Observations

• Eden Annesley, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2018

Date: Seventh October. Today I observe. Today I watch as I always do, beside the ocean. Some bizarre phantom operation rends the scene almost familiar. Of course, the ocean is a glassy fondue today, almost peachy at the edges. But- there! A lone body lies in the ocean, a pale flick descending up and down, up and down, up and down….There goes my mind again! The curse of thinking. I think and I know and I am.

Distantly that strange thing wines, the tension singing through the air. I remain as I always will, beside the ocean with the frigid water beast of the wind roaring in my ear. Whining, winding through the ocean. When red wine spreads across the rim of the cup, I pause to drink. I feel the body before my eyes. The taste floods the grainy sand. I know it will stain as ink always does. Yet thought is ephemeral and so am I. Why think when that colour moves into patterns that thrill the soul? The colour of the ground does not make me a coward. It never does! Because I thought it, now I must act it? I think not. Bobbing softly between the rolling expanses that body remains, all alone now, but I have faith in the sharks who will reduce it to rubble upon the seabed. Then alone again. A frigid peace for a cold, glowing soul. Thus ends today.