The Day of Absolution

The Day of Absolution

This was Samuel’s first day visiting the place where he’d shed out and left behind childhood’s lingering skin to metamorphosize into adulthood. The smothering humid air made him feel confined although he stood at the foot of the Pacific. The water’s cool waves lapped gently over his bare feet. Instead of cleansing his feet, the water dipped them in the past.

Samuel sighed.

Samuel dug his toes deep into the moist sand and remembered the many reasons why he hadn’t returned for all of these years, but most of all, he remembered why he stood here now. To find the one thing that could only be found in the very place he had been running away from.

Absolution.

The charcoal smeared skies up above remained unchanged since Samuel’s first memory at sea. Samuel couldn’t have been any older than four and a half years old when his now deceased uncle had offered to take him out on the season’s final fishing expedition. Samuel’s mother had been apprehensive about the prospect, but her brother and Samuel’s uncle, had assured her that her son would be in good hands. Reluctantly, she had obliged and gave her brother permission to take her son out to sea.

Even up to date, Samuel could not recall of a time where he had genuinely been more excited than that day. He’d gone off to do bigger and more impressive things, but there had been something special about that trip that made everything else incomparable. He hadn’t even felt remotely the same way after the first case he’d won, or even on his wedding day. That was something he would take with him to the grave. The same combination of angst and thrill would always continue to be unmatched by anything else, Samuel reflected wistfully.

“Are you ready to become a sea dog like your old Uncle Rob?”

“Yeah! Can I catch fish like you too?” Asked a young Samuel as he jumped eagerly from one spot to another.

“If you want to catch a fish you’re going to have to stay still and wait for them to take the bait,” Rob chuckled.

The boy had so much energy that Rob got tired just watching him. His nephew was really something else. Rob was the only male figure young Samuel had in his life after his father’s life was taken at sea while Samuel’s mother had only been in her second trimester. Samuel never got to know what an honest and hardworking man his father had been, who had died while trying to make as much money as possible for his wife and him before the baby arrived. Both sides of Samuel’s family had made sure that both Samuel and his mother had been well taken care of. As tragic as death at sea was, it wasn’t at all uncommon for the small fishing town. A small-knit community like that was always there to support one another in the cruel, ever-returning face of tragedy.

Rob was going to try his damn hardest to make his nephew as great of a fisherman as the boy’s father had been. Rob could already tell that his nephew was born to make a living with a fishing rod in hand, just as the rest of the men in his family had. That was what Samuel was meant to do with his life and everybody could see it in the boy’s eyes.

Samuel had the eyes of a fisherman meant to live out his life sailing the waters.

“Hurry on now Sammy. If we don’t get goin’ soon, the moon’ll be shinin’ by the time we catch anythin’,” Rob said as he motioned for his nephew to board his boat along with the rest of the crew.

That got Samuel’s attention. There was nothing more he wanted than to go off to sea. He was convinced that he would see one of those wicked sea monsters from the many legends he’d heard. He’d even equipped himself with his father’s compass that his mother had given to him on his fourth birthday. It had been, by far, his favourite gift, and now was his most treasured artefact.

“Okay Uncle Rob,” Samuel replied eagerly as he clambered on board.

A couple of the four additional crew members clapped Samuel on the back. The others viewed it as sort of a rite of passage for Samuel. Samuel felt the same way and was ecstatic. He was going to be the best fisherman that would ever sail the seas, he was certain of it.

There sun kept itself from being seen, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. Neither was the constant fog that clung to the air like fungus growth on tree bark. It was just normal day on the coast. It only made sense that no one suspected anything other than normal to take place. That was when the abnormal usually slithered into play, when it was least expected.

That was a lesson young Samuel would soon learn later that day, but carry with him for the rest of his life.

“Do’ya know how big a tuna fish is Sammy boy?” His Uncle Rob asked as he ruffled Samuel’s chocolatey brown locks.

“This big?!” Samuel asked as he spread his arms out as far as he possibly could.

Rob gave a hearty chuckle, “Bigger than that! A small one will be two times as big as you. These fish are bigger than a lot of sharks Lad.”

His eyes grew large with awe and wonder.

“Really Uncle Rob? No lie?”

“No lie. I give you a sailor’s swear, one that you can take to the bank.”

“I want to catch one as big as a whale,” Samuel said determinately.

“That’d be a sea monster, not a fish Sammy boy. Come here, let me show you how to set up the rod. One day you’ll be able to do it all by yourself.”

Samuel breathlessly followed his uncle to watch him and two other crew members set up three rods in total. Samuel couldn’t have brought himself to tear away his fascinated eyes even if he had wanted to. He had been too absorbed with the process to take notice of how restless the waters surrounding them had gotten.

After a couple of hours of unfruitful results, Rob informed his crew that they would begin to head back due to the unpredictable and worsening weather.

Samuel was thoroughly disappointed by the news, but kept it to himself. Sharing the disappointment wouldn’t brightened anyone else’s mood as sharing other things would. So there it stayed inside of young Samuel.

Even at that young age Samuel was aware of the growing concern crawling all over the faces of each member of the crew, his Uncle Rob included. That put Samuel ill at ease for he’d never seen his Uncle without a smile on his face.

“Hey Rob, I know you’re not going to like to hear this, but the pump just stopped working. Water’s already starting to pool up. And fast. None of us can figure out why it stopped working.”

“For Christ’s sake,” muttered Uncle Rob under his breath while he followed that man to the water pump.

Samuel had known the names of these men back then, but trying to recall them now was a complete lost cause.

Samuel has been left by himself as the entire crew went to try and get the pump running again. Without the pump pumping out the ocean water that was used to cool the engine the boat would flood. What made it worse was that, out of nowhere, the darkened clouds up above had begun to pellet the boat with fierce torrents.

Samuel had been about to go and join everybody else at the pump when, through his peripheral, he spotted something glint through the ominous fog. For some unexplained reason, Samuel found that to be of more importance than the pump. He cautiously made his way over to the railing that separated him from the sea. Samuel absently wondered to himself if he would have intentionally walked off of the boat had the railing not been there.

He shivered.

Samuel knew that the source of the glimmer was still out there somewhere. He got the sudden idea to take out his prized compass to see if it would tell him which way to look, though he knew it didn’t quite work that way. It felt as if it wasn’t wholly his idea and that someone had mechanically placed it within his head rather than the idea materializing organically. Regardless, Samuel pulled out his compass.

To Samuel’s astonishment, the needle of the compass whirled around erratically as if it intended on breaking out of the glass encasing it was behind. Samuel tapped it a couple of times to make sure he wasn’t just seeing things. The spinning continued. It had worked earlier when Samuel was aboard the board. His mother had once told him that a magnet would make the needle spin around in that manner, but as far as Samuel could tell, there wasn’t a single magnet anywhere in sight.

Abruptly the needle stopped spinning.

It pointed west despite that, for a fact, Samuel was absolutely sure they’d been sailing north. Samuel followed the direction that the needle pointed. As he was walking, he glimpsed that same glimmer. The needle pointed straight at it and didn’t waver in the slightest. The glimmer grew stronger and more pronounced until Samuel gaped at what he saw.

Like with the previously spinning compass needle, he had to make sure that his eyes weren’t playing any tricks of him. He did so by shutting his eyes hard for five extra-long “Mississippi’s”. When he opened them, what he had seen in front of him remained unchanged.

There was a girl in the water. She couldn’t have been much older than Samuel was at the time, but her eyes appeared ancient. The past centuries trapped within her eyes was what Samuel could remember clearest through the childhood fog that clouded those long ago memories. Strangely enough, Samuel could not recall what colour the girl’s eyes had been. It was as if her eyes had been too piercing for him to be able to concentrate on something as superficial as their colour.

Except she wasn’t really a girl.

Young Samuel’s feet were rooted to the floor of the boat as if they had been cemented there. His gaze remained transfixed upon the tail that shimmered beneath the surface of the rolling waters as she neared the boat where he stood.

She held out a long hand towards Samuel. Samuel didn’t understand at first, but then his own hand began to stretch towards hers and then simultaneously comprehended what she wanted. Only after he’d placed his compass in her hand did he realize what he’d done. He had been too mesmerized by the gossamers of wisdom floating around in her eyes to have realized earlier.

“Yes! We got it!” Someone shouted triumphantly before Samuel could begin to panic.

He turned his head towards the voice. When he looked back at the waves, she was gone. Samuel peered in each direction, but she had vanished without a trace. Samuel opened his hand. In place of where his compass had been only mere moments ago lay a circular, jagged object. It was still wet with salted droplets. The object transitioned from a deep mauve shade to an almost metallic emerald hue as Samuel inspected it. Just like her tail had.

What Samuel held in his hand was a scale.

“Come on inside Sammy boy, you’re drenched to the bone. Your Ma’s goin’ to kill me if you catch a fever.”

“Uncle Rob, I saw a real live mermaid. She took my compass.”

“Lad I’m really hopin’ that’s your imagination talkin’ and not a fever. Are you feelin’ alright?” Uncle Rob had asked as his brow furrowed in concern. He placed a hand to Samuel’s forehead.

“No really! Look I have one of her scales!”

Samuel opened up his hand and showed the scale to his uncle.

“That’s nothin’ more than a piece of shale Sammy. You can find that stuff all over the beach. It’s okay if you dropped your compass in the water. I won’t tell your Ma. You might want to keep that to yourself too.”

Shale? Shale was grey and didn’t change colour when you looked at it from different angles. And he didn’t drop his compass. Samuel bit his tongue and didn’t say anything else about it to anyone. Ever.

On the trip back to shore Samuel came to the conclusion that he didn’t want to be a fisherman. There was no way that he wanted to spend his entire life on a piece of glorified wood that floated aimlessly on powerful, unpredictable waters in hopes of catching a stupid fish every once in a while. The ocean wasn’t that great either. When he grew up he would move away and have a real job.

That was exactly what Samuel had done.

Even after all of the years that stood between that time and the present, Samuel still had the scale. He looked it over. It continued to transition in colour. It was the only thing that kept him believing that it hadn’t all been an elaborate working of his imagination run wild as his uncle had suggested.

Samuel looked at the scale from time to time at random moments in his life. Usually times that were particularly testing. Prior to today, Samuel had clutched it in his hand all through his wife’s and unborn child’s funeral. That had been seven years ago.

And it had been his fault.

His pregnant wife of four years had found out about Samuel’s long lasting affair. His faithful, sweet Liz had burst into hot tears of betrayal. She shook all over and flinched each time that Samuel had tried to touch her in a bid to console her. Samuel could vividly remember the way she had stormed out of the house with tears streaming down her reddened cheeks as if it had taken place hours ago instead of years ago. It had been winter at the time, making the roads far from ideal for a stable driver. The police had told Samuel that she had lost control and the vehicle had tumbled down a steep ditch. They had found the car turned upside down. Samuel was informed that Liz had died instantaneously, as if that were meant to bring him consolation.

Samuel was constantly plagued by the haunting possibility his wife hadn’t really lost control.

He had cheated on her with one of the secretaries at the law firm he worked for. These days Samuel really questioned why he had done it. Unlike his wife, that woman had been nothing special.

Samuel also kept the scale in his pocket during each trial that he attended. He was very good at his job. But when he saw the families with tears streaming down their faces because Samuel’s defendant had won the case, he questioned the integrity behind what he was making money off of. Instances like that had become quite frequent. There were a couple of cases that he had won where he hadn’t had a doubt that he’d represented a guilty liar. Just like the secretary, he couldn’t answer why he had done it.

The only reason he’d come back to the two-star, seaside town he’d grown up in was to visit his dying mother. He hadn’t seen her since he’d left, even though she’d been nothing but good to him. He had sent her substantial sums of money over the years, but in his heart he knew that was never what she truly longed to see. He didn’t know what he would say to her.

Samuel looked at his scale in a disconnected manner. Hell, maybe it was just a piece of shale after all, Samuel thought to himself. He threw it into the ocean and walked away.

Maybe it would bring someone else better luck.

No more than a couple of hours later a little boy no older than five years old stood in the very same spot that Samuel had stood as he scoured the sand for seashells. How the little boy adored the ocean. He saw something glimmer in the moving waters. The little boy waded into the frigid ocean until the water reached his hips. His mother wouldn’t be too pleased about his drenched clothing, but something urged him to find the object. He reached to the ocean floor as his little fingers clasped around his prized object.

He looked off into the deeper waters and saw a girl.

Except she wasn’t really a girl.

As she disappeared back into the mysterious waters, he saw a tail flick through the water’s unsettled surface. He ran home to tell his mother and show her the mermaid’s scale.