The story begins.
Becky
stood on the sand, listening to the edge of the ocean. The lap and scatter of
small, seaweed-laden waves. She’d hoped the sudden change in environment would
loosen the choking, unremitting clench of her life. Therapy wasn’t going well.
Her counselor suggested this trip. He said that getting close to the ocean
would improve her mood and put things in perspective. Something about the
ocean’s vast majesty and finding her simple little niche in the universe.
It wasn’t working. What’s the big deal about the ocean?
She looked out at the faded gray horizon. Maybe if she saw something
dramatic. Maybe if she saw a whale it would fix things. No, one whale would not instill sufficient awe. She needed a herd
of whales (did they travel in herds? Schools? Whatever...). She needed to see a
mass suicide of whales—fearsome giants beaching themselves right before her
astonished eyes. An advancing, lemming-like mass. And she would walk among the
flopping, encrusted behemoths—sperm whales or blue whales, the biggest the sea
can provide—and she would listen to their dying cries and feel so overwhelmed
that her meager little life would take on a new context. Her small concerns
would float away with the mournful death-songs of the failing whales.
Or maybe an oil spill. Maybe a huge tanker could run into a reef and
spill black poison into the water. A wide, oil-slick would eat into the beach, engulfing
birds and seals and naked bathers. Dying animals would wash ashore, gasping and
struggling, mired in the sticky, ink-black pollution and she would witness an
extinction.
She
needed to be a part of something.
Or what if a dead body washed up on shore? Maybe a man carrying unrelieved
sorrow could walk out into the water and drown himself. Or, no wait, he stands
on a rock. He has a gun. He utters his last words to the wind; a brief suicide
note instantly erased.
Then
he blasts his memories into the churning sea.
Becky let her thoughts merge with the sounds of the shoreline. They
drifted into the salted wind and the whispering words of the surf.
She did feel a little better
after all.
The
story ends.
No comments:
Post a Comment