Even with my eyes closed I can tell I'm near the sea.
The smell of salt is overbearing and a breeze like this could only be created by an incoming tide.
The moisture in the air is palpable - I can almost drink it in.
And the sound....
The sound of power. Water on rock. Two elements caught in a never ending dance of love and dominance. I would know that sound anywhere.
How did I get here? I cant even remember. I don't feel hurt. A little lightheaded. Pretty weak. But otherwise, fine.
And yet... and yet, something is out of place. I don't feel whole. I don't feel 'normal'. Something is missing. I've never had an out of body experience, but I would bet this is what its like.
I don't want to open my eyes. Content, though I am, experience has taught me fear is bred largely from sight. I know I am by the sea. That's all I want to know. I don't want to know anything else. I don't want to see. I don't want to question.
The sea reminds me of home. Of where I grew up.
The small house on the coast. Just me and my mother. On the northern coast of New Zealand. Our closest neighbor was 7 miles away.
We were surrounded by the sea. To the East, West and South a sea of green. Hills upon hills of endless green. And to the North, the green, salty, forever moving ocean. I was never lonely. My mother taught me to read and my imagination was the only friend I needed. We had a stable with one horse. Phillipe. I learned to ride from a young age, but my mother was a true equestrian. She rode like she was born to live her life on a horse. In the evenings I would watch her ride Phillipe on the hills surrounding our small home. She moved with him. Not two bodies, but one. Flowing together.
I never saw her smile like she did when she was riding Phillipe.
That smile would be the image I held in my head when I was scared. I would shut my eyes tight and see my mother. Her smile that could lighten even the darkest of times. It was soothing and safe and told me that it would all be okay. Bright, white teething, encasing the soft and pure voice. And her laugh..... if angels exist, their voices would be like the sound of my mother's laugh.
My house was on the hill above the sea. But my home was my mother's smile.
I imagine her smile now, laying on the hard surface by the sea. But its blurry. Its hard to make out. Almost only a shadow of her face, blurred by grey rain. I panic and open my eyes.
The sea.
I am on my side facing rock. Granite. Rising up to the heavens. Coarse and damaged by years and years of the stormy ocean beating against it.
Turning onto my back I sea the grey sky above. Bleak and dead. Turning my head to the left, I finally see it. A quarter mile of rock and sand, leading to that vast undulating body of water.
Sitting up, I lean my back against the cliff face and stare ahead. To the left and to the right, only rock and water. Beach and ocean. And the standard washed up debris.
But I notice something else...
My hands. Bound and bleeding. Rope cutting into my wrists so tightly, my fingers are swollen and numb. But these hands... these hands are not my hands.
They are rough and big, not just from the swelling, but larger than mine in every way. Larger finger nails, larger knuckles.
I shut my eyes again in hear but am thrown into even deeper darkness because once again, I cannot see my mother's face. Promising myself not to look at my body, I slowly stand and open my eyes again.
I'm taller than I usually am. I feel off balance. Catching it, I scan the coast.
Nothing new. Dead.
Except for a pile of fabric ahead and to the left. Just before the tide line. I walk towards it, unable to avert my gaze from my feet. Bare and also, not my own. Larger. Almost...misshapen.
Approaching the blue fabric, I'm overcome with a deep feeling of anxiety. I shake but cannot tell if this nervous energy is bred from excitement or fear.
Four feet away, I stop dead.
This is no simple pile of fabric. Its a body. A human body. Covered only by a long piece of light blue linen. Like a sheet, wrapped and tied around the body's waist. Moving to the right, I can see long, golden hair.
And my knees buckle.
I fall to the beach and the rough sand digs into my legs.
And I tear the blue cloth from the body. Seeing what I already knew would be there.
Motionless, Breathless. Dead.
My mother.
Her glazed eyes looking, but not seeing, out to sea. Pale.
And her lips slightly parted. Not in pain but in sadness.
Regret.
Her once shining smile forever wiped away. As some angry portrait master, altering a masterpiece to an imperfect gallery piece. Beautiful. But without that smile, plain.
I drop my head backward and gaze up at the sky.
Bleak.
And with one last impossible gasp of hopelessness, the sky falls, and everything turns to grey.
The grey turns to white.
And after one brief moment of blinding pain, darkness.
