This one speaks of betrayal…coming from those you’ve known to be your best ones…
I could taste the salt from the sea. The smell only wafted through my nostrils but it couldn’t avoid the nasal passage, before finally resting on my taste buds. I knew this taste too well. It was the taste of betrayal.
It had been a nice, warm morning. After the chores, done in the usual morning haste, I had managed to sneak a few minutes away from the chaos that spilled onto my laptop, in the form of work pending to be done, into the blissful breaking of the waves in my backyard. This was my dream-house. It offered the perfect sanctuary for a family, the perfect comfort for two lovers and the perfect privacy for a loner. At different points of time I had walked in and out of all the three roles. Today, I would cease being either of them.
I have always had an affinity for the sea. The only thing intolerable about it is the smell which sometimes tends to get unbearable. I had the perfect solution to that: jump right into the waves and disappear in its depths. It feels like being a part of another world altogether, as if the world in the sea is a greater part of the world. It is though isnt it?
Like any other day, I stole a few minutes after breakfast, before getting down to work, to awaken myself completely by watching the sea roaring. It was then I tasted it. The taste of betrayal.
It was stifling to say the least. It couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t like I couldn’t tolerate it. It was more like being suffocated. Suddenly, everything I knew of the morning as being nice and warm changed to a chilling grey. I was certain now. This was going to be the end of it. But why me?
I was choking, quiet neatly that too. There wasn’t a soul around for miles. I couldn’t even scream for help. My vocal chords seemed to have lost their ability to produce sound. I stood there with my hand clutching my throat. I could see the sky beginning to gear itself up for the final blow it was going to deal to me.
Heavens! No! Not me! I couldn’t even think straight. How could this be happening to me? The place, the sight, that had always given me a sense of love and security, couldn’t be betraying me. How could it be so merciless? How could it simply unleash itself and behave the way it wanted to? Didn’t it have any consideration for my feelings?
I could see the world dissolving. As I stood transfixed, I saw the charging daggers rush towards me. It was betrayal giving me a blow. I couldn’t even ask it why it was doing so. I could only stand mutely and keep being slapped, hard, inside and outside my body. There was no mercy. Not a bit. I shut my eyes.
It kept raining hard, the waves kept rushing nearer, and the taste of the salt began to evaporate. I opened my eyes. I knew where the smell was disappearing.
I was getting lost in the depths of the sea.
