POR YAHO VIERZE

There is a scent that always reminds me of a place I’ve never went before.

The sound of coastline waves roaring while they fight and stumble upon each other in a perpetual war they never win.  A war against an unknown, maybe invisible, enemy foe.  A war so old that, had it stopped once, its only witnesses would have only been the infinite sky and the shining stars.  No birds, no people mumbling, no wind whistling: only the ocean echoing the voices of its waves screaming, for they were always dying as soon as they were born. A nonstop massacre we ignore happening in a realm that we also ignore.

The waves crash and fight while the image builds in my mind, my ears making me perceive it as a soft pleasing natural sound, even calming.  It seemed to me that the way human ears heard it and associated it with peace was one of the main reasons we evolved our ears the way they are today. Then I start thinking that waves are made to be unmade by the ocean itself, its very own depictions of wrong and right happening inside of it, just as if it was its way to breathe. If I let my mind wander further and think deeply about the ocean that I visit whenever I feel that scent, I always end up wondering why waves scream for their fates with loud roars —that they inevitably, and uselessly, make— when they break into pieces, yet they never struggle or fight back when they’re pulled to reborn once more.

Just think about it: creation and destruction. Both clinging towards each other inevitably and invariantly. After analyzing waves, it makes me think that they want to be unmade when they are made, but when being unmade they fight back to keep existing. Like animals on a hunt. Could the ocean be alive if it is always escaping from and, at the same time, hunting itself?

 I’ve met many people who either had always wished to see the sea at least once, or if they already had seen it, they had looked and still are looking to go back to visit it.  I can relate to the ocean, too, just by thinking about it. I don’t know why, though, since I grew up in a city far from the shoreline. Why would the people I mentioned and me feel attracted to it in the first place? I don’t even like fish that much at all, but I always want to be there.

It’s okay for me to just see it, it’s okay too if I get to jump in the water. It’s also okay for me, too, to just feel it close when the wind blows whenever I visit a seaside city. Personally, it’s only existence and my being aware of it being there that makes me, instantly, feel at peace or at least considerably less tense than I was the moment before I realized its presence.

Maybe it’s because we’re so similar, having our own creations and destructions happening only inside of us and our minds, and others seeing them as something natural because its what all humans do: create and destroy all in our reach in order to, ultimately, feel alive. Maybe I just want the brand new bag or the expensive game that was just released, but, in the end, I won’t feel really alive until get it, even then, I’ll only get the feel of “being alive” that some may call “happiness”, for a period so short I won’t even realize how alive it made me feel until after way longer than I stopped having that “being alive” sensation.

What if, instead of stopping once people get there, people kept moving forward for the sake of moving forward?  Will it lead them somewhere? Somewhere good? Somewhere bad?  Do we always stop doing what we enjoy after doing it repeatedly for extended periods of time?  If we don’t, should we keep doing or should our time be employed in other activities?

The ocean’s waves don’t even think about it, and they just get themselves moving.  In fact, they do it so good that they make it look as if someone else was the one setting them in motion, pulling some invisible strings from behind.  Are we really that sure that the moon is accountable for it?

I’ve gone way beyond the scent that makes me hear the waves crashing and makes my mind visualize an orange sunset that never fades into the black night sky, but here is where it fits: once the smell gets me there, I emulate the ocean. I set myself in motion. I move. I sense. I think. I feel.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Is it because of the person that is wearing the fragrance? Could be, but even if it was because of it, it wouldn’t explain why there is such a strong connection between other people and their actions guided towards going back to the ocean. Evolution wouldn’t, either, since mammals seem to stray further away from the ocean, and many other species seems to be fonder to the oxygen where they fly or the skies that they soar.

Then it hit me: the ocean is the lower half of the other existing being that all sentient creatures can agree and are able to perceive, without discussing, arguing or explaining anything else related to it. It may be made of water, it may be transparent or not, it may be cold or hot, but for any creature that gets close to it there is no way of saying that it is not there at all.

The upper half is the sky, which guides the scent towards my nostrils along a beautifully formed invisible aerodynamic tunnel that makes my nose experiencing it. Sky, on the other hand, more vast, deep and complex upon sight, is not an antonym or an opposite of the ocean, even though it drifts away from it in a race with itself towards infinity.

When both play together in natural, perfect harmony, they both set something in motion. Like a catalyst. They make sense being together but can’t be explained separately. Land is just a space where something solid and still is, so it can be considered neutral or nothing. Sky has to be seen and is the playground where the moon is—which we hold accountable for the war happening in the ocean. The sky is blue like the ocean, and it’s different from land because it’s not solid. But what would the point of all this nonsense analytical thought would be, then? The ocean? The sky? Their dependence or independence from each other?

The ocean has to be felt, we must look for it. The sky reaches out to us by caressing our skin with its wind. We notice the sky and most of the time just think of what a beautiful view we’re watching, yet to feel calm, the wind must be blowing gently.

It’s simple: when we’re not meant to be there and we try to be there, we’re ignored even if we get to arrive to such a place, just like we don’t notice the sky or the wind gently blowing because it’s always either that or something that we dislike. When we’re meant to be there, we can’t be ignored not even how hard we try. And when we’re meant to be present, creation and destruction happens. The wind that gently rubs your hair may be coming from a tornado hundreds of miles away, yet we ignore it because it’s so common. When the sea is calm and the waves steep low, we rejoice and bathe in its waters and admire their beauty.

Knowing everything you know about the sky and the ocean, what would you say is the reason we rejoice in things we soar for, but we remain indifferent to what is freely given to us?

Because, just like the waves they don’t exist until they are made and then unmade. Waves aren’t real until they’re not. Creation and destruction. Both events have to occur for a wave to solely exist.

Aren’t we like them? Or are our lives childish emulations of their behavior to reaffirm our existence by creating and destroying? The pull I get to see the ocean, is it what makes me enjoy the ocean upon arriving in it? Or is the drive towards the pull that makes me enjoy it because it was where I was meant to be upon being pulled?

That was the last time I thought gibberish and cared for that sort of philosophical thinking. The last question echoing in my mind whenever I remember that instant.

While fooling around with the sweetness and familiarity of the scent that was setting me in motion, our eyes met after more than a decade without seeing each other.

“Murakami Inoue? Is that you?” my voice ran through the almost empty classroom of the only undergraduate bachelor program that never cared for at my university. Barely six people heard me asking.

“Aome” She corrected me. Her voice was kind and sweet, but it was ornamented with an unfamiliar saltiness that made me instantly realize that, despite I’m the smartest person I know, she was smarter than me. Possibly she is as smart as me times infinity.

“Aome Murakami” I mumbled “Thirteen years without hearing your voice”.

Had it been longer, what happened next would have never taken place, and both of us could have been continued our lives as, probably, someone normal, with an average job and maybe a low-than-average boring job and salary, maybe we could even have had kids if we didn’t instinctively known each other upon sight at the very moment our eyes met.

The boy kept staring at the young, new, female student that had joined the undergraduate program. His mind was burning, like a overly heated teapot steaming. He had a weird sensation, like the one you get when playing a videogame and you’ve been playing in first person the whole time and suddenly, for the sake of the rest of the story, you were taken out of your character and were forced to play in third person.

Even though they knew each other, neither of them made any attempt to get closer to the other one. That would be the only time they wouldn’t.