Old Man by the Sea

How cool the water must be, on the other side.

An old man sits by the ocean and watches the ships sail by, slowly against the horizon, so much so that it seems they are not moving at all. Wispy waves crash into shore, shooting tendrils of water up towards the man's bare feet. He watches and he watches. The tide rises further and further. Eventually the waves are up to his waist, and he has no plans to move. Wouldn't it be nice to be enveloped by the ocean? To just sink away like a despondent anchor. The old man would be like the bones of his son, that lay at the bottom of the ocean, since three years ago this day. The water is so cold, and yet it promises relief from life's bitter chill.

A boy strolls by and sees the man, his eyes glinting through the sparkling sun. He runs up to the man and puts his warm hands around his cold shoulders. The old man's skin is dominated by a faint hue of purple and blue, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. The month is March, and the waters have yet to be swimmable, especially for an old man. The boy grabs the old man by shoulders and lifts him out of the water, the man resists ferociously. His old legs kick up and his arthritic hands ball into fists. He lands a few graceless punches on the boys arm. At last the boy manages to drag the old man out, panting to the rhythm of the crashing waves.

The old man sits up for a moment, a tear falls from his eye, he then collapses back into the coarse sand. He opens his eyes and begins to stare straight into the sun. The boy suddenly enraged, grabs the man by the shoulder and twists him downward. The old man looks up to him with resentment glinting in his eyes and curling on his lower  lip. “Why'd you grab me, you prick”. “Why'd you try to freeze yourself”. The man crosses his arms and lets his chest droop down. “I was supposed to die today… this was my time”. The boy looks at him with sympathetic eyes, but gave to him only a haughty laugh. “Kill yourself, in the ocean, have you gone mad”. The old man looks back towards the boy and begins to cry, the tears are dusty, as if they had been sitting on a shelf waiting to be freed for some time now. “If you excuse me…”, the old man gets up slowly and turns to face the ocean. He begins walking, slowly.

As soon as he nears the water the boy stops him once more. “Stop, you crazy old man”. The old man turns around and faces the boy. He smiles, a long worn out smile, a smile that endures despite having lost all its meaning long ago. “I'm going to die now”. The boy puts his hand on his shoulder “But why?”. The man looks at him for a second, as if the boy is the one pronouncing his resignation from life. “Life gave to me sorrow. Life gave to me happiness. For a while sorrow and happiness existed together, but eventually sorrow won out. Now all that is left in my heart is darkness, and I want desperately to see the light”.

The boy sat down and took his hand off of the old man's shoulder. “You were a poet at one point?”. The man nodded, but spoke something different “I am human. That's all I know”. “Why kill yourself now, you have so little of life left to live”. The man sighed once more, he seemed to let free all the energy he possibly had left inside him. “It simply took me this long to realize that life just isn't worth it”. The boy stood up on his feet, tears swelling in his eyes. “I think you’re wrong”. The boy stared into the old man’s blue eyes and suddenly saw a younger version of who this wrinkled person is. The old man's chin was pointed and his eyes were greyish-blue, the faintest whisper of brown intermingles with the man's pronounced grey hair. The man began to walk away.

“Hey, where are you going?”. “Home”. “Wheres home?”. The man did not answer back, instead he simply kept walking. His feet creating footprints in the wet sand as he walked away. The boy sprinted up next to him. “Are you really going home?”. “Of course”. “Well I will walk back with you then”. The two strode next to each other for a half mile. As they walked the sun began to set. At a set of stairs falling into the shore, the man turned and climbed them until he reached the porch of his house. He waved off the boy. The boy reluctantly walked away.

That night the boy did not sleep. All he could imagine was the man being enveloped by a giant wave. In his heart he believed nothing would happen to the man, and yet he felt fear stronger than any he had ever before. At daybreak, the boy got up and snuck out of his house. From their he ran down to the ocean until he reached the turnoff to the man's house. He ran up the steps and stopped at the porch. He turned around to face the water, by instinct.

The scene was glorious. The sun rose from the peaceful ocean, as if drawn by Helios himself, and birds chirped gleefully while diving for fish. In the distance the boy could see the man, he could also see a large wave. The two met together, as life and death inevitably do, and that was it. No more life for the old man. The sun still shone spectacularly.

The boy walked over to where the man once was. He didn't feel sadness, he didn't feel happiness, instead he felt enlightened. Death is a force that acts so quickly, it is kind to those that ask for it, and yet life is drawn out and continuous. Life is like the ocean while death is like the waves. The boy sat farther up on the shore, than where the old man was. In the sand he felt a piece of paper, it must have been a letter. The boy read the torn paper:

“I regret not dying, but rather for living so long. So long with the memories of my son, forever haunting me, even in my sleep. I let the ocean envelop me today, because I wish to be of nothing tomorrow. If anyone finds this letter, I wish to tell you to live your life to the fullest. There may come a day when you wish to live no longer, and know that their is always an open ocean. I couldve had years left to live, and yet today I die an old man. The death of an old man is nothing new, it is something as fundamental as life itself. Never die young, it is unnatural. One may come to the conclusion that they do not love life, but they may only truly know when they have grown old. If anyone misses me, know that I will miss not life, but those that extend their condolences”.

Adios

The boy sat down into the soft sand. He crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it into the water. Soon, it was gone forever. The boy wept like he had never wept before. He wept for the man, for the letter, for life, and for death. He will miss the man dearly, but perhaps he will meet him. Not when he is young. Never when he is young. When he is old, perhaps, a great wave will envelop him too. Perhaps.