Until Light is All That’s Left

A short tale of sea and poetry

From there, the view opens onto the city and the island. The bell towers challenge each other, separated by a stretch of sea. The sun is still high on the horizon, but the light is slanted and she knows it will set soon. It has already begun.

Despite the years, the feeling has stayed the same. Perhaps because the smell of the sea, the one that dries your skin and eyes but calms you inside, has not changed. It has not changed since the times he would take her to the town’s port and say, ‘Tonight we’ll head out to sea.’ He would always say it after studying the horizon, once he was sure that the sea would be gentle that night and they could sail it together. And she, not yet reaching the height of his hip, would jump around excitedly, because in that ‘we’ there was the beginning of a special moment.

It was in the middle of the sea, in the tranquility of the night that rises and then fades, that he could truly be himself. She thinks about it often, even now that years have passed and she would no longer reach the height of his hip. Perhaps she would have reached his torso by now, and then who knows, maybe she could have reached his shoulder in the coming years. Now the sun is setting, but the tide is still high. She watches the sunset from there, from that hill that has grown like a cliff on the sea. She does it often.

And she thinks of the way they were, and the boat in the middle of the sea, the light that buzzed and dangled from the cabin. When the night was at its peak, he would turn it off for a few minutes so they could see the stars better. The first time he took her with him on a boat was also the first time she truly saw the stars. The town was far away. The night had transformed it into a series of lights on the coast, submitted to the imperial authority of Her Majesty the Lighthouse.

It was cold at night on the boat, even in summer. And so they would huddle under a blanket, and drink from the thermoses that Mom had prepared. That was her favorite moment, when they toasted with their thermoses and sang the old verses that he had taught her, and before him his father taught him, and before that his father’s father and so on, back generation by generation.

I’ve been at sea since the sun’s down floatin’ lights hangin’ in the town moonlight’s a sister water’s a whisper I hear and I hear, it’s all around

God’s up there, oh, he talks to me on those waves, he’s setting me free Night’s starring in white Sky in sapphire light I sing and I sing, here out at sea

And they would sing and sing and eat their first breakfast, and then when the stars would begin to fade and they would soon return, and it would be time for the second breakfast, at home where Mom would wait for them.

Now, sitting atop the cliff, on the steps of a little church, she looks at that rock that stands out from the sea, not far from the coast. It folds onto itself, like in prayer, bowing towards the town. Now that the tide is high, the sea defines its shape and makes it unique. When the tide recedes, it will be just a rock anchored to the ground, one amongst many. It will pass unnoticed until the water rises again, and then it will be reborn in its real form. In that sea, God sets the rock free.

And the girl looks at the leaning rock, and thinks that perhaps it simply cannot raise its eyes from the depths, just like her ever since the day he did not return.

The storm arrived suddenly that night, and left a light rain in the morning. They waited for him for his second breakfast, but he did not arrive. So her mother dressed her, took her by the hand, and took her to Grandma’s. She heard them talk in whispers from the other room without understanding what they were saying. Then, her mother kissed her and left, and Grandma made her play all day, but at home, not on the beach as they always did in the summer. And then Mom came back, with red eyes and a distraught face.

She doesn’t remember how long it took to understand that Dad would never return. That he would stay there, listening to the sea whispering, under a starry night of blue sapphire. That the sea set him free one last time.

The sun is now beyond the horizon, and the light is slowly fading. The lights of the village light up one by one, and the first boats leave the port. She likes to count them, as she follows their silhouette merging gradually with the darkness, until a speck of light is all that’s left of them.

She raises her eyes to the sky. The tiny light she is looking for is up there, but she has not found it yet. She likes to think that it happened in a peaceful way, a tiny light detaching from a boat and flowing high up, slowly, carried by the wind. She surprises herself whispering,

God’s up there, oh, he talks to me on those waves, he’s setting me free

She has now counted ten boats. She stops at that number every evening. It’s time to go back. Her mother is waiting for her for dinner.

Thank you for reading! This story is my response to the February Pier 21 Prompt “Nautical Limerick” :