If I Imagined It (Goal 1500)

I remember quite a lot of stories from my childhood. Peculiar incidents where

I would talk to the plants or mother would find me cooking in the backyard. Strange
mud puddles of dandelions and pine needles but I always insisted I was making
something important. I had a very active imagination. One of my more vibrant tales
involved our summer home. Every year for two months Mother would pack us up
and we would go to a small house along the coast. It wasnt extravagant a small
brick building with ivy overgrown along the sides. There was a crack in the back
steps and wild flowers grew out of it. Mother tried to kill them but they always grew
back to welcome us each year. It had been my grandfathers I was told but that
name held no recognition with me.
What I do remember was the beauty of the country side. There was the sea
no more than a short walk down the stone steps of the back yard. There was no
beach as it was too cold for sand but there were rocks. Lots of great, large rocks
that grandfather had dragged up in his younger years to make the steps but they
must have gone back. The sea crashed against them in rolling waves I wished to get
close enough to feel the spray but mother warned me against crawling onto the
rocks because they were slippery and I never learned how to swim properly. I would
sit at the last step where I had a clear view of both the sea to my front and the
small red house back above me. Sitting here I would enjoy the cool sunlight and
look as it bathed the rocks below me. Between the golden light and the soft spray of
the sea I would imagine sleeping women laying on the rocks beneath me who would
not wake up until I was called back to the house for supper.
Eventually my games got the best of me and I returned to the rock after
supper to see if there were any women waking on the rocks. Of course I knew I had
imagined them but I felt as though imagination could be as biologically effective in
creation as anything mother had done to create me. I sat at the base of my step
and watched as the sea turned black beneath the falling sun and the coldness of the
air pricked moisture on my nose that reminded me of mothers soft fingers brushing
off dirt when I had come in from playing back home. I took the invitation and crept
closer in the darkness, bracing my foot on the first of the rocks leading to the water.
I knew better than to get any closer but enjoyed the thrill of my small rebellion and
saw the shapes of my women dancing in the black waves. I stayed for a long time
and felt uncharacteristically at peace.
A couple years of this time passed and mother extended or vacation to four
months. I had slightly outgrown my obedience but remained wary of her glances as
I sat by the rocks and the sea. After dark I would come and read by the light of the
moon but it would grow difficult with the singing of the waves. They had been
eating away at the shore and with a heavy rain season I found my feet hovering
above the edge of the water taking in the murkiness of my own complexion I
searched for the singing but heard nothing now that the water had calmed itself to
sit flat, lapping at the underside of my shoes. I stood here for a long time, looking
out but not particularly searching for anything when I saw a smaller rock alone

further out in the water. A mist had settled over the landscape and I blinked the
water off of my eye lashes and admired the fog that seemed to bring the rock closer
to me.
Can you swim? I said to the rock, my voice was soft as I watched the fog
bring it closer still.
Yes, quite well. I assume that you cant or you wouldnt be standing
there. I held my breath as I heard the unexpected voice answer. Surely it was my
imagination and I had outgrown such games but my curiosity to the powers of my
own mind kept my feet glued and my hands, slightly shaking, tried to will away the
fog as I responded.
That doesnt prove that I cant swim at all, no one swims at night.
I do. The same voice replied and left my ears ringing with the smoothness
of it. I could not hear an age or a face, surely my brain would have made better
than a voice that came from nothing.
Are you one of the women that sleeps on the rocks? I asked thinking back
to the smaller rock I had seen alone. Maybe in some brief miracle my imagination
had succeeded in creating life, although I highly doubted it. But my thoughts were
getting the best of me and I could see nothing as the fog had grown thicker and hid
my fingertips from feeling.
I dont think so.
I felt it at the nape of my neck, the voice so close and warm clouding over my
eyes in the fog and it was too much. I turned and ran back to the steps of the house
and then into the clearer air. I was damp from the fog surrounding me and only after
I washed my face and regained my bearings did I look out the window and saw that
the fog had cleared away from the sea below us leaving only the rocks at the edges
and not one that I could see pulled into the center.
I laid in bed longer than usual that night and played with my mind until the
voice became nothing but the sound of branches scraping in the wind and the fog
was nothing more than fog. I went back to the sea after that, during the daytime
and sat at the base of my step and watched the spray settle over the pages of my
books at high tide. I knew it was calling for me but I was held back to my place by
the thoughts of murky reflections.
It was on our last night for the year that I bargained myself to go back,
thinking that I would not be able to return home a coward, a fear of nothing or even
worse a fear of fog. I would not be bested by wet and harmless fog. I strode down to
the edge of the water, fists at my side, and stood on the first rock that had been
chased by the waters edge through all of the rain. My feet were submerged and I
could feel my ankles numbing as I look at the waves breaking around me. There was
no singing, no magic, and nothing to be afraid of.
You are the sea. I said as a whisper to myself more than anything else.

You are the sea. Again, and louder this time. Throwing my head back I took
in the stars above me and the vast blackness of the sea that extended in front of
me. The waves foamed at my legs in an answer and I refused to step back as they
reached my calves. They were talking to me, some part in the back of my mind
knew this but the line between imagination and practicality had been drawn and I
refused to answer as I stood, arms out, an felt the condensation grasping my fingers
and guiding me closer. I fought with stillness, keeping my legs on the rock and up to
my thighs sin the water. It was cold. Waves crashing on both side of me and the
sound chilled me. Clouds were rolling in and I refused to give up my spot. I knew
that I did not belong there; I was not the sea or the rocks but I would not be pushed
away by the never ending darkness or my own frightened thoughts.
You are the sea. I said once more and felt the fog embrace me, warm and
wet through my clothes and against my skin.
Yes I am. The voice that was made of sea foam answered as the waves
crashed against me. I lost my foothold and tumbled into its embrace. The salty cold
assaulted my throat as I surfaced, sputtering for breath and the water that was over
my eyes drew them back to where I had been and it was so clear.
I could see the women dancing and singing. They played on the rocks and
swam in the never ending blackness and they were made from all the same things
that I saw. Not flesh and blood, but mind. They were made of the foam and kelp with
stars for eyes and they danced around me. I laid on the rocks not daring to tear my
eyes apart because then the dream would be over. I had created and my creations
had lived. The burning of my throat from the sea water burned into my heart. I was
frozen to the bone and could feel my own body slipping into the salty blackness of
the sea or the stars. I couldnt tell which was which anymore as the women danced
closer. Voices were unintelligible and at some point I realized that I was drowning
but the fog was inside of me. My brain was burning but my thoughts lived on and
they sang fir me in ringing voices that made me close my eyes. Twinkling eyes that
were too dark to be the stars anymore and I knew they would pull me to sleep on
the rocks in a warm touch that felt like the sun was rising. I could see it behind my
closed eyes and the sun was rising.
When I did wake up no one was sure who had saved me. Mother was too mad
to care as she had found me laying in the grass the next morning, half way up the
hill and soaked from the inside out. I was asked many times what I remembered and
always answered that I had fallen and must have hit my head. I must have hit my
head but here were bruises around my wrists where someone had dragged me.
Dragged me out of the water and up the hill back to my step and brushed the hair
out of my face. Maybe it was whoever talked to me those nights, or whoever
planted the flowers that mother gave up trying to kill. Maybe it was whoever had
put the rocks at the base of the sea or told the waves to knock me down in the first
place. I have given up on deciding what we can and cannot create anyways. Mother
and I still go to the house by the sea with the red bricks and the ivy but she is old
now and I pull the weeds from the garden, leaving the ones overtaking our back
steps. I sit by the steps and read my books listening to the sound of waves crashing

onto rocks and when I feel the mist start to gather on my face, gentle and loving as
only the sea could ever be, I brush it off of my face and return to my book.