No glass broke.
No blood spots, no spectacle.
When death slipped in, it came so quiet, like the sound of holding a breath. It danced in, on its tiptoes, with a tight smile on its face. It came the way that it wanted; unfairly, stealthily, with nimble fingers and a purpose. There was no hesitation and when it left, it turned on its heel and went abruptly, with the sound of stage lights turning off.
All evidence erased itself in the tide. No one saw the big moment because it was so small, and in that fact is the unfairness of everything. Perhaps it had made the tiniest sound, like a beatle shell being crushed. That noise never made it out of his body, and certainly not over the crash of the waves. Mike was the only one who heard, in the way that you can only hear those kinds of body sounds within yourself. His four little beatles, crushed right behind his ears, made the smallest and largest sound of his life. And no one was there to see.
He rode in on a different wave than he had wanted to.
Triage began immediately, and swiftly.
All procedures and protocols were observed. Minutes mattered to those folks, as did following the rules. The rules that exist, partially because they are the right way, the best way, the safest thing, those rules make it possible for the rule followers to deal with the mundane realities of death.
But those minutes were the lost minutes, in someone else’s reality. They meant something only to those who were there. For her, who was not, imagine the cruelty.
There was life, loud and frentic, enjoyable and hard; there was a slow and fast moment in the water, a soundless execution; then reaction. For some, sinking hearts; for others, adrenaline. Many many many footprints were left in the sand. The best was done, and then time moved on. People returned to their blankets, sandcastles, umbrellas, the surf. The water lapped at the shore. Time marched on and took an inch or two of sand back with it, every ten minutes.
So when she returned from her walk, very little evidence remained. She had missed the worst show of her life.
She brushed the sand from her shins, sat down in the faded striped beach chair that had made it through a fair number of seasons. She found the sensible bottle of spf 50, which was about two years old and did not provide this level of sun protection any more. She slathered her skin with it and opened the paperback book to page 73 of the 286. She read two sentences and looked out at the ocean. She studied the figures in the water, bobbing and practicing the zen art of waiting on the Jersey Shore. She zeroed in on a familiar silouette, and satisfied, focused her eyes again on page 73.
She would soon put down that book forever, never to pick it up again. In the next year, she would squint her eyes, as if looking into a bright light, blinding her, if she saw that book atop a table at Barnes & Noble or Borders or in the book and magazine section of Costco. It will be displayed in an imposing tower formation, and it will take all that she's got at times to resist crumbling to the ground and crawling under that pile of books.
She will never touch this book again, and she will religiously avoid crossing paths it when possible. She will learn.
But before all of this, she will enjoy another page or two of this light reading, in the sun, fine grains of sand sticking to the pages. When the chapter is finished, she will stretch her legs in the sand, scan the horizon with intention and purpose. A faint feeling will begin to creep in; first in her head, only vague and undefined. It is like a fine fog that comes in as she eyes the landscape. Reason will reign for a minute, but it will lose the coin toss and that fog will become heavier, and sink, and sit in her stomach. She doesn’t know it yet, but that fog that got inside of her, it is there to stay, it will follow her for days, months and then years. It will make purpose and joy so hard to find. It will take a little joy away from all things, even when they are enjoyable once again. Flavors will never quite be the same; they will all be familiar but they will be sentimental and seem like they tasted better yesterday.
She stands, and walks down the shore about 50’. She puts her hands on her hips, stands in the water, first to her ankles and then to her knees. Suddenly she will find herself wading out into the water, deeper and deeper, she is wearing shorts and a tee shirt and she will walk out to the surfers. She will ask them to tell her what she already knows. They see her approaching, no wetsuit, in the October water. In an instant and without words, they know so much more about her than she knows of her self in that moment. She will begin yelling to them and the wind carries her voice in the opposite direction, making it impossible to make out what she is saying. But she will hear them. She will hear them say “Talk to those officers.” She will follow his outstretched arm, his finger, with her eyes and see the two figures in navy blue, badges glinting in the sun.
She will run out of the water and they will know exactly who she is. The widow. The widow who thought she was a married woman, at the beach for one of the last warm days of the season with her surfing husband; the widow who does not know that she is a widow yet, but she feels it.
She won’t remember speaking. She isn’t sure if she couldn't speak or if she didn't want to or perhaps she did speak but her words were all silent? She’ll never know, though she will think of it often, while lying awake in their bed. While thinking of how terrible awakness is, while shutting her eyes and almost feeling just his thumb on her cheek, like how he used to occasionally wake her up. It was her very favorite way to be woken, and she realized that she would never have another awakening like that. Before it became a sad fact, it was simply shocking.
Shock is a tight emotion, a state of being bound so tightly that safety is implicit. But the shock shatters and it is a far fall from the grace of shock to reality. She enjoyed the shock as much as she could enjoy anything those days.
