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e of the rocks, almost losing my balance on the edge of the flat rocks that jutted out into the water that looked so lovely as I looked down that was covered with little frothy curls.I paused to catch my breath, saw the sand that we would play in surrounding the rocks on all sides as my arms swaying outstretched. I felt very tall and light. Water splashed over my toes and made me jump. Then for a moment, it became cloudy and dark, and the water changed to gray. Like magic. Then blue again. And I laughed like a princess on top of her tower.Almost on cue, I raised my arms as if they were wings towards the sky, “just like an angel,” as Mrs. Surajhatao had taught us in swimming class. I bent my knees slightly. Then I swung my arms down and back up again and flew into the sky. I pulled my arms forward as I bent slightly at the waist toward the water as had been taught. I saw my upside-down brother, arms waving, and heard my mother yell something as I plunged into the water.A thin sharp slice of flat rock, just right for a mermaid to stretch out upon, stretched out from the shadows a few feet below the surface. Finger tips grazed sharp edges. My head struck with a thud, and my neck must have snapped. I felt like I had been sucked into a deep dark empty hole so quickly that I couldn’t even cry out.Then, somehow, I watched and saw my body tumble forward, arms contorted, hands outstretched, fumbling, and the unclenched fingers bleeding red ribbons. I could hear my heart beating loudly like a drum, but my body simply swayed about in the gentle current. Then silence.For a long time, I just stared at the long black hair that now fanned out about my head, like the tendrils of an anemone amidst the light froth and swirl of the water. Mummy had always said my hair was so beautiful that I would have no problem finding a good match. Now, with the ocean currents for a sari, and the fractured sunlight, a string of sapphires about my neck, I saw exactly what she meant.There was blood above my left ear where I had struck my head. My eyes, once lustrous, were still open, but clouding over. I could still see, not through those eyes, but deeper, hidden ones; the eyes left behind were like an oyster shell from which a fisherman had snatched the pearl.They pulled my body from the water as I watched from below. Through the ripples, I saw my mother hold it close, run her fingers through the hair, and weep silent cries deep as an abyss. She held her grief like an unborn child in her womb and nursed it there for the rest of her life.I can’t tell you about the cremation. I didn’t go. I did not want to leave the soothing coolness of the sea. But I will tell you this. Papa cast a poisoned glance at my mother that afternoon as soon as my corpse had been taken away as if to say it was her fault for not watching me closely enough while he unloaded the car.Years later, even when crippled by disease, and she had to bathe and fed him like an infant, he cast her the same poisoned look. This was how he lived with his pain disguised as anger, by trying to cast it off like a pair of old shoes. But even old shoes that we no longer claim still bear the impression of our soles.And so his anger consumed him from the inside, pressing up against the walls he had erected until he could no longer breathe and suffocated from within. This was how he died; having never touched the sorrow that lay beneath heavy like lead, having never cried.My mother, too, died slowly after that. She had kept my blue plastic beach sunglas

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ses that had been worn only once, in her handbag, and withdrew them to finger incessantly. If I could have my old life back, even for one precious minute, it would be to comfort her, to close her eyes gently with my fingers and hold her face to the sun so she could feel its warmth and know the truth for herself, that she was not to blame.If anyone was to blame it was I. Perhaps I had misjudged, had not looked carefully for any sign of danger before I dived into the water that sunny afternoon. Perhaps, had I waited a moment I would have heeded my mother’s cries. Maybe if I had arched my body less sharply, or dived further out, I might have missed that rock?I’ve had plenty of time to think about why I dived, and I’m wiser now than a little girl could ever be, but the only honest answer I can give you is that I simply don’t know. But I do know this. I could not have stopped myself.So, there are no answers, this I know. Mummy, if you could listen to the booming silence punctured by the haunting cries of the whales as they call out to each other in the fathomless depths, and you would understand.Listen for their echoes, and you would understand that the lessons we must learn are always present, resonating from one moment to the next, but sometimes, in a rare convergence, revealed in an instant, the most exquisite summation in the simplest of guises; like the sun’s corona, flaring millions of miles into space, yet revealed only during an eclipse.Raise your eyes to the sun at the exact moment of its extinction to see its truth; linger too long, and it will blind you.How I had soared through the air the afternoon, the sunlight glancing off my curved arms, and that amazing moment when I floated, being of the world but also not of it, an impossible ambiguity that had to be resolved.Though only two years old at the time, my brother had watched me as I stood with toes curled over the edge of the rocks. He had seen my ankles disappear into the froth below, even as he kicked his own tiny little feet clad in red plastic sandals as he dangled from mummy’s arms. And he had watched and stopped kicking, as I was pulled limp like a jellyfish from the water.He never walked after that; spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. The doctors didn’t know why, but the answer was simple. The body never forgets, even if memory waters down the anguish, stretches it thin and unnoticed into a protective skin.All they had to do was look into his eyes, and they would see the same disquieting impulse that he saw in mine. Fear had darkened his gaze that that day and pooled down to his ankles. There would be no lightness in his step, to no water’s edge would he be tempted to run.Had he been caught in the unseen path of my eclipse? Paid the price of a witness who may have nothing to do with a roadside accident, but forever bears the scars of watching?Questions like this are easy to ask. Wondering why becomes the work of a lifetime that leads nowhere.And I know all this because now I can know and see everything clearly, even while performing cartwheels on the ocean floor in the shallow reef, catching the sun’s light for a sapphire, its corona for a crown.Princess, that’s what my papa used to call me.This story has been sitting on paper for about a decade..it went through about 15 versions but now seems like an opportune moment to share it. I hope you enjoy it, if that is the right word to use. Please like and share if you do.</article></body>

Eclipse

“A total eclipse of the heart.” That is what mummy said was the name of the song, the song that was playing on the radio as we drove to the sea.

“A total eclipse of…” I mouthed the words, almost aloud, feeling them silently in my throat. They sounded so grown-up. I made my mind up to remember them so the next time Jimmy acted clever, I would have something clever to say back and would use these words though I wasn’t sure exactly how.

Then the woman sang, “turn around bright eyes,” and repeated that again, and again. I stuck my head out of the car window, and the wind was so loud that I couldn’t hear the radio but I wondered whose eyes they were. Were they blue as the water would be? Or dark like mine? Could they be as bright as the sun?

I felt my bikini tight and unbreathable cutting into the top of my thighs under my dress. Was I getting fat? Fat, like that fat girl Natasha at school, whom no one wanted to play with because she was so fat. So she played by herself, and I felt sorry for her, biting my lip each time I saw her playing alone. Next time I would be brave and ask her if she wanted to play together when school started again.

I wondered if I was now old enough that I would have to start wearing a one-piece swimsuit, which is what mummy said, “that decent girls wore at a certain age.” She told me I would understand when I was older. I wondered if the singing woman wore a bikini or a one-piece and if she was decent.

I wondered what a total eclipse of the heart was. I had never seen a real eclipse, though we had learned about it in geography class. It was so hard to believe that anything could make the sun disappear just like that, just like that in the middle of the day! I looked up at the sun, and it was so bright that I had to squint my eyes, even through my new bright blue sunglasses and matching hat that papa said made me look like a princess, a princess on holiday. If the sun could be made to disappear so easily, then… papa yelled at me not to stick my head out of the window because it was dangerous.

So I pulled my head back in as the wind made a sucking sound and sat back in the seat. I pushed my thumb against the chrome of the door handle, again and again, and watched the little thumbprints left behind disappear like magic. Then I looked out at the giant clouds in the sky, and the trees rushing, rushing past us.

We were in the car forever, but then Mummy said to look, and I looked out of the window and saw the sea! “At last, the sea.” It sounded so nice to say it that I shivered. I saw a thin dark blue line that got thicker like a smudgy crayon scribble and then started shining, shining like the diamonds that mummy wore to parties, as we got closer.

I was all excited, and so was my little brother, who had been fast asleep in the car until now, and we both shouted “now, now!” so loudly, that even papa smiled. Then papa stopped the car and, at last, we were there!

I jumped from the car as soon as mummy opened the door. I ran towards the water, pulling my dress and sandals off as I ran across the sand, then over the rocks that burned my feet and shouted: “Ouch, ouch, ouch!” I turned back to see mummy chasing after me with my brother in her arms, his fat little legs kicking about, giggling happily, his red stroller left by the car and I laughed too.

And before I knew it, I was on the edge of the rocks, almost losing my balance on the edge of the flat rocks that jutted out into the water that looked so lovely as I looked down that was covered with little frothy curls.

I paused to catch my breath, saw the sand that we would play in surrounding the rocks on all sides as my arms swaying outstretched. I felt very tall and light. Water splashed over my toes and made me jump. Then for a moment, it became cloudy and dark, and the water changed to gray. Like magic. Then blue again. And I laughed like a princess on top of her tower.

Almost on cue, I raised my arms as if they were wings towards the sky, “just like an angel,” as Mrs. Surajhatao had taught us in swimming class. I bent my knees slightly. Then I swung my arms down and back up again and flew into the sky. I pulled my arms forward as I bent slightly at the waist toward the water as had been taught. I saw my upside-down brother, arms waving, and heard my mother yell something as I plunged into the water.

A thin sharp slice of flat rock, just right for a mermaid to stretch out upon, stretched out from the shadows a few feet below the surface. Finger tips grazed sharp edges. My head struck with a thud, and my neck must have snapped. I felt like I had been sucked into a deep dark empty hole so quickly that I couldn’t even cry out.

Then, somehow, I watched and saw my body tumble forward, arms contorted, hands outstretched, fumbling, and the unclenched fingers bleeding red ribbons. I could hear my heart beating loudly like a drum, but my body simply swayed about in the gentle current. Then silence.

For a long time, I just stared at the long black hair that now fanned out about my head, like the tendrils of an anemone amidst the light froth and swirl of the water. Mummy had always said my hair was so beautiful that I would have no problem finding a good match. Now, with the ocean currents for a sari, and the fractured sunlight, a string of sapphires about my neck, I saw exactly what she meant.

There was blood above my left ear where I had struck my head. My eyes, once lustrous, were still open, but clouding over. I could still see, not through those eyes, but deeper, hidden ones; the eyes left behind were like an oyster shell from which a fisherman had snatched the pearl.

They pulled my body from the water as I watched from below. Through the ripples, I saw my mother hold it close, run her fingers through the hair, and weep silent cries deep as an abyss. She held her grief like an unborn child in her womb and nursed it there for the rest of her life.

I can’t tell you about the cremation. I didn’t go. I did not want to leave the soothing coolness of the sea. But I will tell you this. Papa cast a poisoned glance at my mother that afternoon as soon as my corpse had been taken away as if to say it was her fault for not watching me closely enough while he unloaded the car.

Years later, even when crippled by disease, and she had to bathe and fed him like an infant, he cast her the same poisoned look. This was how he lived with his pain disguised as anger, by trying to cast it off like a pair of old shoes. But even old shoes that we no longer claim still bear the impression of our soles.

And so his anger consumed him from the inside, pressing up against the walls he had erected until he could no longer breathe and suffocated from within. This was how he died; having never touched the sorrow that lay beneath heavy like lead, having never cried.

My mother, too, died slowly after that. She had kept my blue plastic beach sunglasses that had been worn only once, in her handbag, and withdrew them to finger incessantly. If I could have my old life back, even for one precious minute, it would be to comfort her, to close her eyes gently with my fingers and hold her face to the sun so she could feel its warmth and know the truth for herself, that she was not to blame.

If anyone was to blame it was I. Perhaps I had misjudged, had not looked carefully for any sign of danger before I dived into the water that sunny afternoon. Perhaps, had I waited a moment I would have heeded my mother’s cries. Maybe if I had arched my body less sharply, or dived further out, I might have missed that rock?

I’ve had plenty of time to think about why I dived, and I’m wiser now than a little girl could ever be, but the only honest answer I can give you is that I simply don’t know. But I do know this. I could not have stopped myself.

So, there are no answers, this I know. Mummy, if you could listen to the booming silence punctured by the haunting cries of the whales as they call out to each other in the fathomless depths, and you would understand.

Listen for their echoes, and you would understand that the lessons we must learn are always present, resonating from one moment to the next, but sometimes, in a rare convergence, revealed in an instant, the most exquisite summation in the simplest of guises; like the sun’s corona, flaring millions of miles into space, yet revealed only during an eclipse.

Raise your eyes to the sun at the exact moment of its extinction to see its truth; linger too long, and it will blind you.

How I had soared through the air the afternoon, the sunlight glancing off my curved arms, and that amazing moment when I floated, being of the world but also not of it, an impossible ambiguity that had to be resolved.

Though only two years old at the time, my brother had watched me as I stood with toes curled over the edge of the rocks. He had seen my ankles disappear into the froth below, even as he kicked his own tiny little feet clad in red plastic sandals as he dangled from mummy’s arms. And he had watched and stopped kicking, as I was pulled limp like a jellyfish from the water.

He never walked after that; spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. The doctors didn’t know why, but the answer was simple. The body never forgets, even if memory waters down the anguish, stretches it thin and unnoticed into a protective skin.

All they had to do was look into his eyes, and they would see the same disquieting impulse that he saw in mine. Fear had darkened his gaze that that day and pooled down to his ankles. There would be no lightness in his step, to no water’s edge would he be tempted to run.

Had he been caught in the unseen path of my eclipse? Paid the price of a witness who may have nothing to do with a roadside accident, but forever bears the scars of watching?

Questions like this are easy to ask. Wondering why becomes the work of a lifetime that leads nowhere.

And I know all this because now I can know and see everything clearly, even while performing cartwheels on the ocean floor in the shallow reef, catching the sun’s light for a sapphire, its corona for a crown.

Princess, that’s what my papa used to call me.

This story has been sitting on paper for about a decade..it went through about 15 versions but now seems like an opportune moment to share it. I hope you enjoy it, if that is the right word to use. Please like and share if you do.