When I first came to this place, I must’ve been five or six, so young and innocent. I remember walking down its rocky plains with my parents, who had also stumbled upon this place when they were young. Its shallow caves, sand and water had fascinated me. For some reason I can’t fathom, I always felt drawn here. Maybe it was the birds who swept down with their magnificent wings cutting through the air like a knife through butter, or the swirling water which, looking at it now, isn’t even that clear, but I used to see it as liquid diamonds. The rocks were certainly something, the biggest one rising up and over my head, making me look like an ant in comparison to the towering stone.
I wander down the shore, tiny little grains of sand clinging to my bare feet. I see the little shells that I would fill bags with when I was eight. I pick one up and cradle it like the crown jewels. Its outside is rough, little bumps and chips making it the imperfect beauty it is. It’s inside, however, is smooth like a pearl and shiny like a sapphire. Its colour is of the sea at noon, a beautiful turquoise. I gently toss it back onto the bed of sand it once lay on.
I continue on down the shore, my mind pacing back and forth between my thoughts and memories, some of them bringing pain, some happiness. After a while of strolling down the calm sand, which is still slightly warm from the late afternoon sun, I come to the end of the stretches of sand and stare at the huge outcropping of rock that is basically a sharp and jagged cone, and is surrounded by a rocky floor. I take a step from the last bit of sand onto the rocks, the chips and points digging into my feet, but my skin has grown strong and thick. I see a crab wonder up and over a rock, and down into a cave. I wonder what it would be like to be a wild and free animal. Would it be carefree and wonderful, or would it be filled with stress of having to hunt to eat and feed the young ones? I will never know. The only kind of life I’ve ever known was being homeschooled, having no friends, and this beach. This beach held so many precious memories for me, each one of its features holding different memories. The sand held memories of sitting with my dad and making sand castles, and abruptly kicking his. The sea held thoughts of splashing water at my mum, and diving down into the oncoming waves. The rocks held memories of both my parents watching up in worry as I scaled the fifteen meter high rock like a squirrel.
All my happiest memories fade away and my feet came to halt. I looked at the deepest part of the shore, it was maybe six metres deep, and surrounded by rocks that could easily gouge a chunk of flesh from your body if you were to fall on it. Thats where the police found my parents. They said my mother had drowned in the water, my dad impaled on the rocks. The Coroner said it was suicide. They probably jumped off one of the bigger rocks, into the water below. Apparently since my mum drowned, they said she jumped straight into the water, but when my dad jumped, he hit the rocks below instead. The one thing I never understood is why they committed suicide. I mean, we weren’t the richest family on the block, but we certainly weren’t poor. They were happy to the furthest extent of my knowledge. There is only one thought that always came to mind when I thought of their devastating death. Maybe it wasn’t suicide.
But I will never know.