We are just shells

When I wasn’t in my bed sleeping, I was with my father watching the sun come up over the horizon. In the town I come from, the sun rises over the sea. I am sure of it, I will have seen it hundreds of times.

Here, however, it is the other way around, now the sun is setting over the sea. I can’t choose which one I prefer.

I have always looked at the sea, at least once a day since I was born.

It has never tired me, as a boy I used to go fishing with my father, during the day I would sleep. I was never much of a fisherman, I did it because I liked to go out at night with him, there are certain nights you never forget. When the sky is clear and there is a crescent moon, the sea is still and you are with the boat far from the coast; you could go crazy in front of the power of nature. Then you have to hold on, trust it, and at that point you get a thrill like when you see someone important again after a long time. On those nights I loved my father deeply, because he was as calm as everything around us, I felt protected by him.

Returning from one of these sea trips, I saw her for the first time.

Amira was with her grandfather at the port, repairing nets for the next day, Jamal was with them. Amira and I were together for eight years, apart for ten.

I thought about her all my life. Busy, sick, cooped up, traveling, away from everyone or in the center of the city. Amira, always Amira. 

Jamal is four years older than me, but he still looks like a boy. We write from time to time, two months ago he sent me a picture while he was in his grounds in the hills; maybe I would see him again, too.

Hands on the wet sand remind me that it has rained, a yawn without a hand in front reminds me that I am alone.

And I wait. 

I wait for news to come, for someone to call me with news. Or not, I stay waiting for no news to come. I would like to know-that nothing will ever be known.

It would mean to still have hope. The sea has always been that for me, my best friend. Mostly hope for food, for money, for seeing my father happy and nonviolent with us because the fishing day had gone well and he had not been drinking. I can still hear my brothers and my mother laughing heartily because the night’s spoils had allowed us the day’s meal.

I fill my lungs with air, hold it all in and my body remains still. My eyes move following the rhythm of the waves, I have no strength to get up, as if deep roots keep me planted in the sand. 

How can I still have faith in my friend the sea?

A man without hope is a man without anything. My friend has betrayed me, I look at him and think this of him, he leaves me alone with my hands in the sand.

With all my strength, as if trying in vain to lift a cliff, I move my arms and bring my hands closer to my face. They are slender, large, long, tapered fingers, I look at them.

In school the teacher said that with these hands I could play the piano. But then in life who ever saw a piano. But they are still nice hands, quite manicured, clean, now covered with sand, even under the nails. As a child I used to bite them, I still remember the taste of salt. Then I started smoking, it was no longer necessary to tear nails from my yellow fingers.

I know it’s cold, it’s winter, but I don’t feel it. I put my hands back on the sand and make them disappear under its waves, like a snake hiding before attacking its prey. I never thought about it, even in the sand there are waves. Don’t betray me you sand waves too, give me hope to go on.

It would be enough for me to go back to two days ago. It would be different, everything would change. It would take a space-time door that would challenge the whole universe. I’ve heard of black holes and white holes, maybe someone knows how to return the Earth to two days ago.

There has to be a way. I don’t know how to go forward if there is no way back.

Just give me back forty-eight hours of waves, my friend the sea owes me.

When I saw her at the harbor, Amira was sitting on the ground and resting her back on an old oyster pot. I turned my gaze toward her, attracted by the sound of her shell bracelet as she moved her hands to repair the trammel net.

That time I thanked the sea.

Cutro beach, February 26, 2023.

Walter Di Mauro