Shoreline

When we’re out here, we can’t choose where we’re going.

We’re just pulled in certain directions, drawn to our new forms, somewhere in the world. Maybe where we are pulled has something to do with us; our past, our future, the decisions we’ve made in other forms. But any influence must be only slight. It’s chaos out here, all the formless energies melding and spinning around each other without restriction, combining, separating again, losing and finding their way. Playing in the Everywhere, in-between, waiting to see what’s next.

I felt the tug then, the pull back to earth, back to form and my whole being rippled with anticipation, wondering what was coming, what was next for me. Hoping this time for something with movement.   

I was born in the middle of the ocean. With a thundering rush I was free, and I gasped with surprise and then laughed. My body surged into motion with a cool wet power. I forged ahead with the speed and strength of a stampede, rolling across the sea stretched out between lands, moving, gliding, a fluid form unrestricted. I met thousands of other forms along the way, and they felt my power as I moved over and around them. I didn’t care much for them. The speed and motion of my pursuit was all that mattered now. I began to notice others like me, behind, in front. Racing, rolling, surging. Creating row formations, like soldiers lining up for battle. We consumed everything in our path. Our wet, graceful figures calm yet wild, constant yet beyond control. We indulged in our own power, our influence. 

The ocean floor drew steadily nearer, and it made me grow taller. I laughed uncontrollably with the grace, the freedom I felt, and then I began to realise this form would be short-lived. The thought didn’t stop me but made me race faster. I grew. And I saw my final destination there in the distance. My friends around me became competitive; they wanted to be faster, bigger, stronger. We laughed and raced. We all knew we would die there at the end, but still we raced. My body rumbled as energy roared through me, seeing my end, and seeing her, the one who called me, the one I was meant to reach, to collapse upon when I died.

My life in this form had only seconds left now, I knew. And still I raced, relishing every moment of the chase. I smiled to myself, hoping I would remember this one. I smiled at her, the nearing shoreline, my deathbed, my love. One by one my friends roared to their climax and broke, crashing down in a foaming storm, bubbling away before me, leaving my way finally clear. Then my time came, and I leapt with everything I had within me, to embrace as much of her as I could reach and I peaked and I crumbled, turning white with froth and my insides all mixed up with sand and fish and weeds and debris.

And then I was with her, just for seconds, but for those perfect seconds I was with her, gloriously, beautifully spread across her naked body, warm from the summer sun. And then I faded away, my energy spent, my purpose fulfilled, and I crept slowly back down the shore, slipping down, disappearing from that place into the Everywhere once again.