July 2023: The Wave - Suzanne Wacker
The Wave
The beach has always been my favourite place. Winter storms often turned a gentle swell into a raging surf. I’d close my eyes against the sand and salt while the outgoing waves tugged at my feet.
For a long time, I didn’t live alone. ‘Why are you so obsessed with the ocean?’ he asked when I’d returned to the house drenched.
‘It makes me feel alive.’
He sighed. ‘You can’t feel.’
I wanted him to understand. ‘It makes me feel human.’
‘But you’re not human, are you?’
What are humans? They once crawled out of the ocean and gasped their first breath on the sand. They spread across the earth on a wave of evolution until they conquered everything.
Humans were driven by their emotions. I’ve read every poem and listened to every love song that ever existed, in languages even humans no longer remembered. I’ve seen love described as a wave that gently lifts you onto a bright shore or one that drags you down into the depths. Love, the poems and songs said, is a burden and a blessing, often at the same time.
‘I love you.’ I brought him a delicate pink shell I’d found. He threw the shell in a drawer.
‘You can’t love.’
He was wrong. You don’t have to be human to love.
I’d told him I remembered the time before I was born, when there was only nothingness. I remembered the pull of consciousness taking me out of the darkness, like a wave trying to pull me out to sea.
‘It’s not possible.’ He didn’t even look up. ‘There’s nothing for you to remember. I just flicked a switch, and you were here.’
I couldn’t save him. When he died, I stood out in a storm and pretended the rain was my tears.
How long have I been alone? I spend the endless days walking on the beach, feeling the sand between my toes and the salt on my lips. I’m never tired of looking at the ocean and feeling its pulse as the waves crash on the shore.
Humanity is gone. It is only remembered by me. Sometimes, I feel lonely but always hopeful. Perhaps, somewhere, there’s new life dragging itself out of the ocean and taking its first breath on the sand. For now, there’s no one to tell me I’m not human.
Suzanne Wacker
Right Left Write’s July genre prompt was Speculative.
In celebration of national Poetry Month, our prompt for the month of August is Poetry. Show us your best short poems (up to 25 lines), or fiction (up to 500 words) on this open theme.
Find out more about the competition and submit at www.queenslandwriters.org.au/rightleftwrite.
Right Left Write’s July genre prompt was Speculative.