House By The Waves

The light outside the cottage is warm and golden. The sky is blue with just a few patches of white fluffy clouds.
Magenta bougainvillea and dark purple morning glory vines wrap around the single room cottage like a pair of breathing arms.
There is a narrow walking path on the periphery of the home which climbs ever so gently up a subtle slope in the landscape. The path is augmented by five weathered wooden steps as it climbs.
A black cat, its coat warmed by the bright heat, sits licking its left paw on the second step.
The main space is wide an ample, though its space is taken up mostly by furniture. Upon a large area rug of muted red and orange hues are two couches facing each other and separated by a long wooden coffee table.
The aesthetic is warm and country-like.  Soft throw blankets are folded and draped over the back of each sofa. The kitchen is separated from the main room by just a four foot high wall which can be used as a tabletop. The kitchen space is dim, though the honey colored wood of the cabinets glows faintly with colorful warmth. 
The house is well used and the mismatched contents are rustic and well worn.  Everything inside is meant to be touched and used and laid upon.
Two brunette women stand beside the coffee table, both of them looking at the pair of double wide glass doors along the side of the living room.
The west side of the cottage meets the ocean. Large waves break and explode onto the strong doors, leaving streaks of white foam dripping down the sides. There are brief intervals between waves, a mixture of blue and opalescent green presents itself before vanishing into bursts of frothy saltwater.

Zipolite

My body is cradled in the strong nylon grip of an old hammock. The purple, blue and red material is faded from the incessant heat and mild salty air, the colors remind me of old beach towels left in the far corners of a linen closet, but the lack of rainbow brilliance is compensated in the tight weaving of the thread, an iron grip which for me, on a wooden platform fifteen feet above the sandy beach below, feels as secure as the cradle of a mother’s arms.
The ocean, no more than two hundred feet away, is calm and dark blue. Rhythmic waves less than hips height, roll in on shore, creating a calming, constant roar on an otherwise quiet beach. In the distance, I can see the silhouettes of a couple, a slim woman in a small bikini, a tanned man in long swim shorts. They are too far away to see any of their features or to hear their conversation or laughter. They walk away from me, their shapes mostly darkened as the sun creeps slowly downward in the sky. They are the only people I see, the only moving shapes besides the blue water stretched out like an open, living canvas in front of me.
A gentle warm wind sways the hammock, and my naked body within it from side to side. Above me is a thin roof which blocks out the direct rays of the sun, but does little to stop the incessant heat which rises from the bright white sand fifteen feet below. The hammock is but one in a row of fifteen which hang suspended from the wooden rooftop. Towards my right, I see the long, single row of one-room cabanas, the wooden platform that stretches the entire length, the rooftop above that shades the platform and hammocks. Each cabana is raised fifteen feet from the ground, a handmade wooden ladder extending from just outside each cabana door to the sand below. Swaying in the breeze, I cannot tell if the beach is prone to flooding or it was just built to give a clear view of the entire beach, a long cove etched between a series of two cliffs that are about a mile apart.
The other cabanas and the other worn hammocks hanging from the overhanging roof are empty. The unfilled carcasses of faded nylon sway slightly in the breeze, moving as gently as the one I rest in, a crisscross pattern etching itself into my slightly tanned white flesh.
Resting high above the sand, I can see both ends of the beach lined with old hotels and cabanas, all looking like relics from another era. Almost all of them are vacant now as the rainy season approaches. The waves roll in to shore, their roar is the only sound.

The Pool

The room is long and nearly white, made from smooth marble that has been cleaned so often it now shines. The stone is complex, not one uniform shade, but with a tendency towards white with flecks of black and gray thrown in. Tiny cracks that look like capillaries and lighting run through the marble, journeying through stillness and stone. There is a dark rectangular doorway on each end of the room, without a door, it promises only blackness. The walls of the marble chamber are completely straight, designed and constructed with perfection. The floor is made from the same pale stone, exuding the same strength and silence as the towering walls. There is a stillness about the room, a hollowed space buried deep, far from noise and movement, quick lights and endless jabber. It is still and solid, lit only by a few large candles flickering from the iron candelabra high overhead.
Mirroring the rectangular shape of the room is a pool. It sits full of cool water in the center of the space, its shape beginning just ten feet from each of the four walls. Within the waters are large slate stepping stones, not quite resting on the bottom of the pool, but hovering halfway below the water’s edge. Thick green plants have grown up from the lowest point, their shiny green stems and thick leaves glisten in the mixture of water and candlelight, competing for space with the steppingstones and reaching forward, towards the surface.
A pale-skinned girl in a small red bikini walks gently from stone to stone. She steps slowly, her toes moving through easy walls of water, her toes finding the hardness of the waiting slate steppingstone as she moves. Her pointed nipples are covered with tiny triangles of bright red fabric, as is the crack of her round white ass. A thin film of water glistens on her like tiny jewels and she moves slowly, feeling each ripple of water move across her bare thighs, stepping carefully from stone to stone in the quiet pool. The gentle lapping of water is the only sound in the room and she looks down, her eyes moving past her pointed breasts and round stomach and towards her shape-shifting legs rippling below the water’s edge, her lower-half brushing past the thick-leafed greenery crawling slowly, endlessly towards the light.

Suspended

The water of the bay is dark blue with a deep undertone of green that emerges from the caverns below the surface in hints and whispers. Small gasps of green explode on the tips of little water ripples as they rise and fall second after second after second, small moments of watery life and death as it moves over the predominantly calm surface of the bay. There is no tanker or sailboat in sight, just the wide blueness of the bay as it stretches into the horizon.
To the northwest, the San Francisco skyline is ten miles in the distance and I can see the hazy purple silhouette of the tallest buildings as they rise from an obscure mist of pale fog at their base. Behind the buildings, rays of sunlight manage to stream in through hazy white cloud cover. Bright bursts of gold sunlight shines down in long streams of gleaming brightness, filling in the background of the city.
To my left, just a few hundred feet from me, is the long metal bridge that connects the land of San Francisco to the land east of the bay. The bridge is two stories, with eastbound traffic on the lower level and westbound on the top. There is never a break in the flow of cars and the rushing movement of motorized machines gurgles like a river in the distance.
The bridge is so close I could almost jump to it, but I am on another surface. I am on a wooden platform, suspended over the water of the bay by two ropes that hold me and the platform above the water’s surface. On each side of the platform, in the center, is a hole. A yellow fibrous rope has been strung through each of the holes and is held in place with a thick knot below the platform. The ropes rise and rise and are eventually covered by the white layer of clouds. I cannot see what they are attached to, I cannot see what holds me.
Because of my weight and the design of the structure with only two ropes, the platform has tilted to one side and I hold onto the yellow ropes as best as I can to keep from falling into the water. I alternate between looking at the water and looking for the source of the ropes in the clouds. The green and blue ripples of the water rise up and down, like the painted figures on a carousel.

Halfway Submerged

I am submerged to my belly in the clear blue water of a tropical sea. The water is warm, ever inviting, yet cool enough to offer refreshment from the humid air. Further out to sea, close to the horizon, the ocean is an angry, tumultuous black. The sun is absent, and the blue sky above is nearly covered in patches of bubbling gray and white clouds which are outlined in a deeper shade of black. The stillness of a tropical storm about to break is all around, pervading every sense and enveloping my skin and being with its presence. The air is still, sticky, sweet…and I stand, half in water, half in air, waiting in stillness as the looming presence of a greater force draws closer.
Below my feet is a watery floor made of countless rocks. Their culmination is a bed of speckled colors that move in an endless kaleidoscopic rearrangement within the continuous churning of eternal waves. There are small rocks mixed with others that are four times their size. At first glance, most are ordinary in shape and color, but on closer scrutiny, I see the variance in their details.
I see coral colored oval shaped rocks with black swirls, large circular stones with streaks of orange running through them. Small white ones with musical notes painted across the surface. There is a large grayish blue stone that has a small rectangular patch colored in the cubist designs of a Picasso painting. I stand, only a little ways from the shore which is made only of yellow sand. There, there are white plastic chairs that nearly cover the beach, some chairs are decorated with the red and yellow motif of the local beer. Tourists move like shadowed ants in the covered cafes that line the beach. They sip cold sodas and warm beer, they snack on chips and fried fish. There are old ladies that sit in the chairs closest to the sea, they rest with thick legs spread wide beneath their long skirts, watching the waves, quite content to sit silently and watch the stirring ocean.
Halfway submerged in water, I stand atop the rocks. The waves pull the stones up from their resting place and push them ferociously past my thighs and legs. After a short break of stillness, after all the stones have settled into their new place, another wave breaks ashore, pulling the stones out to sea again. After a short moment of newfound stillness, a wave pushes another batch of rocks past me towards the sand. I feel the pressure of their form as they brush past, but I feel neither pleasure or pain, just the simple weight of them as they tumble across my skin.

Thirsty Sea Demon

Beyond the sliding glass doors, a rickety dock extends into the water like a wooden tongue thrust from the mouth of the little modular home to probe the briny blue. The rectangular frame of the house and its petite stature make it seem to be hardly more than a box of animal crackers perched precariously at the lip of a swimming pool made to churn by riotous children. Its paneling is light tan, the trim around the sliding glass door is white. The flat roof supplies a scant awning from which a few potted ferns and a spider plant dangle.
There is something of a small porch here, barely wide enough to accommodate a lawn chair composed of yellow and blue plaid vinyl lattice. Four wooden steps drop down from the porch and connect the house to the dock. The dock itself is dark with moisture, its many thick round barnacle covered legs reach down into the hidden green depths. Each plank is wide and riddled with Swiss cheese holes flanked by rusted iron bolt heads. The wood is interrupted by weathered lengths of thick double braided rope interlacing the planks. Along one side, an ancient mariner’s net hangs rotting like the veil of some gargantuan maritime witch. The wind whips wildly about, agitating the surf and setting a wind chime hung near the spider plant into an ecstatic frenzy of jangling.
The waves rock the old dock violently. Above their dark blue orgiastic rampage, high cloud cover darkens and creeps from horizon to shore at a snails pace, driving them increasingly into greater excitement. They grab at the little dock and rock it like the eager and ungovernable hands of a giant.
Out at the end of its length, a woman is balanced with her long legs poised in a wide sprawl. It is the caricatured stance of a cowboy in a standoff. The muscles of her calves, legs, and thighs work to keep her braced atop the dock. The white shorts she wears encapsulate and just barley conceal her tensed buttocks. Her canary colored open necked sweatshirt hangs from one shoulder, revealing the lines of the white racer tank top worn underneath.
In one hand, she holds a dark green corked bottle, raised outward as she shouts commandingly into the wind and at the wall of waves. With the free hand she gestures to six or seven terra cotta pots arranged in a semi circle around her at the docks end. Some of the pots are empty, while others contain only black soil and the withered remains of some long dead plant.
A few are home to sickly pale twists of Jade, made unhappy by their exposure to salty sea spray. They are of various shapes and sizes. Some are in perfect condition. Others are stained and chipped and bear painful long cracks in their sides. Her long blond hair ripples on the wily wind currents, hovering around her head like a flame atop a candle’s wick.
Before her, the waves are suspended, looming over her comparably delicate body and the rickety deck. They have almost assumed the shape of a body, trembling with agitation. With aqueous creature mouths they seem to grin maniacally, then grimace, pointed ears of water flattened back like the ears of an angry cat, while the rest of the surrounding sea continues to froth and churn violently. It wriggles in animated swirls of surf, cerulean laced with white foam, directed upward and held together by supernatural force. In this awkward state of suspended animation, it listens intently to the woman’s shouting, and thus restrained, it watches with anticipation, the whole of its attention captivated by the green bottle of wine and the definitive gesturing.

The Roaring Silence

The room is on the third floor of an office building that is 6 stories tall. It is an office space that is nearly empty and lacking any kind of expected adornments. The floor is covered in a slightly dirty, dark blue carpet. The windows are about 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide. They open by sliding the glass up. They are all open right now. A gentle breeze filters through the room, flowing from one open window to another. The hallway door is open as well and so are the elevator doors beyond, the emergency lights quietly flashing on and off. On one corner there are cut telephone wires hanging out of the wall and the shadows of desks and file cabinets can still be detected on the carpet. There are long fluorescent lamps above us, attached to the white ceiling, all turned on, all throwing off a soft hum that reverberates throughout the space and resonates with the sound of the wind outside.
On the street below there are no cars, nor the distant sound of them. Across from our window, there are other windows, other buildings. All the windows are open, all are silent and welcoming of the breeze that flows in from the street. There are no pedestrians, no sound of people calling or complaining, no children crying, no hint of rush or conflict, no human activity at all. The traffic lights are flashing on and off for nobody. Many little pieces of paper blow all about the city. I can’t make out the text, but they all have the same thing printed on them. A neon sign is crackling just outside the window and the sound of our breathing acts as a calm soft ostinato to its constant electric variation. The sky is bright purple and there are no stars and no sun and no moon. It is too light to be night and too purple to be day.
He sits on a small metal chair across from me. He is about 25 years old, a bit heavy set, with a round friendly face, thick arms laced with muscle and a round belly. He is wearing a white t-shirt, blue jeans and tennis shoes. There are some tattoos on his arms and a scar on his lower neck. His face is overgrown with the beginning of a beard and his hair is cut very short, mostly brown with just a hint of yellow. His eyes are clear and wide open and so is his mouth. He breathes in slowly and with some effort. It takes all the will that he can muster to remain in the chair and stay calm. I can see that the corners of his eyes long to look out the windows once more, to confirm what he has seen, to try to visually come up with some kind of explanation, something that will make it all clear and understandable.
I sit on a small wooden stool and I also breathe very slowly and with some difficulty. I am wearing a white buttoned up shirt, black corduroy pants and black shoes. I have a long scraggly beard and very long black hair, tied up in a pony tail. I wear a circular medallion under my shirt, a metal talisman with a tiny pyramid at its center. My arms are at my sides and my hands rest on my lap. My knees are together and I make recurring efforts to maintain them in place. My eyes are also wide open and staring deeply into my companion’s eyes. We both can sense the delicate nature of the situation, the crawling wave of fear and panic that threatens to break us apart. Neither of us gives in to it.
We both continue to breathe, as deeply and as slowly as possible. The breeze lifts little strands of hair over our faces and tickles at our nose. The hum of the lights seems to hint at a deeper drone, something heavier coming up from deep underneath us, something that is too complete, too final and too powerful to be allowed completely into this room, into this space between us, right now. Each time the drone gets louder, his eyes widen a bit and mine do as well. I nod ever so slightly, we breathe together and the drone descends again, fading into the soft hum of the lights. The breeze blows between us again and we exhale, savoring a tiny moment of relative rest.
The drone, the solitude, the bright purple sky, the roaring silence, the little pieces of paper that constantly fly by the window… all like the very peak of an enormous wave that threatens to overwhelm us and take us with it, along with everything around us, dissolving us into the indistinct void from which we were originally formed. We sit together at the very peak of this awesome force beyond our comprehension and we slowly… ever so slowly and gently… take another breath.

Dark Blue Water

I was treading water in dark blue ocean waters, my body was bobbing up and down with the currents.

There were sandy dirt cliffs directly in front of me, blocking access to the shore. I tried to climb over the cliff, but pieces of earth kept breaking off in my hands.

I settled back into the water, there was algae bobbing along beside me, swaying with me. My mood was calm, it seemed to be an obstacle that needed another solution, it was a rational thought as opposed to a feeling.

I wanted to get to land...then the cliffs were gone, I tried to swim directly to the shore, but the waves and currents kept pushing me out, further into the sea.

I attempted to start swimming to my right, then I remembered the theory that one is supposed to swim diagonally to shore when the current is strong.

I started swimming again, to my left this time. The water was dark, blue...almost black. I swam confidently and calmly.

Soon, before I realized it, I had reached the shore.