Sailor Girl

Sailor Girl

I’m not someone who grew up accustomed to admitting my faults. For instance, if I got a date wrong–which I never do- the reasoning would go as such: “Ah, no, see that's what I meant, but there were just too many syllables and too short a time for me to convey all of them– you must have simply misheard me.”

But this girl, she makes my faults tumble out of my mouth one after another, and when I stand there looking at my spilt mistakes, all I feel is utmost joy as I know, in looking up, I might see her face.

Riddled with so many faults was she. The way she spoke was probably deafening to her father, the way she smiled was likely frowned upon by her mother, and worst of all, the way she sailed was simply disastrous.

I came to know of the latter on a misty evening sometime in late August. After shutting down my very safe, very dry coffee shop, I decided to stray from my usual homebound path and take a slight detour, which led me to a point where I could gaze upon the ebbing and flowing currents of the ocean while otherwise permitting me to stick to solidity beneath my feet. I was languidly walking, kicking at a few miscellaneous rocks as I went, and couldn't help but ponder my newfound feud with the sea.

I was born miles away from the crashing waves I hear daily now. In a small, landlocked town was where I spent my boyhood and adolescent years. Every day, I would wake up to the sweet stench of wood turning to ash in a coal-fueled fireplace, and every day, I would awake to the persistent squawks of a rather indignant rooster, basking in the sun.

I did not know of a reality past this one until eighteen months ago, when my mother abruptly halted her usual tottering in the kitchen, took a few slippered steps on the cold stone wood, and stopped right in front of me. As I looked up, my wide brown eyes locked with her aged blue ones, and I could already hear the metallic plate thumping on the counter and the words “Todd, you need a job” escape her lips. So there I was, far, far away from the echoing calls of a rooster; instead, the only calls I ever seemed to hear were those of the wind whistling its breeze to the waves, and them roaring in response.

My reminiscing was suddenly cut short as my gaze caught on something that did not usually appear among the picturesque scene.

A small figure was hurriedly pacing among the sandy shores, merely a speck of sand in my gaze, yet I stopped and leaned slightly forward to peer at the ongoing scene, which would otherwise be separate from my interest.

On the yellow banks of the sand, a girl, dressed in a striped bathing suit, was seemingly practicing a rather hurried waltz. As I peered closer, I noticed that her seemingly frivolous and uncouth steps had a purpose, and with each passing second, she drew closer to a small sailboat anchored near a few jagged rocks glistening in the evening sun. My eyes immediately grew wide, and I could not help but make my thoughts audible in an awestruck whisper.

“Has she got a death wish?” I murmured to myself in a hushed voice, the words wavering slightly with the effort of holding back an incredulous laugh.

As if she meant to answer my question, her blithe movements halted near the boat, and in one swift motion, her tanned feet landed smoothly onto the swaying boat. By this point, every thought of my house, my bed, my warm, comforting fireplace had left my mind. My feet seemed to stay planted on this path, and my gaze seemed to stay planted on this girl. The next few moments consisted of her trying to tug the sail; it stayed put for a bit, but with the next thrust in time with the blow of the wind, it came undone and unraveled like an expensive carpet being rolled onto a palace floor. She seemed quite pleased with the outcome and shifted her attention to the anchor barely hanging on to the sandy shores. It took more effort to unhinge this obstacle. She stood there for a bit, pushing, pulling, and just when it seemed as if she was in the mind to give up, she turned around and gave a final kick, propelling the anchor out of its captivity and allowing her to briskly haul it onboard.

I was just a thought away from bursting into applause and cheers when, before my mind could catch up, she instead caught a breeze, and the sailboat, with her on it, became beauty marks on the wrinkle-ridden face of the sea.

As the final excitement that came with this new object of my attention faded, I closed my eyes, daring it to be a simple hallucination, and when, upon opening them, I found out it was not, a grin announced itself onto my face, and I let my feet lead me on the practiced walk back home, my mind not even being a contributor. A sailor. She was a Sailor.

Through the next days, I would catch my gaze drifting to the open sea, and I would catch my mind drifting to the sailor girl. Did I know her name? No. Did I know how she looked? No. Did I even know who she was? No, absolutely not. Did I even know if she liked sailing?... She was solely the sailor girl, and I tried to make myself happy to leave it at that, but I simply could not.

Yet each time I would feel invigorated by this desire for knowledge, the vigor would quickly be replaced by terror. What if she did not care who I was? The recurring question caused me many times to halt in the middle of rushing to my house door, and left my fingers loosely curled on the metal doorknob. By September, I had given up trying to count.

Once, I managed to twist the mechanism and step out into the falling sun of October with only one thought plaguing my mind. “I would speak to her today,” I murmured the thought aloud, squeezing my hand into a determined fist against my thigh and giving it a shove into my pockets. I strolled like that for a while, my hands stuffed firmly into the comforting fabric, before I made my way down, away from the haven of my house, and took small, shifting steps along the grassy path. My mind was riddled with more anxieties than there were weeds tangled with the strongly growing grass. Yet as I trudged forward, stomping on the weeds with my boots, I simultaneously snuffed my hesitation out. I did not stop walking, with an ever-so-determined look on my face, until I felt the solid ground beneath my feet shift to a rather grainy, slippery one. Looking down, I realized I now stood planted upon the mounds of stretching, golden sand. The realization quickly crept up from the sand, washing over my legs, then my arms, and finally, it ended up on my face, tugging off the feigned confidence from before. I was there; I was really there. The same place where she had been every single day. I could not help but notice the tingle in my fingers that came with the obscure sort of smug satisfaction I felt. The smugness, though, was short-lived, as while I basked in both the golden sun and my triumph, a blur in my vision tugged my head, and before I could accept the game of tug of war, I was staring directly at the sailor girl.

She was dressed in a flowy, straight-down cotton trousers-shirt set. It was coated evenly with recurring black and white stripes that made her seem like a mirage, standing there, waving in the desert sand.

Waving?

Is she waving?

I quickly spun my head around to try to account for any unsolicited visitors I had not taken into account. There was nobody, just me, her, and the stretching yellow-blue flag of the sand and sea’s partnership.

Struck with this realization, I whipped my head back around before she could say

“Oi! You! Yeah, you!”

I opened my mouth as if I were a creature belonging to the sea, and closed it again, repeating this obscene ritual until my jaw hung open as she halted her journey on the dunes and stood directly in front of me.

“Me…?” I finally managed, my voice barely a whispered squeak among the echoing squawks of seagulls.

“No. I was talking to the guy next to you.” She said, her voice soaked with an ocean’s worth of sarcasm as she folded her arms over her striped blouse and arched her eyebrow ever so slightly. When, upon realizing my humor was not even slightly damp, she continued. “Erm, no uh I was talking to you.” She murmured, almost shyly, as she rubbed at the back of her sun-attacked neck.

“Oh.” I managed to manipulate my gasp into sounding like speech and continued to stare at her. I could not manage to describe her beauty if I tried. It was a strange sort, and if I were permitted the time, I would describe it as having the same odd mystique that seaweed does as it floats upon dark ocean water, only ever briefly being illuminated by moonlight.

“Right. So… you’re a sailor then? I’ve seen you snooping round the boats.” She asked, her eyebrows furrowed in suspicion, and her nose scrunched slightly as if she could sniff out the truth in my words that would follow.

Before I could think, my head felt as if it were puppeted by her gaze, and I nodded vigorously. Her eyes lit up, and for a moment, as I glanced at the sun glowing behind her head, my pupils did not dilate; it seemed as if the glow radiating from her expression rivaled and even surpassed that of the sun.

“Aye, cool.”

Now I was a sailor.

I spent every waking moment trying to keep up the facade. I rented out more books than I had ever even seen in my entire life–just to read about sailing to answer questions she’d drop on me. By November, I was the perfect sailor, on paper. By December, I was determined to be a sailor on the sea after a rather brutal confrontation. It was a Tuesday morning when she strolled into my café, cursing under her breath at her coat getting caught on the door. I did not notice. I was busy wiping down a table, noticing how the wet cup ring mirrored the patterns her boots left on the boat deck.

The bell above the door jangled, and a figure walked past me, took a few steps, then stopped as if remembering something. “Oh! You’re, erm…uh…the sailor?” It was the sailor girl. She paused before speaking; I did not question it. “Have you sailed yet?” She asked me, but I was far too startled to respond with anything past a jerky nod. “I’ll have a black coffee.” She shrugged and sat down, not bothering to shoot a glance in response to the hundreds I was giving her. Even after she left, the words echoed in my mind.

Now I needed to be a Sailor.

It was cold, very cold that morning. The sea welcomed me with what I wished to describe as thunderous cheers, as if greeting a fond friend. In reality, it was just thunder. I did not care. The sailor girl told me she was planning to set out by noon today. I had to surprise her; I had to make the lie true. I took a breath and walked over to my boat rocking in the sea’s cradle. I stepped onboard, slipped slightly, and caught myself before I dropped to the same plane as my boat. With a triumphant breath, I stepped forward and undid the mast. It leapt out of its constraints and began waving vigorously in the wind, the white casting small flecks against the darkening sky. I nodded and set about unanchoring. The anchor came out easily; it took the least of my effort, paired with the howling breeze, to set it upon the hard floor of the boat. At once, I got flung forward, and before I could regain my balance, the boat was drifting out of its home point and further into the relentlessly moving sea. I tried not to panic, but I quickly took note of my increasing breath and the pounding drum in my head. I looked around anxiously, my head whipping with a speed that seemed sedentary when compared to the wind whipping. The boat rocked once, then rocked twice, and before I had a moment to look up at the cold raindrops now splashing onto my face, the boat was engaged in a tumultuous wrestling bout with the waves. I was thrown from where I was standing until my back hit flat against the opposite wall. I looked up, wincing at the effort, and my gaze was instantly filled by the malicious storm clouds I had read so many times about. My eyes widened, and my mouth fell open, the battering rain filling both openings immediately. I let out an almost inaudible, weakened gasp as the horror dawned on me quicker than the darkness dawned on the horizon. With a final, pained lunge, I sprawled down onto the wooden deck and started digging with my fingernails. “Sailor girl…” I whispered as my words matched the inscription scratched on the surface. “I’m not a sailor.” Just as I pulled back to admire my final, relenting handiwork. A clap of thunder and a stroke of lightning frightened the waves enough to scream, and that scream echoed through the sea and did not stop until it hit the boat, and me. In a moment of hesitation, I was thrust from the deck, and the sharp, prickling sensation of water encapsulated my entire body. The tears flowing from my eyes were not even a matter of consideration, as the sea’s own fear-stricken tears grasped at me and pulled me under.

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It was July now, and she was walking on the sun-bathed beach, enjoying the way the morsels of sand clung to her damp feet. It was not until she noticed a small, wooden log-seeming structure washing onto shore that she halted her steps. She walked over, picking it up and turning it a few times in her hand, using the fabric of her striped shirt to wipe away at some of the sand stuck to the mysterious wood. It was snapped in half as if belonging to another piece. She leaned in and squinted slightly as it looked as if there was something scratched into the worn surface.

‘Sailor Girl.’

She let out a soft hum and shrugged, glancing at it for a moment longer before tossing it back into the receding waves and carrying on home.