The Radio Says There's a Storm Coming

The radio says there’s a storm coming.  Catherine can’t believe it.  “The day after tomorrow,” they say, but the skies are big and blue and the ocean ebbs and flows.  Another wave, another breath, another minute, another day.  “Run away,” they say, but Catherine can’t run.  How do you run from home?  Where do you go?  Catherine doesn’t know.  She doesn’t believe it.

She sits on the beach all day, the sun kissing her skin, a warm breeze cooing in her ear and flirting with the hair on her arms.  She lies on the beach, her toes pushing sand around here and back, digging in, digging up.  She smiles at the sun.  The sun smiles back.  You wouldn’t let me down, would you?

Everybody’s gone.  They ran away.  Fled.  The beach is quieter than usual, littered here and there by other solitary souls with nowhere to go, sitting, lying in the sand, ruminating, meditating,  Ommmm...  The radio says a storm is coming.  These souls don’t believe it.  She strolls along the seashore.  She sells sea shells...  Alone but not alone among the solitary souls, and it could all be over the day after tomorrow, but Catherine doesn’t believe it.  Her mind is empty.  Blank.  Ebb, flow, ebb, flow, life affords plenty of time for self-talk, and we complain of not having enough.  This is not a moment for self-talk.  This is a moment of silence, a moment of peace.  When we shut up, we give the planet a chance to speak.

What does the world say to Catherine, mind blank, alone but not alone, solitary soul in a moment not afforded to self-talk?  The sea gulls protest.  They fly not far too high and scream and scream.  The surf washes in, washes out.  Always moving to a rhythm all its own, in a quiet, subtle, unimposing, inoffensive melody and timbre.  (Have you listened to the water sing?  Oh, please tell me you have listened to the water sing!)  A soft ripple chimes with each step Catherine wades into the sea.  She looks down and watches the fish in the ocean, thrown about by the waves in the shallow water.  If the storm comes, will they all be washed ashore?  Catherine doesn’t believe it.  The wind flies through her hair as she stands in the shallow water, watching the fish.  This is the way we wash our feet, wash our feet, wash our feet...

Who will tell the story, after all is said and done?  Is there anything to tell? This story doesn’t start with Once upon a time because it didn’t happen Once upon a time. It’s rather the ending of many other Once upon a times. Each solitary soul here carries a story, carries a reason.  There are reasons all these solitary souls won’t run away, run away.  Do any of them matter, Catherine wonders, knowing the ultimate answer.  People come.  They live, they love, they suffer, they redeem, and each one goes away when the time comes.  Everybody wants to think their story matters.  Everybody wants to think that there’s a reason, an important reason.  Everybody wants to matter.  So tragic to think of how many people will live and die without ever telling their Once upon a times.  Everybody’s special.  Of course they are, thinks Catherine.  Of course they are.

Once upon a time a child looked for signs everywhere she could.  She gazed at stars and into fires and rivers and knew there had to be a point.  Twinkle, twinkle little star...  To the dismay of the imagination of a five-year-old girl, Nature never returned her calls.  All children need to grow up sometime.

Afraid?  Of course she’s afraid.  Who can tell what tomorrow will bring?  The storm is coming the day after tomorrow.  She can run.  She can flee north, like so many others.  She can make a life for herself, start over, and who wouldn’t love a fresh start, the tabula rasa, a chance to try again.  She can be who she wants to be, live how she wants to live, if only she would flee.  And yet, there is no running.  She is who she is.  She could try to be different, but what point is there in denying herself?  It would all come back to this.  She can never erase that Once upon a time she stood on a beach, listening to the surf and the gulls, playing in the sand, feeling the water ebb and flow over her feet, waiting for this storm to come.  Her past will always be her past.  There’s no running from that.

The locals board up their windows and lock their doors.  They cover their treasures with plastic, hoping for the best.  They fill their homes with candles and canned beans, flashlights and batteries, towels and blankets, lighters and propane tanks, raincoats and umbrellas.  They make plans, seek places of refuge up the road.  They write to their loved ones and take photographs and collect drinkable water.  They fuel up their engines and gas cans.  They make plans, arrange exit strategies.  They don’t hear the gulls scream, or the surf wash up onto the shore.

Once upon a time a little girl sat on a rocky ledge by the water, watching the sun go down.  Overwhelmed by the majesty of the sunset and all alone, she daydreamed of the life she wanted to have, a life by the water, a certain someone to sit with in the evenings and watch the sun go down.  A certain someone to hold her hand -  her knight in shining armour.  Didn’t every girl want a hero?  When she grew up, she would travel.  She would run through jungles, climb the highest peaks, jump from cliffs and swim in mountain lakes, and she’d be brave and strong, and just in case it wasn’t enough for her to be brave and strong... she would need a hero, a guardian angel, a big, strong man to catch her if she fell.  He never came.  There must be more, Catherine thinks, and it can’t end like this.  Run for your lives, the radio said, but Catherine isn’t running.

We used to get it, she tells herself.  Silence, but for the sound of the breeze, the screaming gulls.  The Universe speaks in subtle voices.  The messages are simple.  We hear them when we all stop talking, when we all turn off our televisions and our radios, when we stop seeking creative ways to fill silent voids.  We used to get it.  Hundreds, thousands of years ago, we understood.  We knew we could stand atop mountains without being kings of the castle.  We knew we weren’t the final word.  We were aware of something bigger.  We could strive to understand without needing to dominate and control.  Wonder without weakness.  Power without omnipotence.  Reason with humility.  We knew to stand, our knowledge on our shoulders but our hearts in awe.  

And then the magic died.

Good enough was no longer good enough.  We needed to be better, faster, stronger, louder.  We needed to understand things, to manipulate things, to control things, and then to master things.  We became afraid of the things we couldn’t master.  Humans continue to get sick, to ail, to suffer.  The heavenly bodies still revolve around not us, but the sun.  The earth still cracks open every now and then, cyclones still wipe away buildings and tidal waves wash us into the sea, because we couldn’t quite master the weather.  And the radio says there’s a storm coming the day after tomorrow, and Catherine doesn’t believe it.

It’s coming tomorrow, the radio says, and Catherine starts to believe.  She knows why she’s started to believe, but she can’t bring herself to say it.  It’s silly, she thinks.  Nobody would believe it.  Just say it, Catherine.  I can’t. You can.  I can’t find the words.  Just try.  I won’t.  The writer’s block that haunts us all. Some questions can’t be asked, some stories can’t be told, opportunities wasted, souls silenced, all because we can’t find the words.  Is there a meaning?  No.  Will it change anything?  No.  Then Catherine, what is on your mind?

Well, Once upon a time...

Once upon a time I had a dream that felt so real.  Then I had it again.  And again.  I dreamed that I was on a boat, not large, not small, sailing friendly waters.  Suddenly, very suddenly, the winds picked up, clouds rolled in, it started to rain, the waves grew, and the boat began to sway.  I was afraid.  The waves kept growing, first by feet, then by yards, then by storeys.  The boat just rode the waves, up, down, up, down.  It never made sense to me.  The boat wasn’t made to ride waves this high.  It should tip and capsize.  I should fall in, should drown. There was never anywhere to swim to.  And for all my anxiety, I steered the boat.  It would rise and rise, and tumble down the wave, sometimes it would downright fall, but it never tipped.  The water was always not warm, not cold, but comfortable, and I always woke up, alive.  Shaken, but alive.  As I grew older, the storms of my dreams grew stronger, more violent, more uncertain.  Each time, I simply steered the boat.  Over the years, the anxiety left me, and I was no longer afraid of the waves, afraid of the storms.  I started to enjoy them, the adventure, uncertainty, thrill.  The world became engulfed in water, ritual flooding, and I rode out the storm, arriving awake and alive on the other side every time.  I carried the motion of the waves into my waking life, not on purpose.  I couldn’t always shake the edge, but carried on and on and on.  My steps weren’t always steady, my head not always straight.  What worried me most was that one night, I’d lose control.  One night, the boat will capsize.  When it does, will I still wake up, alive, on the other side?  And now there’s a storm coming.  Run for our lives, we’re all going to die, and No, I can’t just leave, and I can’t quite explain why I need to stay, need to be here, need to see it.  And no, I may not make it out awake, alive on the other side, but I just can’t turn away.  I wish I could tell you everything.  I wish I could make you understand.  I just don’t have the words.

The storm comes tomorrow, the radio says.  Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream...