Sea to Mountain

Home was a small mound above the great ocean, where the summers were wet with storms that swept away the roads and temples, and the winters were dry and biting with the north wind.

Home faced the rising sun above its glittering sea, and nestled at the base of the stern mountains. It is far from the traffic of cities, where news came through the mountain ravines and reached them the day after. Palm trees grew tall and thick with new white rings with each summer passing. Bamboo groves grew in green criss-crosses, hiding sugar canes within their undergrowths.

Home was a collection of stray cats that elder brother brought home, and mutts East would play with on the streets. It was the green snakes encountering cats in the dead of night, and it was father woken by the dogs, to slumber to the scene and, with a long bamboo, fling out the intruders.

Over the wall

There were always chores to do at home. Home was between the four stone walls each as high as a man, enclosing in them a wooden built home with slanted ceramic tile roofs. The great door on the front wall East could only reach to lock from within, so should he leave by them to play hooky with the neighborhood boys, mother was sure to be waiting with a spanking.

Yet East was clever and he found his way out climbing the stones of the wall, walking along the top of the neighborhoods interconnecting walls - till he reached the house where he knew to be a gathering of boys.

They challenged each other to chess games with as serious a demeanor as school boys could muster. East took to these games with excitement, for he was a fair contender himself. But he knew he had only so much time before mother would notice his absence, have searched the house for him, and decided he was gone without her knowledge.

East played this gamble till the day finally came where he knew he was past the hour, but the school boys would not let him leave until his game was won. And school boys were not kind to his position. East’s opponent played slow so the game drew on, and by the time he had checked his challengers crown he knew he had lost. For when he was back on the home side of the wall his mother was surely waiting. 

Grey water

The pool is not far from the ocean, it’s a pit dug in the beach filled by the waters at high tide and lined with mossy stones. Local children splash and chatter in its murky water, grown ups wading into relief from the still summer heat.

East is in a rubber tube fashioned from an old motorbike wheel, he turns to climb in--but slips on the moss, and is flung from the tire and into the brine and foam. There is alarm, flailing arms, and cries stifled by the grey water. Before a moment has passed he has sunk, and is drinking and weeping the sea.

He hears a stranger call to him, even under the waves and the pounding in his head.

A pair of knobby hands reached to him, clasping his narrow shoulders and breaks him free from the watery hold.

The grey tipped gulls are singing above his head.