Rage

Densely packed wet sand repels bursts of whipping cool ocean breeze onto the coastline blurring into the horizon, the beach is a haven of serenity where a steady pace of life excels and contentedness and wonder meet, comfortable with family, and friends who resemble such, worries are a rarity. The ocean is a playground for you and your closest to scamper around the shallow waters with a giddiness reserved for food fights and chasing ice cream trucks, you have everything you need. Safe in the calm breaks surrounded by whitewash being used by your closest for fashioning makeshift beards and Rockstar haircuts, you look beyond to see where it all came from, the crashing destructiveness of mammoth waves, monsters of the deep within view. You can’t help but stare in shameful awe when you know you shouldn’t need to, or want to, but its natural power locks your gaze. Thoughts of letting go to its grasp allowing it to take you on a journey not even it knows the destination fill your mind, a dangerous idea to fathom and deadlier still in practice, what if. The moment passes and the shore welcomes your bare feet back with a sodden hug, glad to feel your familiar step again.

The moon lights the night with a shallow blue tinge illuminating a glow onto the shoreline against a black backdrop of the baron as your closest are nestled near sleeping quietly in the dry sand firm enough to hold them but malleable as to mould to their shape. Ruminating thoughts keep you though as the lunar sky drags the ocean from its relatively tamer daytime slumber into a messy symphony of brutal crashing and bellowing, it holds your undivided attention. The what if draws larger as within your reach is a beautiful phenomenon that others ignore, the bashing of wave against wave grows and grows, the clouds dissipate giving full control to the moon, the sound is unbearable yet rhythmic, you can’t take it. You push yourself up and walk shakily towards the shoreline, a nervous anticipation grows as your heels dig into the sand below leaving small craters behind that quickly fill with water more and more as you get closer and closer to the ocean, the sound of the behemoths is now terrifyingly close as you stand on the edge. Your toes feel the push and pull of the water draping over them with each small wave that breaks at your feet, you take your first step and feel the cold wrap around your ankles with a sudden gasp. Acclimatised to the icy temperature you start the slow trudge through the pulling current hurrying your pace unassumingly until your hips are submerged and you’re on the doorstep. As if standing in line for a roller coaster your excitement starts to crescendo, with one more step you’ll be swept off your feet into an unknown abyss, but something irks you to turn around to look at your closest, a composed thought in a haze of resentment. You turn to see the content faces of your closest unbothered by temptation, you question how they can sit on the doorstep of untarnished, uncensored power and be fulfilled with the shallows. Regret rushes in and sensibility storms your mind, how could you be so stupid. You retreat with a panicked adrenaline through the surging current with twice the force required to enter finally feeling the familiar shore again. You lie close to your loved ones, swearing a silent oath to never dabble in such waters again, but unanswered curiosity always lingers.

Venture after venture into placid waters go by as you slowly start to live in the present where joy guides your movements as the past and future become indistinguishable, it is an addictive way of life to let the moment rule. Your gaze is split between the giants and your closest enjoying their time, happiness comes so easy for them like smell does to dogs, you are in awe of their peaceful nature being satisfied with what is. Over time your curiosity fades though, each trip into calm seas looking just a little less to the beyond until your memory of it is only flashes, like paintings from afar that you can’t quite make out and hope for a peaceful life returns. After so long you swim satisfied with no agendas to live by, grudges to hold, or regrets to run from, at last excited to be alone with yourself. Fulfilled with the love of those you hold dearest you come to understand their way of living and the lingering curiosity you perpetually tolerated for so long now inhabits only a fragment of your mind too small to give recognition to. Having nothing left to prove to yourself removes the weight of a shadow that has been drowning you, finally you can float blissfully, time becoming an abstract concept as the sounds of your closest enjoying games of Marco Polo drown out all else, life is one giant moment.

You float limp in calm, tepid waters watching your closest play their games silhouetted onto the fire red dusk sun that to warms your face, a peaceful scene. As you float something suddenly hits you on your forehead, like an intrusive thought you so desperately wanted to keep out, that yanks you from your waking splendour dream into reality. You lock your gaze forward and dread it wasn’t real, but it hits you again as you look up to see what you feared, ominous dark grey rainclouds slowly swallowing the sky above. The nearing storm turns the waters brutally choppy in an instant as your closest swiftly scatter to shore huddling under umbrellas calling for you as rain threatens closely behind like wildfire. You move with pace to them, the storm catching you quickly, but the closeness of the shallows guarantees you a safe exit strategy. You’re within steps of the shore, the wet sand ready to welcome you like usual, but something protrudes into your thoughts, something you haven’t thought about for a long time. Your closest look on confused as the rain arrives, they call loudly for you through the thundering weight of millions of raindrops slapping the water at once, but their calls are drowned out, you’re alone. The pulling current at your feet you start to remember, that feeling rushes back in like nothing you’ve felt before, a long absence makes its hit so fiercely ignoring it isn’t possible. Slowly you turn from the shore towards the ocean and look to see them, the rogue waves. A faded picture in your mind finally coming back to fruition with a frightening rawness absolving you of any regret felt for abandoning your friends and family for its strength totals you. Free will is lost as you take your first step in a long time towards the whitewashed monsters beyond, you feel at ease as a weight is dropped and you can truly relax, no more lingering curiosity. Step after step your loved one’s calls dissipate into the rain, soon unable to even see the shore, but what would you know, your gaze is affixed towards the horizons.

After agonising with thoughts that tormented your imagination wondering about the great what if, you feel your feet leave the ground for the very first time and the weightlessness you so desperately craved for an age. It’s everything you imagined, you can’t distinguish any part of your body from the next, extremities cease to be part of you while you enjoy your first true moment of freedom. You let the smaller waves drag you with force into bigger waves dragging you with more force into larger waves until you reach them, mystery fades as you see their true scale only amplified by the storm above, the monsters. Towering like redwoods above everything else no comparisons are possible; you reach a precipice, a feeling rising over you beyond which you cannot contemplate, a peak experience when prolonged expectation that builds with anticipation over time finally arrives but is yet still exceeded, all you can simply do is stare with a slack jaw in wonderous awe.

The moment lasts for but a second before its massive stature hits with such strength than anything you thought possible, like being plunged into ice water that feeling you yearned for for so long is yanked out from you and replaced with fear as you lose total control. Forces from every direction push and pull you, your body struggles to decipher which way is up, you can’t do a thing. You learn quickly why so many left their temptations behind them, curiosity is a bastard, and you are the impulsive kind. A moment of clarity in the chaos comes to you though, you are truly at the mercy of something greater than you, a force like nothing else capable of destroying warships with its ocean spray, it’s horrifyingly beautiful. Struggling for air you start to embrace the carnage, your loved ones come to mind, their panic hurts you but it doesn’t matter as currents and crashes continue, struggling is futile in the face of this beast, in a twist of evil irony you go with the flow, accepting your time.

Without warning however the chains of the storm are lifted and you regain control of your own movements. The whitewash above fades to reveal the sun rays beaming through the surface guiding you to a future. You snap out of your hazy state with astonishment, instinct kicking in immediately as you use your last muster of energy to awkwardly flail your battered body up the cruelly short distance, your lungs burst from exhaustion. Your head crashes through the still water above like hammer to glass, gasping for the salty air above in shock that you made it. Slowly you look around to see clear skies everywhere as though nothing was there at all. Then you turn to the shore and see them, your loved ones calling desperately for you, tears rolling down their terror-stricken faces at what has just happened. You gain perspective in that moment, every feigning thought to swim out, every casual gaze beyond, every decision you made for you to end up here was wrong, only by dumb luck are you able to go back to them. You promise yourself to use this as an example, never to set foot past the shallows again.

You swim in and embrace your closest with tight, tight love filled hugs that you’re okay. They blame themselves for not doing more to help, you apologise for your impulsive act refusing them to take any responsibility for your endeavour. You retreat to your sand beds to simply enjoy the spoils of loving company. Finally safe in the nest you thought you would never feel again hindsight sinks in as you reminisce. The memory of gargantuan waves carving out the skyline with ease still fresh, you look at the ocean glad you escaped its powerful grasp, with your family laying by you still to stunned to speak, with your partner’s tear stains still visible on their cheek, with your child’s terrified expression set like concrete…but still.