When the Song Left the Sea

This is my first novel, which has evolved slowly over a decade. Please enjoy

1

storm’s aftermath . . .

the ragged hawk surveys

a fresh and hungry world

 

In his dream he was walking along the shoreline, gazing out to sea with a peculiar feeling of prescience.

A pulse of great Gray whales was moving south and, on a calm day, could be seen far out on the horizon. They would soon be in the warm waters of Mexico, where they would breed and birth before retracing their arduous journey north to their feeding grounds in the Bering Sea.

 

He saw her from a distance, gathering shells. The vast ocean was washing its dead, wave after wave. Walking toward her, he too stopped occasionally, enticed by an attractive shard from the depths. Some of these he put in his pocket; others he tossed back upon the beach. The woman was looking out at the darkening sea; perhaps towards Okinawa or the mountains of China.

 Perhaps she imagined nothing farther than the flashing crest of the angry waves. The sea was wild, gray and foreboding, a storm building in the west and growing quickly, enveloping them with wind and driven pockets of rain. Time had accomplished nothing. It was the old story, always the same beginning, this feeling of self and no self, this unceasing hunger, this scar of existence.

“Beautiful weather, isn’t it?” he laughed, “If you like dark chaos, that is.”

She looked him in the face with an expression of curious detachment. He could have been a shadow sweeping across the sand. But as he remained silent and motionless, the simple question he had asked began to fill the air with unexpected significance. Her expression changed; a look almost of embarrassment, with flushed cheeks, revealed the thin and freckled creases of her face.

“Yes, it is,” she concurred and nodded politely, looking out to sea.

 “You’re not from here?” he said, with certainty.

“O no!” she laughed softly. “How about you?” He shifted his feet in the sand, smiled, and bent down to capture a tiny sliver of a shell he saw spinning towards the sea. She noticed the quickness with which he moved.

“This, I suppose, is home base,” he said evasively. “I’ve been around here, on and off, for awhile.” He rose and turned to face her. “Where, then, if I may ask, are you from? I thought I detected a slight southern lilt in your voice.” And he handed her the piece of shell. It shone like liquid pearl, a purple and golden wash flowing with neither matrix nor design. She received it in silence.

“Yes, I have roots �" I would say strangled roots �" there.”

“So what brings you to this extremity?”

“Just seeing the country �" what do you do here?” But she had intended to say, “What are you doing here?”

“Just working to survive, like everyone.  My sister and I run an antique shop �" a complete flop, to be truthful. I’m becoming the number one antique. Maybe one day they’ll put a price tag on me.” He was angry at himself for this lame response. Using one’s age as a substitute for wit always left him cold, and here he was doing it himself, and doing it badly.

 “But what would you do?” He looked at her long and hard. This was a question he’d rather not answer.

“To discover, I guess, what love means.” And the bitterness in his laugh startled her. But there was something else too in the timbre of his voice that upset her as well. He seemed to be insinuating that nothing was worth ‘becoming’ in this world. He had not been able to hide the long years of disappointment. “Be a poet, a writer,” he mumbled, after a pause.                                                                    

She started and went pale. If he’d been paying closer attention he might have noticed the slight tremble in her hands.

“This is very strange,” she said, cautiously. Then after an uncomfortable pause she faced him squarely, an expression of perplexity visible upon her face. By way of explanation, she began: “Last night I dreamed that I was on the beach (one reason I ventured out in such weather) and a man walked slowly, deliberately, toward me in the gusty wind. When he reached me, he said: ‘“I will tell you who I am.’” And then he paused with the kind of curious significance we sometimes find in dreams, and whispered: “I am a poet.” Then she glanced out to sea, and it was smooth as glass. . . A line of whales were swimming south, undetected. “What do you think of this?”

He remained silent, but her words had made a deep impression. He turned the silver Aztec ring over and over again and gazed out to sea. Not a whale to be seen in the strengthening storm. No doubt the storm had driven them deeper and farther out to sea.

“So you too are a dreamer,” he said slowly, quietly. “What do I think? I’m unable to form an intelligent reply. But I have my suspicions.”

“Suspicions?” The word surprised her, but as he offered no further explanation, she stubbornly followed suit and remained silent. She could not fathom this cryptic answer. But if he could leave it at that, then so could she.

“What are we to think? Life is a mystery. We seldom decipher the simplest equations. . . We read what we can.” He searched the ocean for signs of the storm’s intensity. A powerful emotion threatened his equilibrium. He did not wish to be lost in it.

“I think your dream was very beautiful,” he said at last, and there was something in his manner that seemed to dismiss the subject. His apparent lack of interest intrigued her further; she detected a certain decision in his silence, something akin to faith. Whatever the actual reality behind his behavior she was now determined to drop the subject, mystery or no mystery. In truth, what are we to think?

“What’s it like to be a poet,” she said for lack of anything else to say. She smiled and held up her open hands in a gesture of surrender to the subject. He laughed wearily. This was another question he’d hoped would not be asked. In the back of his mind he felt a strong sense of unreality.

“I’m really not a writer �" but the most useless thing on earth: an aging man who once wished to be a writer.” He paused, then continued: “You know, it’s like dreaming I am dreaming . . . and to be constantly awakened from a really great line or verse or a work in progress suddenly finished and doubtlessly perfect and just as doubtlessly missing the mark. Only to see the shadow of a shadow trailing behind one’s longing and one’s words.”

“I don’t think it is useless work at all,” she said, with obvious sincerity.

“Like I said, I survive as best I can . . . my sister and I eke out a living with our shop.  Then there’s my military pension and the occasional side job. Survival, as I’m sure you know.  (And he looked at her with a strong, knowing look that made her feel uncomfortable, which was not easy to do.) Survival is the key.”

“I don’t understand this world,” she commiserated. Strangely, it seemed as if she were talking to herself �" her sympathy appeared general, directed not to anyone or anything in particular but merely requisite to the dilemma of living in an unsatisfactory world �" a world which appreciated the utilitarian and the practical business of living, not the abstract, subjective and, let us face it, useless work of translating through ones’ brain the recondite sorcery of Art. Sure most of us hung a picture or two on our bare walls or entertained ourselves with a sentimental poem or short story; sometimes we even prided ourselves on knowing certain authors, their anecdotal record that proved just how special they had been. But, all in all, we related to those who were engaged in the daily ordinary struggles, which is our common admission into the human race. All else was merely indulgence. The same fears, greed, lust and ignorance that pulled us together �" maintained the commonplace. Art was the last dish on the table �" not any form of desert either, but at best an appetizer we could share in our likes or dislikes. Art, at its highest form, approached truth, spirituality, God: thus it was by nature anathema. We already possessed these things, in dog bone certainty. Therefore Art was another useless conundrum, intertwining, and representing by a pliable wire a hangman’s knot. One would be wise to keep one’s art to oneself. At least these were more or less Hector’s thoughts. Sara held tight to her intrinsic worth theory �" the masses just didn’t get it. Life was too brief a journey to waste it merely on things. She was infected, as so many others, by the bug of knowledge. After all, we lived in a world of disharmony, deranged and twisted by the preoccupations of the time.

“Art, in the strictest sense, is the art of living well; and when it comes to this �" well, I can tell you without any false humility, that in this I am a miserable failure.” He threw a shell into the surf, glancing back at her as he did so, wearing a mischievous smile as if to say that none of it mattered anyway. The weight of the failure at the things he’d just said to her disgusted him (like a lie) �" he couldn’t defend or explain art. The work was all that mattered.

“As for writing or any other medium,” he continued, pedantically, filled with self-loathing, “The work is a personal expression turned into a product, utterly subjective, made true only in so far as it reaches another. . . though I have often thought that maybe it is not quite as subjective as it seems. I mean, our stories, our work, belong to everyone precisely because they are stories, drawings, music, revealed to and about the exact same person �" the exact person who is essentially a strange unknowable being for whom we can never get our fill.”

Here he paused and laughed, seemingly at himself. “Of course there are the commercial concerns �" quality be damned! �" the primary concern of making money. Once in awhile the two coincide. This, naturally, gravitates toward mass appeal, the watered down and easy, the easily accessible... Why? I’ll tell you. . . The purpose of Art is to awaken. And this reveals us to ourselves. And naturally this is painful! Simply put: People don’t want Art because it forces them to wake, and this waking hurts!”

“That’s probably true,” she said, impressed by the clarity of his thought, “but good work ought to be valued. . . One shouldn’t have to starve or sell their souls to the devil merely to survive, and a bare survival at that, to be free to create.”

“Well,” he laughed, “we’ll always have the sea . . . and the whales . . . and the storms to prove our beautiful insignificance.!” She too laughed and looking toward the dark, choppy waters, said: “Have you see the whales?”

“Not in this storm . . . but many times before. They are a hobby of mine. They always seem so happy . . . though they are moving farther from shore, no doubt because it’s safer to keep their distance.”

“So, really, why are you here?” She surprised him with this question �" a man who believed he could never again be surprised by anything. That was the precise moment when he began to look at her differently. And to see her as a woman, a real woman.

“A new start,” he began shyly. “And this is the closest thing to home I’ve ever known �" though I admit that I am still looking.” Then he paused, as if he had more to say. “Something real, I suppose �" but don’t ask me to describe this thing to you.” This was the first time he had admitted this to himself or others.

She looked down at the sand. An uneasy silence ensued, the sea washing its dead in the living waters, hand over hand.

“It’s been nice talking to you,” she said, and held out her hand. “My name is Sara.  I would be interested in seeing your work.” He shook her hand and smiled.

“You have already seen it,” he said, without forethought. “I would be interested in seeing you. Remember, you are your work. I too am my work. And as you can see. . . Well, there’s not much to see in that department.” He laughed alone this time, while she kept a steady, enigmatic gaze upon him.

“Forgive me,” he laughed softly. “My name is Hector �" I have no idea why I talk like that. No disrespect intended!”

“I must go,” she said cheerfully, ignoring his strange confession, and started walking away. “Good luck, Hector.” She turned, smiling, in a full moving circle, swinging her arms. “And keep writing �" if only for me.”

The turquoise sea was pulling back into itself, the cool wild breezes quickening, the air charged with a subtle, incipient restlessness. How far can one go? He was looking toward Panama; perhaps as far as Tierra del Fuego or Brazil, or perhaps even beyond, round the Cape of Good Hope and the Indian sea. Perhaps as far as Conrad’s Malaysia, toward islands of new beginnings among people who had never known the consciousness of sin. Perhaps he might yet find a place to begin anew.

“No,” he admitted, sadly, “this is my place.” But a lingering doubt itched, as it were, his very soul. How far can one go? Suddenly he turned and sprinted down the beach.

‘Wait,” he called loudly, coming to an abrupt halt beside her. “I’m . . . sorry.” Out of breath, and trying to hide the fact, he paused a moment. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, buying time. She was looking at him like a confused child, serious and unsure.

“I would like to see you again,” he spoke gently with unexpected emotion. She detected a mixture of kindness and sadness in his voice. She hesitated. A dark cloud tore apart; and through the brief opening sunlight swept across the beach momentarily; the unexpected light poured upon the sand and was almost immediately swallowed, and far out to sea where the storm had calmed, shifting north, a ‘pulse’ of great Gray whales had surfaced for an instant, heading south, again unseen. She handed him a scrap of paper and said: “You can call me.”

“You can count on it,” he said, with fragile confidence.

“See ya,” she called over her shoulder, and continued on her way. He walked in the opposite direction, feeling twenty years younger, frightened and hopeful; all the while keenly watching his reactions, surprised by the intensity of emotion and energy, as well as the flood of thoughts which had suddenly overwhelmed him. He turned and watched her disappear over the ramp to the gravel-packed parking lot, a tiny indistinguishable figure among a sea of shadow and light. Looking out to sea, he recited from one of his poems:

 

      I will travel into myself,

lost in a blossoming world.

     I will build something strong

    in this heart no one has touched.

    and open all the doors and ask them inside,

a host among strangers . . .

       I will know the love of one,

       beyond my making or my desire,

       and I will nourish her with the light

       of my devotion all the length of my days.

       I will travel . . . lost in a blossoming world.

 

And suddenly �" like the first faint stirrings of madness �" inexplicably, he exploded in a fit of incongruous, bitter, self-deprecating laughter, akin to a horrible tearless cry. . . And the turquoise sea opened its arms of living waters. And closed them again like an immense, unfathomable creature breathing in a storm of solitude the bitter-sweet dream of Life and Death.

 

Dawn seeped into his mind like the end of a sad dream. He couldn’t recall much of the day before: lots of drinking, brooding, a quick visit to the grave, staggering among the dunes. He remembered walking home, the street light’s corona intensified by the alcohol. Something else; something special had happened. He’d fallen face down onto his bed, his last thought one of self-disgust, his mouth parched, severely dehydrated, feeling utterly stupid and lazy, too lazy even to get himself a drink of water. His consciousness faded into black oblivion, a last sickening knowing fading into nothingness: It had all been a dream.