The bright blue sky looks grey to me. These days, it could be any color and still seem stormy. I finally have the strength to go back to the beach. Despite my mother’s urging to let go of the past, it’s been years since I’ve gone. I was too scarred to ever go within fifty feet of a shoreline. I have only just learned to tolerate the sound of seagulls. They have a horrible grating call, laced with a sadness that only reflected what I felt inside.
You usually hear about a drowning on the news, when they shove some poor reporter into the wet sand, wearing only a windbreaker and a flimsy hat, and they tell about when the person died, and why, and how this beach can’t be safe anymore and everyone is mourning. They never tell you, though, about the witnesses, or how they felt as the drowning person’s eyes no longer see, and how it looks when they victim recognize their inevitable fate. You have to see it to understand.
I had snuck out that day. I wanted to see what the ocean looked like when illuminated by lightning. I thought it would be cool, and I would have a story to tell my friends -- I was that daredevil who went swimming during a storm. I was sure no one would notice I was gone.
The man was large enough to be seen at twilight. I stood a few feet away from the waves, squinting in an attempt to make out his blurred form flailing frantically in the churning waves. I heard his shouts over the wind, though I had to strain my ears. Only now do I know why he was really out there.
“Help!” The gravelly voice traveled across the water. It was all I needed to dive in. I only got so far before my toes couldn’t reach the sandy ocean floor. It was raining hard by then. I kept going. The foolish idea of saving him flashed before my eyes, and then winning many medals and honors, which would be accompanied by vast amounts of ice-cream cake. My eight-year-old self did not understand that it was raining and grumbling in the distance, which means thunder, which means lightning, which means possible death by electrocution. I did not understand that I could not save the man. I was outweighed by a few hundred pounds.
I didn’t have much further to go, when I heard my mother’s voice echoing over the distance that separated us. That meant she had looked in my bed and noticed my absence. She always knew where to look.
“Mara, get out of that water right now! I mean it Mara!”
I turned around to face her, still treading water bravely. I didn’t know what to do. Someone was dying not far from me, but my mother, a formidable force of nature, was calling me. I chose to ignore her. So I swam further from shore, towards the man. I could no longer hear my mother, but I saw her run down the dune and begin to swim.
“Sir? Are you okay?” There was no answer. I gripped his arm tightly, and pulled, trying to drag him back to dry land. I looked around frantically for my mother. I yanked his arm, hard. All I heard was gurgling, and his head went under. I struggled to pull him up, this time I was partly successful. I was getting tired now. I didn’t know what to do, so I kept trying.
He sank further down, like a rock. I tried one more time,half heartedly, knowing that I couldn’t pull him all to the choppy surface.
One more time, he pulled himself to the surface, barely clinging to life.
“Go! Save yourself. I ca --” His voice trailed off, lost among the howling of the wind. A flash of light illuminated his face. And I watched, horrified, as his bright blue eyes became blank and unfocused, as the light behind them dimmed, and as his body slowly floated upwards, in almost a graceful manner. I recoiled in shock, and began to cry, knowing that he had died and that I had done nothing.
Now, I try to tell myself that I couldn’t have saved him, that he was huge man, that I was a scrawny kid who had no muscles, that there had been a storm raging around me . But I agonized over it. I thought if I had gotten there faster, he would have lived. I could have to kept the light shining in his eyes. I could not alleviate the feeling of remorse I felt for many days afterward.
Someone came and grabbed me from behind, pulling me away firmly. I knew from the grasp that it was my mother, come to rescue me. Her face was gray, ashen, as she swam slowly but steadily back to shore. The only sounds were the rumbling waves, the torrential rainfall, and my sobbing, which seemed to rise above everything else. I reached back, and tried to escape her arms, but she held me close in a tight grasp only a mother possesses.
“There’s nothing you can do Mara. Nothing,” she said softly, barely audible over the sound of my agony. We reached shore, and I was wrapped in a warm towel. The police appeared before I could blink, and tried to ask me questions, but I didn’t respond. They decided I was traumatized, and left me alone. But then came the questions, and I tried to answer them. I really did. For appearance, I could only say that he had had bright blue eyes, but I did not mention the look they had given me as all hope faded from their depths.