Description
Now, he swam back to the shore in a daze. His muscles were loosened. His soul was lighter, as if some of his trauma had shaved away. Salt water dripped from his wet suit and legs as he traipsed up the beach and headed back to his small bungalow home on a boardwalk along the sea line.
The whale song echoed in his head as the day waned, playing over and over until the sun fell, and the stars made their appearance.
The warm night breeze coaxed a smile onto his face as he sat on his balcony. Sea salt blew past his nose, clinging to his skin. He stared out at the black abyss that was the ocean and the sky meeting as one, where the cosmos on the earth was one. He could have sworn he heard the distinct song of a whale.
—
When he left home, he was only seventeen and the demons followed him like ghosts haunting someone who wronged them during their life. So, he turned to the drink. When he passed eighteen, he stalked into a bar in a town not too far from my home. Shadows shrouded the room, with only pockets of yellow light.
Glasses clanked together. Liquor ran freely. Crude jokes and laughter rang into his ears as he sipped the bourbon, allowing it to loosen his muscles and build a haze over his mind. He was rarely sober after that night. The liquor and the punk rock band he joined became a Band-Aid for his trauma.
The alcohol flowed through his veins and the guitar riffs and drums reverberated against his ribs. But the wounds festered until the infection bubbled over and the tears and wails forced their way up his throat.
—
Will swallowed, staring at the stars, heaving a sigh at the broken young adult who had to pry himself away from the drugs and alcohol. He closed his eyes, listening to the distant whale song and allowing his eyes to grow heavy. The sound and the sea salty breeze sent a wave of calm across his body and into his mind.
The following morning, as the grey light of dawn stretched across the sky, Will pulled on his wetsuit, and hastened to the beach. The sand merged between his toes and his anxious heart steadied. He waded into the water, pulling on his goggles and fins before diving into the blue and swimming across the coral. Fish circled below him, bursts of bright colors in the blue.
Then the singing whales echoed through the current. Low, deep pitched, and in rhythm with the beat of his heart. It was the sound of peace. His stomach launched into his throat when he spotted them. Enormous grey masses moving lazily through the clear water. They swam in the deep water, past the edge of the coral reef. Shafts of the first sunlight breached through the water, and their skin glistened.
A mother whale and her calf. The calf clung to her side, an innocent giant just learning the truth of the ocean. Her mother guided her along the edge of the reef. The calf chirped, and the mother responded with a deep whistling tune. Will suspended himself in the water, only the tip of his snorkel poking above the surface. He didn’t dare move, entranced by their magic.
Tears burned his eyes. He could sense the deep, caring nature of the mother to her child. The way she kept her within her grasp, nudging her along and responding to her chirps. His stomach clenched. His mother, who died of alcoholism 10 years ago, failed him. She never showed him the love and nurture he deserved and needed. But they hadn’t spoken since he left home.
Mother’s Day was always a strange, bittersweet day. He didn’t know what to do, or what to think of her death. Emptiness shrouded him on Mother’s Day. His soul was numb, as if he were drunk on bourbon, and oblivious to the world. He knew if he allowed himself to feel, pain would consume him.
More streams of sunlight eased through the water. The whales skirted the perimeter of the reef, singing to one another. Will knew he needed to make peace with the memory of his mother. He couldn’t let her haunt him forever. Nor could he let the other demons of his past cling to his spine. He closed his eyes, letting the whale sound consume his senses. His heart slowed. His muscles loosened. He allowed the tears to flow, to release the trauma to the ocean, so the current could carry it away, further into the deep.
Peace swathed around him. Like light chasing away the shadows. He felt calmer than he had in years. The whales swam into the distance, fading into the gloom.
But their song remained in his bones. The ocean and the majestic creatures who lived there would heal him, piece him back together like a broken vase. Will floated in the water for several beats, listening to his breath through the snorkel and staring after the whales.
The ocean became his haven. A place where he could simply be.
No pressure to exist within the confines of someone else’s expectations of him. An escape. The ocean and the whales
kept him sane.
As he emerged from the ocean and treaded up the sandy shore back to his house, he smiled, knowing he would see the whales again.