Fleeting

The seagulls cawed, their cries echoing in the the lifeless gray sky. The sea breeze blew at the little girl standing on the dock, sweeping her brown hair into her eyes, but the girl made no move to move it away. The salty tears stung the little scrapes on her cheeks, ones she had gotten from rubbing them raw trying to dry the tears on her face. She couldn't call it crying though. It was mourning. And disbelief.

She didn't believe that her dad had died. Died right in this very sea.

"I'll be back soon," was what he had said. "Don't wait for me at lunch."

He never came back.

It took a week for them to find a body. But it wasn't his body, his so alive and full of joy, his who had made her laugh and smile, his who she had hugged everyday. This one was marred by clumps of seaweed, and shells and was starting to rot. The body couldn't be his. He couldn't have died, much less drowned. He was a great swimmer.

"A freak storm," They had told her.

They were the freaks, she had decided. They were the freaks. There was no storm and her dad wasn’t dead.

Her mother was very concerned. Signed her up to meet with a hundred different psychiatrists, all poking and prodding and asking her questions and couldn’t they see that it all didn’t matter, that they thought her dad was dead because she knew he was alive?

She knew he would come back. She knew he would not abandon her. So that was why she was standing here, on that dock, waiting for him to come home.

Her mother called her name in false concern. She knew her mom didn’t care. Her dad had been the one that had taken care of her while her mother played poker with friends. When he was gone fishing everyday, she would lock her own daughter in her room, and had threatened her not to say a word to her dad, lest she face the consequences.

She turned around, to yell at her mother to leave, that she was fine and didn’t need anyone’s false pity, and that she wanted to be left alone, but her mom had already left. She turned back to the ocean, back to the place her father had gone and never returned.

And then she saw her dad, right there, in the middle of the sea. He was about ten yards away, suspended on the water. It was him, still in his fishing clothes, with that old hat that he used to let her wear on occasion.

"Dad!" she called. He waved, then beckoned. He was smiling, the way he used to after he came home from fishing, bringing back what would become a delicious meal. He wanted her to come with him.

Her foot was off the dock and into the water, before she told it to. Her other foot submerged. There she was, walking in the water, toward her dad. She didn't care if he was impossibly standing on water, floating in the air. He was there, and it was all she cared about.

"Dad," she called again, her voice filled with happiness. Walking forward as if she were hypnotized. "Dad! Dad..."

She had told them he would come back. They hadn't even pretended to listen. And there he was, right there.

"Dad." She sobbed, stumbling, now waist deep into the water. Tears rolled down her cheeks. "I waited for you, they didn't believe me, you came back..."

He simply nodded, as if in understanding. He had always understood her, he had always loved and believed her, unlike the rest of them. Then he spread his arms wide as if he were waiting for her to run into his arms. He was still smiling.

She quickened her pace.

She heard someone call. Her mother."What are you doing? Where are you going?"

“To Dad!” she responded, fighting back tears of joy.

"Don't! There's no one there!"

She ignored her mother. Nothing her mother --her cold, hard, unbelieving mother-- said would make her stop believing that her dad was here.

"You stop this instant!" Her mother yelled. "Help! Anyone!"

She was shoulder deep in water now.

“Don’t!” Her mother screamed, but she was far too gone to listen.

The last thing she saw before her head went under was her dad walking toward her, and smiling. She smiled back, then reached out to hug him...

Then she was lost.