From Sea to Sea

by - 1:22 PM


From Sea to Sea
Though she drank the Sea, yet would she thirst.
Between endless sky and boundless waters she lay, rolling with the swell on her raft of salt-crusted wood. Eyes closed and breathing slow, she tried to will her body into cooling down. High above, the sun cast rays like spears down into the water around her. Up from the shining silver face of the sea these spears glanced, arching to fall again on her lidded eyes. Each collision of light with nerves pounded in her head with an incessant, mindless drumming. Beat after beat, each swell of pain stole a little light from her mind, and then receded to make way for more.
From over the side of the raft her hands and legs trailed, relieving the bitter heat in a balm of equal bitterness. Dry salt crusted her limbs, hair and eyes. A few days ago she, in her desperation, had tried to drink the briny waters. Now, she was more thirsty than ever before.
Cooler than her sweat and saltier than her tears, the wave-run waters spread to every horizon. So much water, yet not for drinking! Would it ever end . . .
Ah, that was the question. Which would end first? The sea, or herself? She couldn’t know.
Through thick, dark lashes she watched as the sun began to sink lower in the sky. Hours passed, each one timed by the roll of a hundred waves. At last, the sun sank into the sea, first turning the waters fire-orange, then blood-red and then rosy-pink before it disappeared beneath the waves. For a long time, the heat lingered, bathing the darkness in a deliciously humid, tropical warmth.
Then that too vanished, and the cold of night began. Opening her eyes, she gazed upwards into a sea of stars. Faint they glimmered and high they turned as slowly the night wore on. The longer it went, the colder it became, until she was huddled in the center of her raft, gathering fistfuls of rags around her in a futile attempt to keep warm. Then a wind awoke. Catching up her long, black hair, and the blacker waves around her, it dashed little hails of water against the side of her raft. Over and over she was struck by these cruelly cold drops, until her soaked hair was plastered against her arms, face, back and neck. For what seemed like forever, she shivered, licking her lips when the salty drops dug their darts into the cracks in her skin. Always she longed for a cup of clear water.
In the East, the sky began turning gray. Then from gray it turned to pale-blue, at last giving way to the sun’s radiant gold. The waters began warming, the wind died down, and another day of deadly heat began.
So the cycle ran, as slowly her life drained into the salty waters beneath. She wondered if perhaps the sea was not mostly darkness because of all the lives it had taken – all the deaths it had wrought.
Ever she was tempted to forget the bitterness of the sea and quench her thirst in its endless waters. But no – she pulled her hands from the swell – she dare not drink that. Certainly, it was draining the life from her, but she would gain no life by draining it back.
Would the sea never end? Would she find land? Would she find water . . . sweet, drinkable water? She had almost give up all hope, until the fourth dawn broke.
At least, it should have broken. The sky had long since turned gray, blue and then gold, before she wondered why the sun’s rays were not striking her directly. Perhaps a cloud had obscured the horizon. Pushing herself up on one trembling arm, she looked out towards the East.
There, in the further distance, a great hump of darkness rose from the sea – like the shadow against a wall. She blinked, scrubbing the salt from around her eyes with equally salty hands. Could it be? Was this a cloud, land . . . or hallucination? Glancing down at her arms and legs, she saw no bright rays glancing off her deep brown skin. It could not be a mirage – for she felt no heat from the sun. But then how could it be a cloud? Clouds are not so thick and dense. It must be . . .
No – she shook her head – she would not dare to hope. Only wait, and assume it was nothing. That way, she couldn’t be disappointed. Turning her back to the shadow in the sky, she gazed down into the deep sea. And yet, no matter how many times she told herself that it was nothing, still her hands strayed over the raft’s sides, pushing a little water away as they floated. Pushing her towards the land.
It was not until sundown that she saw it again. Opening her eyes to watch the final warm rays recede, she started to see another dark shadow painted against what was now the Western horizon. Turning, she looked out over the sea behind her. No shadow. Turning back, she gazed wide-eyed at strip of land she had just floated by. Land, but now she was going away from it.
“No,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and breathy from lack of use.
“No, no come back,” she shook her head, eyes never leaving the receding shore.
Then – O salvation! – she sighted a ship putting out from the land! Great billows of sail filled with a breeze from the upper airs as the shadow galleon swept outward from the shadow shore. Swiftly, it sped along the horizon.
“Help,” she gasped, staggering to her feet. Her legs buckled, her raft tipped, and she fell into the sea.
She surfaced, thrusting frantically against the suffocating depths beneath.
“Please, help!” she screamed through mouthfuls of foaming water. As if in rage at her trespass, the sea began to boil and churn around her. Her raft was swept away, and she was carried out to sea.
“Help me! Plea-” she choked and cried, struggling to fight the overwhelming waves. She had to reach the ship! Or the land! Or something!
But she couldn’t see either now. Over her crashed wave after wave, obscuring the land and blinding her eyes with salt. It was not until night fell that the waters calmed again.
On her back she lay in the water, resting her pain-wracked limbs – trying to breathe calmly as the cold water around her sapped the life from her bones. No, no she was so close! The sea would not win . . .
“Breathe, breathe,” she whispered to herself, and tried to hum a tune – but she couldn’t remember any. At last, as if from the deeps below, a song rose to her mind which she knew had been sung before, but never to her:
From sea to sea and land between
One is known, the other seen
Blues and greens are aquamarine
And it all ends in the Sea.

From sea to sea and wrecks below
Countless ones you’ll never know
Gone into where you will go
For it all ends in the Sea.

From sea to sea and rivers and streams
Carrying down the endless dreams
Into a cup that has no seams
Where they all end in the Sea.

From sea to sea and ashes that fly
From the fires and through the sky
Borne on winds to founder and die
For they all end in the Sea.

From sea to sea without a breath
Ripples and waves that sing of death
Carry each creature that wandereth
And end them in the sea.

From sea to sea I now have come
My journey’s o’er – the battle’s done
I have not sought, yet found a home
My ending in the sea.”
So singing, she rode the swell, her body her raft, her beating heart, her final prayer. And as the night drew on, that heart beat slower and slower unto the dawn.
~ ~ ~
Across golden sand all streaked with cream and pink he walked, gazing out over a dawn-lit sea, and wondering what the next day would bring.
He had not gone far, before he found it.
“Good Lord,” he gasped, sprinting the few final yards and falling to his knees in the wet sand beside a dark, still form. Hesitantly, he touched her face, and finding it icy cold, gathered her wasted frame into his arms.
“Wake, lass, wake now,” he whispered, rubbing her hands and stroking her face. With a low moan, she stirred, and slowly her salt-crusted eyes cracked open.
“There y’are,” he murmured, smiling with relief into her sun-burnt face, “Ye’ll be set right soon.”
“W-w,” she struggled to speak.
“Ye want water?” he asked, already moving to lay her down.
She shook her head faintly, and lifting a trembling hand, pointed out Eastwards over the sea.
After a quizzically silent pause, he guessed her unspoken question.
“That’ll be the Inio Sea,” he said.
She pointed Westwards.
“And the Anio Sea,” he said.
As her eyes strayed back and forth between the two seas, they slowly closed. She heaved a sigh, that almost sounded like a laugh, though it was much sadder. Her hand which lay across his own, relaxed, slipped, and fell into the water at her side.
Gently, he heard a last murmur steal up from her parted lips:

From sea to sea, and land between”




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