Rebirth
Ingrid Barnes

The waves came in harder and faster than I expected. They did not waste time playing with me, teasing. They just picked me off the rocks and tossed me out into the deep water. And it was very deep water. I had been right on the end of the headland and the friendly yellow sand of the beach was immensely far away. I made a split second decision not to try to climb back onto the rocks, onto which the waves were violently throwing themselves. I didn’t think that I would survive that treatment. So I swam out a little further to avoid the pull of the water towards the headland, then headed in towards the beach.

I ask myself now whether, at that time, I really believed that I could get back to the beach safely. I have no answer, and simply plead that the effort of treading water and keeping my head above it were enough to drive all other thoughts from my mind. My single aim was to reach that pale yellow stripe in the distance, but I quickly realised that I was being dragged slowly further away from it. I was never instructed in what to do if washed out to sea, so I decided to just swim as hard as I could at the shore.

The sun was drooping lower in the sky, dipping below the cliffs and casting a grey veil over the beach. I too was drooping lower in the water, my body struggling to stay afloat, and it was now that I started to realise what a hopeless position I was in. No-one knew where I was and no-one was likely to miss me until maybe tomorrow morning. There was no way I could last that long. Now that I had stopped swimming, the beach had started drifting away again. An inescapable coldness had begun to penetrate my body. My shivering was causing me to swallow more water, and the back of my throat already burned with the salt. My whole body ached with tiredness. My mind ached too, I think I knew then that I would die there. Despite this, it never occurred to me to stop holding my head up and paddling my feet wearily in the water.

A slightly larger wave came up behind me, and I was sucked down into the water. I had no warning so there was no time to prevent my mouth and nose being immediately filled with water. Despite the sting of the seawater in my eyes, I could see the surface, a rippling silver sheet, up above me. I strained my entire body towards it, thrashing wildly upwards. My body was screaming out for air. It ordered me to breath, if I did not, I would die. So I breathed, and sucked in a huge mouthful of water. Pain and panic swamped me. I flailed my arms wildly, trying to find something to grab. The water did not resist, there was nothing I could use to propel me up out of the ocean’s suffocating embrace.

My body filled with tension. My feet burned with savage pins and needles that crept up my legs and into my body. I felt like my body was too big for my skin and I was about to burst out of it. The pain reached my neck, wrapping around it as if it were trying to strangle me. It flowed up into my head and I screamed into the water. I was about to explode. . . and then . . . I was free. The tension and pain drained out of me, washed away by the water, and I was so light that I was floating away, carried in a gentle ocean of bliss. The cold white body drifted down, sinking into the darkness below me. Confused, I looked at myself. My silver tail curled and uncurled gently with the movement of the water. My skin was silvery too. The scales spread up onto my belly and lower back. With the tips of my fingers I wiped my eyes, feeling the tiny scales around them. My finger were connected by pale green webs.

The webs, with my tail, allowed me to propel myself easily through the water. I swam up to the surface and as the water parted around my head an electric tingle fizzed through the air. Then it was gone and all was calm and silent. The night air was cool and light on my shoulders. The sea was almost smooth, and inky dark as it reflected the night sky. I gazed up, as I had so many times, at the sky studded with stars, tiny silver pin pricks, so far away. I realised that I was starting a new life now, and leaving the old one behind, just as I had left the beach behind, and now there was no sign of it. The horizon was flat and empty. The sea spread out around me forever, an endless sheet of water. I did not know what to do, where to go. When I had come into the world the first time, I had had my parents to guide me and teach me. Now, this time, I was alone. The moon rose quietly over the lip of the ocean, sending a silver trail out across the water to me. I flicked my tail, not very gracefully, and followed the silver trail, to where ever it would lead, to my destiny.