Light then darkness,  floated in and out, fighting the way towards the light. He did not like what was within this darkness - it tasted.  The taste, the feel of salt suffocating him, filling his mouth, his nostrils.  There seems to be no release, he needed help to escape this agony. He fought desperately, hovering within lights reach. Then the voices, yes voices, he felt himself being dragged, rolled over.  He was being pumped free. Confusion surrounded him, voices screaming his name, some questioned, others with stories of what really happened. He lay on the sand with his eyes closed, his head pounding, swells of nausea with every breath then receding slowly.  They were all whispering, each a different stories, he grasped at whatever his mind allowed him.    

"You can't tell me he was not out there on that broken down fishing boat of his," a male voice argued.

"I am telling you, I saw Raj sitting on them rocks, minding his own business, today is his day off, I should know," a woman's voice replied haughtily. 

Another, "All of you crazy, making up you own stories, you people can stretch a ruler into a lamp post. You probably believed you saw something really big and hairy pulling Raj into that ocean - and  it had to be Master Curaman."

The crowd hovering above Raj roared with laughter.

Raj groaned, moving slightly, he tried to remember something - anything that they say happened, he could not.  Dim cries of welcome, softness and warmth greeting his body, he open his eyes slowly.  The task hurt, Raj felt like someone was plucking his eyelids.  Shapes, figures, they were all twisted, moving before him in waves.  He shuddered, looking around frantically, his legs trashing, both his hands now wrapped around his body, shielding himself. Calming hands pressed him into the mattress, a familiar voice reassuring him, "Raj you are home, safe, you hear me, what is it, do you remember what happened?"

Floor boards creaked from restlessness, boredom replaced concern on few of the known faces.  Some easing their way out, through the wooden door.  His mother looked at each one, thanking them as they left the bedroom.  He looked around the room, blinking rapidly ,  everything looked the same.  The only thing he could not account for, was what really happened. 

"Ma?" His voice still weak.

 "I can't remember anything, I just feel like I was in the ocean for a long period of time.  I know I went to sleep last night, now it's the middle of the afternoon." 

"Sleep, son, maybe when you wake up you will remember." 

Slowly he eased his fingers away from the palm of his left hand, cool air caressed the moist skin.  In the other hand, however, a pinching sensation.  With less care he opened his hands, buried in his flesh, lay smooth shimmering shell.  Quickly he closed his hands, my eyes must be playing tricks on me, he thought.  Looking again, he saw it was still there, gingerly he touched the shell.  His body tingled, it felt like a dose of electricity had just shot through his body.  Easing the shell away from the palm of his hands, Raj saw that the shell had bitten deeply into his flesh, drawing blood as he eased it out.  Upon closer inspection he saw it was not just another shell. 

Raj stood and move towards the old bureau, and stared into the rectangular shaped mirror.  His reflection stared at him like a stranger would.  Curiosity, the need for answers, as well as questions lay behind his dark eyes.  He spoke to his reflection,

"A few days ago, I saw you, knew who you were, a fisherman, lover of books, a good son or at least try to be, now all I need is a few answers and your brain seems dead."  Waving his hands in dismissal, turned away from his reflection and tossed the shell on top of the bureau.  Warily, he stepped out of the old khaki pants, and got back into bed, cradling his head with both hands.  His mind shifting from voice to voice, a different story rolling off the lips of the villagers.  Men and women he grew up among, each set in their own cruel ways. 

Everything that he detested, surrounded him.  The difference between the villagers and Raj clashed violently.  He knew they mocked and laughed at the way he spoke, the way he lived.  Privacy was a sin to them.  If you can't share problems with them, then you are not one of them.  Raj knew that the act of helping him had just opened the doors to these villagers.  Before he drifted off into sleep he decided to close those doors, he enjoyed his privacy, so does his mother. 

He was sleeping a tired man's sleep, until it began.  In his minds' eyes he saw an angry ocean, waves of fury lashing against rough boulders.  Somewhere in his sleep filled subconscious, he forced himself to move but his body refused.  In frustrated desperation, silent tears trickled from behind closed lids. 

When he awoke, there was an emptiness inside of him, a sense of great loss.  Emotions were evoked within him, the kind he had experienced only once.  He had tossed the shell carelessly on the bureau, hoping that when he awoke it was gone, perhaps disappear.   And then it began to rain, like the day of the funeral several months ago.  The house, both floors were crammed with mourners.  Friends, neighbors, brothers and sisters, they all waited for the rain to stop so they could accompany the dead to the final resting place.  Extra ice was ordered and aunt May began to wail, saying between sobs,

"My brother doesn't want to leave this house, look at the way its raining, anybody ever see such a thing.  His shell will never leave."

"The shell, yes the shell," Raj recalled.  It was all coming back. 

The rock, and yesterday, that special day when he saw the shell.

That which represented the feelings he was holding in and not letting go.

How could he?  He wanted that shell.   It was the only way he knew how to honor and celebrate the man he loved and couldn't let go.

Yes, yesterday was Father's Day and the reopening of memories.

Raj wept.

© 2003 by Ann Diamond.   All rights reserved.