an introduction to gravity

don't mind me. this is a short piece right now that i'm letting have a little breath of its own. it'll become what it will, i suppose. feedback is welcome.

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“Our love is the measure of the cross we bear,” said Charlotte.

Charlotte Claire loved to stare at the sea. She loved how the black depths turned blue in the sunlight, how it lifted and turned a sanctified white in the air before plummeting to escape on the shore. She loved its roar ending in whispers, how it curled within itself again and again before obliterating into peace.

Once, three years before, she sat on the California shores and fell in love with el mar, with the way the sunlight kissed the foam into eternity. Her legs carried her unresisting feet through the sluggish hot sand that tugged pleadingly for her waning, to the rough flat stretches of once-wet sand, to the shifting dampness that seemed to draw her down into itself. Finally she reached the hissing meandering ebb and flow of the last of the clear water, and waded in deeper until the brisk water slapped against her legs, then thighs, then finally submerged her bottom half. A wave lifted mightily to slap the newcomer to the ground, but her feet pushed from the bottom and she dove through the wave, and the foam pulled through her hair like a brush.

For an hour she stayed in the waves. She drifted far enough away from shore that no one could hear her, and finally, abandoning convention, began singing as loud as she could, leaping at precisely the moment to join the white cresting. The waves became more and more powerful, rising above her, sometimes pulling her under, but she shot to the surface again, gasping in the air with a mystical joy, eyes closed, imagining herself breathing in sunlight. She felt encased in the arms of power, on the crest of danger but perfectly safe, guarded by the air and sun above her. Finally her limbs began to feel limp and trembling, and she slowly worked her way to shore. For a terrifying moment it seemed as though they kept pulling her back out, for an instant she feared she would run out of strength before she could make it to the miniature models of people traveling like ants left and right across the beach. But she calmed down, and timed her strokes with the waves, and eventually they returned her with a gentle sigh onto the shores. She stood up, legs heavy, and pulled herself through the newfound gravity towards the cluster of people talking excitedly. Something seemed to be wrong. Her heavy feet carried her upward. In twelve seconds she was close enough to hear what they were saying.

A boy went for a swim 45 minutes ago. His body just washed up on shore.

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