The boy emerged from the sea; his head was just visible above the rolling waves. It wasn’t long before his face submerged with his long black hair splayed on the surface and was sucked under again. He half-heartedly fought the waves, and from the shore, the girl thought he seemed to almost enjoy losing the fight. Occasionally, his arms appeared in a chaotic pinwheel attempting a front crawl, his fingers clawing at the rough waves, before he relented and disappeared again.
The greying afternoon sky had been lit up by a cracking bolt of lightning followed by rolling thunder that echoed along the mountainside coast and sent the sun worshipers and parents with sand encrusted children scattering home. The only other people on the beach were an elderly couple. The woman, in a red swimming costume with her dyed hair messily pinned up, had tentatively entered sea, the waves rough around the pale skin of her ankles. She ventured in up to her waist only to retreat, gather her towel, put on her worn trainers, and head up the beach as it began to rain. She said something to the man with grey hair as she left the water. He was muscular and toned, dove over the waves, stood up, shook his head, and also retreated following behind the woman. They vanished in the direction of the car park, consumed with only themselves for neither the woman in the red swimming costume nor the man with the grey hair appeared to recognise that the boy was struggling.
The girl was then alone on the beach. Was he hoping she would save him? That the urgency of the situation would form the catalyst for her forgiveness compelling her to overcome her fear of swimming in the sea? That she would go beyond allowing the sea to tickle her toes and ankles? That she did, in fact, love him and this would drive her to do something she had never done before.
The riptide was so strong that when she saw he emerged and tried to swim, unsuccessfully, parallel to the shore, she knew that it was possible that he wanted to live. But as the sky darkened to purple and the rain steadily escalated, his struggle increased, and his screams were lost to the sound of the waves.
Yet she did not move.
The yellow and orange striped towel that she sat on became caked in wet sand. Yet she did not move. Rather she relished the warm rain as it washed over her body and seeped into her bikini.
The intervals between him surfacing had grown. Yet she did not move. She stared into the expanse of the sea and watched the spot where she had seen him last. Would he surface one last time? For a moment, she thought she saw a hand, but she could not be sure as whatever she saw was lost to the white tips of the waves that rolled relentlessly towards the shore.
She sat for some time in the rain on the beach as the day darkened to dusk. He had not re-emerged. What had passed between them on the beach that afternoon, what drove him to enter the sea, what compelled her not to move was consumed by the waves. Without looking at the water, she stood up, rolled up the yellow and orange stripped towel and placed it in her beach bag. She slipped on her flip flops, put the bag on her shoulder and as she walked towards the car park where she had left her bicycle, she smiled.
All pictures and writing are my own unless otherwise credited. Permission must be obtained before any image reproduction and credit must be issued in any image reproduction or quotations.
The Gold Shoe Writer 