A Whisper in the Wind

                                                                                A Whisper in the Wind 

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When I was a child, I was afraid of heights. But as I stood on the ledge of the bridge overlooking the sea, I felt nothing–not the thrum of anxiety in my toes nor the panicked pound of my heartbeat. It was early morning, just after midnight–the time when the entire world seems to be at a standstill. It was just me and the water that lapped softly at the piers of the bridge. I stood there unsteadily for a while—my pockets heavy with rocks—watching the blueness below me. It stared back, still. Waiting. Beckoning. 

I jumped.

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                                                                         An unfinished narrative (that has only existed in thought and never in speech) - 

I used to believe that I could live forever. I thought that if I tried hard enough, tended to all my chores, and did all the right things, the gods would bless me for my purity. I later realized that this was impossible. But it wasn’t gods or fate that prevented me from living. It was me. It was something in me. 

It was also the sea that doomed me. My townspeople never ventured beyond the stone walls that lined the border, as if something beyond the rocks was waiting to catch them. They were careful to stay at least a stone’s throw away from the sea. For all I know, they had never dared to. Surely, I thought, some of them must have had the ability and ambition to leave this place. Some of them must want to brave those waters to see what lies beyond. There was no other way to leave this place–our village was surrounded by a thick forest infested by bandits and was difficult for even the most experienced travelers to navigate; the sea, even with its tendency to smash sailors on rocks, was the kinder option. 

There was a tale my community told that had been passed down from fathers to sons and back again, whispered and braided into songs and poems and altered so many times the details of the story had been worn away into a single message: The ocean calls but you must not answer. Those who are born here stay here. 

But I was too stubborn to listen. My mother was partially to blame for this. My dear old mother (who, despite having a career that depended on superstitions, didn’t believe the speculations of our community) used to tell me stories about the sea.

 “If you dive deep enough into the murky waters,” she would whisper dreamily. “In the heart of the darkness, there burns a light. Past the light is the place where the dead reside.”

 It’s fitting, I suppose. That the sea, from which all things were born, is also where all things go in death. 

As I looked into the depths of the waters, I saw no danger. The beautiful, swirling blues. The algae, reaching its leaves like so many hands toward the sunlight it would never get to behold.  

And I wondered what it would feel like to drown. 

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                                                                                     A tale lost in the wind- 

I am not dead. The word “dead” is synonymous with having passed away, and I have not yet been granted my rest. I still exist, but I am gone from the eyes of the people, from the surface of the rivers, from the reflection of mirrors. I exist in the wind and wander throughout the streets of the little coastal town that serves as my prison. 

It’s a tedious sort of existence; being present but not really there. People don’t seem to notice me even when my passage causes their hair to plaster against their faces. I suppose humans tend to be nearsighted that way, too entangled in their own lives to notice the existence of anyone else. 

The cats notice, though. The streets are crawling with them—some lie sunbathing on the cobblestone streets, others perch in trees like birds and nap, impervious to the ruckus of the town. Like people, they come in every size and shape, and color; I’m glad for their acknowledgement, but they are far from human. Their eyes are bulbous and brilliant, and they take in the world for hours at a time. The cats spend their entire lives watching as I do, but they carry themselves with a sort of satisfaction. Like they are content with just being born, just being fated to exist. I hate them. I hate that they can do nothing and still feel everything that I cannot. My reflection doesn’t appear in their eyes, but I know I must be in there somewhere because they turn their heads to stare at me whenever I pass. 

I don’t like to admit it, but they frighten me a little. They, who silently hold the world in their large, round eyes. 

I’m not the only lost soul—I know because my mother used to tell me ghost stories, not knowing that one day I’d become one—there are hundreds of millions of them around the world, searching for belonging. Crying out for it. Their—or rather, our—voices murmur through the trees, howl in the dark, yet no one answers. Our screams are lost in the wind. 

I’m not the only lost soul in this world, but I’m the only one that’s bound here. The other spirits come and go freely, as they please. They don’t typically come here because this town is hard to find and even more difficult to escape from. The hold the land here has on us is tight and not relinquishing. Suffocating. Even so, the few visitors and I rarely speak to each other. Because there are no more words to say. Because by speaking to each other, we are forced to acknowledge the creatures we have become. 

I am cursed to remain in this city. I know that once I do leave, something incomprehensibly horrible will happen to me, and I do not want to know what sort of fate is worse than the one I already endure. Still, I will try to live with what I have. Have tried for centuries. Even death could not stop me from trying to live. 

This is not such a bad place to be trapped in, but the years have worn away its appeal into sand that slips through my fingers. The air smells so strongly of salt that I can almost taste it on my tongue–the smell is a little strange, though. Distorted, in the same way the cobblestone streets don’t feel completely solid beneath my feet. 

I won’t deny that this place is beautiful, with its lovely earth-toned brick houses and cheerful populace. The city teems with bazaars that feature crates upon crates of figs and dried fruits, heaps of spices that make the air itself a culinary delight, stalls stacked with handmade scarves and rugs, and piles of glittering jewelry; it is a miniature world in and of itself. A testament to thousands of years of history. A symbol of cultural heritage, of remembrance. Going through these markets, slipping through the crowds of chattering people, I feel lonelier than ever. Because I know that no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I pray, I can never be alive again. Being forgotten is truly worse than death. It hurts me every time I think I can see a glimmer of recognition cutting through the haze that perpetuates people's eyes, only to realize it was nothing but a trick of the light. 

There is one benefit to my invisibility, if you can call it that. The city is full to bursting with secrets hidden within alleyways and behind locked doors—none of which are safe from me. I have wandered these streets long enough to know everything and everyone. I would make quite the excellent detective as I catalogue away the words that were never meant to reach the ears of the living—from cheaters to liars to the occasional murderer, this city is filled with horrible and selfish people like me. I’ll admit it gives me a sort of depraved satisfaction—how I’m ugly enough to be human, still. 

 Oh, how incredible this little city of mine is. It has no name. No official one, I mean. It has many names in many languages. It is too difficult to place a specific title on this place, because it is everything when it should be nothing to me, yet it’s still not enough. 

Even in my dreams, I am trapped here. I do not know what lies beyond the sea. I’m not sure I want to know the vastness of the unfamiliar. It’s digging at me, though. Curiosity. Despite all my fears, the little boy I used to be still wants more. He still wants me to go, even if what lies beyond will hurt me. He wants me to leave without looking back. 

And I will. 

I will. 

Someday, I will. 

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                                                                                  An old wish upon a shining star that never came true

Just hear me. Just see me. Somebody. Please. Look at me for what I am. I’m begging you. I’m begging you. I’m begging you. 

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                                                                                    An incomplete saga of the town

This city is a ghost town, not in the sense that there aren’t many inhabitants, nor in the sense that one lives amongst ghosts here. It is a ghost town in the sense that living here is like living with the ghosts of the past. 

Even after what must have been centuries, everything has remained relatively unchanged. My old family home (although home is a generous way to describe it—it is more like a shack), with its dirt floor and rickety old wooden chairs salvaged from a scrap pit, exists without a speck of dust out of place. The narrow alleyways are lined with baskets of pastel flowers that never wilt, no matter the season. Coffeeshops, markets, hills upon hills of greenery, scenery that never seems to change. 

I wonder how I never seemed to notice the strangeness of it all when I was alive. Even after the most vicious of storms—there were a lot of them since the sea always seemed to be angry—by the morning, there was not a leaf out of place. The ground held not a trace of the beatings it had endured at the mercy of the rain.

 Even though we were cut off from the rest of the world, we never wanted for anything. Not food, nor medicine. The trees always bore fruit that burst at the seams with juice and a sweetness that rivaled honey. The land was so fertile that you could plant a seed and a field would emerge overnight. 

And the cats, oh the cats…

They have always been here. I swear I see the same ones, year after year after year. The same markings, the same meows. The same eyes squint suspiciously at me.

There was always something else, darker and more sinister, about this place that lay underfoot. There was always something about this place that struck me as terribly, terribly wrong. 

I’m trapped in this paradise where nothing but humans seems to die. But a gilded cage is still a cage. An invisible leash is still a leash. And I am trapped within this place like a mime within his box. Except the box is real, and I am not. 

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                                                                                         The story of a dead boy swallowed by the sea- 

Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a little village by the edge of the sea, and he wanted to hold the world in the palm of his hand. But he was scared, so scared of the idea of leaving the town, so scared of everything that his feet would go all rubbery from climbing the stairs of the church tower because he was so afraid of falling. His mother, the village fortune teller, told him that one day he would make a good name for himself. But the boy wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to be great, and he was willing to sacrifice goodness for glory. He believed that something grand lay on the other side of the sea—it called his name, and he yearned to answer.  

Along with his hunger for more came impatience, and he soon became angry with everything under the sun. Anger at his mother, who dared to be content with the mundane life they led, at his father, who was lost at sea, at the neighbor’s dog who did nothing but lie around and relish the warmth of the sun. He was angry at having to work his keep as an apprentice at a woodworker’s shop—a job that he sorely despised. He was angry at other people for being happy with what they had (How could they possibly be satisfied? When there was so much in the world besides this little village by the edge of the sea?). Most of all, he was angry with himself for not being enough—not enough to support his family, not enough to please himself, not enough to become great and move out of this sorry little town and get over his fears. Not enough, not enough, not enough. 

The fortune teller tried to help her son. She took up a second job as a laundress and worked her fingers bloody against the washing board for a few more coins. The boy didn’t see her suffering because he was deceived by the siren’s call of his dreams. And so he hated everything and hated everything some more. Not enough, not enough, not enough. 

“Why does he even bother?” The villagers scoffed, “When we have everything we could ever need?” The boy didn’t listen. He had a vision, and he would do anything to make it come true.

The ocean saw his ambition and brought him gifts—seashells upon seashells of orange and pink and white. The boy would put each shell to his ear, hear the ocean’s whispers. The ocean told him that she was lonely. So, so lonely. The boy promised her that one day he would sail the seven seas and keep her company. 

As he grew older, he began to give up on his dream of being great and tried to be good instead. He worked longer and harder at the woodworker’s shop and helped the local poet with his verses, and caught fireflies for the village children to play with. He helped his mother with the washing and began to love her more than ever before, for he finally appreciated her sacrifices. He stopped going to see the ocean, and she despaired in his absence. 

But his goodness came too late. Years of heavy labor had weakened his mother’s heart to an extent that no amount of love could heal. When she died, a part of the boy died with her, too. That’s why he went to the bridge that day, weeks after her funeral, and jumped. Because he thought he’d never be enough. Because he thought that the one person who loved him unconditionally was gone. Because he believed he deserved to die and would make a better son in death than he had in life. 

So when the ocean beckoned for the final time, he answered. She was happy to oblige him his final wish.

After he died, there was no one to lay his bones to rest; no one dared brave the churning waters of the ocean to retrieve a lost boy’s corpse—they convinced themselves that he had simply vanished into the woods beyond and busied themselves again, trying to ignore the empty house of the fortune-teller’s, the door still left slightly ajar and waiting for its family to come home. The boy’s body would wash up on shore days later, his flesh bloated and tinted blue-grey with rot. With no one to lay him to rest, he was consumed by the soil and made a servant of the land. Doomed, forever, to wander.

After all, there is a price to pay for paradise. Those who die unclaimed feed the soil and keep the city alive; the land remains healthy by feasting on the dead.  And the land thrived and thrives still, because so, so many die alone and forgotten. 

The sea despaired, for her child had been lost.

 The child is out there, still. Waiting. Hoping for a future that will never come. The child is running out of time. 

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                                                                                            Part of a story scribed in sand 

I have not been very truthful in telling my tale, but I never said I wasn’t a liar. I was not cursed, or at least, not completely. If I truly wanted to, I could go. The real reason why I cannot leave this town is that I’m ashamed. I cannot leave my mother to rot in the dirt alone. I was not a good son. I am not a good son. Staying here is my punishment, my payment to her for everything she did and everything I did not do. 

My mother has left me. She has joined the spirits in the sea. She lives on in this town. In the rich, comforting taste of kuru fasulye—she could work wonders with food. Sometimes, I wondered if she was a sorceress for all the meals she could invent from scraps. In the smell of fresh linen. In the hill overlooking the town, a place where she and I used to go every weekend. 

“Don’t be so glum, my darling,” She would say, brushing the stray hair from my pouting face. “You are everything to me.” She was my heart and soul, and now she is gone, and I am still here. 

Sometimes I like to sit on the sand of the beach (far away from the water, of course), writing my name and my story, over and over. Once there was a boy who lived in a little town by the sea…once there was a boy who had everything but still wanted more…

My memory eludes me. Bit by bit, I forget who I once was. Who I wanted to be. I can’t remember the exact way my mother’s eyes crinkled when she smiled. The barely-there feeling of someone’s breath on my cheek, the thrum of someone’s heartbeat beneath my fingertips. The planes of my mother’s face. Of my own. I have not seen my reflection in so long, cannot see my breath lingering in the air during the winter months. If it wasn’t for the cats, I wouldn’t have believed in my own existence. 

The day will come when I will forget everything and lose what remains of my humanity (though humanity is a fickle word. It means humans, and it means benevolence. Kindness. Those are two opposing things, in my mind). The sand consumes my words, dissolves them. My skin prickles from the unrelenting heat of the sun frowning down upon me, and my knees are cramped and stinging, but still I continue. 

One day, the earth will relinquish its grip on me. One day, I will stop being a ghost and will become part of the ocean breeze. Free at last, but without a consciousness. 

If I tried hard enough, I could leave. The earth is kind to the people of this town. Perhaps if I strike a good enough bargain, I could go. But I cannot make myself venture beyond these walls, because then, I can never return. I love my hometown, I really do, now that I’ve had the years to watch it grow and appreciate it for what it is and not what it could have been. But like a doting mother must, I have to let it grow without me. That’s what my own mother wanted. Slaving away all those hours to give me the life I so desired. And all I desired was a life beyond these walls, yet now, when I have the opportunity to do as I please, I do not go. It is not the majesty of this place that binds me; it is the security. I know each blade of grass, each brick in the wall. It takes exactly six thousand seventy-three steps to get from my old house to the town center. Four hundred fifty-eight more if I want to take a stroll along the river. 

The warm atmosphere of this place, too, traps me. The soft murmurs of morning as people rise and greet the world. The way the afternoon light splays across the taupe shingles of the rooftops. The sound of laughter, clear and ringing like birdsong. It is wonderful and it is horrible. It is my prison and it is my home. 

Perhaps it is not the weight of guilt nor the allure of safety that binds me to this place. Perhaps it is fear—that would make it all the worse. Because then, not only am I not a filial son, I am also a coward. 

I do not regret killing myself. I just want to find peace. Whether in death or this strange interlude I am trapped in. I just want to find peace. Somewhere to rest my tired bones. But for now, I must content myself with watching and waiting, as the cats do. I’m so tired of waiting. 

I don’t want to exist like this. Heard but ignored. Looked at but not seen. I want to stay human, but I can’t remember my own mother’s face. I can’t even remember my name. 

I’ve tried recording my story. In blood and charcoal. Sand and stone. They won’t let me remember. They won’t let me keep the only remains of humanity I have left (I’m not sure who they are, but there must be a ‘they’ out there. There must be someone else to blame). If I lose my memories, I lose myself. 

There once was a boy who wanted….There once was a boy who….There once…

And it’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s all my fault. I’ve wanted many things in my life. Greatness, glory, riches, and fame. That wanting has only led me here. I’m sorry, mother. I’m so sorry. That in the end, I gave up. That in the end, I never did anything to make you proud, to bring you joy. 

I was stupid, so, so, stupid. It’s my fault that I now kneel alone on the beach and stare into the distant pool of blue that is the sea. I bow my head down so that my forehead scrapes the sun-warmed sand. Murmur my final plea into the sediments. 

Just let me go. Just let me go. Just let me go. But the earth doesn’t reply. 

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The chronicles of the sea

This is the last time I’m writing on the beach. I don’t know why, but I need to go to the sea. I need to. Because I wanted…what did I want? 

As I make my way down the slippery rocks to the mouth of the ocean, I begin to remember snippets of lives that were not mine. Or were they? Try as I might, I can’t remember anymore. I have visions of sand slipping through clumsy fingers. Conch shells held to ears. Someone is laughing, or crying. It sounds one and the same. 

The ocean gifts me stories. So, so many of them, as I approach her waters. 

I loved the sea. Ever since I was a little girl, I would go out onto the beach and stand in the current, feeling the sand tickle my feet as they made their journey out into the endless carpet of blue. That’s why I became infatuated with a sea captain from a foreign land some thousands of miles away. He disappeared one day on a mission and never returned. He never got to meet his son. 

I was collecting shells when the current came and swept me off my feet, and the last thing I remember was the salty taste of seafoam on my lips. 

With the voice of the ocean caressing my ears, I set sail for home, but never made it away from this accursed place. 

I just wanted to go home. I just wanted to live, live, live. 

I am the ocean, and I am so, so lonely. 

I wade out into the waves. The sea digs her icy fingers into my flesh, desperate for the little warmth I can give. Because even in death, I am more alive than she will ever be. The earth resists her efforts. The sand–now a thick sludge–clings to my feet. Slithers up my ankles. 

I don’t know why I’m here anymore. But I know I must go on. Because there once was a little boy who wanted to see the world. There once was a little boy who lost everything. I can’t let him lose himself. 

But even in death, I am not free. My consciousness begins to fade, my body along with it. My humanity, dissolving into the sea. My vision fades along with the sound of the ocean in my ears. I don’t want this to be my end, my final death. I don’t want to exist in the breeze—I want to die human. I have no ears now, and no eyes. No body. 

As I take my final breath, I scream. And no one answers.