Are we even?

I sit cross-legged my limbs melting into the dry powder. I watch the oncoming walls of water crash up onto shore only to perish in a hissing death. My eyes search among the breakers coming to shore on a visit that will never end. Tiny little particles of sand fall through my fingers just the same as memories do. The sweet scents of laughter and times when they included me- the times when I could be a part of their kingdom. I’ve forgotten what its like to be a part of something that big- Ali would come up with a plan and Tom would build it. They had their kingdom and their own ruling system that occasionally they would give me the keys to the door. I stare out at the swells that fall to shore, the troughs fall and the crests rise. My eye search for a little white boat that isn’t floating on the ocean’s surface. I want to see an arm or a leg sticking up above the surface, a body part attached to a very much alive body. I have forgotten how to define the line between my pain and sorrow and my life and joy. The nightmares and the dreams fade into each other, weaving into the same picture. I live the nightmares but can’t find the dreams, so the memories that grasp me tight and make me relive the pain but won’t let me remember that my brother and cousin loved me. Those memories take me over as if they own my soul and in a way they do. They tell the saga of my darkest hour- they don’t forget how frozen with fear I was how much of a coward I was and how it was because of me what happened. My guilt lives on in how I failed. The memories that come back flowing like glue are the ones that still encase how my mouth tried to call out and no sound would come. My mind cried out mentally. I knew I needed to call for help or do something and my legs wanted to move but some force would not let them. 1

I fade back into that deserted desolated day, my darkest hour to where I still cannot distinguish what I wanted to be from what was to be. I watched as they took the little white skipper they had built from scratch for the whole summer now and set it on the tide line to go out to sea in. They offered to take me too; they would let me come with them. Exhilaration pounded through my body at this thought, I was giddy with excitement but still some gut feeling held me back. I couldn’t journey into the sea. There was my world-land- and the sea’s domain, they don’t ever overlap. They set the sea worthy craft in the seawater and began to let it go out. I could see the water coming up to the boat getting ready to sweep them away from me. I could see the black letters that said Ali on it on the left side of the boat. Water had crept up to the where the letters were. I guessed water was at the same level at the names on both sides. I stepped back from the boat to let my brother take the rope and prepare the boat. I stood well back from the ocean’s tide. Even though the black paint held fast the letters in blue marker that said my name nice and small, Abi up at towards the top of the boat battered only by sea spray and wind was already beginning to fade.2

I watched my brother jump into the little boat they had created, their creation and to some degree mine. It was their masterpiece, their child- they had built it with their creativeness and their hands. The boat existed for them the way the Holy Grail was for the Templar Knights. Their oars dug into the water digging a trench to mark their way through the wind driven water. Instead of barreling straight through the turquoise curlers they drove their little fishing skipper along the shore making meters and yards slowly but surely farther out. I ran alongside them I suddenly felt this urgent need that I had to protect them- I had to watch out for them as they had occasionally done for me. 3

I ran alongside the shore my calloused feet pounding into the wet sand. My eyes followed their boat keeping track of where they were, mentally logging how far out they were how big the swells were that they were cresting over. I watched their boat float on top of white crested waves and sink a midst the cobalt troughs. I was running with the wind flying past my cheeks and my eyes out to sea keeping an eye on my brother and cousin. A rock appeared in the sand before my feet and I collided. It rubbed the raw blisters that had just scabbed on my toe,open. The raw skin meeting the salty air was chemical reaction from Hell. I wasn’t thinking and a cry tore out of my mouth, it was moving so fast I couldn’t catch it. It must have somehow fallen on the ears of my brother and cousin. Without thinking they too looked up, searching me out making sure the one they had left behind was all right. They thought of me first when I saw the wave. The wind was blowing and it had blown up to such a gale that a giant contorting wave had appeared right in front of them. They didn’t see it until it was too late. The wave curled over them and it pushed the boat, cousin and brother all down into the watery depths. They disappeared into a world I would never be able to follow no matter how much I begged. Suddenly a cruel joke, the wave pulled the surface water back from the bottom. Protruding from the bottom where before there were none were sharp rocks set to bed in the otherwise sandy bottom. Their wave cascaded over the rocks slamming into with more force then I had ever seen. I was frozen. I could not move. Ice particles had grown on my skin. My throat closed up. My lips felt dry and chapped from which no coherent words came forth. My tongue could move but not much else in my body. Every bone was broken to pieces yet no crack could be seen. I ordered my arms and legs to move so I could run to find help but I was not obeyed. 4

I stood there looking for a tiny little boat with black paint and faded blue marker to appear on the chalky surface with two grimly smiling passengers in it. I wanted Tom and Ali to come out of the water and not leave my side. I wanted them to appear talking about the harrowing experience and making fun of me for being such a crybaby. I longed to see that knowing ‘she is just a child’ look pass between as if I couldn’t see. Oh how I wished. …5

I stayed there just watching from my keepers spot. If I didn’t turn away maybe the terrible monster might release them. The great powers would stop holding them down and the rocks wouldn’t be there any more. No wind would be blowing. A traitor thought burst through my defenses and broke down my wall though I tried to push it away. Even now as daylight turns to dusk and dusk turns to shadow and night, if I got help or could force myself to wade out into the sea I might be able to save them. If then I had dived in immediately and swum the hundred yards from shore they might be alive now. Some part of me would not let me because of a haunting memory vivid albeit fleeting.6

I remembered someone holding me in the waves as a very young child. Then I remembered falling, just sinking and being pulled by the power of the sea. That somebody dropped me into the water; they let me go to the sea. I remembered smiles and laughing before I emerged from the sea soaking wet and a sobbing two year old, my hair plastered to my face. I couldn’t remember who had dropped me, I searched my mind forever but it wouldn’t come. No name popped up or would show itself to my searching mind.7

The nightmares began to be unstuck from my tortured twisted soul. Fragments of burning glass and pain pierced my shadowed soul. I returned from the horrific events of two years ago. I was able to function again. I found myself sitting well beyond where the backwash drifted to shore-white foam leaving a temporary reminiscence. 8

My eyes tried to pierce the red sunset letting its last rays of light shine on the water. I tried to see sandy blonde hair appearing from the oceans depth. I scrutinized the details of the foam floating ashore thirsting for some sign they had been there that they might still be out there. I wished it could be. I looked for what I knew I wasn’t going to see, I waited for whom I knew were long gone to me. I had lost them as I lost everything else it seemed. I misplaced them in an act of carelessness. I knew I would search for years and years for them to be coming home. I would always watch the horizon kissing the sunset hoping.9

I stood up shaking cramped muscles out from rest, as I got ready to turn in from my silent vigil that I had kept every night since then. Some something sparked my memory- I remembered who had dropped me, who had let me go betraying me to the sea. I remembered who even at three and four had even then not wanted me to be around. I could still picture the faces of those who even when I was only two, who wanted me to disappear.10

I turned my back on the sea before I could turn back again, no, just one last glance. My eyes sought out the same place where the rocks lay hidden worn away by two years of storms and tides. Silently I asked them, knowing I wouldn’t get an answer,” Are we even yet?”11