Truth

Agua Fria {Short Story}

Her hand shook. She stared at it for a little bit, saw how pale it seemed- almost like a wan seashell- against the backdrop of the water. She shivered and trembled, but managed to stay firmly planted on the old dock.

She wondered, for a moment, what she’d look like to a passerby. Perhaps they’d see a young girl with one arm wrapped around her stomach, the other unseen in front of her. She would be wearing a coral-pink sweater her grandma had given her for Christmas, and they would probably think she was here just to look out at the growing waves.

She had been there for over an hour. Her hand still shook and her eyes burned and her vision blurred so much that she couldn’t see where the sea ended and the sky began. She heard herself sob. She’d been trying to stop it, but it came out anyway. Another wail was ripped from her vocal cords, then another and another, flowing up into the sky. She was briefly afraid someone might notice, but it was a small town and so, so early in the morning. So no one would see.

Her knees hurt. They had buckled and her body fell like the ragdoll she used to play with as a little girl, jarring her whole skeleton as they collided with the sturdy wood of the dock. Her hands started to hurt, too, as she crawled toward the edge, closer and closer to the water. Her sight had cleared enough for her to see the water crash up against the little port. She stopped and lowered herself onto her side, bringing her face to the edge to breathe in the saltiness and feel the cool water droplets splatter quietly against her skin.

She breathed fast and silently. She couldn’t move anymore; she didn’t have it in her. She just kept her eyes closed and laid there because it didn’t matter much and she wanted to see if she could just be there with no thoughts or actions or reasons. She wanted to see if she could just be.

The ocean rumbled and her heart did, too; her hair flew with the wind as it lifted the bright strands up from the damp, algae covered dock. It rumbled and the wind howled and her breath puffed out inaudibly. But that was okay.

The gun, it was back behind her about a foot. It had dropped out of her hands the same time she had dropped onto the deck, both descents making a similar plop kind of sound. She must have fallen asleep when she decided to lie down beside the ocean, because she never did wake up.  

She was found by a group of people that need not be mentioned, and was buried in a place that need not be mentioned, either. That night, however, when the moon was up and the wind took precedence over all other sound, she- whatever her name may be- was taken back to that dock to go swim for eternity, leaving only a trail of salty water as she took the water’s ever-present hand.