In The Footsteps of Nothingness

She said: “I like gold.” I hesitated to reply. What should I say to a woman who liked gold? I thought about it for a while then said: “Yellow or white?” She paused and stared at me. A long hard penetrating stare. As if my head were a coded language and she were trying to decipher its meaning. At last she said: “Black” and nodded contently. I heaved a sigh of relief and we kept strolling along the beach. Shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. So close you’d think we were conjoined twins. Only I had dark kinky hair that hovered above my shoulders while she had black straight hair that dropped to her waist. We were different but you couldn’t tell us apart. It’s hard to tell apart two people whose fantasies and realities weave in and out of one another.

We were alone on the beach except for the crabs and dead fish washed ashore. Without warning she broke away and took off running. Her hair was raised by the wind and her feet kicked up sand. With arms out spread she looked like she was flying. I ran after her until we came upon a sandy cliff that overlooked the sea. She stood at the edge and peered off into the sea. I was out of breath while she was as calm as the horizon’s lips. Her dress was matted against her body by the wind.

She said: “I love the sea.” And the sea was beautiful. Crimson from the horizon where the sun was dipping down was diluted to heavy green and eventually blue as the waves washed unto the shore. And I said it exactly as I thought it. But she said: “No. It is because she belongs to everyone.”

We were alone on the beach except for the crabs and dead fish washed ashore. A stray bit of paradise hiding in the bushes populated mostly by campers during the weekends. But today was Monday and she must have known it because we were one. She must have led me here knowing what I would do. Because she grabbed unto my arm as I pushed her off the cliff. We both landed in the shallow waters with a loud splash sending crabs scurrying off in fright. Some disappeared into holes while other stopped to stare with righteous indignation.

“Ha! Ha! Ha!.” She laughed with theatrical glee. “I always pictured my own death to be by strangulation. Not drowning. Water in my skin, water in my hair, water in my lungs. To be found by a local fisherman bloated up. Somehow the image doesn’t seem too romantic.”

“Come, lets go home.” She said taking me by the hand. We splashed about in the water before emerging on level shore. Together we strolled to where our back packs lay. Gathering all our stuff we hopped on our rented bicycles and cycled back into town. Quietly we deposited them and returned to our separate homes. It will be ten years later before I saw her again, in flesh. But for ten good years she’d haunted my dreams.