I want to tell stories like the river does. Words flowing and fish fluttering, like a mad dash. Tales crumbling upon rocks with sounds like slaps, sprinkles that sting my skin.
Stories like the ocean; there’s still so much we don’t know, even with scientists plunging deeper by the day. I could give you billions of words, and yet, you would not know all of it. I name new words, with more letters every time. Life is a code to be cracked.
But soft, the shark appears, his tail slithers through the water, his eyes bait prey. Stillness descends upon the ocean, and bubbles float to the surface, but from above, it is only a ripple. It is the ripple that thrusts the water into motion. It is the gush of water that wakes the sleeping baby in the sailboat, as its mother navigates them to new land. It is the sailboat that she leaves on the shore, tip toeing from the sand to the place she’s never seen before. It is the decaying wood that floats above the coral, blocking the sun for a moment. It is the darkness in which the sea breathes.
Underneath the ripple and the boat and the bubbles, a duel begins, between the shark, and the school of scales. A full orchestra of sound plays in my mind, but does it play in theirs? He dashes, a buzzing electricity. He flutters, and the fish disperse through the water, as if they reduce themselves to a molecular level, hiding in between particles. Where have they gone? And all is still. The aquatic world congeals into jello.
I want to freeze time like the shark, like his eyes control the current. He floats, he surveys, he sings. Is he singing? Or are there bells ringing in the distance on the deck of a ship spotting land. Because bells must ring in the stillness. Nothing is ever silent. Moments are rich with color, with expression, with light flickering off scales. Light plays scales like I play piano. And moments are bare and bloated and backwards, but never silent.
I speak like the river rushing, only calm for a moment. Only time to take a breath at dusk upon the sunset, because such beauty calls for stillness, but never silence. I breathe between words like the current. I breathe between days like the night. There’s more in my quiet than in any of this.
