I love Sushi

The waves rolled toward the shore and crashed down in among the rocks beating at them with ferocity. A young girl lay amidst the pounding waves on a large rock that jutted out of the water some ways from the rocky shore. She turned her face into the sea spray feeling it against her cool skin and feeling the faint moonlight that pierced through the thick storm clouds caress her, long whispery tentacles of hair fell across her shoulders and twisted in the wind like black eels withering with a life of their own.

She grabbed at one of the wayward strands and began to braid it intricately and threading it with small shells of all colors, and shapes, but all of a relatively same size. Seemingly oblivious to the storm around her she braided, lying stretched and she began to hum. It started deep in her throat an animalistic sound that proceeded to raise from her lips a sweet melody. It dripped from her pale red lips like golden honey flowing out across the tumbling waters and echoing all around the cove above the noise of the storm. Ringing back at her from the steep cliffs to the east and stretching out into the open ocean toward the south.

But to the southwest it tangled on the howling wind, twining with it and flowing about a classic old lighthouse that stood above the rocky shore to which it warned sailors away, with its oil and wick lamp, situated at the very top of the tall cylinder in room of glass. Beneath this room in the Watch Room the Old Lighthouse Keeper and his Grandson stood watch as they watched the angry waves thrash against the shore.

The Old Keeper shivered in his old yellow raincoat and coughed a deep hacking cough, his throat worn and ragged. His Grandson eyed him worriedly but the fit was over as soon as it had come so he returned his eyes to the sea. From which the noise of the storm sounded he cocked his head to the side. A sweet melody issued forth out of the noise of the storm. He shook his head to clear it of any excess rainwater that might have gotten in there and tuned all his senses toward the melody. Troubled the young man wondered it maybe he had swallowed to much sea water of late and was now going mad.

Before he could think much further into his theory his Grandfathers voice cut through the frigid stale air with its deep booming presence as the giant of a man began to speak. “Do ye hear the Maiden my boy?” The young man studied his grandfather in his yellow raincoat that was ready for retirement, his gray beard dripping with water as he spoke, his overhanging thick black brows, and underneath them into his storm grey eyes that spoke of an adventurous soul. “The Maiden, Grandfather?”

“Aye, the Maiden. The Goddess of the Sea, she whose sweet melody springs forth from the storm to calm it if there ever be sailors caught in the midst of it. She who is the very spirit of the water and the true love of every man who has ever loved the Sea.” He said and took out his pipe and a book of matches. He struck the match and lowered it to his pipe. He glared at it and put the matches back in his pocket when the wet tobacco would not light but left the pipe hanging in his mouth.

“Isn’t that just a myth though?” The young man spoke in protest of some old legend. His Grandfather shook his head in disappointment and tapped the pipe against his teeth. “Nay lad, its no myth tis the truth. Who else would be out in that storm singing her heart out to rescue lost sailors? It’s rare though that is, that she be out there. What with all the technology these days. But way back when I was just a lad seeing the spirit of the Sea came as often as every storm and even sometimes when it was calm. Now though…” He shrugged as if that answered everything.

The Young Man, who was now intrigued by a story as well as the eerie song that still haunted the room a distant echo, stepped forward closer to the lens hoping he could look out into the storm and maybe see the fable. Or at least who was crazy enough to be out in the storm singing. Cause myth or no myth someone was out there, how else could he explain the song that still rose from the sea. Maybe it was someone in need of rescue.

His Grandfather stepped behind him. “Anthony, look at Cray’s Rock. That’s where she always used to go when I was a boy.”

“You really saw her then, Grandfather?” He asked as he trained the lens toward Cray’s Rock, a large rock that stood out from the waters of the sea and had been the savior of the fisherman Cray when he had gotten stuck in a storm much like this one and his boat had capsized in the cove. As he did the singing grew fainter and fainter till it was swallowed by the sound of the sea.

He saw nothing more then a flash of scales or what must have been a fish tossed up from the water by the Oceans unforgiving waves. “Aye, my boy, do you see anything?”

“Nah, not a thing.” He didn’t think it important to inform his grandfather of a fish jumping through the water, there where tons of fish in the ocean and it was nothing unusual. His Grandfather looked disappointed but quickly got over it.

“Lets go to the house, if there are any sailors out in this tonight they will see the light and know of the rocks” Anthony nodded. He followed his Grandfather as he picked up an old coal miners lamp and the great man lumbered and huffed his way slowly down each stair, every step a mile.

Once at the bottom of the tower the old man smile and said “Watch this me lad” He grasped the handle to the door and swung it open to a clear night the waters still but for gentle waves rolling in toward the rocky shore. All the stars where visible, more then you could count, splayed across the great velvet canvass of the sky.

Anthony looked on in shock and bewilderment as his eyes seemed to play tricks on him; but no the sea was calm, the wind no more than a breeze, only receding thunder clouds to even show that there ever was a storm. As he watched even those slipped beyond the horizon quicker than any natural cloud should move. It was a phenomenon he decided nothing like that could actually be real, could it?

His Grandfather sensing his inner turmoil patted him on the back “Tis the doin of the Sea Maiden, boy.” The words echoed around the tower drifting back to them in ripples of

sea maid doin aiden tis doin th maiden sea……………

Till it all faded off into quietness, the old sailor grinned crookedly and continued on his slow trek to the house that stood not to far down the path. He left Anthony alone in the hollow darkness of the tower watching the unbelievably still night contemplating how such a thing could have accrued.

Shaking his head of longish black hair he stepped out into darkness and closed the door tightly before feeling his way down the path to the house by memory. It helped that he could see light poring from the windows and falling to the ground outside illuminating the front yard in a semi darkness.

He came to the front door and stepped inside carful of the old grey hound lying on the threshold mat. The old dog raised his head slightly and thumped his tail against the ground and gave a small woof of recognition before turning on his back belly up and legs in the air, begging for attention. Anthony smiled and crouched down and rubbed the dogs belly and scratched his ears.

He continued down the hall and stepped out of his boots before he took of his raincoat and climbed the stairs to his room. “Night, Grandpa I’m going to bed!” He called and was answered by a gruff sound of affirmation. He stepped into his room flicked on the light and took in the familiar sight. His bed lay at one end of the room no more then a mattress and a boxspring on the floor with blankets and pillows. His TV, Playstation2, and Nintendo 64 stood on a shelf in front of that along with a collection of his favorite books. A dresser and a computer desk stood parallel to one another on the other side of the room framing the door to a small closet.

He smiled and walked into his room surrounded by things that he had gathered throughout his lifetime. The walls where covered in posters of different bands, movies, and beautiful actresses. His floor covered with cast off cloths and dirty laundry. He was at home in this small room that represented him for who he was if not who he would become.

He quickly stripped of his shirt and pants before falling into his bed. He reached over and found his book opened it and began to read content in the silent wonder of letting himself escape into someone else’s not so ordinary life. After a couple of hours his eyes began to flutter and he started reading the same paragraph over and over and still did not know the content of it. Glancing over at his clock he read that the time was 1:46 and a great yawn escaped him.

He stood up and put his book down back on his bedside table and walked across the hall to the small bathroom. He brushed his teeth and used the toilet washed his hands and turned the light off. He entered his room and turned of that lights too before he slipped between his blankets and fell asleep.

That night he dreamed of scales flashing through the water, mirages that he would see out of the corner of his eye but when he turned to look at them full force would disappear. He grew more and more irritated with it till suddenly a song entered his dream, the same strange, alien, and beautiful song of the night before, and like the ocean he was soothed into more pleasant dreams till something equally if not more irritating intruded in on his sleeping brain.

Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep…

The nostalgic sound woke him up and he slammed his hand on the snooze button. He sat up and rubbed his temples and ran his fingers through his unruly dark mop of hair. It was time to get up and get ready for school. Inside his head he desperately wished he had gone to bed at decent hour, but what was done was done he thought to himself and gathered his will power to get out of his bed. Thus beginning his day.