I wrote this the day before I broke up with a boyfriend. Because melodrama. Because early 20s. (BECAUSE HE DESERVED IT. HEH.)
Written on April 8, 2004. Edited this morning.
Night
She tries to dig the sand with her toes without actually moving the rest of her body. It is hard as she keeps slipping into the shallow grave her toes made for her, but she doesn’t really mind. She is engaged in a rather sober flirtation with the crashing waves. The moon is rising and the shore along with it. She isn’t actually wet yet, but the shore inches closer and closer, and the waves, seemingly just for the fun of it, kiss her cheeks with soft sprays of sea water from time to time.
She looks into the deepening darkness. The sky taunts her into thinking of an exact color to describe what she sees. Once, as a child, she hit her shin on purpose. She wanted to know how fast a bruise would form and how the colors would develop—for fun and because she had to know.
The sky now reminds her of that bruise.
A huge gust of wind blows from the horizon and she smells the day winding down: The heady perfume of sweat on skin that city folk call stink; the smell of fried fish mingling with the smell of dried fish; the clean scent of steam from newly cooked rice; and the sleepy aroma of fires being stoked. From the distance, angry mothers call their children (full names, odd nicknames), anxious to collect all their offspring to scold, to clean, to feed, then to love. She closes her eyes and listens for a mother who will no longer call for her, and there is only silence. She breathes in all the smells and her lips tremble as she smiles, and her eyelids tremble as they fight back tears.
He comes silently behind her. She is unaware of him for a while—six waves crash to the shore and she still doesn’t notice him. He takes the opportunity to look at her. To see her. They sense each other, but decide to keep looking at the lazy sun, looking at each other only through the corners of their eyes. He gives in though, and he looks at her, sees her still digging the sand with her toes.
Again, that stillness. He sighs loudly, and for a fleeting moment…he hates her...He reaches out, tests a hand on her forearm. She does not move, but he feels her flesh react. She doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t come closer. All he feels is her skin, crinkling at his touch. And it hurts him, more than anything she had ever done to him. He tries his other hand on the other arm and waits for a reaction. Three waves crash to the shore. And still, that stillness.
He wraps his arms around her from behind and smells her hair. The pungent smell of sun exposure fills his nostrils. He breathes it in again and smells the dying fruity fragrance of her hastily-washed hair. It makes him think of the home he has always wanted, the only kind of home he has ever known. He holds her tighter, so tight that she almost buckles underneath his might. He uses her frail shoulder blades to cup his face, and he braces himself to cry.
But she is the one who gives in now and she breaks down. Their bodies face the bruised sky and they hold each other this way. It is easier to weep without seeing each other, facing the unknown instead. That is where she has to go, it is useless to look at him. She knows this now, and so must he.
“Please,” he says.
Wave. Crash.
Wave. Crash.
Wave. Crash.
She releases herself from his grasp, then she releases herself from her self-made grave. She realizes that she managed to bury herself till her ankles without her knowing. She looks at the foot-shaped hole. In an instant, another wave crashes to the shore, fills the hole, and it is as if it had never existed.
Triumphant, she turns around and looks at him straight in the eye. His eyes are sad, angry, questioning. But her proud eyes say no, and her trembling voice says, “No.”
And then the waves finally touch her feet, calling her. It is time.
She walks away, towards the ferry at the pier, towards the now-gone sun, towards the promise of a new life.
Night has finally arrived.
