The Woman by the Sea

The first time I met the ocean, it roared in welcome, a vast and restless beast— powerful, endless, untamed. Yet the sand held it still, defiant, unbowed, unbroken. Life and death, locked in a dance, whispering promises I did not yet understand. The air was thick with salt and sun, golden waves swallowing the sky. A tuk-tuk rattled near the shore, its driver, a grinning guide to secrets woven in the wind. He spoke of the beach, its hidden alleys, its shadowed souls. Then he showed me her— a woman alone, hunched in sorrow, staring past the edge of the world. The sea mirrored her silence, rolling endlessly forward, pulling back. A ghost of someone loved once, now lost to the needle’s cruel embrace. Her husband had been buried in waves or earth— it no longer mattered. The sun draped its last light upon her, a warning, a farewell, or maybe just a promise that it would rise again tomorrow.