Turbulence

This is a fictional take on a symbolic dream I had very recently. Most of the story is the exact elements of the dream, but some adjustments were made for clarity and length.

Turbulence

 

        This island get-away is sublime. The beach is littered in people I know and love. The air is intoxicating with its scents of ocean mists and sand. Around the small islet of pure white sand the waters are deepest blues, almost crystal. The clarity is nearly unreal.

        As I lay back on my chair, peering through the dark sunglasses and over the suntan lotion covering my nose, I drift into the strongest sense of comfort I have ever felt. The light breeze blows gently over my skin and across the beach, carrying with it the sounds of laughter and happy conversations. Almost with ethereal grace I hear pieces of conversation carried by the winds, fragments and words of memories and events both past and future.

        A friend approaches me, her outstretched hand reaching towards me as she smiles and stands in front of the gentle sun. The light behind her illuminates her even more greatly, forming a halo around a mane of blonde dreadlocks taken up in a loose ravel behind her head. She purses her lips and looks at me with a familiar grin, beckoning me away from my comfortable rest.

        I sit up half way and her hand. As I stand my feet touch the sand for the first time, and the warmth it holds from the long day's sunlight feeds comforting warmth through me. We begin to walk towards the water, her hand in my mine and the breeze urging me forward towards the crystal blue shore. The sand becomes heavier as it becomes wetter around the shore, cooling my warm souls.

        I step for the first time into the gently lapping waves at the very edge of the water. The waves lap at my ankles and the water is almost too warm to be true. There is no chill, no icy feeling as my nerves adjust to a strong temperature differential. I stand for a moment to enjoy the embrace of the water, welcoming and caressing my feet as they sink into the softer sand.

        She tugs softly on my hand, tightening her grip momentarily to remind me she is there. She is standing arms length ahead of me, impatient to become immersed within the swells. I smile and step forward further into the waters. We are soon emerged to waters above our waists. I approach her from behind and wrap my arms around her waist, resting my chin against her shoulder. She leans her head to the side against mine and we float with the currents.

        I check my pocket for my cell phone.

        It is there.

        I am comforted.

        I will need it.

        She sees my attentions diverted and moves my hands to her lower waist, pressing her back firmer against mine. I smile, and she splashes water at me. I close my eyes and laugh falling backwards and splashing water at her. She laughs and moves forward after me. We continue our aqua assault until we are too tired to laugh and smile any longer.

        The laughter slowly dies and we come together to embrace. I gaze for long eternities into her eyes, her smiles and expressions changing in my peripheral. We converse with only facial expressions for longer eternities.

        I take a moment to look back at the beach, to see the joy of the rest of the world that I know and hold dear. The crowds of laughing and conversing people have separated into two distinct groups. All eyes are staring forward at me with hands to their sides. Every expression is different. The water goes cold.

        To one side of the beach stands those I know and love. Their faces are riddled with mixed emotions ranging between sadness and anger. Those I hold closest gaze at me as if I have fallen from on high, my pedestal cracked and the stairs of ascension crumbling. Those I know only briefly but feel trust in plead with their eyes, asking, “Why? Why have you done this?”

        Their opposite faction stands a distance away from them, clearly defining their alternative beliefs. These people stand at strong posture. Their eyes glitter with joy and smiles cover every face. People I once knew but no longer see, people I have never met. Here and their I see a random passer-by I know from a street corner or a brief meeting in a store. Groups of people are giddy and conversing, the wind blows to me, “What a cute couple!” Their excitement is inspiring. Their naivete is appalling.

        I feel a finger on my chin. It pulls my face gently away from my view of the crowd. I turn to look her in the eyes. She smiles and shakes her head softly, wordlessly mouthing, “..No..” I am confused and bewildered, but I feel within myself a strong longing to agree, to ignore the gazes of the world around me.

        She leans forward and kisses me. For the briefest of moments she pulls back and looks at me questionably, almost ashamed she had taken the risk. Before she has time to look to my eyes for an answer I have moved forward, pulling her into me and returning the kiss. She melts into me and I hold her closer, letting the waves pull us with the current.

        I feel as if I am falling, the tug of the waves and currents giving me an even more weightless feel. I keep my eyes closed and feel her cup my face as I support the back of her neck, running my fingers through the locks of her hair. Though my eyes remain closed, I notice the world around us, outside of our collective personal space, becoming darker. The waves pull harder, and I feel the water around us receding as quickly as a white water rapid.

        With barely a notice, I recognize my feet touching soft sand. At first it is cool and damp, and quickly become as dry as the sand I first place my feet upon when she offered her hand to me.

        It feels like an eternity ago that I stepped away from my comfortable view of friends and family to play in these waters.

        I become too curious of the world around me to continue. I break away from the kiss to glance around. As I open my eyes she is shaking her head, her eyes still closed and her lips still pursed, whimpering, “No..No,” begging me not to stop. I instead give her a quick peck on her pursed lips and step back to look around.

        The world has become a different place. The crowds of people upon what was once the shore are now a single multitude. All bodies are still, standing at straight posture gazing upward directly above me. All face have become emotionless and void, unconcerned. The beach seems darkened, a shifting shadow that ends behind the crowd of people where the sun still shines strong upon the sand.

        I gaze upwards to the line of sight of those around me. A wave of torrential force, standing so high its imminent threat is undeniable, is quickly approaching the shore. Fear races through me and I turn to find her. She is nearly twenty feet away from me somehow, standing completely still and facing me. The look on her face is so saddening that my heart nearly stops.

        My phone vibrates. I remove it from my pocket.

        New text message. I read it.

        I can't understand it. I reply.

        Message sending. Send Damnit.

        I look up, the wave is directly above me, the apex soon about to crash around everything. I look to the other side of the circular island. There is another wave coming of equal size. There is no hope for everything I know. There will be tribulation, and it will consume us all. We can only brace for impact and pray for strength to swim the waters that threaten to consume us.

        I look down at my phone. Message Sent.

        I look up to see her. She is clutching the phone to her chest and crying, strong torrential tears pour from her face. Her wrists bleed like sieves, soaking the pure white sand below her a murky crimson. As the blood touches the grains, it begins to boil.

        I look up and have no time for anything as the wave begins to crest around me. I clutch my phone to my chest as I feel it vibrate. An immense longing within me demands I read it, though I will have no time to brace myself.

        I slide my phone open. Fear runs through me.

        New text message. Read Now.

        “I'm sorry. I can't.”

        The waves hit me from behind, throwing me to the sand. Before my body hits the earth the water has already taken it over. I fall within turbulence and fight for the surface, swimming against currents stronger than I will ever be.

        Willpower drives me forward as I fight to survive. My life becomes insignificant over the conquest. My decisions are instinctual. My mind is blank. My eyes are clouded.

        I break the surface and gasp for air, sea salt pouring into my lungs, the sound of gulls crying in the distance. There is a sound of swiftly rushing water around me. I think of the other wave, I think of physics.

        Two Waves, one islet. Angles against tide.

        WHIRLPOOL.

        This fight will never end. I look to where I believe the islet was, and I begrudge my ability to be so accurate. The whirlpool pulls against me, heaving me towards it's center. I will never survive if I swim against, it is inescapable, I will only become more tired. I let the current pull me, and prepare my only means of escape.

        I am sucked beneath the waves without swirling through the deluge. I sink down the funnel to the ocean floor. The world beneath the waves is calm. There are no bodies, there is no sign of the chair I was rested so comfortably upon. I use the force of being pulled under to swim frantically away from the center. I hear a voice in my mind and turn.

        She is within the cylinder, her arm outstretched, pleading with me to return to her, to endure this ideal. I look in my hands as I feel something in them.

        Message. Send New.

        “I'm sorry. I can't.”

        

Author's Note

Bear in mind it is littered with symbolism and philosophical prose. Any strangeness in the prose, or flow is intended to convey the surreal aspects of its original dream origins.