Tonight was different. He imagined her there, reaching out to him and as he stood on the beach, each grain of sand slithering under his feet. There it was. A sigh, silent, but it took hold of him like nothing he ever felt before. A feeling, an emotion. No it was more, much more than that. It was a chill even though this was San Pedro and the air was never so cold or frigid. He felt slimy fingers brush across his ankle. He thought it was the surf, the ocean clinging to him as it always did when he was out there amongst the many other surfers. As he looked down, he spotted a hand. The tanned fingers, slender and smooth, but clammy and cool to the touch at the same time. A figure rose from the curdling sandy grains. Rubbing his eyes in wonder, he saw her in all her magnificence as if she had never left him. Her midnight blue sarong gently flapping in the breeze.
It couldn't be her. She was a distant memory and she was no longer around. He had said his goodbyes that fateful December evening and at the service. Ghosts. He didn't believe in those. He believed her soul to have risen to a better place. One where he could no longer hurt her. No one could touch her. The dreams he had of her all those days and nights after made him fuel his career further. But it was for her he kept telling himself. All for her. He couldn't let the guilt go. He tried to feel it ebb away everytime he stood on that precious surfboard, yet it lingered like an echo. Calling out to come to terms with his guilty act. The mens rea could not be reconciled with the actus reus.
Casually and fervently he was drawn out of his enchantment and she was edging closer to him still. He could see through her. The transparency was as clear as the foam that builds on each crest and in that desperate one last coffee before the thrill of the swim. Slowly she whispered his name. He dropped the bottle from his hand. The one he had been cradling for comfort and the one that got him through the emptiness, the empty nights on the beach. The beach bum that he'd become.
It wasn't his fault he told himself and yet each lamentable evening at dusk he would smell mimosa and jasmine. All coming together in some evocative mix and scantily haunting him. Then as soon as it came, the moment desisted. No one could have prepared him for that ungodly act. He knew she was his only love and he would always love her no matter what. But things turned round in a flash. Passions spent and tragedy ensued. Ill prepared he rued what he had become...
Her paintings were her life blood and she would paint for hours on the beach. Capture all, a fleeting picture before the light faded. Her love of the ocean was how they met. She would see him in the water from early crimson dawn onwards. Whenever the wanes were turbulent and he would catch the big one. The wipe out. The heavenly tumbling time after time and wave after wave made him forgot who he was. For he was at one with nature, the fiercest sea and the world. Peace out with his world. She painted him. Capturing the essence of his persona; his character and the only thing that was forever on his mind.
This time, the mimosa became real and as he reached to take away the soaked hand from his leg, he couldn't hold it. His fingers slipped through and he could only hold his own ankle. Yet she was still there...words failed him and her beauty mesmerized him still. She opened her mouth, curled her delicate, ruby lips, but she said nothing. Words failed him, but she couldn't speak. As she gestured to him, he didn't get the meaning. Suddenly he appeared to come to his senses and stumbled backwards almost falling onto his bottle, which by now had drained away and floated across the fluctuating sandy carpet.
What was he doing? She wasn't real, only the cruel imaginings brought on by the furore of his drinking. That was real. The ebb and flow of his heartbeat and the massive pain he felt in his head all made him marvel at the phantom creature that emerged before his very eyes. He wasn't afraid, not now. He wanted to touch her still and hold her. Why now? What was her reason for being here? The questions swirled his mind, but he could only wonder. Slumping down again for he couldn't get away, she crossed his path once more and went through him. He shivered as the chill passed through him. Turning around, she gestured to him with her bony finger. Paralysis struck him at this moment and he dared not move...He glanced once more behind him but something was amiss. She was gone and he didn't know what to think.
The logical process was all too consuming and he was way past the thinking stage. Once again he tried to make sense of the madness. December loomed in his head again and the painting. It depicted it all. Lone surfer on a sea of scarlet. Raising his arms, flailing frantically as he struck the one person who was trying to be his saving grace...Wiping the sweat from his furrowing brow, he managed to reach his bed and sink into the pillow face down. He thought he passed out in some drunken stupor and awoke to find the bed being violently shaken. He was rolled from side to side and swallowed by his linen sheets. He grappled, fought for air. Tossed every which way as felt the miasma when riding those surely waves. This was incredibly consuming and frightening. He couldn't breathe. The pillow being stretched across his face once the sheets were moved. He felt pulling and a sudden shock to his heart. He thought he was being squashed and sat upon by an unforeseen force. This wasn't her. She couldn't be so strong. A moment passed. It was only a minute as he managed to stare at the luminous numbers of the clock. It ended as soon as it began. Calm once more struck a motionless sorry existence in that bleak room.
Sitting up he tumbled across the bed, falling to the floor. He reached in front of him stamping his hands on the solid, cold hardwood. This was the finality of the night. Some damning entity had reached him. Invaded his space and he still didn't believe in ghosts. Spirits. Wandering souls looking for revenge. To find a semblance of peace. Was this her? Was this the same fate that awaited him when that destined end arrived for him. In the waves, crashing under the seamless contours of each ripple, each riptide...Suddenly there came a crash. The window was broken and glass shards fractured to smithereens were scattered and strewn across the entire room. Yet it was silent. No breeze, only silent yet protruding sounds from the surf. Always the surf.
He got up once again. No - he picked himself up. Ran towards the glass and the window. Being careful not to cut his feet. Stepping over and onto the balcony. Through the sway of the palm trees, he glimpsed a small solitary figure high above on the edge of the rocky cliff. Then he saw it swiftly jump. Soaring down into the sink and onto the slippery sleek rocks below. Rubbing his eyes again not forgetting the image. The haunting facade was much scarier than some spirit trying to possess his every being. He took a deep breath and swallowed hard.
Once more he recalled that day. She was on the cliff ledge and leaned over to catch a rare piece of history. Painting a sunset smothering the ocean with its blend of intriguing hues, orange, yellow, deep russet. She left him that day but he drove hr to it; at least in his limp mind. Was it natural? Expected? He believed it was him that had pushed her and now he was having niggling doubts...spirits were violent...spirits were angry...spirits were peaceful...comforting...did something drive her to it?
Competition day arrived again and he thought long and hard about pulling out of it. He was in no fit state to surf and win. Only a coward would give up. He was a coward. This was his life...Angry thoughts wouldn't hold him back or stop him from living the last moments of his dream. Soon he would be too old to surf and compete. Beach bum that he was. Surfing was paramount. Surfing was - is life...
He was still tormented by the dreams, that vision he saw on the cliff, the fall. His flailing, this time zooming in close-up fashion, he saw himself. Going over the edge, but he was here and not there. It was almost like a bilocation. As if he were seeing a scary doppelganger. The thoughts occurring to him of how this signified a darker foreboding. Surely he had nothing to do with supernatural happenings. Dreams, nightmares, that's all this ever was. Something he could control and wake from in an instance.
Waves hit, streaming in unison with his lifeless, limp body. He extricated, tried to escape the rift, the rip that was ebbing further and further towards him. He was caught up in a tidal wave-like grasp which seemed to take hold of his body. His arms, his legs, the evil grip tightening like a rope around his neck. He felt cold, clammy fingers again, the same that had held him that night on the beach. With each passing wave over his head, he could see the emptiness of his life. Some strange apparition had caught him, entered his body and he had been too weak to stop it. This was his reckoning and his tumultuous ending.
This was her revenge. He did have a doppelganger, he ended up living in the same house, same interests someone born with another's memories and not once did he think his love of surfing would lead him to such a climactic crossroads. That the ocean could be so cruel in exacting such a tempestuous tsunami on his life. Only she, as a spirit suffering in turmoil, had found the wrong victim to exact her scathing scorn. He had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, as cliched as it sounds...now he too could scour the seas and always be a winner in his never ending surfy trip...
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