The Waves-Part I
A short story
‘ Your relentless waves are like your eternal breaths. They never stop. You never die. Only if someday, I could pause them forever, and watch your soul oozing out of the bottom, rising through your depths like a corpse, cutting through your surface, making you bleed as it ascends towards the sky seeking heaven — only to be redirected to hell — that I would feel alive.’
Abby had been overlooking the beach through the pane-less window of her square hall with low ceilings.
She lived at one of the refugee quarters fronting the Bondi beach (New South Wales, Australia); it had been six months since she emigrated from Spain after the World War II. At 39, Abby looked surprisingly young and fresh. She had pure curves, and wore long and loose clothes to avoid foul eyes. She lived with her twelve-year old son — Abram.
Abram sat at the knee-height table in the centre of the hall. He had brown hair, radiant blue eyes and a hairy lip-line, marking his adolescence. He had a thin structure, just like his mother’s.
‘People fool themselve into believin that it’s a fauun place — the beeech. Well, it is most certainly not. The ocean — oh bless me Lord — it’s a monster and i-it’s waves are maurderous, you must not go there, soun,’ she said to Abram, watching the huge crowd at the beach.
‘Yes momey, I won’t’ Abram said in his sincerest voice.
Abram knew her mother hated the waters but he didn’t; probably the long ship from Spain had changed her, he’d guess. Often, Abram had sneaked out to the beach when his mother slept during the day. He loved to sketch there.
After a quiet lunch, Abby went to their only bedroom, where she had had laid a mattress on the floor — between the iron bed and the mould-ridden wall — for Abram. It wasn’t long after she shut the door, when Abram shot to the beach and found a decent spot near the lifesavers’ club.
As his nerves calmed, and senses settled in, he watched men & women playing with the waves — shouting, laughing, and giggling among themselves. He sensed the salivating aroma of grilled fishes and lobsters from the grill-house behind him. He distracted himself to the surf competition where the surfers rode gayly over the not-so-high waves.
Next, he turned at a cluster of women in their bath suits. Few of them lied on their stretched-out white chairs, while some played with a ball — passing among themselves, and running out of breath once in a while — the women gifted him with new sensations — one which he had never experienced earlier.
With force, he teared his eyes away to a group of lifesavers on his right.
‘Bring more reels down, quick.. quick!,’ ordered the worried man, who Abram knew was their head.
‘Crikey! The waves aren’t risin, maaaetes…. It’s crazy. Come o’ let’s go!’
‘Let’s go.. Let’s go..’
The group ran back to the building, and within minutes, rushed out to the shore in their red shorts.
‘What’s wrong?’ Abram wondered.
Suddenly, he fixated on an arriving wave; his jaw dropped.
‘It’s goin up,’
‘It’s not fallin,’
‘It looks as big as Titanic’
‘Good Lord, it’s too close’
‘It’s gonna fall now…’
