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How many dark nights
shall pass before the light is reborn?
The question haunts my
every breath. It burns, yet it would hurt me more if it were
to stop.
My family and I moved
here six months ago from a small coastal town. I still miss
the sound of the waves. The ocean calls to me, unlike this
land on which I have walked these sixteen years. It is as
though the ancient mother sings to me from the depths,
yearning for my return to her wintry bosom.
I almost returned,
once. I was a child then, twelve years old, when a
deceptively calm sea pulled me under. I often wonder why I
was allowed to slip from her embrace.
These humans see me as a
broken thing. My earth mother, Rachel, looks upon me with a
sadness and a strange curiosity. She doesn’t understand me;
I am an enigma to her. Was I truly born of her womb? It is
the same way with any human who meets me. Those who begin to
love me find I am slippery as the sea when they try to grasp
me for too long. Though, in some strange sense, my heart
yearns for the capture. I have come to know the truth; I am
not of their kind and they cannot accept me.
There is a perverse
beauty to the melody of my soul. I possess an uncanny
ability to sing, and have been told that each note pierces
like a thousand deaths. It makes these humans cry and hold
themselves away from me. Their eyes grow large, pupils so
dilated that I fear they might swallow the world whole. I
tremble at the thought. As my song continues, they simply
sit, marionettes with cut strings. When the barriers of my
heart are breached and someone touches the amber sands
floating as motes in my dark eyes, they must traverse with
care lest I lay waste to the vessel and all souls are
drowned.
As a little girl, I
dreamed of a water horse that would frolic in the whitecaps
of the waves by the shore, unbridled and untamed. I listened
to its wild voice crossing thresholds of consciousness and
aeons. Its voice was much like my own, when I lay in bed
whispering wishes like they were dreams. Dreams are a mask
to make you believe in forever. It's the nightmares which
provide a grandiose garden to succour the immortal
imagination.
Perhaps I trapped myself
in that garden; and no human possessed the key, not even me.
It was lost, four years ago, when my body was wrapped in
seaweed coils and drawn downward. Inside me now is this
inherent fear of drowning, of being enclosed and restrained
by a titanic weight, gasping for that last breath, my skin
turning the grey of the sea.
Who knew peril had such
a bittersweet humour.
My family and I are
ensconced in the cosy arms of this beige-coloured society.
We live in a standard house, on a standard street, in a
standard suburb, where fences are used to divide, shut in,
and close up. How many boxes will they create to keep me
inside? I want to claw at them; obliterate them. In my fury,
I imagine destroying them in countless ways. I will not
hide; I will look for ever-expanding horizons.
Rachel’s voice attacks
my volatile peace, rending it like fine tissue paper in the
rain. That voice. No matter how desperately I wish for
silence, I am tormented by the sound. My own voice is filled
with a thousand sorrows.
I must remember these
songs have a place in the dark.
This suburban cell has
made the music of my beloved ocean mute. I would rail at the
trees for I do not need them to breathe; my hidden gills can
turn water into life. Though, here in this place, is only
the brown dirt, earth moved and aerated by the worms holding
onto the hope of feeding from my body once I am buried
within their domain.
I open my mouth and
release the song of the tumultuous sea. I am a shell that
channels the dark sound, a shell of winter greys, whites and
blues. There are no wings on me, no vision of feather and
golden halo. I wear the scales of the ancient ocean; its
dark water is a demi-existence thrumming through my human
form. I am no mortal being. I am the daughter of each
daughter and mother of the sea. There is a dark waltz
circling beneath this pale human flesh; the dancers
threatening to burst through and devour the light blue day.
They would swallow the sun and replace it with the moon,
forevermore.
Ah, my beloved moon, I
would sing beneath your silver streams with the heart of
melancholy. I would give homage to the sister who turns the
tides of my one true home. Give me this dance.
A sparrow cannot live in
this space. My mind cannot create open fields here,
imprisoned in this beige world where like-mindedness is a
badge of honour. Reaching still for my moon, I cannot fold
myself up like a ladder that is no longer necessary. I
cannot exist in a world where the vines grow too tall and
thick and choke the sky.
I hear my brother’s
voice. Though not quite a man, his voice instills a strength
that fortifies me against the days that blur one into the
next, as the walls of my room close in around me. My brother
is from the sky, of this I am sure, as sure as I am that I
belong to the oceans. These humans cannot see it, blind to
their own exile and blinded by their imprisonment.
Their blood is stale and
stagnant; if I cut them, would they bleed? I have seen my
own red thickness coat the shiny grass blades, staining the
skin the humans knitted over my small bones. Their
seamstress sewed it taut with the tiniest stitches lest it
scar and show. It is too tight, and I struggle, yearning to
sink my nails into the meagre flesh and peel it away,
leaving the mask to drop in plain sight. Their screams then,
how I can hear them in my mind, pushing aside the invisible
barriers constructed to keep humans in. I seek out! My mind
shrieks in bleeding glory and I taste the metallic flavour
against my tongue. Why can’t they acknowledge my pain? It
eats at me, curling into knots in the pit of my stomach. If
I could lay my insides open, they would know that this brown
earth is foreign to my soul and I am dying with each breath
I take.
“Tasi?”
Anastasija is my
baptismal name, but the wind calls me “Tasi”. The day is
ending and shadows play against the faded white paint of my
room. I trace them in time with the music of my name, my
finger turning revolutions in midair. Patterns of dusk
reveal dolphins jumping high above the frothing waves, their
song drowning reality’s echo.
“Tasi!”
Rachel’s voice is
insistent. Like a dry twig it snaps inside me, and I jump
from my bed and run. I surprise her and bolt past, reaching
for the car keys that rest in the pottery bowl by the front
door. She shouts my name as I run barefoot down the pathway.
I push the key into the door lock and jump into the car. In
my haste I have forgotten my licence, but that does not
matter. Once I reach my destination this metal contraption
will be of no use. I start the engine.
Drive.
I step on the
accelerator. The wind whips at my face through the open
window, its cool fingers assault my eyes, gouging and nearly
blinding me. Yet, for the first time I see through these
human eyes. The night pries open my eyelashes, and as I
drive, the roads become long asphalt blurs.
Escape.
Destiny.
These call me now, draw
me with longer reach, a stronger grip, and trees bow
reverently as I leave this place behind me. The sky is
filling with rampant twilight. Drive. Heading south, I
journey homeward. Time holds no meaning. I cannot count it
in my head. All I can do is move inside this metal box.
There is no sleep to be
had this night. I drive for hours through cloned streets
until I leave the suburbs entirely. Then, I finally see it,
to the side of me, the moon breaking over the water, and I
know where I am. I still the metal contraption and it gives
one final gentle humph as I take a step from its body. The
wind whips at my bare legs and flimsy woollen dress. A lone
gull is flying overhead, my only companion. Is it rejoicing
with me, as I stand atop of the world? Far below, one wave,
and then another, tumbles in dark, welcoming glee.
“Tasi.”
I hear you, my mothers
and sisters, and I have come. I take a step closer to the
edge, the rocks feel smooth beneath my shoeless feet. The
gull suddenly screams, splintering the silence of the night,
and the air below me is buoyant; the arms of my beloved sea
waiting to catch me. I have the courage, I hear my voice; it
is a warrior, fighting through the lines, leaving no body
spared.
I hit the water hard and
every bone inside me shatters. I would have cried out in
pain, but it is not my mouth and throat that are in despair.
It is my soul accepting its final death. A lie. I have spent
my life devouring the half-truths of my fractured mind. The
waves buffet my human body against rock and sandy bottom as
I realise what I have done. I am tossed and beaten, and the
shell breaks inside my mind and turns to powdered dust.
Where is my greatest salvation? Where is the rebirth,
promised to me by the oceans? “Liar”, I manage to sigh as
the few remaining bubbles pop inside my lungs and my eyes
glaze over to the colour of the winter sea. The mistresses
of this domain cheated me of my destiny. I am no ocean
child. All I did was exchange prison cells; such poetic
irony.
I gasp for air as the
ocean breathes me in and draws me under one last time. I am
a limp doll and not the imagined mermaid of my dreams. I did
not belong. I was out of place, out of time. There was no
fit. It was just a lie.
How many dark nights
shall pass before the light is reborn?
Just one. |
