[twwm] shaka prompt 1 - sea

What I had been...

Waves crash outside the house, slowly lapping up the sand of the sea's shore like a kitten and a bowl of milk. The wild outer waves were rough, loud, foaming, while the ones that crept onto the beach snuck in like thieves, invisible titans sticking their fingers onto dry land after digging themselves from the deep.

I sat inside, listening to the gentle lull and thrum, the lub-dub, lub-dub heartbeat of the earth. Our home was cozy, and quiet. You get used to the roar of the waves after a while, the calling of the sea rocking you to sleep.

My wife walks into the room, hands wrapped around two mugs, and hands me one. Her white hair hangs loose from the tie she keeps it in, and I tuck it in for her when she sits next to me.

We exchange no words in this evening ritual of ours. It is simply us, our skin, kissed by salty air, and the drinks in our cups. She leans against me, and I hold her. I've never felt something like this, not before I met her and not after she was gone.

I press a gentle kiss to the top of her head, and take our mugs inside. Our house sits a little ways above the beach itself, on a small cliff. The stilts keep us protected from an erroneous tides, and the wood, worked by ourselves, keeps us warm.

As I am washing, my old hands roughened by years of ocean water, I watch my wife. She tilts her head to the sky, eyes closed like the clouds speak to her only then. I know she finds poetry in the way the world is, and I love her for it.

I loved her the night I first met her, on this beach, head back to the clouds like she is now. I asked her what she was looking at, and she answered: "The albatross's sigh." I had no idea what it meant then, and I still don't now.

But she lassoed me with her spirit that day, drew me in, and I stayed. Our hair had faded, salt and pepper for me, and white for her, but the spark in her chestnut brown eyes never went away. She was full of the words of the world, and seemed to speak them through fingers that danced when she wrote.

I had only been living here on these islands for a short while, born elsewhere and given a home. It took a time to be accepted, to not be seen as an outsider, but she held me through it.

Now, we had built ourselves a comfortable life. I went outside, took her hand, and started to dance. We stepped together to the whirling of tidepools, and soon to bed.

In the morning, I strode out onto the beach in the early morning light, stretching my back. The sunlight feels good on my skin, freshly awoken as it tends to be in the hours of sunrise. Then I sent off down the beach.

My feet carry me lightly along, sand brushing up in between my toes, as I bend down to save mollusks and sea stars, washed up in the uproarious tide of the night prior. I toss them back into the waves, hopefully to settle in a more secure place this time. I watch as clamshells and oysters hit the ground of the seabed gently, with a light explosion of sand around it as it sinks down. This is my morning routine, spending time with the mist and the sea, saving those immovable creatures who cannot save themselves.

Eventually though, one of our dogs runs up to me. A shaggy, fur-covered bundle bowls me over into the surf, excited tongue covering my face in sloppy wet kisses. "Lucy!" I'm laughing, soaking wet, and trying to wrestle myself out from under my large dog, when the smaller one trots up beside, propping his paws on my chest. "Hi, Vincent." Lucy takes this cue and hops away, bounding into the surf and barking at the birds. Vincent pads at my heels, nosing at shells and flipping them over to check for creatures.

I look back to my house, and my wife is standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips with a smile on her face. Her dress sways in the early morning breeze, framing her like a white candle flame against the burning orange of the horizon. I remember when we started aging, she was worried I wouldn't love her, her skin not as youthful as it had been. I held her face in my hands, perfect, and told her I'd love her now, in the future, and always.

It never mattered to me what she looked like, truly. I had never had eyes for anyone but her - no matter how old we got. She is beautiful to me, wrinkles and crows feet and laugh lines that tell the story of her life, her skin containing the memory of everything she has been through.

I wave to her, and call the dogs, and walk back to our home. They settle beside us on the porch, and I hold my wife to me, whispering to her words like the ocean waves at low tide, soft and gentle and loving. We sip hot coffee as the sun rises more and more, surrounded by the crash and roar of the waves, and the love that has bound us since we first met.