Watermark

Everything is happening now - that is how it's always been and how it always will be. Otherwise, you're lost somewhere else, somebody else.

A young boy is walking along the pier, half-skipping every other wooden plank. It's an easy task, legs being short, step being steady. Off he goes, further and further toward the mouth wide open, fangless (and therefore deceptively fateful). Ahead, the last plank widens and grows. The tiny feet ginger across the brown piano keys. Unheard music radiates with each minuscule descent of wood. The piece being played is one that the universe hears and is now harmonising to. It looks to be a lonely road, but no road ever is, having the company of pastures, fields, buildings, people, animals, plants, stars on each side. The young boy journeys, descending into the gaping maw destiny-bound. His pace the same, the melody joyful as it changes. The final note: eyes wide open, he bends down and there are two posts that hold up the whole instrument. The left is identical to the right, but they are not the same. See, on the right, over there, is a watermark, one that the other post does not share. A line that could easily be mistaken for an everpresent shadow that coils around the wood. Below is the lingering territory of the sea; above is within the pool of land, divided by horizon. The other post suffers dearth.

The boy's teeth glare out of his own maw as he faces the older, adult maw. Once, this was Poseidon. Once, this was Neptune. Once, it was Life. Once, it was Death. That moment - the same moment that the boy placed his belly on the planks and gazed down into two thirds of the world - the swallowing took place.

When Noah rode his ark, there was a flood to ride on, or so the story goes. Here there was no flood, but a pact. The decision made is today's remark, passed over and assumed. Land met sea and an exchange took place. Earth dove in the realm of water and learned how to swim as it penetrated the world to its recessive depths. After, either it lost air and remained at the bottom without the ability to resurface, or it meditates today, not awaiting anything in particular as we do. Water's wish was to rise, so it did, in the guise of a veil, a secret hymen. Now the sea and land are one, but they are magnificently and yet deceptively divided. Is the air that the young boy breathes not an ocean? When he swallows, he drinks. When he swims, he reaches touches land and honours the partnership, the union.

Where sea meets land, where mountain greets yonder, and where welkin touches the ocean, a great peace descends. There is no conflict, no fighting, no struggle, no strife, no defeat, no victory. There is a watermark, the place where the scales of balance stand now; a guardian of peace, never interfering, but always there to be witnessed, felt. Legs apart now, amphibian feet supporting him, the boy stands. Soon his melody is in reverse. Footsteps garnish the silent opera as it plays itself into a deeper quiet once more, where it remains.