Nadia Part Eight

THE LAST DAY

The surf rolling in and out, but mostly out, as the mist sprays salt kisses goodbye to the wind. The smell is sweet, almost spring. Gulls cry in almost symphonic tones that they are no longer annoying to the ear, but escalating to a finale. They make your heart race, not those quick beats from fear, but those of new love, each beat raises your senses, a peak awareness. New sand soft, felt-like on your old feet gives you the impression that your feet have never touched the earth before, tender, infantile. As you approach closer to surf the water embraces your feet, legs as a blanket from your youth, folding its gentle span over you. The sun splits the clouds to display jewels in the water, shimmering a thousand suns. You think this moment is the same as your fist unconscious memory, warm, soothing and yet, it is mostly indefinably intense.

You begin your swim, as you have the many days before, slow with your head above the ocean top. Today the resistance from water that seemed to always prevent you from going forth, encourages you to go on. Your motions become effortless as an albatross flies overhead and a pelican 'V' soon follows. Almost a parade of sea-life begins before you or a procession you are unsure; but as the dolphins begin jumping and flipping before you, you soon realize it’s a procession and it’s yours.

The sea soon fills with all the swimming fish around you as land disappears. The dolphin swim along side of you like pall-bearers of the sea, and a school of fish below carry you. A great white bird, perhaps the albatross, the sun now reflecting its many jewels almost blinding now, sets a crown of shells of many color upon your head. You feel royalty flowing through you as you become less aware of your body and the sea and the fish and the sky blue over you. The sun becomes white and you float effortlessly into it, your last day...