The Sea Was Finally Quite

 

 Sometimes the quiet after a storm is louder than the storm itself.
This story began with the idea of a woman adrift — caught between giving up and finding her own rescue. It’s a story about exhaustion, grace, and the strange ways hope can return, even when we think we’ve used the last of it.

Content note: This piece gently references thoughts of suicide, but its heart is about survival and renewal.

 

The Sea Was Finally Quiet

Not placid, nor apologetic, just eerily quiet, as if it had finished shouting, curious about what I’d do next. The boat rocked. Listless, broken, tired as I was, each rise and dip was gentle enough to make me forget, for a few heartbeats, that I was alone.

    She sat low in the water, heavy from the night’s storm. Mast snapped, sail gone. I dipped out water with my shoe, one scoop at a time, the way daddy taught me when the bilge quit. Every splash over the side felt like proof I wasn’t done yet.

    Salt stung the raw places on my lips. My fingers were pruned and cramping from hanging on too long to the edge of the gunwale, enduring an endless night as the boat tossed and turned in the storm. Tattered, cold, and wet, I huddled, lost in my feelings. The storm had taken everything: my oars, the go bag, always in the boat as a rule, and my bearings. It had left me floating. That was something; maybe it counted as a mercy.

    I wasn’t sure yet. My eyes skimmed the bottom of the small boat, looking for the bottle that had given me solace through the night. Fear had wormed through the whiskey haze, and instead of letting myself go into the angry waters as had been my thought, my hands gripped the gunwale, stubborn things that still wanted to live.

    Ok, maybe I didn’t really want to die, but I was tired, tired clean through. Life had been a long row against the current, and I was worn out.  I guess I wasn’t much different than a lot of people in our small town, just scraping to get by. Maybe it was the loneliness. No kin left, no friends to speak of except the fishmonger who bought my catches. Daddy left me the boat and the shanty-shack at the end of the road; that was my inheritance. 

    It wasn't that I meant to die, exactly. I just figured if the storm took me, no one could call it a suicide. Of course, a few might wonder why a seasoned sailor would go out in such weather. They’d say I got caught out in a storm; it happens. There wouldn’t be that many who would mourn. There was heavy prejudice against women who fished. A few folks would probably argue over the shack and the boat if it turned up.

    I had the misfortune of being born a girl and the only child. Daddy never forgave me for costing him my mama. So, there you go. You can likely guess how the rest went.  Everything I ever tried to do seemed to circle back to failure. “Can't even die right,” I muttered, and the words startled me. Then I laughed a half-cough, half-cackle that echoed across the water, sounding small and foolish.

     I looked up, shielding my eyes. The horizon was clean and endless, no sound but the slap of the water against the wood. You don't realize how loud the world is until it ain’t. I wasn't thinking about dying anymore; I was out of the mood. One good thing about being a woman: you can change your mind.

    Part of me was waiting for a rescue boat. Another part of me, older, quieter, knew that no one was coming. Not this time. It would take a bit for anyone to notice that I was missing.

    When I looked down, the sea looked back, dark and steady, and in its stillness something shimmered. An eye met mine, black with a glint of blue, the skin around it tightening like a blink. My breath hissed from my chest. A pinkish albino dolphin, as real as the wet clothes I sat in, looked up at me! I blinked again. I could feel my heartbeat revving up; my whole body felt tingly, forgetting the aches and pains of being battered in the night. Wonder flooded me.

    It slid along the side of the boat, close enough for me to see the faint veins under its pale skin.  “Damn it,” I whispered. Patting my pockets, no phone, no camera, I had nothing! I looked around, half sure it was just leftover whiskey fog.

    The sun had climbed higher, turning the water a deep green-blue that hid everything but that flash of pink. I watched the light glint and skitter hypnotically over the skin of the dolphin. “Unbelievable,” I spit out, almost angry, “You can't show up now, making me think that I actually have something to live for!”

    The dolphin’s dark eye kept watching, calm and knowing. I swear it was grinning. Then the water shifted, it rolled under the hull, and disappeared.  The water lapped a bit more against the boat, sounding hopeful.

    “No!” I said weakly. I took a deep breath and said it louder, “No, No don't go!” my words flinging like gull cries over the water. Maybe I cussed a little; it's a bad habit I've lived with. I had been looking for her my whole life. When I was six, I had drawn a pink dolphin and taped it to the old fridge. It was still there; the tape had yellowed a bit, and the picture had aged. Drove my daddy crazy, the way I was going on and on about it, all the time. I had seen it once, over the port side of the boat. Not one person had believed me, but I knew what I had seen, and I never stopped believing. Except I had these last months.

    “I'm still here,” I whispered, almost apologetic. “Come back, please.” For a moment, I was that kid again, the world was new and sparkly, full of good things. It's like finding the perfect sand dollar on the beach, enjoying my favorite ice cream, and feeling the comfort of new rain boots. How did I forget all of that?

    For a while, I sat still, feeling the silence pressing warm against my skin, till every disappointment I had ever felt floated up like driftwood. They circled me like a flotilla of grief and loss. The feeling of never being enough, losing the grant for my studies, losing daddy, and finally the loss of Bo, the best damn dog any girl ever had. That had me reaching for the whiskey last night. I breathed out a long breath and started to envision that soggy, gnarled driftwood breaking up and floating away.

    That's when I saw it, one of my oars slicing through the water towards me, being nudged by that pink dolphin. The oar bumped against the boat side once, twice, asking to be noticed. I leaned over and pulled it in. The wood was a bit scuffed, but solid enough. I didn't think. I just set it in the water and pulled. The boat nudged forward, slowly. It wasn't going to be easy; I’d have some serious blisters.

    “You —thank you, thank you! I said, laughing and crying all at once. “I knew you were real. All this time. I knew it! I just forgot for a bit, that’s all!” I was babbling and sobbing more, but I’d like to overlook that.

    The dolphin swam alongside for one final glide, close enough that my fingers brushed its slick skin. Then it slipped down into the depths.  I stared at my damp fingers, trying to fix the feel of its skin on my hungover mind.

    For the first time since the storm, water whispered against the hull instead of slapping at it. The air smelled clean. A gull drifted far overhead, its shadow sliding over me; an acknowledgment that land was near.

    Each pull on the oar sent a tremor through my arms. It hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt, the kind that means you're alive.

“For every year I looked for you,” I said softly, one stroke.

“For every time I wished and hoped to see you again,” another stroke.

“For every time I forgot what was important,” another stroke.

And that is how it went, me talking my heart out with every pull.

When I finally stopped to rest, I looked around, hoping for one last flash of pink.

    The horizon was clean in every direction, no land, no sails, no proof that anyone else existed. And somehow, that didn't feel like loneliness. It felt like room.

    Maybe there was land ahead, maybe not. Perhaps somebody would come looking for me, perhaps not. But the sea no longer looked endless; it looked possible. I dipped the oar again and felt the give and resistance.

“Keep going,” I whispered, not to the water this time, but to myself.

    And the boat moved forward, cutting a quiet line through the bright, forgiving waves.

 

Acknowledgment to Reedsy.com for providing the prompt: Sail away-

"The Sea Was Finally Quiet!" contest 324, which inspired the story.

  https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/

 

 

The Ritual

 

 

 

  The trash can of warm water steamed faintly at the front of the church. Women filed past it, dipping pitchers into the surface and carrying their portion back to their small tubs. The men performed their ritual in the back, away from the women's section. Even though most women wore very long skirts or dresses, legs were a distraction. The room was hushed; the silence itself was part of the ritual. Basins were placed gently on the tile floor. Shoes slipped off, stockings rolled down. She could see all of this from her place in line.

She had grown up in this church and had heard about this night for years; finally, she was old enough to participate. Not only did you have to be in good standing with the Church, but you had to be a baptized member. Not attending was terrifying. It would mean you would no longer be a part of God’s flock. The pastor often reminded them that God would spew the Lukewarm from his mouth, and no one wanted to be found lacking. It could mean risking your status in the Church and possibly excommunication, unless you had a very valid reason for not attending. Many people who were not regularly seen at weekly services attended this event. No one wants to be turned aside from God. No one wants to lose their status as a chosen one.

This holy day occurred once a year in the spring, but its intended value was to be with them every day of their lives, a reminder to be humble and serve.

It commemorated the time when God saved His people from the Angel of Death. Foot washing demonstrates proper humility and a willingness to serve others. This night felt like the pinnacle of belonging. The girl stood in silence and solemnity among the other women. As they walked forward, she was paired with a very old woman she hadn’t seen at the weekly services before. Even though the elders were always supposed to be served first, the older woman signaled with her eyes and hands for her to sit down in the chair, while she labored to perch herself on the lower stool provided for the elders. The capable knelt in front of the person whose feet they were to wash, to learn humility.

The old woman’s gnarled hands cradled the young girl's feet one at a time, dipping the now-cool water over them in a symbolic washing. Every movement slow and gentle, yet thorough. She had even carefully separated and washed each toe, meticulously drying each one with a final pat. It was all the girl could do to quell a giggle; her toes were terribly ticklish. Around them, the same quiet motions repeated: cloths dipping, waters dripping, the faint rustle of fabric.

She felt more naked and exposed having her small foot cupped in someone else’s hands, as if all her adolescent sins were written all over her skin. Awkwardly, she watched others from the corner of her eye and followed their clues, feeling the weight of everyone's eyes and judgment. Lifting one leg and then the other so that both feet could be washed.

The difference of her young foot in the gnarled hand could not be more startling. There was no grandmother in her life; she hadn’t known what old looked like this close up. She stared at the pink scalp peeking through the old woman's white hair, bowed before her, and felt a sense of tenderness. Tears welling up. She caught the scent of baby powder. Who was she to have someone laboring over her feet, someone whose hands bore years of hard work and age? She thought of the endless amount of chores women did, how many diapers these hands had changed, how many dishes they had washed; the work had been hard. This she could see. She stared at her own soft, untested fingers in her lap.

Then it was her turn.

The girl knelt before the old woman, cradling the clean towel across her knees, and looked at the old legs before her: dry, cracked, swollen at the ankles, blue veins weaving patterns around them like ghoulish lace. Her heart thumped in her chest, and she glanced up quickly to catch the old woman’s eyes. Carefully, she removed one sensible black shoe and peeled down the drooping pantyhose stocking, surprised to see it had been held up with a rubber band. She laid that gently to the side.

The stocking appeared to be stuck to the old woman’s heel. The girl tugged once, twice, and suddenly it popped loose, taking a bit of skin with it. Blood dripped, turning the water in the tub a pinkish hue.

Her gasp shattered the silence of the evening, and she quickly murmured apologies. The old woman flinched and tried to pull her foot away. Worse, the girl had dropped it, causing a splash in the pan. In all the stories of this night, she had never heard of such a thing. How could this be happening? It wasn’t just the blood, obviously from a blister on the old woman's heel, but something more her eyes couldn’t make sense of. The older woman’s toenails were thick, discolored, and misshapen, curling out and under her toes like claws. The skin around them was cracked and sore. It seemed impossible that she could ever fit them back into her shoe. How was she even walking? The girl had never seen a foot in such a state except in horror movies, movies she knew she wasn’t supposed to watch. Her stomach twisted. The old woman’s face went rigid with shame. A slight moaning sound escaped as the old woman tried to lift her foot from the cool water. “I can’t reach them to clip them anymore,” she whispered so softly that the girl wasn't sure if she had heard it or thought it in her mind.

The silence swallowed all of the air in the room. Sweat prickled on the girl’s forehead and upper lip as she tried to breathe. Everyone nearby stilled; she felt the weight of their eyes.

She had to pick up that foot, had to hold it in her hand and pour water over it, as the ritual demanded. She wanted to complete the act, to wash the old woman's foot carefully and all her toes in reciprocation. It was what this night demanded from each one of them. But all she could do was stare at the wounded foot, her hands limp and unobedient at her sides, thinking, 'I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to fix this!’

The water stilled, pink, cold, and the silence remained heavier than before.

Somewhere in the back, a single chair creaked, then even that small sound was swallowed by the stillness.

 

Acknowledgment to Reedsy.com for providing the prompt:

"I don't know how to fix this!" contest 323, which inspired the story.

  https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/