Sea Spell

The sky was made of velvet that night, a hundred scraps of heaven dusted over and sewn roughly together. And the moon smiled out from between the seams, an orange segment thrown up into the air and suspended, trapped forever inside the night, that night, never to come down but never to be seen ever again, slowly fading in the memory of a girl, one girl, and her boy, sitting side by side on the rocks. The wind mimicked the waves as it played with their hair, running its fingers through and tugging playfully, warm and intoxicating, the scent of the sea surrounding them, keeping them safe, buttoned up into the pocket of time they existed in right at that very moment. Salt clung to their bodies like a child to its mother’s waist; they licked their lips and tasted remnants of the waves that had minutes ago lapped at their cold white skin.

The pulse of the world had moved through her in those moments, she said words that were given to her second by second by forces so much bigger than herself, forces that inhabited her and made her bigger than the universe. She hadn’t looked across at him, hadn’t seen the moon glinting off his perfect olive skin, defining his muscles and darkening his hair to the colour of coal. She hadn’t noticed him at all as she ran down the beach to the surf, leaving behind her clothes, a costume in the play of existence, in a crumpled heap next to a pile of rocks. All the world’s a stage but she refused any longer to be a mere player. She had simply run, run as though the world was after her, and as the freezing water whipped her body she swore never again to let the world chase her, never again to be driven out of herself, out of where she knew, where she felt she was the person she was meant to be. She poured the salty black liquid over her arms, her shoulder, her breasts, her stomach, rubbed the elemental substance into her snow white skin, washing away, she said as she did it, all of the shame the world put on them, washing away all of the fear she had ever felt about being truly herself.

He had just laughed. He wasn’t really sure he understood what she meant but he knew it was right. The salt was rubbed into his skin also, and he watched her there in the darkness, a silhouette against the faint reflection off the inky water. He wasn’t really sure what she was doing but he did it too, swept into her trance, knowing unconsciously that every word she spoke was true, and it rang through him like a long lost bell suddenly struck, vibrating through him.

They shivered back up the beach and laughed when they realized they couldn’t see where they had left their clothes. A warm wind dried their bodies and soothed their stinging skin. They dressed in laughter and sat upon the pile of rocks. She had come back to him once again, returned to the same place he was, back to his side. He dug his still bare feet into the sand, feeling sharp fragments of seashell scrape his toes; her feet didn’t touch the floor. And they sat. Side by side they sat, so close but not quite touching, feeling the balmy warmth of the night flowing through the space in between them, the breeze blowing through their hair but giving no relief from the heat. He reached out his hand through the thick shadows and rested the tips of his long fingers on her fingernails.

And there they sat, staring at the moon in wonder, in silence, the waves lapping over their minds, soothing the wounds she had just bared, singing them a lullaby. He had music also, in his heart, and it spoke her name. The song he had written for her long ago but that he had never had the courage to sing to her. It rose now in his throat like a tidal wave, an uncontrollable tremor, and he sang to her, softly, softly, the wind taking his words and sending them to the moon’s smile. She wasn’t even listening to the words, the tune was only just penetrating her mind, she only knew that here was someone, one person in the whole of the infinitely wide world, and he was singing to her, his heart had whispered words to him, and now he was giving them to her, wrapped in a sweet tune. She had found the one who would sing to her. She was so much like her mother and she knew it; at public displays of emotion she would laugh to avoid showing her true feelings, afraid to let people know what she really felt inside, called it corny and dropped her eyes.
But now, looking into the orange segment hanging over them, floating through a shimmering sea, which was reflecting which? she could hide nothing, nor did she want to. She had bared herself completely to the loving being at which she now gazed, and it had done nothing but smile back at her, seeing all, accepting all, loving all of her. The breeze blew once more and kissed the tears that rolled hot down her cheeks, her own salt water, an overflowing ocean of joy.