Like most people,
the ocean has always fascinated me; its vastness, like the dark expanse of a
star studded sky, always thoroughly immerses me in the knowledge that
I am all too finite. Yet unlike the sky,
which fills with me with hope—as I marvel that the God who made the Cosmos knows
and cares for me—the sea overwhelms me with a sense of mystery marked with a
distinct undercurrent of fear.
In my mind’s eye
innumerable hosts of myriad forms of life teem just beneath the churning
surface, and my mind swims with the endless possibilities found in the massive
breadth and depth of the sea. Frankly,
it terrifies me.
Deep water has
always scared me and I know exactly why: there might be something down there. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that
the world isn’t as thoroughly explored, as completely known, and as neatly
explained as the scientific establishment tells us. The attitude that modern man has uncovered
all the earth’s deepest secrets—that that are no mysteries left on earth—that
is so universally displayed by the major scientific media is pure hubris.
I find it
incomprehensible that every time a discovery is made of some entirely new
species, every time an animal that had been label ‘extinct’ is found alive and
well, every time a once legendary creature is found to actually exist, the
scientific community somehow manages to spin the story to communicate that the
last great mystery of the world has been found and that we know everything
there is to know and that there can be no more new, undiscovered creatures
anywhere in the world, when each and every instance of discovery proves just
the opposite!
Thus it is that I
have never outgrown the fervent hope and the niggling terror that one day I
might encounter one such unknown entity.
That possibility has always seemed the most likely, and thus the most
terrifying, when I’m in or on deep water.
I have never allowed this fear to stop me from enjoying the water,
however. Despite the ever-present fear
that something dark, silent, and powerful might drag me under anytime I was in
water over my head, I grew up fishing, swimming, and canoeing on the Tennessee
River, and I have thoroughly enjoyed every trip I’ve made to and on the ocean. The river grants a peaceful restoration of
the soul through its serenity, and the crash of the ocean surf mesmerizes me into
a restful, trance-like state of mind through its ceaseless shushing.
Tonight, though,
something new happened to me. The water,
as nice as it is, is not a human’s natural habitat, and being on terra firma
has always provided me with the sense of security which comes from being in
one’s element. It was only when I was in the water that I feared that something might get me—until tonight.
It was quite late
and I sat on the shore of Oak Island under the dark of an overcast and moonless
sky watching the Elizabeth River surge into the sea as I silently and sleepily pondered
life and enjoyed leisurely smoking my pipe.
Because of the current of the river and the shape of the bay, there was
almost no surf where I was and the water was surprisingly calm—until the wake
of a boat long since out of sight finally reached the shore. The long wake lines were at an angle to the
beach in front of me and as they crashed in they created an illusion of a long
procession of great, dark fish rushing along the beach in the shallows, each
one leaving behind a thin foam wake that slashed up the beach in front of
me. Without interrupting my thoughts,
these huge, illusory ‘fish’ reminded my subconscious of the life teeming in
those waters.
A cold fog rolled
in across the water from my right, reducing visibility to a few feet and suddenly
the constant, rapid pounding of the surf on the shore became the synchronized
steps of thousands of feet, and the numerous, raising ripples of the boat’s
wake became rank upon rank of soldiers marching forward out of the water to
capture the beach after having been dropped, like paratroopers all is a line,
in the shallows by the great fish speeding by me. As the fog thickened the organic, steam-like
sounds of a pod of porpoises blowing became the sound of mermen breathing and
the phantasmal army was upon me.
Never before had
the thought occurred to me that something might come out of the water and get me, but suddenly my comfortable illusion
of safety disappeared as completely as my pipe smoke in the fog.
It required every
ounce of my will power to refrain from running screaming back to the lodge.
As the wake
passed up the beach the army marched inland until the sound of their footsteps
was no more and the fog slowly cleared.
Never before had my imagination so completely terrified me and as the
last patch of fog, which had seemed to linger around me feeding off my smoke,
finally wafted away leaving me alone I sat perfectly still and trembled in the
silence as I contemplated an idea for a new story.
© Andrew J.
Goggans 2012
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