Day 24 – The person that gave you your favourite memory

To: Euclides with the bronze eyes

Subject: So we sailed away.

It was a beautiful day. The sea was and probably is still, clear, sparkling, constant. You were sitting next to me and I could see that the gold in your hair was the same as the rays from the sun. I could tell that the lines in your smile were the same as the ripples in the water.

I still do not know your name. But I liked how it felt safe to sit with you, far away from everyone else, knowing that at any moment, should I drown, you would save me.

I do not know how I know this fact. I just did at that moment. I liked how we said so little yet when I walked away from you to get on with the rest of my day, I felt that that morning, on the sailboat with you, was the most carefree, invigorating and refreshing moment of my young girlhood. It is true. With you I felt so much like a girl at a waltz – light footed, quick to let you lead, comforted to grace the waters and conquer whatever obstacles there were as long as you were there.

I did like feeling like that. I did like having the assurance that I did not need to be strong all the time. That I could leave my weaknesses at your hands and you would not turn away. You would ride it out with me.

I did like the way you turned away shyly every time I looked to you and smiled. I did like the way you asked me when I would be back. I did like the way we went so far out that all around us there was nothing but sea. For miles and miles away, I could see a strip of land with some houses on it, but other than that we were an island on our own. I didn’t feel danger, or tension, or insecurity. I liked that I was in the middle of nowhere with you and your strange bronze eyes which shone so brilliantly yet underneath it, there was broodiness and a kind of desperation…

When I left for the airport the next day, I did wish I could turn back. Maybe elope with you and start a life based on nothing. We could build a house made of plywood and eat seaweed for all I cared. I did wish I could sit down with you again and feel the wind in our cheeks. I did wish I could give my life to you with just a rattan string for a wedding ring. I did wish I could throw my life now away. I did turn my head back to the direction where I thought you would be. I did whisper in my heart that if you came running for me now and swept me up from the gravelly road, I would go with you.

I would have gone with you. I would have gone with you. I would have laughed the same reckless laugh, the same one when you asked me if we ought to sail faster and I said yes let’s do it. It would have been the biggest relief, to breathe the same air as you and blanket ourselves with the dark night, the pitch black abyss that was the same sea we both lost our hearts to.

Everytime I want to cry I think of this memory and I tell myself – I wish I was gutsy enough to take a gamble and put all my faith in you and the forces of nature. Everytime I want to cry I think of you and remember that someone once looked at me the way you did with those honest piercing bronze eyes.

Yours,

Me