Saltwater, Red Dirt & Writing
Unfathomable
Not knowing what would happen next and always mindful of misfortune, she secretly gave hope a hall pass. Hope was beautiful, hope was sexy, hope was desirable, but it wasn't enough.
Peering at the horizon over her sunnies, the harsh, coastal desert light made her white-blind, but she continued to stare until her eyes felt gritty, her eyelids grating, often finding herself doing such things, not consciously, but causing some discomfort to feel real in this unreality.
The breeze whipped strands of hair behind her glasses like spider webs across her eyelashes. The swell was gentle and glassy and she knew she was wasting time. An encroaching malaise stopped her fetching her board. The breeze would swing soon and with it comes froth on the fractured outgoing tide, critters in the rockpools and boab tree patterns on the shore as the saltwater trickles away.
The air was unseasonably tacky; the warm sand clinging to her bum. The longer she sat, the more it fastened to her sweat-slick skin. It was biting but bearable and it kept her present, stopped her ruminating too much.
Her pensive moments were not philosophical but born of an arresting disquiet. Moments at the beach in combat with the achromatic light did afford her a type of serenity, one of a sense of place rather than peace or repose.
Duality was something she was forced to assume. Her friends were unaware of this owing to her self-control. The most they understood was she'd disappear for a week here or there. Companionable though she was, there was a disconnect in her friendships. For the most part, her mates accepted this elusiveness and let her be. Always mindful to protect her connections, someone was told she'd be uncontactable; too well liked to be questioned and a bit of a mystery was always a bonus. They called her unfathomable on days such as these.
Back home, things were changing and it became fluid enough to come up for air. A change of place, a change of pace, a backstory - convincing enough to everyone but herself - a bright smile and a pure heart, a thirst for knowledge and an incomparable love for all things saltwater quickly endeared her to the townsfolk. Possessed of simple tastes, she had all she required in this place, especially its closeness to the ocean. Home was missed. Every return joyful, every departure painful. No one there denied the necessity of her absence, but they worried about her resilience when the news she brought home became steadily dire.
The stories she brought were unbelievable, disappearing friends, mindless waste, islands of plastic, death on the coast, cruelty, the impact of curiosity and everything turning to white in the heat. There were good people working on it - not enough - and she assisted by telling them what she knew, but never how she knew it. Her position was unique, unenviable by and for nature in decline and no longer ignored. There was a solution and it was her charter to find it, so she'd do it now until it was done. The losses were too great to contemplate and surrender was inconceivable.
It was time. An over-the-shoulder glance at the land she wouldn't see for a while, her stuff stashed. Standing waist deep, feeling the hope well up, thoughts of home. Hope is what did it, brought on the change. Without hope, there was no returning home, which would end her secrets. If she lost hope there would be none for anyone else.
And it filled her as her skin scaled in a deep opalescence. A dive, a breath, and a long journey beyond the reef.
KJ Chamarette
13 May 2018