The Jagged Ocean

Prologue:

Jagged edges of the building, black glass and steel, push into the courtyard below. The sun, glinting off their angles, no  longer seems to mock; but neither does it comfort. A woman stands contained within the building’s edges, alone. Her sea-green eyes hold a hint of distant summers. Many were those lazy days when the water lapped at her feet, causing them to sink into the warm sand.

But the summer days are forgotten now. An angry ocean blots them out. It rises higher and higher – only to crash hatefully down.

Crushing, destroying,

then calmly receding,

the water drags all she once held dear down into its depths.

She watches as crystalline images begin to dance on the sun burnt grass of the courtyard below her. Ponies jump and play dodge with barefoot children while puppies frisk between bare legs. Shimmering joyously, her daughter turns a cartwheel among the giant-sized daisies, then looks up. With eyes crackling and hair flying, she waves two handed to her mother standing at the window. Head thrown back, she laughs and spins with all the unbounded exuberance of seven going on eight. Suddenly she stops and leaps sideways to tag another scampering child.

Then, like soap bubbles bursting on the sidewalk, the children splinter off into nothingness.

Slowly the images shift.

Another child dances there – a child of summers long gone. She speeds through the complex steps, never faltering, never once stumbling. Light sparks outward from her sea-green eyes and gives strength to her steps. That fiery joy will die too soon.

But for the moment, loving arms enfold the child’s dreams. Peaceful and calm, the earth and moon and stars are her tender playmates while the two strong arms keep all her fears at bay.

Then suddenly, those arms are yanked away.

A cannibalistic mass devours her mother’s brain.

Puppies and ponies and bare feet on the grass vanish in the cold wind.

To be robbed this way once is tragic.

To be robbed so twice, unthinkable.

Closing her eyes, the mother folds her arms and hugs them tightly over her stomach. Her mouth tightens. She thrashes her head once to each side, then opens her eyes. Turning back towards the child cocooned within the white sheets, she stares. The lifelines intrude into her daughter and emerge out again, and the mother thinks:

It wasn’t so long ago…