Mark Nardone: “Horizon”

From the shore Jack looked onward to the horizon, hand in hand with his beloved, seeing nothing of the sun’s face upon the roving waves to shore but the passing of what was once bright and sustaining. Sasha’s eyes gleamed with hope before the changing skyline. Jack’s hand slightly unclasped from hers at the sight of each coming wave that withered upon the shore with a hushed sigh of death. From the slow saunter of the rise and  fall of waves basked and bathed in a fleeting veil of russet twilight, his eyes stole frantically to the sky for the light of day, something familiar, but saw that even the inevitable change of the sky told of the imminent end. Dusk was upon them. Soon the sun would fade past the coast and Jack’s grip of her hand only loosened all the more. Looking into his eyes, her gaze transcended to shore and she pressed him to move onward with her, into the waves. He would not go.

“Jack, please, the horizon awaits us,” she pleaded.

The sun’s reign over them had drawn to a nearing end. The night would linger on and the moon would soon possess the sea a dance of waves ravaging. One could never see horizon when inundated by such an indomitable frenzy, of this Jack was certain — but oh the courageous and wholesome many of history derived of such uncertain waters.

“No, you must understand,” he said. “We must wait for dawn. The night waves will do away with us.”

Hand in hand, still, they waited upon the shore as the quiet of dying waves crawled and kissed their feet. The moon shined full and whole with a light that poured over and into the sea, each blotch of white prancing over the sea like ghosts of yore rising to surface and laying to rest upon the shore as foamy apparitions passing underfoot. Looking out to the coast, the waves danced amok. The horizon hid behind the crashing of sodden black that possessed him heavily like a splotched canvas doused of an old pain.

“We must turn back!” he cried.

A full moon commanded over the sea with the sun’s looming presence, never were the waves of the sea anymore powerful amidst such a phenomenon; but only few were mad to brave the tempest. Her grip tightened, she shouted: “No! We mustn’t be afraid, Jack! We must  do this!” The quiet waves he’d seen prior to dusk had gone. Their days in the sun were waning and he was not willing to brave the night sea. “Jack, this is the only way to the horizon,” she cried. A wave leaped to the moon and cast a shadow over the shore, crashing upon Jack with great sibilance, toppling him over in the sand.

Rising to his feet, he cried to her, “How are you so blind to it, Sasha? I am not in love with you anymore! The sun has gone, we’ve outlived the light of day. We would never see it through to the horizon.”

“Please, Jack,” she pleaded once more. “A full moon has graced us; the sun has reconciled the moon. You must trust me. There is no better time to go, please.”

Her words were drowned out by the crashing of waves, he heard nothing of her pleas. Falling to her knees, tears left her eyes and changed onto the sand of blotches blackened but glistening with the kiss of the full moon overhead. With a desperate whimper, choking over her tears, she pleaded again “Why can’t you see, Jack? I love you. I know you love me, too.”

Groaning desperately, madly wading through the shore, her hope was fading. Her hand clutched onto what little she could of his in her desperate attempt to pull him onward, but only succeeded in bringing him what miniscule inches further, just before the flurry of breakers. Jack’s hand unfurled, freeing her. And with her force already exerted onwards, she shot forward and fell into the water, consumed by the frenzied dance of ghosts and ravenous waves. Jack watched on as she flailed and pleaded for his hand, desperately trying to pilot through the unfathomable siege of the breakers, with each twist and pull of perplexing waves driving her further from the shore. In little time, the silhouette of Sasha he’d only come to recognize off in the distance by the glow of moon that enveloped her soon dissipated. She was lost to the waves. From the shore, he looked onward to the sea before him then the dark of the moonlit waters, recollecting the memory of her and all the ghosts of a bitter past that coloured the night sea. In the sand he sat motionless, still awaiting the sun, but the dawn would never come again. It was in this way Jack waited evermore. And it was in this way he was confined to shore. Never would he reach the horizon.

What are you looking for?