The Boy At The Edge Of The Sea
So this is it.
Hell, I’m dying.
No — don’t ask me how or why. The doctor had news, he said, and delivered it the way men do when they want to appear gentle: quietly, politely, and straight between the eyes.
So I made a decision right there.
No long goodbyes.
No friends flying in with heavy hearts and heavier luggage.
No relatives standing around my bed trying to remember which version of me they liked best.
No.
I’ll make the farewell tour myself. Shake a few hands. Share a drink or two. Stay one day at most in any place. Leave them smiling if I can.
Then I’ll step quietly off the stage.
Perhaps before that happens I should write a few things down.
Funny how we all become philosophers when death clears its throat.
We begin to suspect that the hair on our heads, the eyelashes on our lids, even the smile we’ve worn for years were only borrowed. Temporary possessions, returning to their rightful owners when the tenant moves out.
Still… I don’t want to die.
Not yet.
At night sleep comes in fits and fragments. Sometimes I wake unsure whether I’ve been dreaming of life or simply wandering through it.
I peer into the darkness.
Slowly the room returns: pictures on the wall, the upholstered chair, the lamp, the rug.
Jesus.
I press my hands over my face and rub my eyes, trying to wake properly.
Perhaps we live several lives.
Four. Five. A dozen.
Or perhaps the spirit simply moves on and never quite finds its old address again.
I walk to the bathroom and splash water on my face. Tears arrive without permission.
Outside the first light of morning cuts a thin slit in the sky.
From the window I can see the ragged line of shoreline where I chose to spend my final years. The sea lies quiet this morning, breathing slowly.
I brush my teeth.
Why?
Would a condemned man worry about fresh breath on his final morning?
Habit, perhaps.
Habit is comforting.
Habit suggests tomorrow might still arrive.
In the mirror my eyes look older than the rest of me.
Did I do it right?
Did I give enough?
Did I love people the way they deserved?
I bury my face in the towel.
My heart feels too large for my chest.
Tea.
Strong tea.
That will help.
When I carry the cup into my study the dawn has become a soft yellow light.
The sea is calm today. No fog bank rolling in from the horizon.
And there, near the edge of the water, I see him.
A boy.
He runs along the surf where the waves collapse against the sand. He leaps and dances as if the sea were playing a game with him.
The waves try to grab his ankles.
He escapes them easily.
I watch him for a long time.
He appears completely alone.
No parents.
No friends.
Just a boy and the sea.
Something about him pulls at me.
Later, as I leave the house, I find myself thinking about that boy.
Such a boy.
Running wild along the shoreline.
I remember how deeply I once loved the sea — its loneliness, its hugeness, its mystery.
I knew even as a child that one day I would disappear into it to learn something more.
My twelfth birthday.
Late summer.
I try to remember.
Earlier… earlier still…
A child crawling along the shore.
A mother. A father.
A tinker's caravan once camped nearby.
Music drifting across the wind.
A mandolin.
And a boy running beside the tide.
His hair blown wild.
Eyes bright blue.
Hungry for the world.
Then suddenly he stands before me.
The first thing he offers is laughter.
Pure laughter.
It bursts from him like sunlight.
I laugh in return before I can stop myself.
He thrusts out a wet, sandy hand.
I hesitate.
He gestures impatiently.
“Come on, friend,” he says. “There isn’t much time.”
Such a boy.
Such a boy I might have loved as a son.
Then we are running.
Hand in hand.
Across the sand.
When we finally stop my heart is hammering against my ribs.
“Why is there so little time?” I ask.
He only grins and runs again.
When I catch him we tumble into the sand, laughing like fools.
I pin him down.
He gasps for breath.
And suddenly I leap backward.
The boy is me.
The shock hits like a punch.
“What do they call you, boy?” I ask.
He looks at me with clear blue eyes.
“Harry, sir. My name is Harry.”
I feel dizzy.
“Let’s walk a bit,” I tell him. “I’m an old man. My legs won’t keep up with you.”
We walk along the shoreline together.
The simplest thing in the world.
Two figures beside the sea.
Building castles.
Climbing dunes.
Mostly walking.
Our arms resting across each other’s shoulders as if nothing in the world could separate us.
Does he know who I am?
Does he sense that I am the life waiting ahead of him?
Perhaps he does.
Perhaps boys understand such things better than men.
After a while he stops and points toward the horizon.
“I’m going to sail right over that edge,” he says.
“The edge?” I ask.
“See where the world ends? That’s where I’m going.”
“And what do you think you’ll find there?”
He thinks a moment.
“I guess I’ll find what’s on the other side of the world.”
“You have to know, don’t you?”
He nods.
“I have to imagine it. No one ever came back to tell us.”
“And you think you will?”
“No,” he says. “But at least I’ll know.”
I smile.
“There’s a lot of sailing between here and that edge.”
“A lot?”
“Oh yes.
Storms.
Days when the sky burns gold.
Nights when the stars hang so low above your head you feel you might reach up and brush them aside.
All those places lie on the way to the edge.”
He studies me carefully.
“How do you know that, mister?”
I look out at the sea.
“Sometimes we sail near the edge without going over.
And once… someone came back to tell us there’s nothing to fear there.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.
Fear lives here.
Joy lives here too.
But beyond that edge… everything comes right.”
The boy says nothing.
He simply takes my hand again.
Together we walk into the sea.
The water rises slowly around our ankles.
Then our knees.
The wind softens.
The world grows quiet.
For the first time since the doctor spoke those terrible words, I feel no fear at all.
Because my life — every mile of it — is now held in the small, steady hand of a boy.
And together we wade calmly toward the horizon.