Rolling in the Deep

She was sitting on the white sand about two feet away from where the waves were retreating. An occasional big wave came a little further once in a while, leaving her feet wet. She had spent countless mornings, noon and evenings by the sea, yet today seemed different from them all. There was an unusual quiet. A quiet she could feel deep down in her heart, as if it had stopped beating. The only sound she could hear is that of the waves, and with that her mind drifted into the past. She saw herself as a little child collecting shells in the beach. She had a small net where she put her tiny shells, white ones with reddish-brown markings, ones which were white on the outside and somewhat pale pink on the underside, and the less abundant pretty bluish ones.

She lived just a stone’s throw away from the beach. Whenever she was angry as her mother had scolded her over something, or her little brother had broken one of her dolls, she would run to the beach and not return until dusk. On several such occasions, her dad had to come to take her back home. He would hold her hand and as they walked back, he would offer to buy her a new toy, or tell her about her favorite snack that her mom was making right then. At that point, all her anger would disappear. She loved the walks back home, hand in hand with her dad. Nothing in the world seemed to matter at that time, apart from his company and her shells. Later, at home she would string the shells into garlands with her mother.

The days added up to years and she grew up into a young girl. She had taken after her paternal grandmother in form. She was lean and tall and while she was not beautiful in the traditional sense, there was some distinctiveness about her looks- she had a child of the wild, elusive, unexplained kind of beauty. At that age she was not collecting shells anymore, but she still spent her free time sitting on the beach or the rocks on its western side, just staring at the sea, watching ships pass by. It was in those days that she first met Nate. He went to the same high school but was a year senior to her. She thought that he looked just like James Steerforth, one of the main characters of Dickens’ David Copperfield. Nate was just as good-looking and popular at school as Steerforth, but that is where the similarities ended. Nate was a humble guy who treated even the school janitor with respect, very much unlike the conceited Steerforth.  She never thought that Nate could one day belong with her, but it was in Time’s destiny to bring them together. Their acquaintance grew into friendship and in a few years they knew that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives as one.

What a cheerful day it was, the day that they got married. They had a simple celebration with family and very close friends. She had picked her favorite song ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ from the Wizard of Oz, for the dance with her dad. When they swayed across the floor to the tune, the two of them weren’t the only ones with wet eyes. That was the only solemn act that evening. It had opened up an evening full of fun and laughter - her reverberating laughter, Nate’s open laughter, everyone’s roaring laughter, reaching up as high as the skies.

It was six years since then. Today she was alone at the beach. It had been two years since Nate was on that fateful boat. Nate and his friends had gone on a trip off the shores and never came back. Rescue teams had searched for them for twenty-four hours, but there was not a trace to be found. They never found out what happened. Was it the boat? Was it too much alcohol? Was it his wayward friends? There were too many questions and no answers. She didn’t know whom to blame. Sometimes she blamed the boat or the friends or the alcohol, at other times she blamed them all. At yet other times, she blamed herself. She thought that she had brought on Nate the same fate as Steerforth’s by thinking they looked alike – death at the hands of the sea. At such moments she felt like drifting away with the waves as well. Anything else seemed just too painful to endure.

Her best friend had betrayed her. The deep azure she trusted when everything else seemed blue had let her down. Neither its salty waters nor the sun shimmering on its sands, both of which were supposed to have amazing healing powers, could cure her pain.

Today was the first day she had come to the beach after that fateful day. As she was lost in her thoughts, a giant wave came further, completely drenching her and bringing her back to the present. She got up and squeezed her dress to get the water out of it. As her eyes followed the falling water, she saw a tiny crab burrowing into the sand. On looking more closely, she saw several more. The beach was their home and the waves brought them their food of sea plankton and other things. However, when the waters retreated they would rush to burrow into the liquid sand to prevent being washed out to the sea. She just kept looking at them for some time. It wasn’t something she was seeing for the first time. But today the tiny little creatures were giving her a lesson in life – a lesson that would help her forgive and move on.

Life is not about drifting away, it is about holding one’s ground. She was not alone. There were several others, just like the tiny crabs who fought with the waves all of their lives, holding their ground.

At that moment, she heard footsteps behind her. She turned back to see a little boy with a net full of shells in one hand. He held out his other hand to her and said, ‘Mommy, it’s getting dark, let’s go home’.