OCEAN

He had always felt as if other's voices were an intrusion of his own thoughts, and that is why he decided to reside in a place which offered nothing more than complete solitude and silence.

He spent several years in a cave, nestled deep inside the core of an ancient forest, until he moved to the ocean. I never understood why, until I realised that he was in need of its constant motion and the way it simulated life itself; never at a still, endless and vast. He never mentioned this in his letters, but eventually I figured it out, as he was always keen on praising the way the ripples behaved when he broke the water surface with his bare feet.

It was during times like these I wanted to remind him of the storms and hurricanes, that without mercy wiped the ocean clean of sailors and fishermen, and that the water sometimes is nothing more than a liquid mass of fury, encapsuled in the giant cavity that separate the continents.

In hindsight I realised that I just missed him, and that the frustration of being unable to watch him laugh or talk was the motor behind my will to provoke him. Luckily I never mentioned the storms. There had always been the risk that he would stop sending his letters, and the idea frightened me greatly.

At one point he claimed that the ocean had finally accepted him, and that they were living as a single entity. I guess that is when I started to truly worry about him. Yet I couldn't help myself from feeling calm and serene when reading about the surges of salty water, that, according to him, washed out the last traces of humanity from his body.

Eventually I realised his letters were the result of a deranged mind, thirst and starvation, and an immense sadness emerged inside of me. I decided to stop the correspondence and rinse my mind from his thoughts and ideas. Three letters arrived since that moment.

The following period of time was filled with the warmth and aroma of coffee; a local coffee shop had been in need of a pair of feet and a waist to which a green apron could be tied, as well as a radiant smile, capable of handling distinctive preferences in skimmed milk and sugar. The role was easy to fit when the need to forget overpowered any other impulse or emotion.

I worked as much as I could, day and night, until the smell of coffee penetrated the pores of my face and the fibres of my clothing.

I started to feel the need to erase all unneccessary components of my life. Furnitures were discarded, carpets and curtains folded into anonymous shapes, tucked in boxes and hidden in dark spaces.

At last there was nothing more naked walls, staring at me silently, embraced by sweet and cold january air. On the floor lied the three letters, as if they had been invisible to me during the whole time of my frantic cleaning.

I sunk down to my knees and opened the first one. Sand escaped from the envelope and ran through my fingers and a breeze of the ocean made its way through the apartment. Most of the text was unreadable, except for the following;

'Even the kindest of mothers reprimand their children'.

The second letter contained nothing but a hand print, drawn in a deep color, with an eerie resemblance to what is thicker than water.

The third letter contained three words that would conjure waves in my chest, greater than what has ever flowed through any ocean in the world. As I furiously ripped the letter apart, I realised I am thrice the fury of the ocean, thrice the solitude and loneliness that reeks in the shadows of all caves in the world combined, thrice the madness of trying to breathe under water, and thrice the warmth of coffee on a sunday morning.

The three words had been;

'I love you'

I stared at the pieces of paper, which immediately got caught by the wind and carried towards whatever realms of humanity that lied outside my window, and noticed that the ocean glimmered in the distance, beyond the structures and obstacles that were blocking its sight.

For a moment I wanted nothing more than to be able to walk on the empty planes that lied on the bottom of the ocean, which would submerge me, and finally embrace me as the kindest mother of all.

Perhaps one day, while strolling next to whatever under water creature that would favor my company, I'd see him there, waiting for me, and I'd apologize for not bringing any coffee.