The weather had been flawless since their arrival four days earlier, and it was yet another perfect day for the beach. Local hawkers meandered patiently between rows of sunbathers, humming traditional melodies from beneath their wide-brimmed hats while hoping to clinch a sale.
The boys had taken off to surf the messy waves of the outgoing tide. Matt and Gretel were in pursuit of crabs and urchins in a rock cove, leaving Kendra to bask in peace.
With a grunt, she lifted her head from the beach towel when a sudden sweep of hot sand blasted across her face. She cursed as she wiped the scratchy granules off her clammy skin, flinching at the sting that soldiered across her cheekbone. Flickering her eyes at the blinding glare, she oriented where she had been before succumbing to forty winks beneath the beach umbrella. Slowly, her blurred vision returned to clarity and her eyes lay to rest on the water stage before her, where thousands of frisky white horses galloped one after the other, stooping their heads as their crests broke in the wind.
She watched as they frolicked with each other, rocking waywardly towards the south as the moon pulled them to, and the wind pushed them fro. Against the dunes, a kaleidoscope of shade canopies bundled together where a fluttering river met the ocean, while all around, happy little children dotted themselves between puddles, building castles and moats. Along the skirting of the lifeguard hut, a giggle of teenage beauties teasingly sprawled their bronzed bodies in scanty mismatched bikinis, each holding a selfie stick above their heads while capturing their every twerk and pouting pose.
Kendra re-adjusted herself to survey the complexity of the ocean’s persona; the serenity of her pale skin, yet the coarseness of its touch; the royal elegance of her blue attire, yet the slothful way in which she wore it; the gentleness of her soothing whispers caressing the brows of each dune, yet the authority of her tone when summoning the elements to serve her.
It was a deep and penetrating groan that bore its way through her thoughts, causing Kendra to rise instantly to her feet. Searching for the wounded animal, her attention was drawn to a gathering of beachgoers puzzled together around two men in red overalls, rocking on their knees as they tended to a foil hump between them, where the tide had left a callus on the shore.
And then it dawned.
Gasping in disbelief, Kendra slapped a boganic strand of hair from her eyes to purify the horrifying sight before her. It was neither a luminescent jellyfish drawing the curious crowds, nor a shark caught in the plastic vines of abhorrent litter, but instead, a small child. Her eyes stalked the emanating sound of the wounded animal from the tiny foil hump to the young mother alongside it, whose unbearable pain bellowed in seismic waves from the core of her existence, as the life that was her child slipped away, until it was no more.
Mortified, Kendra watched as the young mother fell to her knees, groping for handfuls of sand and air as if to snatch back what had been taken from her. A bystander steadied himself to support her wild and writhing body as she howled and wept, implored and pleaded, and bartered in frantic desperation with God, to return life to her child in exchange for her own.
When a casket of defeat extinguished the last trickle of her hope, the young mother crumbled again, recoiling her legs and arms as she fell to her side, motionless and aphonic. Then, all around her, silence prevailed. Silence, as the wind broke with emotion, freeing the bolting white horses. Silence, as fate drew a wicked line between the childless young mother and the fruitful women bystanding. Silence, as the ocean retracted in avoidance of her loss and the grieving sun snuffed its shine behind a cloud. Silence, as strangers fumbled together in prayer while others abstained to question why nature reclaimed the very life she had gifted. Silence, as the world she had known moments before ceased to exist, while the world in play continued as it always would. Silence, as the changing tide smothered the bay in a quest for a different outcome, only for the ocean’s brutality to confirm that one was never to be.
Kendra swabbed her face as if erasing a terrible dream. Holidaymakers slowly dispersed with bowed heads, leaving behind a small group clinging together in fateful communion. Watching, she felt a powerful and unsettling feeling begin to stir, and as it swirled and swelled, she heard it chastise nature’s loyalty for bearing a giving heart to one, and a thieving hand to another.
As the ambulance curled weakly up the hill and petered out of sight, Kendra fought to contain the poignant emotion consuming her. Then it came, first a watery glaze, then a tear, then another, and one more, until an unstoppable barrage of tears began to cascade over the buttresses of her sand-etched cheeks and into the crevasse of her torn heart. Just then, the instinctive and overwhelming need to find her brood took hold. Swiping at her tears, she began to search the ocean for her boys, darting from one rash vest to another to secure each of their existence and safety.
Teg, yellow – tick. Lincoln, red – tick. Reece, no Reece. Where is Reece?
Start over.
Teg, yellow – tick. Lincoln, red – tick. Reece, No Reece.
Kendra’s eyes raced back and forth, and then back again, following the mounting swell to the breaking wave and on to the dark smudge where its dump and drag tarnished the sand, and then skipping across a multi-coloured shoal of bopping bodies in search of fluorescent orange. No Reece. Where is Reece?
Search again.
Teg, yellow – tick, Lincoln, red – tick. Reece, No Reece.
Her eyes prowled through the mirage of heat hovering like a distorted halo above the dunes, straightening every buckled figure with her will to find him. Where is he? Where is he? her mind frantically repeated until nausea overcame her. Orange. He is wearing orange. His rash vest is orange. I cannot find him. There is no orange. Where is my child?
“Mom, what are you doing?”
Kendra jolted to find a bewildered Reece beside her. Squinting at his silhouette against the sun, she clenched his arm tightly and wrenched him closer to reassure herself that the orange figure was indeed alive and hers.
“Mom, are you okay? Why are you mauling me?”
Releasing his arm from her savage grip, she soothed it over with a gentle hand.
“I’m sorry, Teg! I’m overcome by the heat,” she lied, her voice blistered in relief.
“You’ve left everything unattended under the umbrella - car keys, wallets, and everything else! That’s very unlike you, Mom! And why are you muttering to yourself? Has something happened?”
“As I said, the heat is affecting me. I’ll go back under the shade,” she assured.
With that, Reece jogged back into the surf as Kendra watched him hop and bop free-spirited and carefree over each frothing ribbon racing towards him, oblivious of the depth of her love for him and the crippling fear she had felt for his safety. Peering across her shoulder at the curling road which had been the end of all things only moments before, she expected to find it void of life. Instead, she observed a pair of lovers free-wheeling jubilantly towards the beach with outstretched arms on a bicycle made for two, heedless of the tragedy that had preceded their very path. Turning back, Kendra checked the ocean again for yellow, red and orange, profoundly stirred by the blatant cycle of life, and nature’s powerful ability to prevail unapologetically, both victoriously and heartlessly, as only it knew to do.
“And how is my bathing beauty doing?” Matt’s cheerful voice resounded.
Kendra glanced up to find Matt and Gretel gleaming down at her, anticipating a happy return.
“There were six of them on one rock, and two of them had a fight with their paws,” exploded Gretel.
“Claws,” corrected Matt.
“They pinched each other and when Daddy poked them softly with a prick, the one who was the bully lifted and let go.”
“Stick,” corrected Matt.
“We also saw lots of fishes, just like Nemo.”
“Fish, not fishes,” corrected Matt, rolling his eyes for the third time.
“Let her be, for goodness sake!” snapped Kendra. “This isn’t the time or place for a boring grammar lesson! She’s excited, so let her tell her story as she wishes.”
Matt halted, puzzled by Kendra’s uncharacteristic outburst while Gretel continued to recount her joy.
“Daddy said he’ll build me a castle with a long funnel that goes to the sea so we can float paper boats from the top all the way to the bottom.”
“Tunnel,” corrected Matt, unable to resist.
“Are you okay?” Quizzed Matt as he caressed Kendra’s arm. “You’re looking flushed and prickly.”
Kendra leaned away and closed her stinging eyes to harness the tears. Thinking of the young mother, she wondered whether the bolting white horses would ever be brave enough to return to a beach forever altered. What should I say? What is there to say? How can there be anything to say when I've been blessed with four, and she was robbed of her only?
Bemused by Kendra’s unwelcoming behaviour, Matt led Gretel by the hand to seek the ice-cream cart whose bell could be heard chiming intermittently nearby. Just then, a random gust of wind coiled around her, pricking her skin with its barbed tail, reminding Kendra how quickly things can change. Shuffling, she protectively drew the towel around her shoulders. Suddenly, she noticed a toddler playing unattended in the shallows ahead, while his distracted mother stood with her back to the wind as she lapped quickly at her melting ice-cream. Kendra froze as she witnessed the opportunistic ocean wickedly seize the moment to lure his curiosity by groping at his dumpy legs with tickling and fizzing fingers. First, a breaking wave nudged at him playfully, dislodging his sunhat before toppling his chubby body into a clutch of betrayal. Frantically, Kendra sprinted towards him, her eyes fixated on the spot where his submerged head had been immediately replaced by his drifting hat. Screaming, she roused the attention of a nearby lifeguard exiting the surf on his paddle, who hastily blew his whistle in warning before plummeting into the water, reaching the toddler moments later.
Back on the beach, the embarrassed and emotional mother spluttered her defence as the lifeguard reunited her with her sobbing infant.
“Thank you,” said Kendra to the lifeguard.
“Ma’am, that’s what I’m here for,” came his humble reply.
“You have a tough job, both physically and emotionally - and one that holds massive responsibility for a young man like you.”
“It has its good days but today has been a rough one. If only people obeyed the rules - for they are there for a reason.”
“One would think that these happenings would have us all reflecting on our choices and behaviours,” agreed Kendra.
“Ma’am, the ocean is a beautiful place, but it’s equally dangerous, and neither bodes well with the arrogance of the human being. Mother Nature has a terrible temper when you ignore or disrespect her constant warnings. She seldom forgives and never forgets and won’t stop lashing out at us until we change those very choices and behaviours.”
“Too true,” agreed Kendra, admiring his youthful wisdom.
“Sadly, Ma’am, we all still have much to learn.”
