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you?” I nodded and preceded to walk towards the waves which on this
dull day barely lifted themselves above my knees before crashing down with a
still great sound to meet the pebbled beach. I wore thin clothes, black
cotton trousers and a white shirt. I reached the waves and sighed before walking into the water. First it
lapped at my ankles. I’m walking to the glowing light but it’s real this
time. Then it came to my knees, I was wading now, feeling the push of the
water against me. He was watching me, letting me go but I didn’t look back,
he was probably crazier than me. “I’ve been having dreams lately.” All those other dreams but
this, the most important one. “Walking out into the sea. When I
walk out into the sea, I can walk beneath the waves, I can breathe, hear the
crashing of the waves echoing.” It’s at my waist and on this grey day it’s cold, “Even on
cold mornings I’m warm, as if the sun behind clouds heats the water like it
heats metal.” On
this summer afternoon, I’m cold. The sea is creeping up to my hands, my watch is sinking beneath the
water, I don’t want it to break. I lift my arms and fold them across my
chest, I think I’m shaking. The water’s half way up my chest, my white shirt
sticking to my skin. I let my arms fall to my sides. It must have been a
whole five minutes since I started walking but I hadn’t checked my watch. My body begins to tremble, I do not know whether in anticipation or in
fear. I never went to the sea as a child, we lived in the city. I really
ought to call my mother. I reach into my pocket to find my cell phone, it’s
soaked, the screen has water inside it and is totally blank. I try to turn it
on but instead it makes the off sound, maybe there’s just something wrong
with the screen? I sigh and continue my journey out into the waves which will
carry me away. The water’s at my shoulders. Goodbye mother, I think, goodbye life,
goodbye work that I loved, goodbye people who I knew. Goodbye little old lady
next door who always tried to talk to me. The water’s at my lips, I close my
mouth and breathe through my nose, I know there’s no hope of this being a
dream, the cold water has seeped through my clothes, it’s not warm, it’s not
pleasant; not like a dream. It’s up to my nose, so I start breathing in the
water, I cough and allow myself a bit of air by jumping then I’m back in the
water again. I forgot to mention that I cannot swim, I suppose I ought to
have. I walk, jump, walk, jump, until the water seeping into me and I’m
walking in the dark place. There is a pin prick of light, so far off. I walk and walk, it seems
like years of walking, I’m getting younger and younger until I can barely
walk and then I reach the light and I am a foetus, in the womb of the mother,
light and then, I’m gone. Torn in two and so small that nobody can see me. My body washed up on the beach two days later, there was no heartbeat.
I was gone, torn in two, so small that nobody could see me but I wasn’t there
inside my body, I was long gone from there. My watch ticked backwards, my
psychiatrist found it, I don’t think he’d ever seen anything like it before,
but somehow I could think this, even then and knew he’d get over it. And then, I woke up. I never dreamt again. I joined a psychiatric
hospital because I thought I could understand, even if it were all a dream. I
still I wasn’t quiet sure whether any of it had actually happened but I had
lost my job, I knew that because I tried to go to work again that day, as if
even the time before I’d seen him had been a dream. I’m not quiet sure who he
was though, my other half maybe? My guardian angel? The sane side of me, who
tells me when I’m asleep and when I’m awake, if that’s right, I’m sure he was
the one who made me dream and perhaps he was right to do it because now I
understand that going backwards helps no one, if you had a bad childhood,
don’t wonder ‘why was it me?’ Think ‘how can this help me?’, ‘how can it help
me to live?’ Because if you go too far back, you’ll be nothing, you’ll be
gone. Follow the light but know when it’s too far away, the sky may be the
limit but what will you do if you end up suspended in space, unable to
breathe, unable to save yourself, like walking beneath the waves. |
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Dream of
the Sea |