From the Shores of Long island

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He tastes of the ocean – that and liquid salt, and smells of seaweed and the sun-block his mother scolds him into wearing. It’s an aroma that suits him perfectly: he is the essence of the ocean’s might and its colorful resplendence; it’s grand, rolling majesty that outwits both the mountains and pastures with its vastness and untouchable depths. He is a branch of the sea’s great tree, a tangible form of its spirit and aesthetical waters, wandering, misplaced among humanity. His eyes are the color of turquoise and sea foam, his lips a dainty coral and his skin is a warm gold, like the wet sand along the North-Eastern Coast.

He works at the old shack by the beach. It is dark and yet nippy inside – there are very few to no electrical lights, and are only turned on during the scant storms - windows are always open so that the sea can breathe through and explore it, and the white-illumination of the sun baths within the warm dark between the wet wood and the floorboards with sand crusted in-between. The hard flooring is speckled in sand that has come from in-between the toes of pedestrians and ice-cream licking children.

He dreams of the ocean on his breaks despite the disruptive atmosphere – and the fact water is so close brings him great comfort and ease. A cigarette has never hung from his lips, for there is no need when relaxation is the shoreline, and the thick scent of salt is far more relaxing to him than smoke or needles could ever be.

Inside they sell fish of various assortments, lobsters and crab; all captured less then a few nights ago by the hands of its own workers. He is not of legal age to be handling such equipment, but it is only a minor inconvenience that goes unreported and unnoticed. He sometimes fancies pitying the creatures that will be inside someone’s belly by day’s end.

It is always loud inside here, loud with quibbling people and wide-eyed tourists who are not accustomed to such pandemonium. Still, he dreams. The lines are usually crammed and untidy with people – they’re all eager to taste the ocean, and the cash register is a continuous box of noise, with its clicking knobs and the ‘ching’ sound it makes every time cash is exchanged. The food they sell is crisp and cleaned thoroughly: a small joy he covets at this place is taking apart the shells of lobsters – their backs are as smooth as rugged plastic and they smell of an ever higher concentration of the ocean then himself. He tries to kill them painlessly; such beatific animals only deserve just treatment and respect: just as anything else that inhabits the earth does, he believes. Their vertebra’s are like cords and he feels across them like piano keys, the texture bumpy and raucous against the pads of his cooled fingers. It makes him smile to himself. They are similar, in sorts.

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By day’s end he’s grown tired of the constant, prattling excitement, and when the sun sets, his shift ends and his feet take him to the shore. He walks far down the beach – there are no more people, and wind’s pace is beginning to uplift itself to colder temperatures. The plants greet him with their leaves, jutting out of the sand and wavering.

The lifeguards have all left their posts for the night, he notes.

His turquoise gaze then glances sideways, and he sees – the moon. The ocean is licking around his toes and amorously stroking the tops of his feet – he always walks where the water can touch him.

And it sings him a song, melodiously, and he listens, letting the breeze whip inside his loose cloths and around his legs in a comfortable chill, in an exhale of wind. The sounds of the waves hitting against the shore and rolling back again is as comforting to him as a mother’s lullaby, and he moves with it, as if hypnotized, his eyes closed and a content smile tickling the corner of his lip like an ant.

He wanders closer to it – the ocean is calling him – and he stretches out his limb into the breeze and then pulls off his shirt in one leisure motion of his arm bending and snapping back. He lets it flee him - and it flies into the night, tumbling, like an insecure child, and he doesn’t look to see where it’s headed.

He doesn’t contemplate his motions, and only acts, because, at this point, it’s instinctive; the wind is bred into his blood and the salt is on his tongue and he sees and feels nothing else, and, the ocean is calling him. Like ecstasy, rising, rising, like a tide, like a wave, mounting, peaking, soaring, uncontrollable, mindless-

The water embraces him with open arms, greeting him with its salty breath, swallowing him around his legs and rocking into him like many hands touching him adoringly, pulling at him, in innocent desire. It makes him smile in painful nostalgia. He moves further into its loving body - the ocean is the only thing that truly loves him, and that he too, loves in return.

The water surceases around his chest as he travels further downwards - the liquid is as black as a long, outstretched shadow, elongated for miles, and he melts into its fresh onyx hue, merging, the flesh of his body chilled and soaked down to the core of his soul. It invigorates him like harmless intoxication – a painless spear penetrates through his body, gripping him. His pants cling around his waist; a nuisance, an obstruction, and he undoes the zipper beneath the water, pulling them off and pushing them aside.

He closes his eyes, a grin like butter spread across his face – for this is his only euphoria; and he ducks, down, down, until the full grasp of the water clutches him like the mouth of a bass fish, gaping wide and welcoming - it’s the only home he can always return to – and this time – he won’t leave it.

He can hear the whoosh of the waves above him, swirling into the holes of his ears, but there is nothing else. He does not mind that his eyes are closed – his feet feel around the sand and he pushes himself farther into the depths of the water. His lungs are constrained – a mild disturbance in his placid mind - and are pressuring him to rise, but he will not oblige them.

A wave suddenly thrusts at him – as if the ocean can no longer resist his touch – and the bottom he’d been clinging to has disappeared. He no longer knows which way is up or down – and he can hear his heart thudding, a lone sound in oblivion, but he is not panicked – rather, he is at peace. He sinks, his limbs numbing to stiffness, the last few bubbles escaping his nostrils as his lungs burn. He smiles with sadness, a last time, and lets his windpipe give way as the water places a kiss upon him. You’re finally home.

He gives.

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In the morning they find his body, rolled up on the shoreline, flecks of sand dappling his tangled russet hair. He is pale and cold and dead.

But he is free.