Crashing Against the Shore

Fiction | Short Story | Post Apocalyptic Dystopia

She only knew the sea by violent words.

When people told her about the ocean, she’d always pictured a battlefield.

There was no way around it. The images conjured by their words were rough, violent, overpowering. Waves crashing into the shore, rushing water grinding stones smooth and leaving them abandoned, half buried in the sand.

They spoke of riptides, of being pulled out into open water by an unseen force, of maws opening up beneath you and sharks waiting hidden in the shallows to strike. They told her it was best to aim for the nose, try to hit them before they sunk their teeth in. Not that she’d ever need the information…

They told her of gulls descending on skittering creatures as they searched frantically for a shell, a bottle, anything to use as a shield to block the oncoming death from above. Crabs with pincers raised, tiny warriors giving battle. Parried beaks and furious shrieking as they dance back and forth.

It sounded like a bloodbath. Boats cast down by stormy winds, gales overturning ships and sending them down, down, into the depths. Drowning the sailors on board and leaving them abandoned in a grave that would never be found.

But even as they spoke of death and destruction and untamable ferocity, they didn’t sound frightened. People sounded rapturous and awe-struck. They spoke of the sea like a lost lover, with wistful eyes and joyful smiles as they told tales of adventure and homecoming.

And it was this dissonance that set her curiosity aflame.

She’d never seen the ocean before. Their little hamlet was situated on a river, near the edge of a large lake. On overcast days she couldn’t see across to the other side of the water, and in high winds the waves could be frightening…she couldn’t imagine there being any more water in the world than what she saw at the edge of town.

When she had shared this opinion with the fathers, they had laughed at her. Their lake was but a puddle, they told her. The sea was something she would never be able to fathom unless she beheld it for herself. It simply wasn’t possible to wrap her mind…

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