How long had he wandered the shore of the unchanging sea?
The shore line was the same … the sky was the same … the waves were the same …
It was hard tell from his perspective if any progress was being made at all …
His legs were aching … and his mind was confused …
The sea was an uncrossable boundary … and the land beyond the beach … tall hazy mountains far in the distance
All seemed to be lost … for he’d lost a point of perspective … there was nothing on the horizon but white
No other foot prints marked the sand, but his own behind him …
It seemed a pointless quest … he’d lost sight of its purpose long ago …
He can’t even remember his name … just the ones he calls himself now ….
His imagination creating his story … to keep himself occupied all the while …
He sees, then, the waves breaking on the beach …
A sight of bare rock in the sand … a reef perhaps …
He draws closer and sees the bare rock in the sand … the shape of the beach changing
It’s the first change in such a long while … it has broken the monotony
His options still few … but now he has bare rock to observe …
At first his eyes see nothing … but on closer inspection he sees strange symbols there …
But their meaning elude him … just a sequential pattern of letters; an unknown vibration
He submits their shapes to his memory and moves on …
And watches as the sand regains its profile and the shore line goes back to being unrelenting
As if nothing had changed …
He stops walking … he steps into the water … turns around and looks at the beach from that perspective
Moving backwards slowly … he feels the water on his ankles, then his knees then stops
He realises the waters are warm … an observation he not made before …
Stepping out of the water, he notes how the sand sticks to his legs …
And how the air is warmer than the water he’d been standing in a moment before …
Something had changed … he made that change … he’d changed his awareness …
And decided to make sense of more possible observations from that point on …
Forcing himself to recall the moment he first stepped on the sands, if he could … to remember his name
And maybe to realise the purpose of the journey ….
But his memory was hazy … almost as if it had been washed of all those thoughts
And in that moment he became aware of conspiracy and theories of why he was there
Thoughts that had always been there but he’d never listened too …
Why was he there on his own … and where had he come from … and where was he gong
He was not content with the unrelenting sea and the unrelenting beach and the non-changing horizon
It seemed he had the power of his mind … and the power to change his perspective … if he could remember how
He was at odds then with those comprehensions … as cognitive dissonance raged war in his mind
But he soon overcame that resistance … and stopped in his tracks … choosing to change his direction
Turning, he decided to walk across the sands … towards the apparently distant mountain peaks
He met invisible resistance in his mind … something seemed to be wishing him to go back to the sea …
But, he was determined to change his awareness of the beach
Presently he came to strange mounds at the edge of the sand … dunes with grasses blown in a warm breeze
He clambered to the top of the nearest one with aching legs … and reached its summit …
Looking down his eyes were met with a sudden wonder there … something that gave him immediate fear
How could he have forgotten … what made him remain on the sands lost to the true reality around him
For there before his eyes was a strange metropolis of tall buildings with people like him milling around
He did not see any of this reality from the perspective of the beach ….
And now he remembers himself … and his name ….
For he has a reference point to use …
Written by Matthew James; taken from 'The Chronicles Of The Storyteller'
