At dawn, I’m stretching. My wetsuit becomes a second skin as I listen to the waves boom, blossom and crash onto my favourite beach.
In love with the wonder of the waves, I grab my board and run into the surf. Through the shore break, I become one with my board, immersing myself in nature’s flow. I’m in the grip of unseen currents. I slide past the rocky point to the surf rolling from the south.
I’ve grown up with waves keeping time. Bobbing on the ocean, as always, my granddad's words come to me: ‘Follow the flow. You can’t conquer the sea, only love its way.’
Today, the ocean flips a switch, and it changes its mood. The wind swings around; it’s about to blow. This isn’t frightening; I love dancing with waves from the ocean’s tantrums.
As the skies bruise to black and the breakers turn mean, something strange shimmers bright in the storm. First, too shapeless to see what it is, but when the sea spins it closer, I see her long hair and gleaming scales.
Is it a woman? A fish? Whatever, she’s struggling to avoid rocks ahead. The relentless storm batters this shimmering soul toward the reef.
I focus on the creature, her wide eyes, moon-silver and sea-sorrow. Golden hair streams like kelp. Those scales flash like secrets from some other place. She is a creature of the ocean.
I raise my hands—she shrinks with terror. She opens her mouth, sucks in water, then lets it out through her gill slits.
I say, ‘Let me help you.’
Her fingers spread, forming a cone of webbing between them. The membrane vibrates. I hear the words, ‘Help, yes.’ She lifts some of the drift net that snares her.
I paddle closer. ‘I’ve got my line-cutter. Just rest under my board, and I’ll snip you out.’
I dive, cut away the net, and free the fins that run down the side of her body and legs, but they stay limp.
Her gills flap faintly. ‘Are you okay?’ I ask. That was stupid. She’s underwater.
But so is my neck. The creature points her cone hand at it, then lowers it to my chest. In my chest I hear a deep growl. A voice. A word. ‘Weak.’
‘Hang tight to my board.’ I get on it to paddle fast, watching the ocean's flow restore her.
Her fins flutter like fairy wings, and she sculls us further out to sea.
In open water, she stops. Even below the surface, her eyes flash silver. Her hand comes out and makes a cone of webbing, which vibrates, emitting the words.‘You help me.’
‘Yes, who are you?’ I ask the hand.
‘Me Seleene,’ she says, sounding like a gramophone record. ‘You not drowning?’
My mouth is close to her hand. ‘No, but how do you know these words?’
‘We learn words. Cries of drowned.’
This doesn’t make me feel good, but I tell her, ‘You should head back offshore. It’s safer for you in the depths of the sea.’
‘Ocean remembers,’ her hand speaker says and taps my board, ‘This find treasure, riches.’
I laugh. ‘I don’t need a treasure. You’re safe; that’s all I want.’
‘Our world,’ she says. ‘Our balance. Take what give.’
And in a whirl, she vanishes from my view.
Surfing, days later, sprites swim in bright silver swirls around me and place small white globes on my board. The sprites sing, ‘Oh surfer, here are some Siren’s Pearls from the deep, with these treasures, you’ll have many riches to reap.’
Holding the pearls feels like joy. Euphoria hums through my body. The pearls must be Seleene’s treasure. I paddle ashore. My interest in waves disappears.
Pearls keep appearing each time I go to the beach. I sell them and no longer need a job. The pearls more than pay my rent. I watch bank accounts peak instead of waves.
I'm a high-roller with no need to be on the sea. These pearls, this gift from Seleene, seem perfect, a jackpot sublime.
But now my friends prefer my money; others grow jealous of my luck. Dangerous folk lurk. People I don’t trust.
A year later, I’m gazing at the salt-shimmer of the sea. I see its tide-talk and undertow chill. Granddad's words come back to me. ‘Love and honour the ocean, respect how it moves.’
I had tried to show respect. I rescued Seleene, and it gifted me a world flowing with indulgence.
But is this what I want, or is Seleene’s gift pulling beauty out of my life?
The wind shifts. A storm? Is my old friend sending me a greeting card? Is the Ocean calling me? I’ll just get my board.
For the first time in months, I paddle through rising wave crests, becoming one with the sea again.
Lightning cracks open the sky. The waves howl and twist, like beasts. My indulged body still remembers, still enjoys this dance.
On the cliff, people stand. They are pointing out to sea. At the peak of a swell, I see the upturned hull. Survivors clinging to drifting debris. My board surges towards them, like a loyal old friend. But from the dark depths comes the creature, Seleene.
Her eyes glow with the secrets of the ocean, the passions of the storm.
Her hand on my board, I hear her say, ‘No wealth will come if you rescue these men. The pearls you possess come from tears of the drowned. ’
My chest knots. I gulp. ‘No. I can’t live off tears.’
‘This is the ocean’s law,’ she says. ‘Let the ocean decide. Let their tears turn to treasure, for you to find on the next tide.’
‘No, I won’t accept this.’
Ducking a wave, her deep voice is in my chest. ‘The ocean bestows this gift. To respect the ocean’s balance, you must accept it.’
I paddle around her. Does balance give the Ocean the right to decide who prospers and who dies? It may know more than I do, but whatever its law, I can’t leave these people to die. I can’t benefit from their suffering.
Already, the fishing boat is shattering on reef-fangs. The three men in the water are in death’s undertow, but I reach them in time. They hold my board tight, their flailing nearly drowning me in the roaring waves. Paddling away from danger, a monstrous wave breaks on us, returning us to within the reef’s reach.
But two webbed hands grip my board and push the whole knot of us from the jaws of our doom and out to safe swell.
We bob, safe but shivering, until a helicopter chops through the gale, and a winch drops to pluck us from the sea.
‘Oh ocean,’ I say, feeling unhinged and half crazed. ‘You kept us safe. For balance, I gift to you, my board.’
From under her kelp-like hair, Seleene’s eyes shine silver. She approaches like a parent to a stranger’s child. Her webbed hands take hold of my gift.
Being in the water, I feel her fins swirl as she and my board vanish in a whirl.
Would it have upset balance to thank me for the old board?
I say, ‘I wonder what might come next.’
I feel one word vibrate in my chest. ‘Live.’
No one knows where my new surf buddy came from. Her wetsuit shimmers like turquoise fish scales; her hair is a haystack of bright, golden straw, her eyes as silver-shiny as the moon. And though everyone gawks at her, they never hear her speak.
Whenever the swell rises, we are out riding waves. She catches fish. I bring wasabi paste.