Waves

‘Honey,’ I say. ‘You sleep all day. You have to let it go. Lucy is dead.’

I hate those words, but it takes a knife to wound you, leaving you too crippled to die. So I hope, at any rate, but it is too late. The sky comes crashing down, beating its tempo on the drum of the bay.

A discarded body flaps in the wind. The spirit has flown out of it, and been stung by the sea spitting where the breakers dash themselves to salt and spray. You don’t hear me. You want to drown, too, so you cry an ocean of tears and close your eyes, submerging yourself in all that has been shed; blood and sweat and saline solution. It overcomes you, and you thrash around, briefly electrified like an eel. The wind sings your requiem.

Then, you jump. You are an arc of impossibility. I cry after you, as if my wordless syllable is a hook that can claw you back. You fall, simply as a stone, and the water splashes, swallowing you gratefully. The mass of souls fills the crater you carved, winking deceptively as if it were all just a trick, as if you will reappear at any moment, for you are the magician and the ocean is your sequined assistant.

I see the sea, and it waves.