"My brother did this weird thing with turtles. When we were growing up he would walk down to the bay, sandals flapping on the sun-baked clay at the side of the road. When we arrived I would lie on the beach, the soft sand between my toes and stare up at the sky watching the seagulls swoop and scream. I always wished I could fly in that squawking flock but my brother would be straight in the water. He'd swim out like a dolphin, back arching gracefully above the waves before disappearing below. I became curious as time passed, as to what he was doing out there in the aqua-blue."
"So one day I grabbed our dad’s goggles and followed him out. I had always been nervous of the sea, where we lived in Belize the sharks were plentiful, also there were lion fish and stingray. As I swam up to where he had disappeared beneath the waves I saw a curious thing, my brother was flitting about over the sand from patch of green, to patch of green gathering up handfuls of seagrass. Following, was a slow train of turtles which caught up to him as he stopped and settled in a line in the sand. He was feeding them in turn from the gathered pile of seagrass heaped before him. It was the most curious sight, tufts of sea grass sticking out from his trunks where he had stuffed it for storage, with a mountain of luminescent green grass shining in the stippled sun, as the turtles, with their quiet eyes, ate from his hands."
She found a diamond bracelet in the back of the car. Buried in the blue bag with the green handles, that she had packed last night for their trip down to visit Luca’s parents. God, she hated that bag. They had bought it on a previous trip to Barbados from one of the tacky tourist stalls. Luca had always been a sucker for a street vendor, he would look at me with those pitying eyes, indicating with the nod of his head that he wanted to help the guy out by buying some of his tat. Oh well, she thought, I guess that's why I love him.
As she opened the box she saw the note, 'to my darling wife, I hope?' Her head spun, she remembered the little shop they had visited when visiting her mother in DC, the bracelet/ring combo. That ring with its sea-green emerald set in patterned gold beveled with an Aztec design that faded into the lustre of the metal. The bracelet mirrored the design and as she stared down at it she wondered, where was the ring?
That weekend in Sarteneja Luca told me the story about his brother. We walked down the white sand of the beach near to his parent's house. The moon was high in the sky creating crystal flecks on the tiny crests of the lapping waves. The murmur of their ripple blended with the chirrups of night insects and the distant roar of the reef.
"Well, as is clear Mi alma, I never got to fly with the seagulls but my brother Ande did get to swim with the turtles. One day, he was feeding his friends when we felt a low shudder that made the water moan and grumble. I was floating on the surface watching Ande as my mother had told me. I had lost my fear of the sea and loved watching Ande, my little brother, so happy with his friends."
"The sun warmed my back and every now and then I would dive down to join them, swimming around the turtles that had become so used to us, the little sea grass farmers. By this time, Ande could hold his breath for 3 or 4 minutes, he'd just dart back to the surface for a second to gulp a breath before sinking like a stone to sit cross-legged in the same spot and resume his feeding."
"The sea rumbled again and this time it was like a vacuum was sucking at us, or like that feeling when you put your hand over the plug hole. I motioned back to the beach, as I began to fight the mounting current, but Ande just sat as if in a spell as the current drew him out into the blue with the turtles bobbing frantically around him. I remember his eyes! They just stared at me, shining golden glints of sun as he faded into the deep. I struggled but finally made the beach as the water started to rip out of the bay, draining like someone had pulled the plug on the sea."
A tear-stained his eye as I looked up at him and my heart shattered.
"I cried and cried and cried. My sorrow was an ocean that would never drain, the tsunami had taken my soul, my little brother Ande. My parents told me that he was a turtle now. The sea had heard his pleas, read his dreams and transformed him. They told me that same story night after night, eyes soft, moist and desperate. How else would he have been able to hold his breath for so long, they said."
Luca's words choked out in the sigh of the tide. As I looked at him I knew I loved him. I knew I would say yes!
The quiet breeze tickled the trees as the moon shone down on us. I stared out to sea as I held him in wracks of sobs. A shuffle at the tide line brought us both back to the moment.
We watched in wonder as a low shape struggled over the sand. Flippers scrabbled for purchase and the moon shone on a mottled shell, patterned with welts of sunbursts as if reflected through ocean currents. The turtle’s sad eyes watched the moon wane, timeless in reflection as Luca pulled a small box from his pocket.
The end.
This post is in response to @mariannewest weekend 3 prompt freewrite challenge which can be found here. I have to admit to cheating a tiny bit. I changed the final sentance prompt of That weekend in Duluth to That weekend in Sarteneja to fit in with the story I had constructed up until that point. I knew where the story was heading and it wasn't to Minnesota unfortunetly. I hope I am forgiven for this minor deviation. All pictures are from unsplash.com free to use. Image 1 credit to the photographer Scott Ruzzene. Image 2 credit to the photographer Jake Kokot. Please follow links to verify.
Amazing real life story @raj808, thanks for sharing and Im looking forward for your next posts!
Thanks @future24. I'm glad you enjoyed it buddy. There are many more posts to come and I have a lot of short fiction I have been writing recently on the boil so to speak 🙂
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Wow! Thank you for sharing this. Very intense, very beautiful.
Thanks @innerstellar. I'm glad you enjoyed the story, intensity of feeling was what I was trying for 🙂
feeding turtles??? no wayyy!!!! im crying over here. In Malta to see one you need a miracle let alone go near and feed them :(
Hi @theislander. I have dived many times with green turtles especially, and was lucky enough to witness the them nesting in Mexico a few years back. I have, however, yet to feed them from my hands lol That bit was complete fiction 😉
not fiction at all hehe, there are plenty of places in the world especially maui where you turtles have become accostomed with people feeding them. but thats exploitation and crap. :(
The closest I got to one while freediving at about 20meters in the philippines and it ran away to the deep :(
You write the best stories :D a beautiful one to wake up to!!! Hope your day is filled with laughter!!
mine got a tad gross loll :D
Beautiful, and haunting (he's a turtle now) - these Free Writing exercises inspire so many great stories, and this one is fantastic!
Thanks @snook. I'm so glad you could wake up to a good story, he says with unbounding modesty 😉 I'm in the same situation as you were yesterday re VP but I will wait until tomorrow morning to check out your freewrite when I will appreciate it more + be able to vote it up big time 🙂
ohhhhh don't worry about VP or voting!!! Honest. I would much rather you just get a laugh when you read it!!
Very interesting and smooth narrative, follow me too.
Thanks @eminimochantell. Check this post out, I'm not having a go at you just trying to help you get the steemit knowledge sooner rather than later. There is a certain etiqettee that helps with not rubbing people up the wrong way here:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@thecryptofiend/the-complete-steemit-etiquette-guide-revision-2-0
P.s. I did check out your blog. I wish you all the best 🙂
Me alegra mucho ver que eres bueno en esto amigo, tienes mucho potencial como escritor. es una historia triste pero a la vez hermosa. Saludos amigo espero estés bien.
muchas gracias @karlin Me alegra que hayas disfrutado la historia y espero que se haya traducido bien. Espero que se lo muestre a @marsella-2017 como creo que con el tema del mar podría disfrutarlo 🙂
si amigo se entendió perfecto con el traductor, ya le dije a mi esposo, lo que pasa ha estado muy ocupado trabajando estos días.
This is beautiful and so filled with emotions both joyous and sorrowful that it reads like an actual memory more than a story. Wonderful piece!
Thanks @jrhughes. It really poured out of me, this story. Especially the final (third) part. I don't think I've ever typed so fast. I could see where it was going and just wanted to get there before the timer beeped. Made it in the end. Glad you enjoyed it, thanks for stopping by :-)
Gorgeous writing @raj808 and a fantastic take on the prompts.... Thoroughly enjoyable read.
Thanks a lot @authorofthings. I'm always in my element, swimming happily along when a prompt that mentions the sea crops up. Glad you enjoyed it :-)
Good work be well
Thanks @krazypoet, you too m8. Glad you enjoyed the tale from the ocean swells :)
This was so sadly beautiful! To watch as his brother was pulled out...
Today I'm performing as a Marianne marionette. Frolicking stringless as I bring today's prompt to you.
https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-80-5-minute-freewrite-prompt-awakening
Thanks a lot @brisby. I was lucky enough to get your good self and the lady Marianne visiting my weekend freewrite. I'm glad you enjoyed the story m8. It was indeed a sad one.
Great story! Looking to see more of your work!
Thanks for the visit @dedicatedguy. I am so glad you enjoyed the story. I shall swing by your blog to see what you've been up to :-)
so haunting and beautiful. So many emotions - in the story and in me reading it.
Thank you, @mariannewest. I'm glad you enjoyed this story. After writing this one, I felt all kinds of emotions when I read it back. I suppose in a way my subconscious is processing loss through my writing. I've lost two relatives and a close friend in the last 4 years. It's not all doom and gloom though ;-) a big part of this story was inspired simply by my love of the ocean + green turtles in particular. I feel like I would love to be Ande, well the Ande who was transformed into a turtle by the spirit of the sea that is :-) thanks for your visit and comment
I am sorry for your losses. And isn't it interesting how we work through emotions through writing we weren't even aware of in our conscious mind? I do hope you will publish this for a wider audience as well.
Ohhhh, how real life works, transformed in the guise of fiction -
that sorrow, that loss, rewritten as something beautiful -
I've lost two relatives and a close friend in the last 4 years. It's not all doom and gloom though ;- - This is how suffering is done
Thanks for your fantastic comment @carolkean. You're right in what you say, it's the job of an artist, in whatever medium, to take their pain/suffering and effect a metamorphosis. Little bit of a Kafka reference going on there ;-) honestly, if I didn't have my writing to express the workings of subconscious I don't know what I'd do. Some people can talk these things out, I find that very difficult, but now and then I write something and afterwards see direct meaning in the story to certain things that have been happening in my life. It's really a joy when it happens, in uni I was always told writing shouldn't be therapy + this is true for the most part. I think the lecturers were saying that to try and discourage too much self indulgent clap-trap. But sometimes it just happens naturally, and in those instances I think it's ok to allow the subconscious to flex those muscles.
This was lovely.
I loved two lines in particular:
And:
I think you should watch the film Whale Rider, it has a very similar feel, and subject matter. And is a film I love recommending anyway.
I would just say that I'd recommend splitting the long paragraphs up, they're a tad too long.
Thanks @geekorner. I'm glad you enjoyed the story and I appreciate the feedback. If you take a look I have acted upon it, breaking the body of the text into smaller paragraphs and using a page break to indicate where the new prompt comes in. Cheers for the recommendation by the way. I have tracked down the film Whale Rider and will give it a watch. Have you seen Jago- A Life Underwater? I wrote a review on it on steemit some time back. Check it out if you get a minute, it's on netflix :-)
Haven't seen that yet, will try :)
By the by, maybe do not break up the different segments. Yes, I wondered who he was talking to at first, and why there was such a split, but it's important to make it clear it's still the same piece.
Maybe a single asterisk?
Great story! You're a great writer!
Thank you @lalilands. I'm glad you enjoyed the tale of Luca + Ande. :-)
And yet again, you slapped me in the imagination with your magnificent display of emotion evocation with the written word. I'm going to go happily spread compost and think about the sea and all its inhabitants now. Thanks for sharing this.😊
!PIZZA
!CTP
Get story @raj808. I always enjoy reading your stories. Thanks for sharing.