here's something to be said about the ocean.

If those who remember could hear me now, I would tell them that water speaks to people. Encompassing all, she forgives our past, making amends for all the right things we were too timid to undertake, for all of the wrong we chose instead. The sea is the embodiment of all that the Lord has created. She lives as both the gentle spirit and harsh justice of God; forgetting nothing, and yet without memory. A paradox you say? Certainly, but all true things are.

None then, I hope, will wonder why I chose this to be the place I die.

My haven drowned my soul in a portrait of melodrama. Miles of immaculate beach extended to either side of me; enrapturing me in a gentle desert of sand. I felt cajoled into remembering or forgetting whatever I wished, making the passing easier to bear. Lulled into a serene comfort - neither false nor entirely genuine - I feasted on my surroundings like a starved soul. Tropic wind swam soothingly over my body, my tie and hair drifting delicately in its current. The tie I gently unbound from my neck, watching it sail from my hand and soar several strides down the beach. Laughing at the finality of that image, I realized with sudden mirth that not all shackles were made of chain.

Free? No, I wasn't free; not quite yet at least. Who could blame me, though? It felt good to make believe. The sun glistened in the midst of its decline, casting fanciful artwork over the ocean surface. Clear waves rippled no higher than a hand's breadth, sighing gently as they crept up the beach. Warm sand streamed sensuously between my bare toes. Gentle assurances willed comfort into me, promising that a small smidgen of time had been given unto me, however short. I knew that, soon, time would no longer hinder me.

"You should see it in the spring," she said softly. "The sky's even more radiant then. Purples, reds, oranges, all painted onto the heavens by the finger of God. It takes the breath away from you."

My breath had already ceased. She had crept softly upon me, waxing from my world forgotten, the existence I had left behind. I did not turn to gaze at her, yet sensed her soft presence as she sat beside me. "It's perfect," I answered gently. "Now. It always has been."

Her temperate smile shimmered with life. I needed only to close my eyes to know it was there. "City slicker?" she taunted, playfully. "Not from around here?"

I grinned faintly and shook my head. "Somewhere north; that's where I'm from. Exactly where, I have taken care to forget. I came down here to get away. To gaze at her," - I nodded towards the ocean - "one last time. She had been calling me for quite some time." I paused for a moment, then added quietly. "I forgot to listen."

She considered my answer quietly, gazing out over the ocean. A gentle sigh escaped from her lips. "She has a way of reminding us when we forget," she answered.

I nodded. "Some spend a lifetime forgetting to listen. They go through life ignoring the most obvious elements about them, forgetting the things most important. They make a habit of it. Not now, though; not today. She called. I answered."

"I have heard her calling many times," she murmured. "Louder and more insistent now, than in weeks past, though her whispers have reached me all my life." She turned to gaze at me. "Not all are like us, though - some are different."

"Yes," I agreed. "Some."

"Some do not receive the calling at all," she continued. "Fate closes upon them like darkness on a dying flame. They are taken from us - quickly, before even a whisper of goodbye can be spoken to them. Why must they be different? Is it better that way - not having to say goodbye, not having to knowingly abandon the things you once held to be true and dear?"

A majestic sea of illumination blossomed in our evening sky. Deep red bled through our horizon as the sun partially descended below our ocean, beams of burnt gold and burgundy streaking from her zenith. Yet the pacific calm wavered, the wind toiling uneasily along the beachhead. Black clouds rustled into existence from the distant corners of the heavens, afar but looming nearer at every passing moment. Wonderment swam over me, yet I no longer felt any fear. I was freed from the bondage of terror this world had held over me. "Such things are beyond you and I," I whispered breathlessly, enamored by the horizon's fury. Time grows short. "Knowledge of such would likely drive us mad. We have been protected from that madness, that responsibility. It is beyond us. We are only Children."

She stiffened slightly at the approaching clouds and darkness. "Will you stay at the inn tonight?" she asked, a wary longing edging into her voice.

"No," I answered, resisting the temptation of that appeal. Earthly discretion of that type would no longer aid me. "This is my place now." No more running.

She nodded, a sad, knowing smile touching her lips, as if she expected such an answer. "No other way, is there?" she asked quietly.

"Never has been. It's the great irony and price of life."

"Life," she murmured, and paused. "Ever look back and believe that you could, or should, have done more with the time you were given?"

A twinge of bitterness caught my voice, no effort could suppress it. "Every moment; every breath."

"It terrifies me - the opportunities I wasted, the circumstances I failed. Days, weeks squandered; gone - untouchable as the clouds in the sky."

I smiled faintly, and gazed down at my feet. "Let the past redeem itself; mistakes made will never be undone. Our gift is today, and tomorrow, and eternity, the ability to always look forward, and to prepare for what we can do, and not what we could have done. If we reach high enough, we won't have to touch the clouds. They'll come down to us, and lay at our feet."

"You believe that?"

"I must, or I will cease to be."

My companion grew silent for a time. Her soft breaths mingled with the wash of the ocean. "Do have a name?" she asked finally.

"I did, once. Yes."

"Once," she whispered. I feared I had offended her, but any other answer would have been a lie. I could tell her nothing but the truth. Swiftly, though, she shred away at my vagueness, countering my reply. "Who are you now?"

I laughed lightly, awed by her innocent brilliance. "A fool."

"Where do fools go, when the night comes?"

Foreboding mists and clouds smothered both sun and sky. A void approached us, roving darkly upon us from all directions at once, but indirectly, as if it to disguise its advance. Though I could sense its descent upon us, it seemed to dart from my eye whenever I focused on it. Quelling the uncertainty that knotted my throat, I pointed over across the blackened ocean, past the unnatural gloom swelling above us. "Yonder," I answered. "Where the sun goes. We can follow it, you and I; her path is ours to walk. That way, she never stops shining."

"Can we?" she asked.

"Yes."

"How?"

"By believing." I turned to gaze at her for the first time. Her sublime beauty - tangible splendor, as I had always imagined it - brought tears of indescribable emotion to my eyes. Eyes once hardened by a world that frowned on such things. No longer. "We have something in common, you and I," I said softly.

"Yes," she whispered, uncertainty and disquietude quivering about her jasmine face.

"It's almost over now. Pain, fear - disease. Some promises are meant to be kept." I reached out to touch her face, delicately stroking her pale cheek. My hand traced the silent curves of her face, beneath the cloth scarf that covered her head, stroking the short, dark hair beneath. "Almost over," I murmured.

The tide washed away silently, retreating wistfully down the shoreline and far beyond into the horizon. Wind whipped fiercely against our skin and clothes. Sand danced first gently and then in a fury across the open expanse of our beach. Lakes of dark, ominous clouds above us unfurled, withdrawing to reveal the star-sung, nightly sky. Its music filled the heavens, raining droplets of light across our faces.

"I," she started softly. Her hand grasped mine. "I'm..."

"Don't be." I whispered.