Memories (Mahina)

(( So sorry for the late reply! But here it is! ))

A hundred metres ahead the waves broke on to the shores of the beach leaving foam as it retreats back out in to the ocean. Behind those retreating waves the reef was at war with itself again.

Tumbling, crashing, thrashing and fighting against the gravitational pull of the beautiful moon like royal Roman horses fighting the reins of their chariot rider. And high up in the blanket of the night, the moon appears triumphant over her raging seahorses. Tonight she ruled again.

Not far from the crashing waves of the sea, a restless creature sat on a branch with her eyes closed and her chin up towards the moon. And through the long pine-like leaves of the beach pandan tree, moonlight peers through them, etching shadowed patterns across her face. It gave her the appearance of an untamed feline out of the jungle. But she is no feline.

Her grip on the branch tightened, turning her knuckles white from the pressure. Tonight again the one thing she was named after has triumphed over her.

You can’t make me. Mahina wanted to say but she knew it of no use. Tonight and every other night like this will continue to haunt her for the rest of her life.

“You can’t have me tied liked this forever!” Mahina growled under her breath. Her forehead was now beginning to glisten with tiny beads of sweat.

Like the waves on the reef, Mahina was having her own internal war. And like Roman horses, she was feeling the powerful grip of the master’s hand on her reins, trying to rear her in towards his wants. But she refused. And yet the tug-o-war became fierce.

Hands clamped on to blunt thorny branches, she willed herself not to yield to the gravitational pull of the unknown force.

“You will not take me too,” Mahina spat at the oppressor.

The massive shadow stood tall and intimidating before her. Chest heaving she watched as he slowly reached out with a hand and on his palm, she saw her mother’s struggle for life in the raging water.
“NO!” Mahina screamed.

“...Noooooo..” Eyes flew wide open, filled with fear and intense grief gripped her throat that she could’ve stopped breathing all together.
Her sudden jerking movements disturbed a hermit crab on its nightly crawl that it quickly retreated inside the safety of its hard shell. She had fallen asleep by the beach. She looked down her arm to see her bronze skin pimpled as the cold wind caressed her thinly clad body.

I need to go home, she thought. But one more look out in to the ocean made her forget she wanted to go home.

There is no home. Home was here.

Right here...and her hand slowly moved towards her heart and she sat like that, half hunched, hair swirling in the wind and the beach shimmering under the moonlight.

Her large dark eyes gazed out towards the dark waters of the sea. With the moon hovering just above it, the horizon shimmered in silver like discs. And like lazy ocean waves, they hugged the sandy shores with only the pimpling seashells interrupting the flow of the water on the beach.

The girl in the trees was caught in between two worlds. The dream world and reality. The reality in which she was sitting on this very branch. The dream world, in which the moon is calling for her, with warm embracing arms stretched out towards her.

....

Gasping for breath, she tore out of it.
Wild and panicking, her head whipped from left to right.
This ghostly place was almost too familiar to her but it all made sense now when she looked up and between the leaves peered the moon.

I was caught off guard once again, she thought to herself. Like the myths of men who were slaves to the moon. At every full moon he would be dragged down in chains and transformed to another vicious beast.

But I'm not like that! Mahina thought. Beads of sweat had formed across her brows and she sighed. Relieved she had snapped out of her trance before she could no longer control herself.

Swinging from the branch and on to the cold sand, she wriggled her toes. The grains of sand dwiddled past between her toes. It felt good to be back on her feet again.

Looking up, she narrowed her eyes up at the envious moon. Blue and silver in her throne.
And that's when she saw the dark figure. Hunched over by the waters unaware of her presence.

Curiousity tugged on her like an achor falling deep in to the trenches of the ocean floor, she took her first step towards the waters.