Me, My Prussian Blues (and That Guy With the Horns)

The day I met the sea, I was 10.

It was supposed to be summer. Back then, we drove an old red Saab with crooked wipers and black interior. On hot days, it would trap heat like an oven so oppressive the windows would groan upon opening, spitting sultry waves to the outside to grapple with the highway's rushing wind. It was quite the sight for my decade-old eyes. I recalled the scene absentmindedly, having nothing better to do on the walk to the beach from the parking lot. I thought of everything I'd heard about this place—from friends, TV, books and the like. The beach; like some sanctuary or summer paradise, where the water is a clear cobalt blue making visible the friendly marine creatures beneath, and the sand is golden and tanned as the youths drawn to it, and the sun casts only more resplendent luster on the joyous scene. But in my mind's eye I also saw the grim and apathetic night, glaring at the shining, sinister waves that lapped at the body of a young woman who'd fallen victim to the legendary villain Jaws. I saw the starving ocean greedily whipping at the faces of a captain's mutinous crew trying to scale the ratlines of the main mast, like in The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. So how could I really know the nature of the sea? I already confessed disappointment. There had been no sense of freedom or finality as I stepped out onto the cigarette-strewn pavement, nor had I felt the wanderlust expected when the scent of salt hit my nostrils. I'd only just seen the ocean from a distance, really, but I was a decisive child. I saw an unchanging line of dark waters, against an unchanging line of unfeeling sky. It was... boring.

I kept my eyes trained on my flip-flops as we walked along the sidewalk looking for a promising section of beach. The air smelled of cigarette smoke and fried dough. And there were so many people; big and bigger, tall and taller. Sweaty men and women tanned orange, dirty children and sniffling babies. And there were others too. There were those who spoke in tongues I couldn't understand. Those ones just pointed a lot. I never really liked people. When I was smaller, smaller than 10, they would fold their torsos against their legs to look down at me. And they would say things too loud for me to catch, and they would laugh. But they never looked me in the eye. They knew their limbs so well, having spent however many decades with the same ones, and so they would move without thinking. I couldn't do that.

My mother, father, sister and brother, had turned right. I followed their shadows. We were now walking down cement riddled with candy wrappers and ash. When the litter turned to sand, I looked forward. We were on the beach. And it was hot. The sand seeped into my flip-flops uncomfortably.

“There's sand in my sandals.” My sister complained. She had three more years under her belt than I.

“Take them off.” My brother shot back. He held six years above my head.

I took my flip-flops off. The sand burned the bottoms of my feet and tried to climb on top of them to get at my ankles. I shook it off as best I could. Looking back up, there were even more people crowded on the sand. They'd spread bits and pieces of their home on the ground to keep themselves comfortable. There were umbrellas, radios, lunchboxes, coolers, folding chairs, and dogs.

“My feet hurt.” She complained again.

As many people as there were, we eventually found a spot relatively clear aside from some big white birds with grey wings picking at some Cheetos. Catherine forgot her troubled feet and launched herself after the birds. Seagulls, they were. Their startled squawks of distress soon joined those of other birds in similar situations as they took flight.

A sandy slope prevented a closer look at the immediate shore, and I questioned the unknown. Would the water be as warm and welcome as the TV made it out to be? Would it lure me in only to turn black and send its toothy killers after me? Or worse...is it teeming with people? I lurched forward. I reasoned that regret is colder than unwelcome knowledge. If I never felt the ocean, never tried, I would regret it. And those others, they would know more than me. They would have an experience I didn't.

Coal colored and withered, the seaweed crunched sorrowfully beneath my burning feet. The sand became rockier with the shells and bits of sea-glass that had been washed up. Then the sand darkened. It became cooler between my toes, more moist. And when at last I stepped into the brine, it was different from what I'd imagined. It was bloody freezing. My toes curled against my feet at the icy shock. And I leveled my eyes with the horizon. Here, then, I had faced lengthy stretches sky and water; elements I hadn't quite come into contact with in such quantities at the time.

When I met the sea, it was seething with a guarded wrath and a boiling viridescence. The sky met it in a fearful fashion, paling in anxiety. The sun was the color of bleached bone, but the white light could produce no shine or glimmer on the cresting waters. And when the waves surged up higher to my knees, I felt the Pull. I knew for sure that one day I could let the Pull unset my heels, and my knees would buckle, and the Pull would take me in. But even that thought held no gloom. For surely, there is no shame in falling to a god.

“Hey, Steph. You know we're leaving, right?” My brother upset the water beside me as he
splashed in.

I didn't want to turn away. “Do you?”