{Seafoam} - Open -

Leonard Terrapin

I am water.

I am wind.

There are a million things that I could be and a million things that I am; a million things that I once was and a million that I will never be again. The trick is figuring out which is which and which is not. The sand shifts beneath my feet as I move, granules falling over each other over and over, sounding like a single sheet of paper being scraped against a weather worn section of cemented pavement. The tang of the salt air catches in the back of my mouth as I breathe in, dragging long tendrils of spice across my throat. The afternoon air is rife with the spray of the tide, the sound of gulls calling to each other far above my head and the roar of waves dashing themselves into foam on the rocks. The beach is deserted where I choose to stroll. Far away in the distance behind me I can just make out the shapes of several people enjoying a swim, and someone lounging in the shade of a tree. The wind does not carry the tones of their merriment to where I walk, blowing in their direction instead. I suppose that if I were the one loudly enjoying the company of others, it would be my voice borne away on the airways to where they play. But I am but a silent traveler this day, and there is nothing for them to hear from my lips or my vocal cords.

I eventually stop at a familiar rock that juts out towards the ocean like a hunting dog pointing the way to fallen prey and climb it, sitting my body down and facing the sea. This is a place where I come to let my mind wander when it gets a little too auditorily cluttered around the house to hear myself think. It is not the first place like this that I have called my own and I seriously doubt that it will be the last. When I was younger there was a tide pool that I frequently visited. The same assortment of creatures could almost always be found. There was a reddish brown crab that scuttled back and forth, waving its larger claw around in the air if I got too close as if the action would ward me off. Shells galore were deposited in that little indentation, some with their owners still living inside but most empty and ready to be picked up and played with or brought home to be sold to people looking to turn them into jewelry. Once there was a little yellow fish with a spot on its tail. I named it SeaSea. SeaSea the fish would swim back and forth in the tide pool, searching for a way out or pecking at the occasional strand of seaweed that I put in the water above him. Eventually, I stopped seeing him there. I think a seagull got to him. Or maybe enough water got into the tidepool that he swam on out and back into the great blue unknown. Unless of course he was a her. I never did learn how to tell the difference when it comes to fish.

Come to think of it, I suppose we are fish ourselves, in the wide expanse of life. There’s always a bigger fish in the pond so to speak. Scales can be just as flashy as clothes and makeup and just think about some of the terms we use. Loan shark for example. It’s a prime way to show that we associate ourselves with the ocean. I slowly get to my feet and bring one leg up until all of my balance is on the remaining foot. I close my eyes and inhale the world around me, letting my imagination fill in the blank space of my mind. I can still see the water and the sand, the sun reflecting off the former and heating up the later. Clouds move across the sky in semi synchronization changing shape and form a dozen times. In one moment the clouds could look like trees and rocks and the next look like a friendly octopus or a sailboat drifting through a patch of reeds.

I can feel the warmth of the sun’s rays on my skin, a gentle breeze caressing me as it moves down the beach and still, still the sound of the water dances in my ears. I let out a low sigh, emptying my lungs of air and launch myself into the air, snapping forward with the leg I had left on the ground and switching my stance so that when I land it is now the leg held up in the air. I repeat this pattern for another five or six leaps before stopping and opening my eyes. Out in the distance I can see several ships beginning their return. They will arrive just before the sun sets and begin disgorging their catches. The bounty of the sea is large, but those living in the Capitol are always looking for the most exquisite things to eat. Lobsters, manta rays, whatever else. Grandfather used to be a deepsea diver, scanning the ocean bed for oysters or rather their pearls. District one may have the market for luxury items and jewelry but the pearls for their ocean themed necklaces come from here. I believe he wants me to follow in his footsteps once I am no longer eligible to be reaped. I am alright with that. Eventually, I will no longer be able to buy tesserae with which to get extra food, and will have to have another means of helping out.

But until then, I will continue to follow Grandfather’s lessons and hone my body into the weapon it needs to be. I must be fit and trim if I am to bring honor to the family. It is expected that one day I will be reaped, and when that happens I have to crush everything and anyone in my path, especially the other careers. It has been far too long since district four has brought home the crown and Grandfather constantly speaks of when we were feared as a career district in our own right. He fears that those days are long gone and that soon the Capitol will consider us to be the same as how district three and five were always viewed; both of which have actually had victors within the past decade, unlike us. Grandfather is under the impression that our district’s glory days have been fading and will soon be gone forever unless our careers start taking things a bit more seriously. This is why not just I but my three brothers all started training at the age of ten. One of us will bring glory to the district by coming home a victor, and the other three will take home medals the next time the Capitol decides to hold the Olympics.

For now however, I will continue to stand on my rock and enjoy this sense of solitude away from nearly everything else in the district. It is rare that I get interrupted during these excursions, which is not to say that I haven’t been disturbed in the past, just that it isn’t exactly a common occurrence. Many people do decide to train on the sand or otherwise enjoy our district’s one attraction, but always closer to the buildings where they can get something to munch on or over by the docks to welcome home successful fisherman. Here, away from the docks and away from the boardwalk is a little place all my own. A place where I’ve thought a million things and had a million thoughts ease their way out of my head to be lost on the wind. A million secrets that have never been told and a million things that have never seen the light of day. I wonder if somewhere out there across the sea there is something thinking the exact same things, It’s one of those things I might never know. But if there was, I’d tell them that sometimes I don’t want to nod my head when Grandfather talks.

I don’t want to spend day in and day out honing my body into what they want. Maybe I don’t even want to be a pearl diver when I grow up. Maybe I wish to be more than the limitations that they put on me. We’ve always been pearl divers they say again and again, but perhaps its time to be something different. Instead of becoming what they expect I should become something else. What that something is, I still don’t know. And I do not know if anyone else in the district feels the same way. Thus far, I have not found a single person who understands what its like to want to escape from the mold that your family made has made for you. Thus far at least.

Thus far.