I did not know it existed. Until I found out yesterday, while randomly and incessantly scrolling down on social media.
I did not believe what I saw, so I stopped and took a closer look. It was past 1:00 in the morning, and Aida was still awake. “We’re going somewhere tomorrow night”, I parted with an offer that would meet her illuminated eyes and linger in the air with wonder.
“Fascinating…”, I commented on the post that had started it all.
Come evening the next day, we would grab water, our jackets, and three apples, and find ourselves facing the cold darkness of the Pacific Ocean, our noses catching the wafts of salty air far before our eyes would make out the nonexistent horizon. The palm trees of Hermosa Beach were shining under the neon lights, and the streets were empty.
Maybe having received a call, the police car guarding the entrance to the sand scurried off in a moment of fervor, splashing a puddle of water as its tires skidded on the pedestrian promenade, speeding to the north into the distance with lights on but siren muted. The only obstacle that would keep our feet off the sand had exited.
We were only a few footsteps away. What should I expect? Will it be there still? Was it worth it?
On the way to the ocean, as I gripped my wheel with both hands and caressed Aida’s hair with my side glances, an unprovoked smile would visit my face when I compared our venture with the opening lines of 100 Years of Solitude by Marquez, “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”
The ice was just within reach, and the only thing reminding me of the firing squad was the hollow rumbling of the mouth of the waves speaking to me from the bottom of the earth. Surely we must be close… where is it? Our steps had become more difficult on the sand, the taste of the sea was on the bed of my tongue, and the top of my hands had moistened with the warm humidity of the night.
The sand rolled and rolled and rolled in front of us and stopped, and then a wet nothingness began that continued to infinity, bound only by the black of the sky hugging the planets and the stars and the moon that cradled above us. The mist in the air made the shoreline disappear to my right into a dreamy midnight haze that was disturbed only by the dull glimmer of the streetlamps. To my left was the wooden pier which unquestioningly forayed into the ocean and seemed to hover on invisible legs in the darkness. Behind me, the streets of Hermosa Beach were still empty.
It happened without warning.
Out of the smooth void of the water suddenly exploded a flash of blue lightning followed by the thunder of the selfless waves. A streak of electrifying, vibrant blue burst forth from the two ends of the shoreline, racing toward the middle and lighting up the leading edge of the wave that was rushing toward us from the depth of the sea.
To this enchantment of the ocean, the tiny humans on the sand could only respond with audible gasps of shock and amusement. They stood frozen in an incredible line facing the water, as if helpless before the mercy of the incoming wind. Before their mind could register what trick nature was playing on their eyes, it happened again…
…a rounded line of black would approach from the unknown, getting larger and rounder as it did until the line suddenly turned into a wall, and the wall got taller until it could bear its height no more, and it would topple over coming crashing down on itself in brilliant luminescence, birthing a warm, bright blue glow from under the white froth that hurried to bury it and push it to the shore.
The fun was just beginning. Our timid steps on the sand spilled into steady steps which would eventually turn into sprints up and down the lip of the land. “Look, look, Arevik’s feet!”I heard the boyfriend of Aida’s sister call out as his girlfriend sprang from foot to foot on the wet sand. We all turned toward her, and her steps had brought the lightning blue of the waves to the soles of her shoes. Each jump would let out a spark of blue, as if the sediments of natural gas were instantly combusting into thin air. Within moments, the people on the beach had joined us in turning the smoothed-out shore into pockets of valleys and canyons with their footprints and hand-art, sending flashes of blue shadows onto their faces.
* * *
I am unsure whether it was the hypnotizing crashing of the waves that echoed through the chambers of your mind, the endless parallel lines that formed as the waves died in their final overture, or the warm, moist fog that engulfed our bodies momentarily stranded helplessly against the Pacific… but with each eruption of warm, blue brilliance, we forgot who we were, or even why we were.
Under the allure of the aquatic invitation, we lost ourselves.
I would find myself again in the reflection of her eyes, when she gently put her hand on my cheek and gazed into my depths. Then, I knew all the answers to life and time and truth, and the who and the why of the beings and the present and nature, hiding in the black circles of her pupils which shone with the light of the stars and the waves.
I knew everything at that moment, and it was eternal, and it was true.
Chronicles 