Waves Of My Life

• Karlee Debono
• Short Story
• 2008

I rode my bike to the beach one golden morning. Here, near a rusted sign that warns of rips, I sat. There was one other person.
“I’m not from here” this person said. “Can you tell me where I can swim?”
I pointed. “I go there. But if you don’t want to drown I recommend between the flags.”
It was early a bit too early for swimming; the sun had barely approached the horizon. Then again someone could say the same about me riding my bike along Queensland’s coastline. With my knees tucks into my chest I sang to the breeze that dragged the sand to tickle my toes. It wasn’t the regular humid breeze but a fresh one that made my shoulders shiver.
Where did she go! I watched in a daze waiting for her head to pop up out of the water. For a second I thought that she had got out of the water or did she ever go in. I didn’t actually see her. But what if the waves swept her away? I stood up and dusted the sand off my shorts and ran as heroically as I could to the edge of the tide, where I swore I saw something in the distance. As the shells cut my feet and the salt water cleansed my wounds I swam faster than I’d imagined I could.
I had travelled a distance further than the pier, and I didn’t remember seeing her that far out. I dived under the water to see a fuzzy shadow lying at the bottom of the ocean. It was like wearing glasses that were obviously not meant for my eyes. I swam back to shore faster than I swam out. I had to tell someone. There was a lifeguard listening to music at his post and I was certain about what I’d seen. He searched that same spot in the sea more than twice but hadn’t discovered any people at the bottom of the water. He just assumed that I was some immature fifteen year old girl that had nothing better to do on her Sunday morning but mess around with some hopeless, uncommitted lifeguard that would rather listen to songs that aren’t even recognised in society, than save lives.
That girl that I thought was lying at the bottom of the ocean but wasn’t, was not the most dramatic event of my day. My dad lying to me for the last thirteen years of my life was also quite devastating. You could say the happiness of my morning ride disappeared like that girl. But despite how mad and upset I was at him for the years of deception I felt overly relieved that that anorexic blonde that shares her intelligence with algae wasn’t my mother. The world revolved around her and now as I lay in bed thinking about it; she never really showed any love for me.
My curiousity demanded answers. She died months after my birth, and apparently had the same middle name as me. She loved her surfing and was the most compassionate person my dad has ever met, or so he said. I have her blue eyes: the same azure common with the deep blue oceans and dark brown hair that curls like the waves of her favourite beach. It would be fantastic if life was only the way we dreamt it.
The next day, I walked down to the beach with my board and again sat under that same rusted post that warned of rips and closed my eyes. As I sang with the breeze, it tickled my toes and made my shoulders shiver. “I’m not from here,” a person said. “Can you tell me where I can swim?”