The food had been delicious, but
she wasn’t really here to eat. This,
though – the shoreline, the late afternoon sun on the waves, the exotic flowers
– this was a feast for the eye. Sure, a
lot of it was typical stuff she’d shot dozens of times before, but she never
tired of this kind of nature. That’s why
her editor had sent her out here: she had an eye for beauty, and a knack for
catching that rare perspective.
She
caught sight of movement along the shore – a slight shadow cast up from the
waves: a small crab, crawling between two indentations. Careful not to move too quickly, she raised
her camera – always ready in her right hand – and zoomed in, focusing on the
shelled scavenger just as it came to a small crest in the sand.
Click.
The sound of immortality. She
glanced at the playback on the LCD and nodded to herself, then looked up
without standing to see if any other surprises might lie along the shore. Behind her, the rest of the tour group was
still eating, the noise of their conversation and cutlery barely carrying over
the waves crashing some ten yards in front of her. She closed her eyes momentarily, feeling the
warmth of the sun on her face compete with the slight spray of mist from the
ocean.
Opening
her eyes, something made her scan to the right.
Here, the smooth shoreline was interrupted by a long finger of volcanic
rock that reached out into the ocean, a remnant of some eruption long ago. Waves and time had eroded it, breaking it in
places, but as her eye followed along, it still bore up to the crashing of
waves along its sides.
But
there, at the end, was something she hadn’t expected. Someone was standing at the edge of the
finger, facing out towards the sunset.
She was maybe a five hundred feet away, but, by build and stance, she suspected
it was a man, young or at least young-looking, lean but muscular. He wore no clothing that she could discern,
but his skin was so tanned that a jerkin or thong could easily blend in. He stood there, right foot slightly behind
left, knee bent with right heel off the ground, arms hanging loosely at his
sides.
The sun
was almost touching the horizon now, and the warm orange glow it cast bounced
off of him. She could only see him in
partial profile from the left and rear, but even at this angle, he seemed to
radiate with the sun. Even his hair,
whatever color it was naturally, appeared as almost a liquid gold in the
reflected sunset.
This
was a moment that couldn’t be missed.
She braced herself again, legs slightly cramping from the long-held crouch,
and raised her camera. Through the
telephoto lens, she could make out more details – he indeed wore nothing but
some kind of white necklace. His left eye
seemed closed, and his breathing a slow, regular movement. The stance was almost meditative, and she
framed the shot – his body, the camera slightly below and shooting up even at
this great distance, the barest top of the black rock, and the crashing waves –
and pressed the release.
Click.
She glanced down at the preview and saw she’d timed it perfectly – the
merest traces of a crashing wave seemed to frame the body. Out of
some curiosity, she used the preview’s zoom function to enhance a portion of
the shot, narrowing down on his face: high cheekbones, defined jaw, and the
barest hint of a smile. She smiled at
that smile. What it must be like, to be
out on that rock.
Her
legs started to protest, and she slowly stood, still facing the man out on the
finger. She turned towards the sun to
find other subjects when she heard someone behind her say, “There’s some naked
dude on the rocks out there.”
She
smiled to herself, and said over her shoulder, “He’s not entirely naked.” She did not
say, “He’s wearing a necklace,” because while that made her first statement
technically true, she knew it wouldn’t satisfy.
But, from this distance, no one else was likely to be able to tell
anyway.
“Oh,”
came the young male voice, “cool.” She
thought that was all and started to position for a shot of the last bit of the
setting sun reflected off the waves when the voice said, “I wonder what he’s
doing.”
She
remembered the closed eyes, and the smile, and the relaxed stance. As she framed a couple standing in the tide
with the sun behind them, she said only one word. “Listening.” …
…
Sensation was total.
Through
closed eyes, he saw the heat of the sun.
On bare skin, he felt the cool of the pacific, the warmth of rays, the
breath of wind. Through his feet, he
felt the pounding of the waves against the rock. From his nose came the smell of the ocean,
salty and sweet.
But the
sound… that was what he sensed the most.
Standing here, a hundred feet offshore, the roar of the wind and waves
engulfed him. A reef just beyond his
perch and stretching north broke the waves early in this cove, the remnants
crashing into the rocks that seemed to amplify the sound and echo it back at
him. The closest he’d ever come to this
sensation was standing in front of a speaker at a club in Milan and feeling the
music radiate through him. He almost
felt like part of the waves, like he shattered and reformed with every roar.
He
always missed this, and he always came back to it.
The
light on the back of his eyelids changed slightly, and he opened them to see
the sun crossing the horizon. Clouds in
the sky looked like streaks of fire and smoke.
He watched as it slowly sank until there was barely a sliver left. Just as the last bit settled behind the sea,
he dove head-first, timing his jump so that he entered the water in a trough
between waves. If he missed his timing,
the ocean would smash him back into the rocks, but he never missed. Almost in defiance, the next wave turned out
to be a rogue, and the crash and surge shot water over the rock taller than his
head had been.
When it
passed, there was no sign he’d ever been there…
… As
soon as the sun had set, she glanced back over at the finger of rock, but the
man wasn’t there. She quickly looked
down the length, then down what she could see of the shoreline, but there was
no sign of him. He’d simply vanished.
Oh
well, she had her shots, including of him.
She’d combine these with some from earlier in the day and make a spread
for her editor. She capped her lens as
she turned and walked back up the sand to the dining area, the rest of the
guests generally heading in the same direction.
“Get
anything good?” asked one of the guides.
She looked at him and smiled.
“Maybe. I’ll have to see when I get back to the
room.”
He
grinned slightly. “Get a shot of guy on
the rock?”
She
blushed at this, though she didn’t know why.
“Yeah, actually, and I think that one came out well.” Then she shrugged, saying, “I couldn’t pass
it up. He looked so…”
When
she lagged, he offered, “Peaceful?”
“Yeah.”
He
nodded and started walking towards one of the vans. “Yeah, he always looks like that.”
“You…”
she started, then moved to catch up.
“You’ve seen him before?”
Nodding
again as he opened the sliding door on the van, he said, “Yep. Not often; I think the last time was 6 months
or so ago. But when I do, it’s always at
sunset, and always on that rock.” He
motioned his head towards the other guides.
“They’ve seen him too, same story.
It’s a bit of a ‘thing’, you know?”
She
opened the front passenger door to the van and hopped up into the seat. She turned to him as she buckled her seat belt
and asked, “Does anyone know who he is?”
He
closed her door and leaned against it, talking quietly through the open
window. “I think the staff here
know. I’ve heard them refer to someone
as ‘ka mea nāna nā moe’, which means ‘the dreamer’ or ‘the visionary’. They call the beach by those rocks ‘kai moe’, the sleeping
shore. They’ll never answer a direct
question, though.”
“Are
they afraid?” she asked quietly; people were getting into the van now, and she
had a sense that this was a private conversation not for their ears.
“Not
afraid, no,” he said, shaking his head.
“More like, respectful, or even proud of a secret. I don’t know that I blame them.” He backed away and went to shut the sliding
door now that the last tourist was in.
She
leaned out and asked, “Why not?” as he passed by to walk around the front of
the van to the driver’s side.
He
climbed in, put on his seat belt, and put the key in the ignition. She figured he wouldn’t answer, but at the
last minute before starting the engine, he paused, leaned towards her, and
said, “Just looking at him out there makes me feel at peace. If you
knew someone who could do that, would you risk telling anyone?”
And
then he turned the key, called back to the group to hold on, and put the van in
gear. And as the wheels kicked up dust
and rocks behind them, she looked in the side-view mirror and glanced the end
of the finger of rock – kai moe – once more and had to admit that, no, she
wouldn’t. …
[I'm not sure where this is going to go - if anywhere - but I like how it's come out so far.]
