The Other Shore: Two Stories of Love and Death

by Paul Hina

shines on the water, but there is no moon.

  He starts to swim but doesn't know where to go or which direction to move. So, he just swims. The further he swims, the more uncertain the water becomes. It's becoming choppier, and he labors to manage the current. But he can't figure out which way the water is moving, can't tell upstream from downstream. The water is moving in on him in every direction and worry is falling over him like rain.

  Then, as if the chaos of the water weren't enough, he wonders what might be below the surface, what life might be moving beneath his feet. He looks around from one side of the water to the other, spinning around like he's chasing the tail of his fear. And now his worry has become a full-blown panic.

  The water is becoming even more uncertain, more choppy, and in the distance where there was nothing before, he can see waves approaching—massive waves. He tries to swim away from the waves as fast as he can, but when he looks back, he knows there's no outrunning them. They're coming fast.

  But he keeps swimming.

  He swims until he's thrown forward and pulled beneath the surface by a frenzy of water. He tries to swim up, but he's not sure which way is up. He struggles with the water to find the surface again, looks everywhere for the blue light of the surface, but he can't find it. He's fighting the water, flinging his limbs around, looking for anything to help him find his way back to air.

  Then the scene flips.

  He is a child now. He's at the lake with his dad on a sunny, summer day. He remembers this day. It was the only day where he and his dad ever took a boat out on the lake. Simon was looking over the edge of the boat into the water, smiling at his own water-disturbed reflection when he saw a fish—a big, bright orange fish. The fish swam under the boat, and Simon leaned out further to try to find it. But he leaned too far and tumbled into the water.

  He hadn't yet learned how to swim, and, inexplicably, Sy had not given him a life jacket to wear. Outside of the fact that this was the first, and only time that they ever took a boat out on the water, Simon remembers this day so clearly because it was the first time he became aware of the fragility of his life. As he thrashed around in this new underwater world, he believed he would die. He remembers that feeling of hope sinking, of the bubbles and the roaring of the water that muffled his ears.

  He was maybe four years old.

  Then he felt a hand grasp his arm, and he was pulled to the squirms of sunlight on the surface.

  And then the scene flips back.

  He's on the shore now, lying in the sand, staring up at the moonless night. He stands up, looks across the water.

  Now, the body of water is not endless. In the distance, he can see another beach—the two beaches separated by a body of water—and there is someone sitting on the other shore.

  The person stands up and Simon immediately recognizes that it's his dad. Simon re-enters the water, wants to swim to him. But his dad turns around and walks away from the water's edge.

  "Dad!" Simon yells. "Dad! It's me! Wait for me!"

  His dad turns around, waves to Simon, but he doesn't stop. He continues to walk away until he disappears behind some large rocks off the beach.

  Simon turns around and Laura is standing behind him. Her arms are wrapped around her body. She is shivering. There is a towel balled up on the sand several feet behind her. He walks toward her, leans behind her to grab the towel, picks it up and places it over her shoulders.

  "Did you pull me out of the water?" he asks.

  She doesn't say anything, just leans into his body, shares some of her towel with him.

  When he opens his eyes, he immediately looks around the room, tries to get his bearings. It takes a second before he recognizes Laura's room. He rests his head on the pillow again, takes a deep breath.

  She is sleeping beside him. His body has drifted away from her body through the course of the night, but she is still in the same position she fell asleep in—curled up with her back toward him. He would love to find his way back to her body, embrace her again, but he doesn't want to disturb her.

  He looks around for a clock. There's one on her bedside table, but it's turned away from the bed. It's red illumination shines against the wall. He assumes this is purposeful. Maybe she doesn't like the red glow, or doesn't want to know the time when she wakes in the middle of the night. No matter what the reason, it pleases him to think he's discovered one of her idiosyncrasies, and he smiles to think it may be the first of many foibles he'll get to learn.

  He looks at her, tries to detect her breathing. He watches for the expansion of her inhale, the softening of the exhale. He hopes that the hypnotic rhythms of her breathing will lull him back to sleep. But he can barely see her move at all. He listens for his own breath, but all he can hear is a hiss rising above the silence of the apartment, almost like the hiss of moving water.

  He looks down at the foot of the bed. She's lost the sheet from around her body at some point during the night, or maybe he stole it from her in his restlessness. However she lost it, her body is exposed, and her nightshirt has ridden up over her hip. He stares at this perfectly feminine slope—framed at its zenith by moonlight—and words start to pop in his head.

  a crest of moonlight

  breaks over

  her hip's horizon

  Even in his not-fully-awake state he's invigorated by these words. He can't remember the last time he's been inspired enough to think anything even remotely poetic. And the words don't stop. He doesn't want them to stop—happily lets them wash over him.

  the water of her body rises and falls like nightshade

  breathing, it conquers the darkness with the lazy lisp

  of her song

  He keeps rolling words around in his mind, spinning sounds and phrases like he's composing a poem—something he thought he'd forgotten how to do. He thinks to grab his phone, to take a note, but he doesn't want to risk waking Laura.

  a crest of moonlight breaks over her hip's horizon

  and the water of her body rises and falls, the soft

  waves of her shape sparkle and shine, interrupt

  the shadows of nightshade's sleep, and the sea whispers

  like the lisp of a sea's song

  He lets the words splash over him, and he repeats them over and over again, hoping he might carry some fragments into the morning. And the words keep coming, one wave after another, and they begin to match the rhythm of her breathing body. Inhale... a crest of moonlight. Exhale… her hip's horizon.

  He got up very early this morning and had a difficult time thinking of sleep again. He laid there next to Laura and waited for the sun. He passed the time by trying to find the poem he'd left somewhere in his half-sleep, rummaging through the words. He thought of his dream and his dad. He thought of the busy days ahead—the business of dealing with death, tying up all its loose ends.

  But, as soon as the sun started to show through the windows of Laura's bedroom, he grabbed his clothes and the office key she'd left on the dresser. Then, careful not to wake her, he left.

  He skipped his car, opting for the walk instead. His phone said it was 6:40am, and he knew the doors of Felton could still be locked. So, he took his time, enjoying the late summer's cool, morning air and the hazy mist of fog that hovered over the grass. He even stopped to sit on a bench near campus, grabbed his phone and typed up the poem he had spent the night composing in his head.

  When he arrived at Felton, the door was already unlocked.

  And as he climbs the stairs he's climbed so many times with his dad, he thinks of the echoes of those steps that he will always follow. He knows that as long as he's here, moving around this campus, he will always be near his dad. And it's not a sad or mournful thought in the least. It makes him grateful.

  He moves down the hall toward their temporary office, and as he sticks the key in the door, he is surprised by the noise. The building is disturbingly quiet at this time of day—not a soul anywhere.

  Simon opens the door and flips t
he lights on. Too much light. He flips them back off. There's plenty of light coming in from the wall of windows on the other side of the room. He walks over to the windows, stares out into the morning light, watches the patches of fog stretch out over the ground below like ghosts awaiting the call of warmth to send them away.

  He's leaning on the file boxes that hold his dad's archives. He takes a step back, looks at all these boxes that contain a lifetime of his dad's work. All those years of writing is right here. And Simon thinks about how he grew to hate this work, resented it as the great impediment to their relationship. Now, standing in the middle of this room with the work and the sunlight being his only companion, he knows that he'll learn more about his dad over the next year or two than he would've in a lifetime otherwise.

  On the desk, the two manuscript boxes are stacked one on top of the other. These boxes contain Sy's last work—the work that they weren't supposed to open until after he was gone.

  Simon sits on the desk, places his hand on the top box, grazes over the surface with his fingers. The box has '#1' written on it. There is no other writing on the box. He tries to lift the top off, but it's taped shut. He turns the box over, takes his keys out, cuts the tape, turns it right side up again and removes the top.

  The top page is a title page. It reads: 'From the Other Shore, poems by Sy Markham.'

  Simon stares at the page, thinks of his dream from last night, and a shiver runs over him—a physical