Chapter 41 Eternal
Eternal
The seagulls circle this freshly burned clean isle.
The only evidence of man’s thumbprint being the few bricks that have yet to be absorbed by the crashing graphite waves.
They lap away at the shore trying to reclaim back their pilgrimage.
Little crevices between the rocks are now grouted with the crumbling broken items. Crushed porcelain and glass reverting to their natural raw forms, the ocean’s deep teal arms clutching back their millennia long pact with the earth.
The waves chant, “Return to me, return to me which that was mined, heated and moulded. Return to me to where you belong,” it cries out.
Standing at the edge of the moat, my toes are cold and timid to the open ocean before me.
The waves are mixing like some cocktail, being shaken, poured and dressed to entice me to fall into its drunken bubbly tincture.
I can’t help think of Juliet just before drinking her apothecary’s elixir of escape.
Lir’s hands outstretch waiting for me to finish my obituary to humanity.
After all, we all return to the sea, all our water recycled back through its currents for the entirety of time.
Over and over. All my water will forever choose you Lir.
Outstretching my hand, we now reflect in the sea like a mirror of stars.
Now two parts of each other that cannot exist without the other.
In the distance I see a ship coming, its flags recognizable colors of blue and yellow drop a deep sense of melancholy in my soul.
They are here to search for people, human flesh, survivors of some unprecedented natural disaster mixed with a failed opposing military exercise.
There is no part of me represented in its flowing colors and creed.
“At least I won’t ever see that Vice Admiral again,” I laugh hollowly. Thinking about how he’s going to show up here acting like a hero to only find the whole place leveled. Serves him right, serves them all right trying to control this place which so clearly belongs to the sea.
I look out at the waves that had so terrified me before. Their hypnotic churning whipping bright sea foam into the clouds.
Through our hair, through the mist mixed with ash that billows between us, Lir looks to me. His eyes questioning me without words if I am going to turn around, but alas I have already decided my own fate. They will find nothing on this small piece of now scorched earth.
I begin my descent. The water no longer feels cold and harsh.
It is instead warm hands that welcome me home, both it and my body rejoicing with every step I submerge into it.
The gulls have returned and they sing a farewell chorus to us, their song now true music to my awoken ears.
All the world is a symphony, bidding us a ceremonious goodbye from this place.
So many have gone before, to be forgotten by time and the human world.
Just fated to become sea foam which dissipates into the wind.
I take Lir’s comforting hand, not to become just another lost soul to the sea.
No, this is not another escape for me, but a new beginning.
A future where Lir and I will be woven together into the waves—
Forever.