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The skies burnt bright with amber painted above its clouds. Warmth filled the air and entered the woman's nostrils as if its light gave her life. Eyes misty, they looked deep into the crashing waves as if lost in a memory. It was a memory so cursed, but it became the fundamentals of her character. She hated it.
The ever-loyal man of God watched her from afar. Should he go? Hesitation was prominent in his feet as they shuffled against the gravel back and forth. He was curious about why she was standing so close to the shoreline. He didn't know when, but his feet moved on their own, stepping over and under the rocks. Greet her, he thought. Carefully, yet quickly, like approaching a butterfly with caution, in fear, she will flutter away.
His stumbling had her jerk her head backward. She furrowed her eyes at the man, puzzled as to why he came here.
Her gaze softened. She offered a gentle smile before turning back to the sea.
"I won't drown myself." She told him. "You don't need to be here."
"That's not why I'm here. Just offering some company if that's alright." His voice held that considerate edge. She could hear the anxiety creeping in it as he waited for her answer.
"It was a joke. A crude one, I'm sorry." She paused for a moment. She caught a glint of his dark eyes staring at her through her peripheral. "And I'd like that." She whispered hoarsely and sat down on the damp sand.
She focused on each foam lining of the wave that crashed into one another. A mutual battle or maybe an intimate dance, she wondered.
The man watched her gaze. His face relaxed into a soft, solemn expression. "For an island claimed to be in the pits, it sure has a charm to it." "It does, doesn't it."
He didn't want to ask that. What he wanted to ask was, "What are you doing here? What happened?" But it was inappropriate.
Not now.
"He stilled the storm to a whisper." He sat down next to her. "The waves of the sea were hushed." He quoted. (Psalm 107:29)
"The depths of darkness in a vast deep ocean overwhelmed with billow topped by billow," The woman began, "Topped by dark clouds, one above the other. If a man stretches out his hands," She held her hand out in front of her, trying catch wisps of the mist, "He can hardly see it." (Ayah an-Nur 24:40)
"That's not the bible."
"It's the Quran."
"I thought it sounded familiar."
She placed her hand back. Her pinky brushed his softly as she set it down. She didn't move away, neither did he.
"Thank you for staying." She told him.
"Don't thank me. I got called out here." He pursed his lips in thought, squinting his eyes as he looked out to the sea. "I don't know how to explain it. I knew I had to be here, to witness this dawn. With you, another soul like I."
He turned towards her. She had a mild expression of befuddlement. "A penny for your thoughts?" He asked.
"I prefer dimes." She let out a laugh that didn't quite reach her eyes. The man knew; he didn't laugh with her.
"I read these stories when I was a kid, tales where dreams come true. We could live through them and die in a crescendo, right at the climax. Splendid, magnificent, legendary. That's what I wanted. It's like becoming a Greek god in the modern world." She scrunched her nose and continued. "But life doesn't work like that. Life is a curse. We're cursed with the life given to us upon circumstance."
The priest's throat went dry as if he was out of all the wine in the world. He needed some wine. Red, preferably. Red like the very sky that seemed to glow as each word passed through her wine-like lips, dripping the truth out from them. It sent shivers down his spine. And just like that, her words stained his mind, seeped into his memory, a hefty reminder of who he is and what he has become, and what he will do.
He held her pinky and ring finger gently in the moist sand.
"What was your circumstance?" She asked.
His hold tightened just a tad. His eyes flickered from her face back to the sea. No longer serene. The breeze whistled through his ears, whispering a command. Begin your story, the story of John Pruitt, in the guise of Paul.
"My sister was ill. She had been for years until the good Lord finally granted her mercy and took her at her destined moment." He exhaled shakily. The air hit his eyes, causing his eyes to grow a layer of mist.
"I joined priesthood for her; to spread God's mercy to others. All I want is to guide them to the road to salvation. I want to save them. To be blessed and not to suffer like Alice." He gulped down a creeping sob. Millie. He thought. "I want to end the suffering of people on this island, part of the congregation or not. For they all are loved and cherished by God, and HE bestowed upon me a gift. A gift to help them and grant them no more pain, no more loss, no more anguish." His voice trembled, but each note held the chords of a prophet. "The body and mind are very precious. Memories that we make and remember would remain as it was. It would be great, beautiful, warm, and will always have love and joy painted in its cracks. Never to break again or shatter or whisk away in the sea."
A wave hit the rock in front of them, bits of it spilled onto his face. It stung. "I would give up all the heavens and earth the Lord has created for me in paradise, to make one for the loved ones here. What am I if I couldn't do that much? What is my purpose if I can't achieve what the Lord asked me to do? What am I if I fail?"
"You're kind." She told him. "Your efforts won't go to waste however you do it." The woman reassured him. "Hey." She took the sleeve of her other hand and wiped his face. He didn't notice how warm the water was until he felt the cool cotton graze right under his eye. "You were able to figure out what to do with your curse. You have hope, and you're able to share it with others. You give hope."
"And you?" He asked.
"Me."
"Yes, you."
The waves sang a song. Melodic and deep and gritty. It left the shoreline in front of them in uneven mounds, spreading the cold on their feet.
"I wasn't born with much hope. No. None at all, but I had some. I wanted to make my mother happy. I failed. She suffered too much in the short lifespan she had. My father wasn't a decent human. It's disgusting that I share the same genes. He is a tyrant, still alive for evil never truly dies. My mother, well. She took his right hand to the face every day. No matter what she did, it was unsatisfactory. Ultimately, my sister and I were bred and raised with dissatisfaction and conditional love. If you could call it love, that is." She huffed out a dry chuckle. "It's not love nor hate. It is what it is. I'm a slave to this existence and him indefinitely. I may be away from him physically, but he is still dwelling here." She tapped her temple harshly, frustrated with herself. Her hand glided past upwards to her hair, and she gave it a yank to bring her back to earth, away from the dark, deep sea of her mind. The pain rippled through her scalp. It was a sharp reminder of who she was and how she came to be.
Paul. He held on to her fist to stop her.
"I can't ever leave. Not when I'm alive. I can't go back in time and give myself the courage, the light to look past all of this and believe again. I want to. Goddammit! I want to. I'm insignificant. I'm ugly. I'm a parasite, a freeloader. My mother could have left if I was never born. It's my fault I let evil grow. And I'm afraid my fate's sealed to have a miserable, meaningless existence." She muttered.
"You are not meaningless." He gently opened her fist. He turned his body to face hers and grasped both of her hands. "You're compassionate. You did all this to survive. You did this out of love. Don't you ever speak like that about yourself? Ever!" He shook her hands.
Her face went warm as tears spilled out of her eyes.
The man in front of her was so genuine, so unbelievably saint-like. He held on to her and told her the words God couldn't tell her. She gulped to stop the salty sea in her eyes from drowning her cheeks. His gaze mirrored hers: red, fiery, yet, like an oasis, it filled his eyes to the brim, reeling over the waterline and onto his pale cheeks.
"What you're going through is unforgivable, but you will find the fruit of your labor. You will see the light of day along with me. I haven't seen it yet, no, not my fruit. But I know it's growing. My garden will come to its fruition, and yours will, too. Believe that you and what you've done isn't meaningless, far from it. You are the gardener, the bearer of fruit. Created in His image, of the skies and seas, know that this world wouldn't be the same without you in it."
"Don't lie! You preach such things, but it won't come to life for me. You are not God to understand nor say there will be a happy ending. You don't know. I only exist, and I follow the path of the inevitable, and I tried."
She hung her head. "I tried my best to last. To walk in the dark, in this goddamned tunnel. I tried to do my best in this world for my mother, my father, my sister, my friends, all whom I love, myself." She sobbed.
"For you." She whispered.
"I do it for you, too."
The sand underneath them dampened. "I'm here for you. I'm doing this for all of the islanders and you. I don't want you to wither away to oblivion or lose your mind; God, that beautiful mind of yours. I don't want you to leave." He shook his head in defiance. "Not like her."
He pressed her knuckles to his lips, trembling. "When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through difficulty, I. Will. Not. Let. You. Drown (Isaiah 43:2)." She could feel his teeth grit on the whites of her knuckles as he spoke each word with anger and persistence.
He was beautiful.
"No matter how many times I cry and kneel, I will keep you here, to have you see your tremendous value, understand you are loved and needed and adored and sought out! God knows. God knows, and He would command the world to love you and cherish you as you are. I will make sure of it, even if it means I'll be scorched by the glares of others and become ash amongst the pyre and lose all of what's left of me. For you."
Her hands felt the burn of his words etched onto them. Her face held the same hue as the vast sky, and her heart hammered into her chest. She knelt her head and watched him through her eyelashes. To make sure he was there and not some hallucination, she wanted a glimpse of his eyes. But they were closed shut.
She removed her hands from his and placed them upon his cheeks. The tears slid down his face silently. He looked up, confused at the lack of warmth in his hands, only to be surprised to see it placed on his face. She is serene. He thought. Serene and all-knowing. If he could, he would confess and cry his anguish to her and follow her through deep, carnivorous waters and scorching deserts.
"When you walk through the fire of oppression, you won't burn up; the flames will not consume you (Isaiah 43:2)." His eyes widened. She gave him a gentle smile and wiped his cheek with a calloused thumb. "I wouldn't let it."
At that moment, he knew what else he wanted to do; praise her, her words, have them etched onto him. She was the image of God.
"If all the trees on earth were pens and the ocean ink, refilled by seven other seas, these words would never be exhausted. They would never tire (Luqman 31:27)." He continued. "It would not be written. There wouldn't be an end." He let out a short laugh of delight. His eyes held a feeling she couldn't recall until he said her name. "There wouldn't be an end to how much I love you (Y/N)."
His lips fluttered upon hers, and he pressed them into a gentle kiss, brimmed with laughter and joy and reassurance; the first apple of their orchid. She returned the kiss with equal vigor. Her heart soared like a hummingbird's wings batting against the sky.
The wind whistled a small prayer.
"Amen." She whispered.
He shook his head, smiled, and replied.
"Ameen."