The sky is pink and orange and looks like a postcard. I'm swimming out into the ocean just as the sun is setting. I can feel myself shivering. I can barely see a thing. All I hear are our flippers splashing against the water. This seems like a truly insane thing to do. Anything could happen to us, but we trust that it won't- that we're safe. It's getting darker by the minute. This really starts to feel crazy now. I know that I will remember this forever, that I will retell it over and over.
Darkness- completely soaking wet and waiting. I look down and see unsure shapes in the darkness beneath the water. We go on forever like this. I hold tight the hand of someone I can't see. I don't dare make a sound. The time has passed to change my mind. I'm here in the ocean with nothing to protect me but my wetsuit, and it's full of holes. Suddenly, I think I see a spark, like a firefly.
Why can't all types of love be this beautiful? This secret? I am frozen with my whole face submerged, when the water starts to light up around us. Trails of blue light travel upwards, like fairy lights. It's everywhere at once. I'm floating in-between a coral reef, and a sky that goes on forever (there's no ignoring that anymore) and these tiny creatures are reflecting the velvet, endless sky with its many stars.
We have to name this phenomenon; we have to categorize and understand these creatures, otherwise how can we stay sane? How can we pretend to know anything at all?
No one turns their flashlights on. We are all aware of each other and of ourselves, and the display is only becoming more joyous, more impossible. Patterns emerge, flashes lengthen and join together. It's nature's fourth of July sky. Light spreads out horizontally from a single point. None of this seems real, yet it's impossible to deny, shut your eyes and find your way to solid ground. How can we pretend to understand anything? No wonder I can't sleep.
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