“Can you hear the ocean?”
I was taken aback. I didn’t know what the ocean really sounded like. I’ve never heard the wide open space, never tasted the humid air, and never felt the sand between my toes. I’ve seen the ocean in my living room but never where it actually was.
For all six years of my life, I’ve always believed what others have told me to believe. After all, I haven’t managed to see the world like the adults. All of my knowledge of the world was based on T.V. green-screens, postcards and atlases. Mom and Dad sometimes talked about trips they’ve taken from long before I was born, but the only way I could relate was by sifting through photo albums. The only ocean I could see lay beneath a transparent film, the hues melting away from the many times it’s sat on the front porch under the sun. The front porch that was taken down long before I was around to see it.
And so that’s how I continued forward, vicariously wading through life. I kept the shell on the drawer adjacent to my bed, beside which an old globe that we found at a garage sale was placed. Before I went to bed each night I would pick up the shell, sometimes feeling the ridges on the outside and the smooth interior and other times holding it up to my ear to hear a whisper from the ocean. All the time I would try to peek inside for a glimpse of the unknown. But the maze of winding turns blocked my view. How could the wide expanse of the ocean fit into something a six-year-old could hold in his two hands? How could the water - something that blotted the globe sitting in my room - be so elusive? Frustrated, I sneaked down to the basement one night to find a hammer. If the ocean wouldn’t come out to greet me, I knew I had to go in and find it. To my surprise the shell was tougher than I expected and the hammer was heavier than I imagined. I gave up.
The shell taunted me for over a year. My night-time dreams continued to be flooded with images of the world – a world I had yet to see. Finally, on a sticky summer day, reality came.
We went to the beach – the first time since I was born. As everyone else was busy unloading the cooler from the trunk in the parking lot, I looked towards the shore that lay in the distance. Will it sound like the “ocean”? Will it taste like the “ocean”? Will it feel like the “ocean”? I knew that it could either reaffirm my expectations or shatter all that I knew (or thought I knew) about the world. I had second thoughts. A part of me didn’t really want to see the ocean after all. I knew I could go home and keep imagining the “ocean” as it always was: a magical place hidden behind the labyrinth of spirals that still sat in my room.
My mom took my hand and walked me to the beach. A roar of waves splashed at the shore’s edge as if greeting me to the world. I could hear the wide open space, I could taste the salt in the humid air, and I could feel the sand between my toes. As the tide danced in and out of the shore, I noticed a shining object protruding from underneath the sand. A shell. It reminded me of the one sitting beside the globe. As I picked it up I noticed something was living inside, breathing the same air I was breathing and probably just as curious at the world as I was. But I knew it was trapped. It would never be able to come out to see what I could see.
My mom approached an saw the shell in my hands. “Can you hear the ocean?”
I didn’t reply. Anyone could hear the ocean. I was actually there.
Word count: 767
