The Color of Water Under Clouds

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The story of two people who share an obsession with the ocean and with the other.

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The Color of Water Under CloudsA short story by Daniel Kington

I think it was the water, coming in and going out, never pausing, never faltering, that endless and perfect procession, that drew us in. It was the water that let me find her, or rather gave her reason to find me. It was also the water that allowed me to betray her, strip all of her humanity away, and leave her trapped amidst that terribly consistent roaring forever. It had once seemed that I would turn out the same way. I stood by the ocean every night after I moved to San Diego, never pausing, never faltering, watching my life drag on by as it always had. Like water. Like time. It was almost as if I was trying to abandon my unique identity, my name, Tom, in order to try to become part of the infinite math equation that governs the universe- a math equation that is both divine and oddly uninspirational. I would stare at the ocean, waiting for the consistent rhythms to change, for the ocean, something that didn't have any sort of title for the incredible majority of its existence, something so massive and so powerful, something that has been well calculated and well known for a very long time but also one of the last remaining unknowns on our planet, to do something, anything different than what was or could have been predicted- for the tide to forget to come in or forget to go out. Every well calculated, thunderous boom and crash of every wave as it hit that lonely, desolate shore captivated me and left me waiting for some sort of change or inconsistency. But the ocean never faltered as I so desperately hoped for it to. It was consistent, punctual and could go from being very calm and pleasant to furious and frightening in a matter of moments. But no matter how quickly it might have changed, everything was well calculated and well articulated. The waves rushed over my feet bringing me out of my daze and back into the bleak reality of that summer night and also back to the past, back to a haunting night from my childhood in which I almost drowned along that very same coast line. In fact, the place where our tiny boat had left the sandy shore was only a few hundred yards away. I remember my open eyes, burning from the salt, staring up at the

surface of the water as I just floated there, not trying to force my way to the top, just resting halfway between the water's surface and the sandy bottom, waiting for whatever was to come for me. The part that bothered me so much about the event later, after I had been pulled by my father back into that little boat and had continued to live my life, the part of the event that became the object of my obsession and curiosity for years after that day was that, even though I didn't have any sort of a death wish, I didn't think I would have minded dying that night, becoming a part of that beautiful expanse of water forever. The thought bothered me and intrigued me. While some may have developed a fear for the ocean after that, I did much the opposite and developed a longing for it, that only grew stronger as the years passed so that when it came time for me to abandon my old life and start a new, I chose to do so along that same shore that had captivated me all those years prior. As the water continued to rush over my feet, my mind stumbled between past and present until I had to force that past back out of my mind and return to the night of June 27, 2011. It was an uneventful day in history. It wasn't a date that would go into any textbooks, nobody would remember anything about it after my generation was gone. But, for as long as I lived, I would remember it. It was the first night since I moved to San Diego that I stopped my nightly routine even a little bit earlier than usual. I had stood on that shore in the most horrible of storms and the hottest of weather, but nothing had ever been enough to make me stay inside. That is, until the night of June 27, the night everything changed. I was standing on the shore when a woman, beautiful in a unique way, beautiful in a way that seemed to be totally her own, and appearing perhaps five years older than myself, appeared to accompany me by the side of the ocean. You're in desperate need both for the comfort that consistency brings and for any move away from that consistency, no matter how minute. I was silent. I alternating my gaze between the water and her face, trying to figure out why it was

that she looked so familiar. Several moments had passed before I realized where I had recognized the woman from. I had met her on the day that I moved in and had only talked to her once after that. I lived in a condo on the fourth floor of a twelve floor complex that was right on the water. I could literally take ten steps from the back doors of the building and be on the sand. The building was divided into two halves which split in a hallway on the ground floor with a staircase leading up to the right and a staircase leading up to the left. I wasn't sure which side of the building the woman lived on, but regardless of how close she was to my condo that same woman who greeted me on the beach on the night of June 27, 2011 was really the only person that really made any effort to get to know me when I moved in on September 20 in the year 2000. On that day in 2000 she brought me a plate of chocolate chip cookies. I remember the aroma lingering in my condo for weeks after that, perhaps trying desperately to remind me of something that I had long forgotten, or maybe to keep in my mind that which was about to start slipping away. Eventually though, the smell gave up trying, and the smell of the salt and weeds from beneath the terrible, awesome sea resumed their presences in my home. Hey neighbor, she said with a smile, I thought you could use a little house warming present. I remember having an incredibly painful, splitting headache that I knew even at the time was not caused by my travels but by my arrival. It took me a moment to wonder who on earth this girl was and why on earth she might be giving someone just moving into her same condominium complex a plate of cookies. It wasn't the social norm and she portrayed it as such a normal thing to do. It was partially due to my head ache but I wasn't so much grateful as I was annoyed. I wanted to go lie down, forget the life I had just thrown away because of a childhood memory that was becoming increasingly more distant, and let my headache fade away. Thanks, I replied, taking the plate of cookies into my hands. As much as I just wanted to close the door on her and be left alone, I felt like I at least owed her a conversation. I could hear the waves crashing into the shore. The wind was fierce that night. I wasn't used to the sound and it only got louder

within me, amplified by some unforgiving and wrathful power. Each wave sounded like a bomb going off- and not a distant one at that. I could feel the blood pumping in my brain exactly in rhythm with the beating of my heart, but just a fraction of a millisecond off, so unbearably close that I was forced to question whether the difference was entirely imagined. I didn't quite know what else to say to this woman. My thoughts were elsewhere. I knew that she could very plainly sense my discomfort as I was standing there, half-looking at her, mostly nonresponsive, not asking her her name and not telling her mine, just waiting for one of us to think of something to say that was at least tolerable, but, as the waiting continued, finding that perhaps neither of us would in fact be able to think of one single thing to say to fill the silence. It was just the sound of the waves. Over and over again. Finally, when I was about ready to scream because of this horrendous silence that was not nearly silent at all, but was instead filled with that repetitive and insistent crashing, I managed to think of something to say. Do you want to come in? I asked her. She was relieved by these words, not, I think, because she now got to spend more time with me, but just because something, anything had broken our silence. Nice place you have here, she said upon entering. I took note of the way she walked: she was awkward; clumsy, as if pretending to be someone else. I'm sure you'll love living in this building. I don't know who wouldn't. I nodded in agreement. She was easy to talk to. I wasn't. The waves crashed again and again. They sounded like they were ready to tear the building away, drag it out to sea and then bury it somewhere in the greatest depths of the ocean. I thought, as the midday sun shown through the windows, reflected off the sea, that that submersion might not be the worst thing for the building- or for any of us. I pushed the thought away, as I often had to. You know, she said, after a couple of seconds, on this day in 1857 a large-scale rebellion in

India ended. Yeah, I guess that was pretty great. Today should be a holiday. We could all put on hats and blow horns and dance. I was tired and not really paying attention to my own words, but as I stood on the beach with her on June 27, 2011 all the words came rushing back. Except that the Indian people lost. So most people weren't celebrating. In fact very few people were celebrating, it appeared at that time that they would be stuck under monarchical rule forever. Do you just have a thing for India? I asked her. No, she replied, I have a thing for dates. Are you asking me on a date? I teased. Jokes were a rarity for me and I was pretty proud of this one, but she didn't seem to think it worth a laugh. Instead she took it seriously and replied coldly, No. Not at all. I was just saying. I think days are interesting and, while one could choose to draw endless parallels between whatever day it is and that same day a hundred years ago or whatever, I think it's mostly just all invented. July 4th is an interesting one. A lot of things happened on July 4th. Independence Day is only one of those things. But again, I think any connection we try to make between those events is mostly just imagined. So what happened today? The sand was warm beneath my bare feet while the air of the night was cold. It was a peculiar combination that I hadn't yet fully adjusted to. I didn't immediately realize that my mind had shifted from the past to the present and for a moment I was in some strange intermediary realm. What's the date? she asked me. The question returned my mind fully back to where I knew my mind was supposed to be. On the shore of the water, on the shore of my water, with this nameless person that wasn't quite a stranger. I'm not sure. Could you check? I don't bring any electronics to the water with me. I just don't.

Why is that? I don't... I'm not entirely... You can just check the date yourself can't you? So she checked the date on her phone. The luminescence from the screen illuminated the sand beneath us and had a peculiar reflection off of the very outermost edge of the water, fading when the waves rushed out, and growing brighter when they came back in, in the same, consistent pattern. It's June 27th, she replied closing her phone. The light disappeared in an instant. The waves rushed out. The pattern was ended. Well what happened on June 27th then? I asked her. She looked out over the ocean for a moment, as I had always done, as I was, I realized, for the first time, not doing. Instead I was having a conversation; the water was not in the foreground but in the background. On this day, she murmured, still looking out over the ocean, still watching the crashing of the waves which seemed, in her presence, somehow subdued, calmed, almost welcoming, in 2011, you came dancing with me, we had a good time, and you didn't watch the ocean. Something seemed strange about her posture; some element of hesitancy was present as she said this, but I chose to dismiss it and accept her offer. We walked along the shore together for a few moments, nearly without a word, every attempt at conversation just putting greater emphasis on the silence that engulfed us. I don't think either of us was really much for talking and at least during this encounter, it didn't bother me. I followed her, not knowing quite where we were headed. I didn't spent a lot of time exploring the area, I stuck mostly to my home, the beach, and my workplace. I thought of another thing that I didn't know about this mysterious stranger- I didn't know where she worked. I don't know why I chose not to ask this, or why I chose not to ask her name, but I simply didn't think to, they weren't pressing questions, they were more like curiosities in the back of my mind, not demanding to be answered. I think the mystery satisfied me much more than the answers would have and anyway, I hadn't told her any of these

things about myself either and she hadn't yet asked. Well Tom, I do believe we've arrived, she said after a few moments of my thoughtlessly following her through the city. I looked around and noticed that I drove by the area every day but had never noticed this particular spot. It was a corner of the city I had never really noticed even though I had seen it almost every day for twelve years. It doesn't really look like we've arrived, I replied. It occurred to me then that she needn't have asked my name as she appeared to have already known it. I didn't think to ask how she'd come about this information, it simply didn't matter to menames were nothing deeply personal, after all. She walked towards the row of buildings behind us and opened a door, which had no sign above it, nothing to indicate whether the building might be open or closed, nothing that showed that this building might be a public place. I suppose that the only way to discover its existence was to have someone who already knew of the place take you there. It seemed like an incredibly poor business strategy and I imagined that the establishment hadn't done too well in its first years, but I decided to just accept my ideas about the place and enter. I was amazed when we walked in by how many people were there. For an establishment without a sign, a lot of people seemed to know about it. Christie! a bartender called excitedly, Great to see you again, it's been a while! Who's your friend? This is my boyfriend, Tom, you've heard me talk about him several time before she said putting her arm around me. As we walked over to the bartender and the bar that he tended she murmured into my ear, Just go with it, these people love a good story. I don't know why I didn't question it. Christie had the perfectly terrible gift of making everything seem like an adventure, no matter how much these things may contradict the morals that were previously held up so highly by society and by myself.

Well nice to meet you Tom, I've heard only good things, the bartender replied. I smiled and nodded, slightly confused, but accepting of the alternate reality that was being created for me in front of my eyes because Christie had said to just go with it and just go with it I would. As the silence dragged on Christie apparently felt that she needed to break it: Tom's a little shy. The first time we met I couldn't get him to say more than a couple of words at a time but I'd say we've broken him out of his shell a little bit, wouldn't you, Tom? Not really, I sighed with a smile, beginning to wonder why I had agreed to come along at all. Of course I didn't know what else I would be doing at that moment that would prove more worth while. Probably I would still just be staring at the waves, watching time pass but not moving with it and remaining stationary instead. Oh of course we have, Christie laughed, He just likes to joke. Did I ever tell you about the time we met, by the way? I don't think so, the bartender replied. Christie then launched into some fascinating tale that I couldn't quite follow that involved a huge party and a swimming pool. But maybe it was just that all of my attention wasn't quite there. I supposed I had misjudged Christie at the beginning. She had at first seemed awkward and as bad at making small talk as I was but she was talking up a storm all night with people she seemed to be best friends with even though I would later find out she hadn't spoken to them in months or she had just met them. Everybody was friends with her. After our conversation with the bartender had concluded Christie turned to me as we walked away and muttered, Two divorces, three wives, none of whom he still talks to. And I think he cheated on all of them with the same woman, who, by the way, is also married. Maybe you'll get to meet her tonight, she tends to hang around here, waiting for someone to get drunk enough to sleep with her. End of story: they're both scum. Did you notice how he pretended he'd heard me talk about you so many times before? Makes you wonder if he's ever really listening, doesn't it?

I wasn't one to judge; the man had seemed nice enough and he had slipped us some free drinks so I felt slightly uncomfortable talking about him in such a manner behind his back. I quickly moved the conversation along to other matters that were more inconsequential. The farther into the night we ventured the more I began to question this woman who had whisked me into the night with her. At the same time though, the farther into the night we ventured, the more fun I began to have and the less I minded the uncertainty within me that this woman produced, the less I missed the ocean, the thunderous roar of the waves, the endless progression that had captivated me for so many years. I hadn't had fun like we did that night since I was in high school, making small talk with drunken strangers- or more so observing the making of small talk between drunken strangers as I really was quite bad at making smalltalk myself. We stayed at the club that Christie would later refer to as the Backwards Turtle (another poor business decision, if you ask me, which, evidently, nobody ever did) until it closed at a little after two in the morning. It didn't occur to me until much later that we had never danced as we had said we were going there to do. We walked home together and when we arrived at the complex where we both lived we had to part ways. Well I'm this way, Christie said, gesturing up the staircase that was on our left hand side. The doors opened behind us, allowing the noises of the ocean to be greatly amplified. All right. Thank you for taking me, Christie. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, she replied, staring at me for just a moment longer than she needed to, Maybe we should do it again sometime. Going to the Backwards Turtle became something of a habit for the two of us. I'm not sure how many times Christie would introduce me as her boyfriend before I actually, just by the force that those words were spoken with, became her boyfriend. It was a slow transition. Eventually I started spending

the night at her condo. We would spend hours on her balcony, staring at the sky and talking about this and that. And when it came time to go to bed the soothing sound of the ocean helping me fall asleep instead of keeping me up. It was on one of those lonely nights that we spent together that I asked my usual question of what had happened on that day in years prior. On this day in 2011, she replied, you abandoned your nightly ritual of standing by the ocean for the first time. The date occurred to me then. It was June 27 of 2012. The year that had passed since that night seemed oddly more like three years and, at the same time, oddly more like three months. I couldn't stop thinking about it in bed that night. I found myself unable to sleep for the first time in quite a while. The past year seemed to me almost as wasted as my first twelve had been. I had abandoned one redundant and repetitive process for another. I concerned myself with the idea that I was still working my way towards becoming the ocean, locking myself in infinite tradition. At about three in the morning I heard Christie get up. I'll be back soon, okay, Tom? she said, conscious of the fact that I'd been unable to close my eyes for no more than a mere second that night. Sure, I replied, the looming question of where she went every night not enough to pull me from the bed. I had only really questioned it twice. The first time was also the first time I ever saw her apartment. It was months ago, just a short time after I had met her, though she had talked to me as if she had known me for years. My side of the conversation was more fitting in that respect. But this is on my side of the building, I remember saying, Why do you never come up here right after we get home? You always go off in the other direction. I just know some people on that side of the building is all, she replied, It's nothing to be concerned about. I'm just visiting some friends. Really. She then launched into some tangent to avoid talking about it any further. I had come to learn by then that when Christie didn't want to reveal

information you wouldn't be able to get her to talk to you about it. I had learned this through witnessing her conversations with others though, not by her deliberately keeping information from me. She had usually told me everything. This was the first time I could ever remember her withholding anything. It didn't bother me too much. After all, many people have deep secrets, not just Christie. I don't think I had even told her about the incident that had sparked the obsession she had somehow managed to save me from so I shouldn't have expected her to tell me everything when I hadn't done the same for her. So I let the issue rest for a while and didn't bring it up again for about a month. The next time I questioned where she was going every night was the first time I spent the night at her condo. We hadn't even shared our first kiss yet. Every bit of our romantic involvement up to that point had been entirely created in one of Christie's tales at the Backwards Turtle. It was strange the way it ended up that I spent the night at her condo. It was entirely out of anger and not a bit out of love or even lust. We were going about business as usual at the Backwards Turtle, no break from our nightly routine of drinking, dancing, and socializing with strangers, the ocean at that time a whisper rather than a roar. It happened so simply. The conversation was standard. We never quite got around to getting over there actually, but I've heard it's marvelous, Christie told these long forgotten acquaintances. I had never met them and Christie hadn't bother to fully introduce me. They knew my name but I didn't know either of theirs. I didn't even know how Christie knew them, but of course Christie rarely even knew how Christie knew them. It was all I could do to follow the conversation even a little bit, I was so tired. And even during the parts of the conversation that I understood, I still didn't know what to think because I'd never heard of this damned aquarium that these people kept going on and on about and I was getting a little bit restless. I was tired and I was ready to leave and go to bed. It really is a beautiful place. Not only are the animals other worldly but the architecture of the building itself is fantastic as well. It's really a must-see. I don't know how you've lived so long in the city

without having seen it. I really don't either. Tom occasionally mentioned it, trying to drag me over there. He has a real thing for fish, it's kind of weird honestly, but I love him regardless. I chose not to say anything about this lie, despite the fact that it made me incredibly angry. Lots of Christie's lies made me incredibly angry and I had never said anything about those so I just didn't see why I should start now. Have you two given any thought to marriage? You've been together a long while. It was all I could do not to choke on my drink and walk out of that building. Things with Christie had getting progressively farther out of hand and while I did have fun every time we went to the place I didn't appreciate how ridiculous Christie's tall tales were getting. We've talked about it but Tom here wants to wait until he's absolutely positive, Christie replied, Doesn't want to make the same mistake his parents made, isn't that right Tom? Yeah, she's definitely right, I told them even though I had no idea what mistake she was referring to. Christie I'm getting kind of tired, I think I'm gonna head home. All right. The key's under the mat. I'll be there in a few minutes. And so, not having ever slept at her apartment before or having even previously been inside of it without her there, I tried to show her that the things she said in that bar just might be taken seriously by someone or everyone. I found the key under the mat just as she had described, walked into the apartment, and waited. I thought of the perfect thing to say to her, though I forget it now. But when she came through the door she murmured, in a low voice that carried a certain amount of weight, You actually showed up. And then those perfectly planned words drifted out of my mind and it was only her. I didn't think you were actually going to show up. We stared at each other, neither of us knowing what to do next. She took a timid step towards me and suddenly she was in my arms. We didn't talk much. Her hands guided me through the motions and the next words we said to each other came hours later. I hadn't thought previously that any part of her

charade was legitimate. After I'd been fast asleep for some time I was woken by the gentle closing of the bedroom door. I thought at first that she must have been going to use the rest room but then realized that if this was the case she would have just used the one in the bedroom. I thought about this and then determined that she must have just not wanted to wake me, so she had gone to the bathroom that was off of her living room. I tried to roll over and forget about it. But then I heard Christie open the front door and walk out. I got out of bed and waited around in the kitchen for about a half an hour until she returned. Where did you go? I asked her, exhausted and ready to go back to bed, fall asleep, and stop pretending like I cared which I quite honestly didn't. Out, she replied. So I went back to bed, fell asleep, and stopped pretending to care. I was so tired that night that it was easy and simple just to stop caring and fall asleep. The next time I stayed the night she got up and left again and it was then that I decided she would tell me when she was ready and that I shouldn't pressure her into telling me something she didn't want to. I didn't question her leaving her condo every night ever again. Every time I spent the night at her apartment it was just about the same. We would go to bed and after we had been asleep for a couple of hours Christie would just get up and leave. It wasn't until it was exactly one year after our first trip to the Backwards Turtle, one year after I last gazed longingly at the water, that I just simply couldn't fall asleep and decided to find out just what she was doing. I had long convinced myself that I trusted Christie and that is why I hadn't tried to figure out where she was going. But looking back on it, I think it may have just been out of carelessness. In the same vein it was not, I think, out of distrust or concern that I followed Christie that night, but out of aggravation, restlessness, and curiosity. Though it was a very cold night for June I got out of bed and left the condo just as I was, barefoot and wearing only a thin white t-shirt and a pair of boxers. I shuffled down the stairs quietly but quickly,

trying to catch up with Christie. When we reached the ground level I watched from inside as she threw open the back doors of the complex and rushed out onto the sand, oblivious of her surroundings, towards the ocean. The sound of the waves became clear and loud when she opened the doors and the deafening crash of one wonderful, terrible wave of water escaped through the momentary split in the divide between both of the worlds I had come to know and despise in different ways. A number of things from our past returned to me then. I had never made the connection until that moment but on every night of the first twelve years of my stay in San Diego there was someone else watching the waves with me. A figure that stood on the balcony of a condo on the fourth floor of the same building that I lived in and on the same side of that building, just watching, every night, with a cigarette in her hand. I hadn't made the connection for a number of reasons- one being that Christie didn't smoke, or at least she hadn't told me that she did, and the other being that, for the longest time, I had assumed she'd lived on the opposite side of the building. But that was false, of course, she had merely decided when we reached the building on that first night that she couldn't abandon her tradition that she had sought, through me, to escape. So she drew closer to the waves, secretly sharing with me the very obsession she had freed me from exactly one year prior to that cold June evening. I wondered whether or not I should follow her any further. Whatever the reason for her secrecy about this nightly ritual it felt deeply personal and I didn't know if I should violate it. However, I had told this woman that I loved her and, whether or not I did, I knew I should honor the commitment that those words implied, and stand by her side that night. She didn't turn around to look at me when I opened the door but I know she heard it shut and I know she felt my eyes on her as I looked at her. I had made this story about myself for too long, and the attention had needed to be on her. Christie, I murmured, but the word got caught in my throat and I didn't think she had heard it so I called again, much louder. At the same moment a wave crashed against the shore. Christie didn't avoid

it. I walked slowly forwards to meet her. As I got closer I could begin to see the tears silently running down her face. I had never seen Christie cry before. I was silent for a moment as I watched those tiny oceans fell from her eyes drop into the nearly immeasurably larger ocean that was both beneath her and stretching out for an infinity in front of her. As I neared her I slowed so as not to startle her and she began talking, whether it was to me or to herself I'm not certain. Do you know why I know what happened on this day 100 years ago? I didn't reply. Because I read it on fucking Wikipedia, Tom, she said, her voice shaking in almost perfect rhythm with the waves. In the whole twelve years that I had lived in San Diego, when I stood by the water every night as I gathered Christie was now doing, had been doing, I never cursed by the water. Not once. Do you smoke cigarettes? I asked after a short pause. Not as much as I used to. Neither of us spoke but there was not silence by any means. Christie sobbed and the ocean roared, protesting as the oceans pouring out of Christie's eyes, became a part of that much larger and grander ocean forever. I stepped into the water beside Christie. The water rushed around our ankles, soaking her slippers and splashing up towards her night gown. Her voice came out as only a whisper: The ocean is only blue when the sky is blue. It reflects the light from the sky. At night the ocean is black. On a cloudy day the ocean is gray. Who are you, Christie? I asked, honestly having no idea, What's real? What can I believe? I've seen you lie with no hesitation hundreds of times. What can I know for sure? This, Tom. This ocean, this massive expanse of water, this is what's real. But why? Why have you been standing here every night? Why have you been keeping it secret? I'm trying to understand in exactly the same way that you were trying to understand. Just like

you, I'm not trying to understand the ocean. One day I was just smoking a cigarette out on my balcony and I looked down and wondered 'who is that?' and when I kept seeing you there every night I kept coming outside too. And then I met you and the mystery only deepened. I'm trying to understand you, Tom. Why did you stand here every night? And why are you keeping it a secret? I didn't reply. But, she continued, since you've asked, the reason that I've kept it a secret is because... how could I ever just blatantly tell you that I have no idea who you are? It would crush you. It would crush anybody. The worst part was that I didn't feel crushed. A close second to that worst thing though, was that I didn't understand her either. And I had told her without hesitation. Christie, I'm sorry, but I think you know I can't stay. I know. It was fun trying to solve the puzzle of you. I'm afraid there's a piece missing though. The sun had started to rise by that point. There were clouds in the sky. And the ocean was gray. I turned around then, and walked away from the water, the new morning illuminating the path ahead of me and the clouds in the sky reminding me of everything that lay behind me.