Dark Secrets-Revelation

There are four faces to the ocean, this I have always known. From my first time to stare at her from the beach, to my first time to swim or ride her waves in a boat I have known. Each face, each distinct personality has always sung to me. I have always been enthralled by the poetry that the ocean commands. If you have ever seen the sun rise or set on the ocean then you will understand.

The first face is that of the playful young child. Its waves lapping youthfully at the beaches and cresting in a manner that simply says, “Play, with all a child’s joy.” The days that the ocean shows this face are those days when I simply want to run and jump, and smile at everybody I see, eager for the day.

The second face of the ocean is the beautiful, tempting face of a lover. Her waves a little higher than the child but a little slower, sing softly to your soul. The hypnotic dance draws you in, pulls at your heartstrings, beckons you to join in the motions. One may weep in consideration of the sheer beauty of it.

The third face of the ocean is the calm, patient old man, with whom I have spent many hours sitting, thinking, considering. It is a quiet presence, comforting. There are no words to be spoken, just a reveling in the warm, inviting quiet and the rarity of such an occurrence.

The fourth, but most certainly not the least important, is the dark face of the ocean. The face that shows the true force she can muster, with all the righteous fury of a woman scorned. The high peaking waves and wind and rain and lightning that can destroy near anything around. This is the face that even the largest, sturdiest of vessels avoids.

I have spent much time with each face. All of them hold a special part in my soul, in my heart of hearts. There is something to be said about the poetry, the living poetry, to be beheld whenever you look upon the ocean, no matter when. Look upon the ocean in the dead of night, when the water is inky black and see the stars, moon, planets all doubled. Look in the heat of the day and see the light of the sun reflected a million times a million times over, sparkling and dancing along the surface. Or at sunrise when you can watch the water and the sky together fade from a deep purple to red to pink and orange and finally into the blue of full day.

Few people fully understand the true beauty and terror of the ocean, and even fewer understand it like I do. For, although, many people may be acquainted with any or all of the four faces of the ocean, only I know of the existence of the fifth, most frightening face. It’s the face that keeps secrets. Deep secrets. The sort of secrets that can keep a grown man from sleeping or, on the rare occasions that sleep comes, constantly waking in cold sweats.

I was sitting on a rock outcropping enjoying the beautiful rarity of the wise old man. The world itself had grown still to revel in it alongside me. Not even the wind, blowing ever so gently, made so much as a whisper to disrupt the picturesque placid surface of the ocean. The sun was making its climb into the sky so the horizon was lit up with bright hues of red and the glass smooth water seemed itself to be on fire. There were even a few stars remaining in the sky to shine their twinkling light on the scene. To think about it takes my breath away and makes my eyes well.

I had just closed my eyes and was breathing in the scent of the ocean when a sound made my ears perk. I vaguely felt a hint of irritation at the disturbance, though it was not a loud noise. However quiet the noise may have been it had certainly ruined my peaceful moment. I opened my eyes to look around but saw nothing, nobody. I was alone, and there was no longer any noise. I grunted in irritation. I doubted that I would be able to recover the peace I had had so I stood to investigate. I was determined to find whoever it was that had disturbed the quiet and give them a piece of my mind.

As I looked around the small outcropping, seeing no evidence of another soul around at all I heard the noise again. This time, since my mind was in the here-and-now, I was able to hear it more distinctly. It was like a whisper carried on the breeze, gently brushing my ears. Though there were no words in the whisper it felt like it was my name carried on the breeze, in that whisper. I do not know how to explain or describe it but it simply felt like my name. I looked around, searching for the source. There was nobody around and yet somebody had whispered my name.

I heard a sound from the ocean for the first time in what seemed like ages. It was a small ripple just at the base of the rock on which I stood. I turned slowly. I felt eyes on me and gooseflesh rose up my arms and neck. When I had turned completely around I saw nothing, but I still felt as if I was being watched.

Again I heard, felt rather, the whisper that carried my name. It came from the base of the rock on which I was standing, just as the ripple had. I laid down on my stomach to peer over the edge of the rock. All I saw when I looked at the water was my own rippling reflection, but it was not the type of reflection you see on the surface of water. It was not translucent as that type of reflection ought to be. It was a solid reflection, the type you see when you look in a glass mirror, but it was still distorted from the ripples so it was more like seeing my reflection in oddly shaped, polished metal.

The strangest thing yet, however, was that my reflection did not peer over the edge of the rock as I did. It was already looking up at me and smiling whenever I peered over. It waved at me, the water rippled a little more and I felt the whisper, but this time it felt like, “Hi.”

My mouth dropped. I could not believe what I was seeing. I must have gone crazy. I had completely lost it. My own reflection was talking to me, but when it spoke the lips did not move, the broad smile remained intact and the water rippled. My eyes must have grown to the size of dinner plates.

“Hi.” It said again, waving congenially. The smile never faltered, but something in the eyes told me something else. However, I just could not put a finger on what the eyes told me. All I knew is that they were far deeper than my own, depthless like the abyss of the ocean itself. Full of knowing, full of emotion, cold, calm, controlled emotion. Although in most ways the reflection looked like me, I knew without a doubt that it was not me, not truly my reflection.

My hands were clammy and my brow began to bead with nervous sweat. My heart pounded in my ears, I was not accustomed to such lack of understanding or knowing, and my beloved ocean was showing a side of herself that I had never before seen.

Again the breeze came carrying the feeling, “Hi.” It was unmistakable that it was expecting a response. As crazy as it may seem I decided to respond. To talk back to my own reflection. A part of me, in some corner of my mind I was telling myself that I had gone mad.

“Hi,” I said to my reflection. “Beautiful day isn’t it?” My reflection smiled even wider still in response.

“You have a nice voice,” it said to me. I thought to myself, Of course I do, I am you and you are me. Except, perhaps one of us is more mad than the other. It continued to speak, with the soft breeze still rather than with a voice of its own. “I have a secret to tell you. I want to share the best secrets.” It giggled, like an amused little child.

“What secrets would those be?” I asked simply to humor it. Why not? I thought. I’m mad as it is, why not flatter my own madness?

“Big secrets,” it whispered. “Secrets that only you can know. Secrets for you, about you.” Its eyes lit up in its own amusement. I must be honest, my own interest was piqued, but that voice in my head kept telling me I was mad. It was relentless.

I ignored it.

“Tell me these secrets, friend. I would like to hear them.”

“Oh, but they are dark, painful secrets.”

“I don’t mind.” I attempted to wipe the sweat from my palms on the rock to no avail. I attempted to still my beating heart, and only partially succeeded.

“I know what it is you fear. You fear to face the truth.”

“What truth is it that I fear? I know of no truth that I fear.”

“Your very own shortcomings you fear. You fear to face them, to acknowledge them.”

I laughed, halfheartedly, as if to shrug off the statement as absurd, but I was no fool and saw some hint of truth in the statement. But everybody fears their own shortcomings. Everybody fears to face the fact that there may be some part of them that does not amount to what they would like. Do they not?

“It’s okay, you can tell me.” I told my reflection. “I can handle it.” The last part was said more to attempt to convince myself rather than whatever it was speaking to me through my reflection, with a whisper in the breeze as its voice.

“You are nobody. Never will be anybody.”

I was shocked at the bluntness of the comment. For a second I was speechless. I did not know how to take it. I was at a loss for words. All I knew was that the statement struck a chord deep within me.

“That is not true. I am somebody. I am a man. A man with goals and dreams.”

“Dreams, yes. Goals, possibly. But you are nobody. You will never reach your goals. You will never be anybody.”

“No,” I said. More to convince myself. My fear had been, from the start, that I could never be or accomplish what I wanted.

“Yes, you know it to be true.”

I did know it to be true. I had no way of ever achieving my goals. I could never be who I wanted to be. I would never live the life I wanted to lead. Failure. The only word to describe who I was and who I would become.

“There are more secrets, friend. Would you hear them, or no?”

With a tear in my voice I answered, “Yes.”

“You will be lonely, always. You will live an empty life of empty sorrow. The hole you feel deep within yourself will grow until, ultimately, it will destroy you in some fashion or another.”

My cheeks by now were wet with tears. I felt that voice in my head, no longer telling me I had gone mad, rather telling me that what was being said was true. Unmistakably true. My reflection continued.

“You can never lead a happy life. You will be alone and you will never have children. You will live a life of empty ambition and you will share it with nobody.”

All the things coming to me in a whisper carried on the breeze were becoming unbearable. I was suddenly furious. The face had not changed from the wide grin and here it was telling me these things. My heart beat loudly in my ear and I was covered in cold sweat.

“You can’t know these things!” I screamed. The water rippled lazily once more. “You can’t know that I will live that life! You can’t know that I will be miserable always!” My body was trembling. Tears of fear and fury poured down my cheeks and my voice cracked several times with the tears in my voice. The lump in my throat grew and I could speak no more. The next time the breeze carried the whisper and my reflection rippled again it was gentle, cooing almost.

“These things are true. You know them to be true. You cannot avoid the fate that you have created for yourself. You will be sad, alone, always. You will know the true depth of loneliness.”

I felt the words deep within myself. I felt them tear at my heart and burn my soul. I stood quickly, furious. I refused to accept that which I knew already to be inevitable. I refused to accept what the voice in my head was now telling me was the unavoidable truth. I screamed empty wordless curses at my reflection. The water rippled lazily, but I refused to hear the whisper that was carried on the breeze.

With my fists balled tightly, my fingernails cutting into my palms, I screamed. I screamed on and on until my throat would make no sound. Even then I continued to scream, no sound, just the hoarse rasping of air forcing its way through my now swollen useless throat.

In a final act of desperation to prove that what my reflection had told me could not be true I ran. Not away. Not in the opposite direction of the fears that had been presented to me. Not from the bearer of fates bad news. Instead I ran directly in the direction of the rippling reflection. I ran, still screaming, and leapt.

I felt the cold, still water of the wise, patient old man wash over me as I broke the surface of the water. My head struck rock and coral at the bottom. Everything went black. I grew more and more cold. I felt the icy hands of fate wrap themselves around me as I remained motionless under the ocean’s surface. I heard a rumbling in the distance, I grew colder yet. The water began to churn.

As I took a breath that was not a breath and my lungs filled with water I felt the quick approach of the oceans fourth face. The fury of the sea, bringing itself to bear as I felt despair fill me as life left me. I knew I was to die there, cold, miserable.

Alone.