to the eerie quiet of the dazzling, sweet ocean. I was young and I was stupid. A new father that could only think of the memories ahead, ignorant of the reality of the present. By the time I noticed the ocean’s rising roughness, he was already floating away. I pawed at the waves desperately, but it was no use. The ocean pushed me away from my son with that omnisciently powerful ease that even sea-worn sailors shied away from.

I remembered it all. I remembered the way his arms flailed as he tried to reach me, so small and fragile, still not fully accustomed moving in the water. The way he opened his mouth to scream, only to be submerged. I remembered the sight of his lifeless body on the sand as he later washed up again. And the rasping laugh of the water as it lapped his body gloatingly.

But not today. Never would I make the same mistake. This town has seen too much tragedy, too many lives had been taken. The boy I now swam to was floating face down on the water, his board drifting next to him peacefully. My strokes carried me to him in my panic.

“Hey!” I yelled as I flipped him over, readying to haul his body to shore.

But the boy thrashed against me, with a force and liveliness to rival any other of his age. “Hey! Watch where you’re going. Can’t a boy snorkel in peace?”

Sure enough, a long, clear pipe hung from his mouth, connected to large blue goggles.

I opened my mouth, “I- I thought.”

Relief flooded through my veins as I breathed for what seemed like the first time in minutes. A deep, long breath of salty air. I began feeling, for the first time, the smoothness of the water over my skin. The way it’s refreshing coolness made the hair on my arms float free for the first time in so long. The sun seemed to smile down on me as I moved in the water as naturally as if I were born to do so. I felt…

The boy looked at me, recognition flickering through his eyes, “You’re the old man that sits on the bench!” He exclaimed, “It’s about time you got in the water for once. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

There really were no words to describe it. I became aware of every pore in my body as the magnificence of the water washed over me, relieving the years of anger and grief, smoothing over the age of my weakening body. I was just a boy again, floating peacefully in the place I loved.

“It’s magnificent.” I breathed, and a laugh escaped from my mouth. A hoarse, rasping sound that had become so foreign to my ears. The boy laughed with me, and in his face I saw a flicker of that pure, brilliant joy I had once seen on another boy a long, long time ago.

He brandished his board, “Want a turn?”