The light sea breeze embraced my face as I watched clouds looming against the light-streaked sky become diaphanous in the light of the fiery morning sun. The evanescent veil of the sun's rays fell upon the ocean, dimly glittering the water like unpolished sapphire stones. I watched the waves kiss the shore for a few minutes. They lapped the seaside in such a playful manner that I wanted to splash into them once more, but I knew it was time to leave because the water was starting to advance closer to me with each wave.

Looking around me, I saw Dad leaning against the wall, motioning to me to come. I held up my hand – one more minute, please. Except Dad and me, no one else in the village dared to venture beyond the wall to the ocean. Nobody wanted to risk being dragged into the mouth of Nature, but they didn't know that the sea was like a calm rippling blue blanket at dawn.

The reflection of the sun blinded my eyes. It was definitely time to leave now. I inhaled the salty fragrance of the sea before turning back towards Dad.

“You were out there later than usual,” Dad commented disapprovingly as we shuffled through the warm sand to the gate.

“I know, but I couldn't help it. Besides, the sea isn't all that dangerous.”

Dad sighed. “Remember, Tally, the war hasn't ended yet.”

I shivered at the thought and placed my hands against the sun-warmed wall. It was our only defense against Nature's fury – our only bulwark. What did we have for offense? Nothing.

The whole village was proud of the wall. It was one thousand and five-hundred feet tall and bordered the whole coastline. Ever since a powerful tsunami had hit the coast a few decades ago and wiped out five towns, we believed that a gigantic wall was the perfect solution. No matter how hard the waves collided with the wall and sent terrified people running to the other side of town, not a single drop of the ocean water was found inside the village. Nature was losing.

Dad and I rushed through the crowd of townspeople who clucked their tongues at us, the way they did every morning when we came back from the ocean. They chided us, but I secretly chided them back. They were scolding me for experiencing the beautiful essence of the sea, something they were too scared to do, and I was too proud to bear their reprimands with humility.
* * *

Once, when I was younger, I had written a composition about the sea for a class assignment. I had gone to the ocean for inspiration. “Hidden underneath the grains of sand,” I had written, “was a delicate pink seashell that looked like the fingernails of the hand that had once held it.” Since the assignment was more of a creativity outlet, I didn’t expect to get a low mark on it, but the teacher told me to re-write my piece about a meadow instead. As I read and re-read my composition, trying to understand why she didn’t place a sticker on my paper as she did for everyone else’s, Dad had explained to me that any word related to “ocean” was tacitly forbidden.

“You would panic if I said 'sharks', right?” he had said.

“No, because they don’t attack humans intentionally. You told me that, remember?”
I remembered how hopeless Dad had looked.
* * *

“Talise! Mr. Ellington!”

Dad and I turned around.

“Miss Wittermore, what a pleasant surprise. I thought you were out of town to visit your sister.” Dad's voice faltered. A few months ago, Miss Wittermore had started ridiculous rumors about me walking on water, sending hordes of people to our house who wanted me to teach them how to fight back against the water's powerful pulls. It took Dad about a month to clear Miss Wittermore's nonsense stories.

Right now, she was shaking with fright. “I came back to pack up. I’m moving into my sister’s house farther away from the coast. Did you hear about the tsunami that's coming? It's going to kill us all!”

Dad stiffened and protectively wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “There were several tsunamis in the past, but the wall - ”

“Oh no, Mr. Ellington. Not this one.” She looked at me with her bird-like eyes before scurrying away.

I glanced nervously at Dad.

“Don't worry, Tally. It’s just one of her rumors.” He smiled reassuringly, and I smiled back.

But Dad turned out to be wrong.
* * *

I first met the ocean eight years ago.
“If you get a perfect score on the next Spelling Test,” Dad said with a delighted smile, “I’ll tell you two more bedtime stories over the weekend.”

I gave up my playtime to study for that test, rewriting each of the thirty words thirty times. I got a perfect score on it, and I put the test inside a plastic folder to keep it safe. Smiling as I imagined Dad's proud face, I skipped towards home.

I was near the front gate of the wall when I noticed that my shoes were untied. I put the folder down beside me and bent down to tie them when a sudden gush of wind blew the folder through the crevice beneath the gate, into the forbidden world outside – the coast. Underestimating the danger of the seashore, I pushed open the gates and watched hopelessly as a wave engulfed my folder. I stood in front of the water, not knowing what to do, but when I noticed I was alone with its beauty, I felt free.


Within a few minutes, a wave returned the folder at my feet, floating it on a thin layer of water. Without hesitation, I grabbed it, and my hands met the icy water. I froze and waited for the water to drag me like it had done to my folder, but it retreated without me. I was amazed.

That night, when Dad beamed at me after I proudly showed him my test, when he pulled me to his lap to tell me a story, I couldn't stop thinking about the ocean. Once I got Dad to witness the peacefulness and beauty of it, which was not an easy task at all, I started to visit the ocean every morning.

The ocean had been pulling me to it without me knowing.
* * *

Early one morning, I put my hand through the curtains and peeked outside, wondering what was causing the howling noise. The sky was shrouded with gray clouds, and something hit my window with a loud thud. I must be dreaming. I yanked away the curtains and rubbed my eyes. People were running and yelling, but the wind drowned out their voices. I stepped outside, confused by the noises, this unfamiliar saturation of gray and black. Dad ran over to me from a neighbor’s house. “We have to leave now.” I didn’t hesitate.
There was no turning back. The crowd pushed forward. The town was covered with dark, folded shadows. Someone screamed. Everyone stopped. I looked up.
I was gazing at a giant dome of deep blue. I was staring at Nature's curling tongue of wrath, watching the foam drip down from it like frothing spit. It was leaping over the wall, blotting out the sun. Nature had found a way to surmount our protection – our only hope for safety. My breathing quickened as I gazed at the familiar blueness of the water, my playmate for eight years. The waves that had brought my test and Dad's stories back, that had given me a feeling of freedom, that I had trusted as a friend, that blanket of blue that I had seen and thought I had known was about to swallow me.

As the roaring waves crashed over the wall, I gaped at Dad. His frightened eyes were focused on mine, and he offered me a trembling hand before I could turn around and run for my life.

“Don't let go,” he said sternly. I barely heard what he had said in the midst of screaming people scurrying away from the waves.

“I won't,” I breathed.

I closed my eyes and took in the briny scent of the waves that had drawn me to them for all these years. Dad and I faced the waves, and I tightened my grips on both his hands, grabbing onto the sleeves of his jacket, with all my might. Then, the waves closed upon us.

Dad and I held onto each other as we let the water swirl us around. When we refused to let go of each other, Nature slipped water between our hands, and we both knew we couldn't stay together for long.

Dad broke away from one of my hands to grab a wagon floating by us. He put me into it. I tried to pull him into the wagon with me, but he shook his head. The wagon was about to tip over as I desperately clutched his hands, so he shook free from my grasps and succumbed to the water, yelling something that was drowned by the roaring of the water.
* * *

When I woke up, I was lying in the wagon. Immediately I turned my head, hoping to see Dad. He wasn't there. Don't let go.

I was panicking. You would panic if I said 'sharks', right?

I circled a pile of debris nearby three times. He wasn't there.

“Dad?” The only answer I got was silence.

My legs gave way, and I crumpled onto the wagon, shaking. I noticed that my fingernails -hidden underneath the grains of sand was a delicate pink seashell that looked like the fingernails of the hand that had once held it – had dug into the palms of my hands and blood dripped into the water that layered the ground. It mixed with the seawater, and a few seconds later, the redness was gone. No sign of red was in the water. The seawater had overcome human blood.

I found myself clutching a piece of fabric. It must have torn from Dad's jacket when I was holding onto it. Where are you, Dad? I glanced around me. The wall was partially torn down. The waves had been that powerful. I found a pile of stones and broken bricks. I lifted a slightly cracked brick and placed it on the devastated four feet high wall, feeling both betrayed and dejected. As I balanced the slippery brick onto the wall, I remembered what Dad had told me one morning at the ocean a few days ago. Remember, Tally, the war hasn't ended yet. But his reminder didn't frighten me like it had done then. Instead, it gave me hope. We haven’t lost yet.

Brick by brick, I started to rebuild the wall. One brick was for Dad. Another one was for a neighbor. It seemed like hope was keeping the wall intact as I firmly glued the bricks to each other. A hand placed a brick next to mine. I turned around. I wasn’t alone.
Maybe building another wall was useless. Maybe we should just move away like Miss Wittermore. Maybe another tsunami might easily tear down the wall again. But this wall didn’t serve to shield Nature away. It was a reminder, a symbol of our strength. Most people stayed to help rebuild the village. The waters of the tsunami may have destroyed the wall and our belongings and may have separated families and friends, but they also brought everyone together. Even Miss Wittermore came back to help out.
More than anything else, the tsunami couldn’t drown something, something that revealed the beauty of our resilience and perseverance, the collective human consciousness that was stronger than any wall or calamity – the enduring strength of the human spirit.