Tag Archives: water

A breeze swept over the pier, whipping Saylor Carey’s hair up like a kite full of wind. She paused in her steps, beside a lone speedboat that glinted in the sun. Tilting her head up to the sky, she took in a deep breath of salty air. It smelled like waves crashing over rocks, cigarette smoke, the savory aroma of hot chowder across the street and a puff of car exhaust and diesel-truck fuel. The chowder was an aromatic blend of spicy herbs and butter and seafood, making her mouth water. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and continued walking. Her feet were light on the wooden planks, too light to be real, she thought. Saylor moved off the planks and carefully edged her way down the rocky slope that led to the water. Bending closer to it, she peered down. Thick clumps of brown algae and seaweed clung to the metal pipes, along with dull-colored urchins and limpets. Every so often she glimpsed a flash of silver as schools of minnows passed by.

She stepped over the rusted steel cords and thick ropes that fixed rows of commercial crab boats to the concrete. Her heart ached as she looked out at the sea. The only thing she had looked forward to on this entire trip was seeing the ocean. She had never seen it before in her twelve years of life. She had pictured herself walking beside a postcard-perfect, sparkling stretch of water, admiring the foamy white breakers and golden sand dotted with palm trees. The sun would be shining, and laughter and joyful talk would surround her. But the sea she now stood before was gray and choppy, as if someone had carelessly slapped a coat of thick semigloss paint over it. Driftwood logs, bleached white from the saltwater, bobbed near the shore along with rotting garbage and splintered plastic crates.

“Picture of sadness,” she muttered to herself.

Saylor stared past the boats, past the ugly shallows, farther out at the deep water that stretched endlessly over the horizon. It all flowed smooth and fast until that line, that distant line where the sea spilled over the world. She felt drawn to that magical place where it seemed you could swim out and touch the sky.

The sky, a place even more mysterious and far than the sea.

She tried to block the crab boats, the yellow plastic crates, the trash littering the streets and the thousands of rusty crab traps piled on the shore out of the picture. Her ears tuned out the beeping and honking of cars, people’s chatter, and the hoarse yells of the pier workers and fishermen.

All that existed now was the sea. The deep blue, watercolor-splashed sea, streaked with shades of white and purple and splattered with the bright colors of windsurfers and parasailors way out. If only she could jump in and escape from all her problems. If only she could start over with her childhood and never have to look back. Her life was in ruins, or so it seemed, all because of her mom’s boyfriend Matthew.
cathrl69: i wouldn’t normally ask this, i’m asking it for my cousin (she wants to get opinions but i’m not a good editor/reader)