Murder Without Malice

The ocean rumbles on. Wave after wave, one over the other, faster than the preceding wave, each one catching up on the other, yet on the horizon, nothing seems unusual, only our first Indonesian Christmas leaving over the horizon.

There was a small rain this morning. No trace of it now, not on shore or sea. A school - or at most, half a dozen sharks - zigzagged back and forth just half a mile off the coastline, while below the balcony of the resort hotel I can see a man walking on the beach carrying a child on his shoulders. Another, looks like an old lady, strides the petticoat waves, never bending. Not stopping. Not collecting. Serenity is everywhere, it seems.

I watched the ocean some nights, got up early several mornings, but if a comet came or went I failed to pick it out from all the other stars. Stars there are at night, aplenty.

Silently, without treachery, nature turns over. It is a movement without malice, a disturbance, like an overweight man turning in his bed, only his wife understanding the magnitude of the disturbance to her sleep as the mattress absorbs the weighty move, deepening the trough between them. In the ocean waves deepen, allowing other waves to catch up, then becoming heavier and faster, until all the ocean's energy is released. A breeze before it becomes a wind all the time growing more intense.

Sharks have turned toward deeper water, a small rogue wave comes ashore, a scout, a one off, people move their deck chairs, their food, come inland just a few yards, There’s no sign of panic, it happens constantly by the sea, one wave more impetuous than others, swirling up the beach, catching out those who love the sea most. It is an omen, a foreboding. The child screams with delight, little knowing the ocean is disturbed and to bash heads against rocks, regain land she has lost, make a point; one only she, nature can make.

I do not accuse her of a crime. The event was not planned. There is no blame to place. Nothing's wrong. It's just that nothing's right. Some scientists’ math dictates that 9.1 on a seismic graph will be catastrophic, unstoppable, murder on a mass scale; women, children, men at work and at play, creatures, all of God’s making will perish when the biblical scale disaster comes ashore.

There are half a hundred sentences unfinished, yet unstarted on these pages. The mystery of the sea is no clearer to me than it was before. Worse, the mystery of myself grows harder to discern. I have said what there is to say. Described what I, myself, have seen. Beyond that, there is nothing. Nothing but water in abundance. Heads beaten and bashed against rocks, merciless as only someone who knows the ocean; who loves her, has seen her to be. Innocent of crime, turning over in her sleep.

ID: 1848884   (Rated: 13+) The Burst of Imagination Contest~Closed  A contest for your imagination. Closed until further notice. by Jali~mostly on hiatus