Under the Sun

 

G. H. Goins

 

For Mom 

Though this story may be about the brevity of life

it is not about you 

Promise  

 

 

Under the Sun

And darkness was over the face of the deep.  

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.  

Genesis 1:2 

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Chaos.  

Lightning slashing violently through the distance of two piles of darkened clouds on the brink of an angry convergence. Thunderheads over the face of the deep, this the frothing sea, pouring out incessant amounts of water. Mountainous waves building-swelling-rising! crashing down upon hydrous valleys of sea spray and salty surf. 

Churning waters.  

Wave after wave. 

Over and over.  

Cold. 

Like the labored breaths of a man on a splintery cross.  

Whistling airs.  

Dark as pitch.  

Heavy as death.  

Cold. 

Like the lonely sounds of a steam locomotive on an open plane.   

Chaos. 

* 

Fingers clawing at the sand, cold from its moist texture. She shivers. The wind whips around her, kneeling there on the shore, her dress flapping like a flag hung half-mast. Knees fixed firmly in the sand, leaving tiny imprints in her bare skin.  

Thunder rumbles in the distance. Or is it close? It is hard to tell now— the waves are so big and loud; she is surprised she can hear anything over the constant aqueous breathing of the seaside’s waters. 

Why is she here?  

She shoves her hands deep under the surface, palms facing away from her. She lifts them out, pushing hard against the brown stuff. The sand lifts. Her hands free. She pushes the sand forward, making a mound in front of a hole. 

She digs. 

Adds to the mound.  

Water begins streaming down into the shallow hole, remnants of the last high tide. Tiny rivulets form paths and tiny trenches in the sandy surface leading to her hole.  

What is the woman doing?  

Why does she dig this hole? 

What purpose does it serve?  

No light here on the beach; sun or otherwise. A thick coverage of clouds blocks even a straw of hope to see the sun.  

The biting wind doesn’t relent. It lifts her long, ebony hair and whips it around her face in a restrained sort of violence. She seems not to notice. 

She keeps digging. 

She lifts the sodden sand out of the hole and almost pours the fluid substance out, upon her mound.  

Lightning!  

Pays no mind.  

She continues digging with vigor.  

Lifting with cupped hands. 

Pouring with purpose. 

Thunder! 

She shivers.  

The water-pooled hole is now three feet across, like a lake in the shadow of a bald, treeless mountain. Her back straightens as she sits up from her back-aching posture, from being bent forward over the saltwater lake. She observes the mountain for a moment, her breathing heavy, as if mirroring the waves of the agitated sea behind her. The lake is situated between her and the mound.  

She stares, unmoving.  

What lies at the heart of her motivation to create this mound? 

        

        What thoughts are behind the reins, driving her to this futility?  

Is she aware of the inevitable greed of the angry waves? 

She dips her hand into the frigid water. Reaching for the sand at the bottom of the pool, she grasps a handful and lifts her hand out and, leaning over the pool, drips the watery sand on the side of the mountain. It forms a base with an appearance akin to hardened molten lava. She does it again, getting a handful of the saturated sand and dripping it in pinched fingers over the base previously formed. It looked almost like the remaining stump of a tall, slender wax candle. One can almost imagine a sputtering flame at the tip of the little sandy tower. She repeats the motions. It begins to take the appearance of a tiny tree, perhaps a spruce or a hemlock.  

   

Satisfied with its form, she begins the process of making another miniature tree.  

And another is brought forth in its wake.  

Three trees later, she straightens her back again. StretchesLightning!and inhales, sucking air in greedily. She interlaces her sandy fingers and liftsThunder!them above her head in a stretch. She exhales slowly. Grains of sand slip from between her straining fingers and fall on her raven-black head. Her hair whips across her face mercilessly. 

   

Without regard for her daisy-imbued dress, she slips into the pool of salt water at the foot of the mountain and continues her work. Her body shivers, objecting to the change of temperature brought on by the sudden submergence. 

Cold. 

She makes more trees, losing herself in the project. Losing herself. Losing her mind.  

Satisfied and exerted, she again beholds her creation. There is a certain majesty in its simplicity. Her mountain, as it does now truly resemble a mountain, is now fully covered by the little tree-like sand towers. Her face looks tired. Sand is plastered to her rose-red cheeks and even in the completion or near-completion of her mountain, not even a note of a smile is found on her chapped lips. Her breath enters and leaves her lungs like broken waves on a jagged beach.  

The storm is upon her.  

Beams of electric light strike incessantly. Unforgivingly close. Thunder as loud as a vacuum silence follows nearly immediately, enveloping her in its mountain-leveling tsunami of sound.  

She falls on her side, her knees folded beneath her. Some of the bank falls into the pool with a subtle ripple, barely adding to the turbulent seas caused by the woman’s crashing down upon the pool’s shore. Her hands clamp to the side of her skull, over her ears, as another strike flashes nearby and the thunderous wave of sound floods over her shuddering body. Her lips part and from her throat, thrown wide like an open grave, a scream is issued. She turns on her back, her head the only part not submerged in her little lake.  

She lies there for a few moments.  

Eyes clenched involuntarily. Ears covered by sandy hands. Her body rocking back and forth.  

Side to side.  

Over and over.

Her tumultuous face directed toward the thunderheads above.  

And without warning, a frothy wave of frigid seawater reaches her head and fills her little lake to the brim.  

She sits bolt upright, just in time to see the bank of her lake eroding away. A chunk of her mountain is consumed by the hungry waters of the pool and a crack forms vertically in the mountain. A tree topples.  

Desperate, she begins digging a trench a couple feet from the pool, toward the ocean, like a sort of moat protecting her kingdom. The sand she takes from the trench, she uses as a sort of wall in front of the trough.  

A wave approaches. 

It rushes forward, choking on its own surf, climbing up the beach, as if thousands of tiny hands are pulling it up. It first meets the wall; runs up it and jumps over, bubbling and sputtering. It fills the trench and splashes some as it surges on. It meets the lake and touches the foot of the mountain, now missing a piece as if it’s a cliff. The water eats a hole in the mountain. Another piece falls in, splashing a little.  

But the woman is already there. She attempts to patch the eroding mountain with some sodden sand, but it just slides into the pool. She begins digging another trench, moving as fast as she can, leading from her pool out toward the ocean. The water begins pouring out of the lake.  

It gushes down, like a little river, running fast. 

But it’s not enough. 

Why does the woman not know that it will never be enough? 

When will it be clear to her? 

When will she put her efforts to rest? 

A wave is near and is now upon her.  

It flattens what remains of the wall, fills what remains of its moat, and meets the water now flowing out of the little lake. It overcomes the small river and runs straight into the lake.  

The woman runs her hands through her hair, as she sits on her heels, her knees planted in the sand. She watches helplessly as another chunk with three little trees plunges into the depths. A quarter of her sandy dominion lies in the depths of the lake.  

The lighting doesn’t cease its striking 

        Nor the thunder its clapping 

The waters do not cease their churning 

Over and over 

        Nor the airs their whistling 

Heavy as death 

The cold doesn’t cease its creeping 

Nor the tide its advance 

And it begins to rain. 

It begins as a restrained shower, with some drops falling here and there, but she knows that it will not stay this way for long. Her pulse begins to quicken like the rising tide. The rain cares not about where it rests, falling on the wicked and the righteous the same. The chaos of the sea knows no bounds, consuming all in the end; flattening even the tallest of mountains, eroding even the rockiest of shores.  

She stands from her kneeling position and thinks frantically. Has she nothing to cover the mountain with? She leans over it, covering a small portion of it with her torso, her arms outstretched above it. The sprinkle swiftly becomes a rain. It begins to pour out as if the clouds had been trying to keep down vomit but could no longer.   

The torrents fall at an angle and the woman quickly stands to the left of the mountain, acting as a wall against the rain falling sideways. Her dress, now sopping wet, makes little cracking sounds as it ripples in the wind like waves. The sound of the downpour nearly drowns out the noises of the ocean. 

She watches and despairs as her efforts are failing. No matter how she stands or kneels to shield between the storm and her creation, nothing works. Hope is as far off as the sun is from the night. Or as far as it is from the woman. She begins to doubt its existence, as what memory remains of its warmth and light fades like the sands of her mound at her feet.  

Is there anything new under the sun? 

        Is this not the experience of every human? 

Is there another? 

An experience beyond a life lived in the shadow of death 

Within the clutches of the sands of time and vanity? 

A different way to be human? 

A wave is coming. 

It roars. Louder than the hissing rain, than the whistling air. It curls and crashes down upon the flat surface of the wet beach and surges up. 

Without regard for the rain falling upon the treed mound, she throws herself down a couple feet in front of the mountain, lying on her side. Before she has time to realize that it’s happening, the wave smothers her in salty, sandy water.  

Water floods her nostrils, and her eyes burn. The flaming flavor of salt overwhelms her taste buds and causes her to gag. She feels her body being pulled out with the tide, tumbling and rolling violently. Helplessly. Her fingers grab at the ground, but it all gives way. She feels the sensation of grains of sand and tiny seashells digging into the skin beneath her fingernails, as she claws and fights the strong current. She cries out, but her scream is swallowed by the waters gushing into her open mouth. Her stomach clenches in an attempt to regurgitate, but the water flowing into her mouth and nose prevents it.

Lightning! 

The flash, she sees, but the thunder doesn’t come. Or maybe it does, and she cannot hear it under the water.  

Alas, 

It comes.  

She does not hear It. No-- she feels It. Deep in her chest. Through the waves, as though It is not coming from the claps in the air but from the depths itself.  

Cast into the deep, into the heart of the seas.  

The flood surrounded her. All of the waves and billows passed over her. The waters closed in over her. She felt weeds wrapping themselves around her, tangling up in her rolling body. 

The Thunder from the deep rumbles still. 

Peace, It says.  

The Thunder. Speaking not with words. Speaking not by a language of man. Speaking out of Its own power.

Be still.  

And all at once, it stops.  

The tide stops dragging her out. The weeds cease dragging her under.  

Her body is racked with hundreds of unpleasant tingling sensations. Her head bursts through the surface of the water, and she sees that a wave is receding, creating an illusion of calm, of peace.  

The wave going out only makes room for another wave to crash onto the beach again.  

Wave after wave 

Over and over 

Order.  

She stands and finds herself in water that is up to her thigh. Her dress, littered with the imprints of daisies, fans out in the water like a flower in bloom. 

The winds have ceased their blowing, the airs their whistling. Though the waves don’t cease their churning, their advances are much restrained.  

She makes her way to the beach, wading through the seaweed.  

She sits down on the damp sand, a few paces beyond the reach of the straining tide, staring at the sea. She breathes deep, the air entering through her nostrils. She can taste the salt on the wind, the warm ocean breeze blowing over and around her, filling her soaked dress. 

She sits there for a while.  

Still. Unmoving.   

Hands planted in the sand behind her, her back straightened as she leans back on them. An expression not of joy or sorrow rests on her face; seen in her eyes is an expression of contentment and a certain level of understanding. Her dress, dry now, flaps cheerily in the breeze.  

The sun still hides behind the clouds, the thunder still rumbles. Yet order is not absent.  

Her lips part, as she mouths three words.  

Peace. Be still. 

The words, not spoken from a throat or a mouth, but from some inexplicable, ineffable, living Presence. Mysterious, unknowable. Dangerous.  

Unutterably good.  

She is unsure if the Source of these words were directing the commands to her or to the winds and the waves. Regardless, both parties obeyed. She knows not if she obeyed by choice or by force; she does not care.

The beach around her is bare but for some seashells and seaweed strewn about, its surface flat. It is impossible to tell where her mountain and lake once dwelled. The seas devoured them, leveling the mountain, drinking the lake to the sandy dregs. She doesn't seem to notice.  

Her body exhausted, she now does nothing but sit there, peacefully. Still. 

She breathes in. 

Exhales.  

A perfect mirror of the ocean before her.  

 

 

 

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.