Waiting for Irene

Thoughts from West Meadow Beach, NY on a late August afternoon.

Gliding toward land, growing, swelling from within, then reaching maximum sustainable height, curling, speckled foam-white along its edge, finally producing sound as it spreads filament-thin and disappears into the sand and rocks below.  The whole process begins again and ends identically, an amplification of the previous day's performance, a lurid reminder of the destructive force that spins its way up through the East as vacationers fold up their chairs a little early this year and flee the Carolinas seeking higher ground. 

 

Winged, with belly white and feathers gray receding into black, he stands pretending not to notice me as I notice him, watching the same scene play out, 30.0 meters beyond the break, the little ones, brothers and sisters, friends and future classmates, run and skip magically across the surface of the water carrying green buckets and yellow-handled shovels and tiny nets for the snappers that swirl around their tiny ankles and across their toes. 

 

On land, teenage boys watch teenage girls and wait hoping to be noticed, teenage girls watch other teenage girls with envy in their hearts and sadness in their eyes, a bronzed torso dressed in coarse spinning black hairs, an ill-fitting black one-piece sharing secrets better left untold. 

 

In the shade under the stone gazebo, sitting on stone benches, at stone tables, surfaced with stone chessboards, the old folks share the details of the day, the morning, the previous evening, and the preceding week, details about which only an octogenarian could pretend to care, a skill doubtlessly acquired over decades of enduring such discourses.

 

We wait patiently - the swells, the winged, the young, the old, and those that inhabit the vast expanse between - balanced between 2.0 polar emotions, a morbid curiosity about the violent event that awaits us all, and a fear of the unknown and of loss.  The best that any one of us can do is to prepare

and hope

and wait. 

Reviews

[CLUTZ]

I think my favorite line is
"...teenage boys watch teenage girls and wait hoping to be noticed, teenage girls watch other teenage girls with envy in their hearts and sadness in their eyes, a bronzed torso dressed in coarse spinning black hairs, an ill-fitting black one-piece sharing secrets better left untold."
This was fantastic, the imagery, the memories it brings up, it was just amazing. I don't think there's anything you could change, it's perfect as is.

[Jack Isaac]

Excellent write! Great imagery at the beginning, very poetic. Great set up and foreshadowing with the wave's ebb and flow. Recommend letting the foreshadowing enance your story by not giving away the nature of the impending doom so quickly. The reader might be intrigued in thinking like this:

"Leaves me wondering of impending shark or storm --I'll bet it's not what one would expect, can't wait for the surprise!"

The boys waiting on the beach for the girls is also an excellent foreshadow for "waiting for Irene". I'd like to see you take this to the next chapter.