Blurry Heavy Cliché

 A sharp, unbearable, agonising tinnitus inside my brain. Pulsing, burning, and I can not see clearly for it burns my eyes and blur my sight. 

Everyone around me is feasting in slow motion. 

Am I dying? Am I dead?

I feel like hanging over, overtime, time traveler, transported to this open space, so cold.

Sharp wind, cuts the flesh upon my cheeks. 

What is that smell? Sulfur, released by phytoplankton and seaweed. Salt, of course there’s salt, corroding and dehydrating, mucus, skin, soul...

It ain’t dawn, yet the sun’s still shy over the horizon. Some weak ray’s of golden light penetrate the heavy sky. Dark clouds upon our heads, thunder. It’s hard to tell whether it’s thin rain or stormy tide. 

I try to balance myself on the breakwater rocks, dizzy by my racing heartbeat and pushed by the wind blows. 

I take a look around, feels like time’s stopped, some levitate with fireworks in hand, others hug each other laughing, holding, almost empty, vodka bottles... and you, there’s you, on the edge, empty gaze, gazing the ocean. Not even the waves breaking the stones below your feet can catch your attention. 

Your face, unknown, impenetrable expression, seems to smile, depending on the angle, or maybe you cry.

I’m a great person’s reader. 

But I could never, not once, read you right! It’s a shame, people say you’re so predictable, I can only feel sad for trying so hard since I’m incapable of doing it so.

Slowing walking towards the water break, trying to absorb what is going on, who are these people? Who are you? 

My feet, I just noticed, barefoot. Caring my shoes, lace tied, hanging between my fingers, like old abandoned shoes on the phone wires.

All this dizziness, my stomach fails me as I approach you. 

Nausea instead of butterflies. 

I’m suddenly hit by the scent of you. 

Tangerine, bergamot, heart notes of pelargonium, cotton, musk, vanilla and… Sandalwood? 

Mother Earth, I think I’m gonna be sick. Seasickness. 

Holding my breath, I seize your face. Immovable, like a marble statue, pale, rigid, but fragile... a furious wave would easily knock you down and break you into a thousand pieces of more stones, adorning the sea.

I think of death. 

I feel like a ghost. 

I don’t belong here, in this metaphorical photograph. 

The rain stars to fall heavy now, I stare ahead. Laugh, for some reason. To the absurd situation, this frozen dream, I’m the only one meant to move. 

The ocean gets even more revolted. Lightning and thunder, the goddess is mad, for crying out loud. 

Her breakout it’s something, though, like one of those breathtaking movie moments, the seconds before the ending, the longing for a bend, mysterious revelation. 

Goddess bless our souls, for you’re full of wonders even on your darkest.

I face the ground, soaked, feeling part of the rain now, I laugh one more time, in disbelief. I have no clue how I ended up here, yet here am I. 

I say “farewell my friend”, to the marble statue of you, that fakes a grin. Or so did my imagination thought it did. 

I begin to cautiously walk away, descending the stones, avoiding to be thrown to the sea, looking for the slightest sign of sand. 

I jump. 

Almost fell, stumble on my feet, the wind holds me back. I look behind and see nothing but the stones left. 

The only noise I hear is the buzz, giving way little by little, opening space to the melody of the ocean, the storm, this surreal symphony of nature. 

The sand is full of tree branches, from all shapes and sizes. I pick a tall, thin, slightly flexible, crooked at all its extension.

With that, I start to walk, dragging the branch in the sand, carelessly demarcating my way.

Don’t know for how long have I been walking till it felt right to stop. The rain has slowly giving in, the sky’s still dark and taciturn.

I look around, the rocks looks so much smaller from a distance, and there ain’t no sign of anyone there. 

I let my body fall into the wet sand, kinda gently, sort of not, letting myself stay there for a while, not too long, just until I slowly gather strength to sit down and stare ahead.

I imagine myself walking towards the furious ocean, grave hits from the cold waves, pushing myself away, an alert not to keep defying it. 

I see myself resisting till exhaustion, until my knees couldn't take it anymore. I would collapse, and in pain would lose consciousness, then it would be up to the ocean to decide, whether to take me away or throw me back. 

It’d be either life or death, and though you’d think it was my choice, for whatever consequences… you’d be wrong.

Life, has its ways of knowing it best, no matter how hard we try to ignore it. 

Humanity is blind, incorrigibly cynical, along with its, not so merciful God, who grants them power over the lives of others. But only in theory. Theoretically is a far far land from practice.

Life is practical.

But the truth is humans are nothing in comparison to the fury of the sea, the cunning of the wind, the transmutation of fire and the wisdom of earth.

By Cardoso, M.