Young Writers Society

The Divers

There was a man and a woman. This man and this woman met in a shift in time, a season of change. It was a kaleidoscope of fresh experience and it was an event beyond the predictable. Sometimes people describe moments as feeling like time had stopped. In this moment time, logic, sense and resistance stopped. It had happened and would continue beyond doubt to happen.

The man and the woman explored. They found a land that no one else had ever seen nor dreamt. It was hot and exotic as it was beautiful. Senses awoke within the man and then the woman that they did not know had existed. One afternoon the man and the woman decided to embark on a small boat and go far out to sea as it was a pool of beckoning and desire.

Once they were far away from land. The man strapped the woman into diving gear and said to her

“Do you want to dive with me?”

She had been unsteady at first but quick enough replied with

“Yes”

He kissed her head then grabbed her head and threw them both into the apparently infinite pool of royalty.

The rush of water sucked the life out of them as quickly as it put it back in. The man felt different now. The dive had made him feel unlike anything else he had ever felt in his short existence. The watery world was more mesmerizing than he could ever have hoped. The light from the one true star filtered through and illuminated the life around him. How had he never appreciated life in this way before? He adored everything he saw down to the tiny coral that had just sprouted out of a rocky crevasse. No sooner had he began to take it all in that he looked towards the eyes of the woman and saw without a shadow of doubt that she felt faithfully the same.

The woman’s glee was unable to be contained by the mask that pumped oxygen into her organs. This made her willing to dive deeper. For unlike the man, although she did not know it yet, she was strong and courageous. The curiosity and pleasure they were both bathing in determined their further decent into the vast unassuming ocean.

Further they went seeing more of the new wonders that existed around them. They weren’t lost in the same way they were not found. Spatial awareness mattered not. Look what they had discovered! They needed not control or direction. They were just tumbling in peaceful anarchy like an atom through space. They simply were. Maybe if they had both believed this then that would have been true; an infinite and perfect existence…

Then the man looked up toward the surface. The sun’s rays didn’t seem so bright anymore and he began to realise how far they had come. He questioned himself

“Are there just dark depths and despair below?”

Finally fear percolated his mind. The woman who as aforementioned was strong and too radiant in mind, even more so then in her glorious body, never had an ounce of fear as an ingredient in her exploration. Therefore the man battled with his ego. He had always presented himself as strong when in reality he was weak. Pride would always get in his way, more a spoilt child than the grown man the woman’s portrayal humbled him as. And thus, they swam on.

Now the water was too dark for the man. The wonder around him that existed from the very top to the bottom of their dive was still there never fading in brilliance but he didn’t see it. The water despite being pure and clear appeared murky. The man who spends too much time indulging in his own thoughts awoke to notice his companion had strayed away from him a little. Maybe a little concern now began to form in her mind too but the joy in her ever-changing blue/green eyes never once wilted. How close was she? He couldn’t tell. She was fuzzy not quite the same looking, an outline in an over growing distance. He swam towards her. It seemed the more he swam the further she got away from him. The fool didn’t realise he wasn’t swimming fast enough or hard enough to be as close as he was before. The man looked around and then the cold dark eyes of his focused on his oxygen tank. The needle on the gauge was far lower than he expected. Low on oxygen, dark the waters, blurry his vision and perceivably alone (He never was), the man’s eyes widened and he panicked.

All the way they had come down; he ascended up as quickly as possible. He silenced his mind screaming to stop and go back and let his body do the talking. Head and back stiff the man made only one motion which was away. He truly believed that the star’s light shimmering through the surface was his primary goal. For this man was not one of spiritual making, he understood not of the gods and the earth and the relationship of being connected to both and encompassing all they gave. He was of modern design, this being flawed and for the self. Never had he been brave he feared death above all else and fear motivated his instincts. How could he ever have expected to align himself with the woman who beautifully belonged to no one and took for herself no one? but wished happiness on all the gods and all the earth ever had and will create. These things he hadn’t known existed until she showed him. The man unimodal, wanted to taste what he thought would be fresh air. However when he broke the surface and spat the mask from his mouth what he tasted was foul and stale. The sky was black the exotic beautiful landscape they had only recently discovered was ablaze, fire and ash clouded the sky. Nothing was beautiful anymore. All was lost. Surely he could not have done this to the world himself can man or a man do such a thing? He pondered for far too long before understanding the cause and symptoms.

Meanwhile, the woman screamed. The oxygen in her tank had run out. The fish and creatures around her understood not as she wailed and begged for help. Her eyes were overran with pain the like she had not felt before. Intense suffering scorched the inside of her body and mind. She was a ruined woman lost and immobile in depths she would have never come alone. The world turned black and white and black again. A piercing vapour of nightshade poured from her heat. Her eyes flickered on and off. The beauty of the world around her that she had always held dear began to disappear before her. Then when all hope appeared to be lost she could have sworn although no one would ever believe as she was deep, deep in the ocean that the life around her turned to fire and ash and cloud. Her world was being destroyed. Control lost. Faith in her belief lost. The woman gave up hope and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see a world again not if this is what it had become.

A stranger grabbed her and began to drag her up toward the surface. A speck of light flickered on in her mind. She looked. Who was this mystery man? Was he her saviour? NO! A person who would never be a stranger but looked never the same had come for her. It was the man. She struggled away. She preferred the depths at this point. The light could wait even if it meant her undoing. The man seemed oddly persistent and weakness and habit began to take over and she let him hold her once again.

The man was useless. His strength not enough his desire not comparable to the titanism of his once counterpart. He needed to swim harder and faster. Harder than he had ever swam in his life. Just a bottle emptied the woman was, for she had no trust, no hope and no belief. But something was happening something neither of them could quite believe. The man did something. He swam hard and fast and for the first time put the survival of the woman before his own selfish needs. He cut himself on rock and coral, took stings and bites. Even so they were making the way toward the surface. It wasn’t dark anymore the blue was becoming paler and safer.

Snag.

The woman became caught on rock and tangled in weeds. The man looked at the woman. He saw the lack of hope in her eyes. The sparkle had gone. It seemed she believed in him not and wanted him not. The man’s stomach knotted. Sickness of pride once again began to hinder him. Fear of not being the one who was needed welt up against him. His eyes widened once again in panic just as they had done before when he lost all his way. He glanced toward the surface. Remembered what was up there when they came down and remembered what was back there when he went alone. His legs kicked. Not upwards though, toward the woman. The man showed his greatest feat of strength and pulled the woman with all his will and might away from the rock and the weeds and he dragged her unwillingly it seemed to the surface and threw he through the threshold until she tasted the real air for the first time in far too long. The man threw them onto the boat they had taken out all that time ago. He was proud he had gone back.

The man should not have had any pride left at all. He had pulled the woman up far too quickly and inevitably this made her ill. His lazy attempt at recovery made her anger and well up like a tempest, a true terrifying event. The man was scorned and abused until her learnt the truth. To his fairness the man did learn the truth and he was ashamed. He never should have left the woman because she made the world around him beautiful and he had laid it to ruin. The man felt like casting himself upon the sharp rock and to be done with it. But to the slight disgust of the woman who he never should have left, he was done running away. When they were exploring before he had offered the woman many promises he superficially broke. However this time he promised her something real. Firstly that he would wear the tag of coward on his forehead and admit to his tremendous wrong doing for all time. Secondly that he would rebuild the land they had discovered together and nurture it from seedling until it was a fully grown and restored Nirvana. And thirdly. Thirdly was the promise that he would never leave her again not even for a second in mind or body.

Did the man keep his promises?

Yes. Firstly despite the burning looks of the men and women that they once knew he wore the tag of coward always and repented his sins publicly and privately. The evil sin of pride was washed away from his blood finally and the woman seemed to recognise this change. Secondly he began to rebuild the world they had found. He would have built through all the ages of the cosmos to accomplish this. He did not have to though as the woman who always went above and beyond herself helped him to do it together just like before. For this he was eternally grateful even if sometimes they had to knock things down and try and build them back up over and over when his strength faulted. Thirdly he never left the woman again. He respected, cared for and protected her for the rest of his short days. For this he let himself attribute the label ‘man’ to himself again the label that had egotistically given himself when he was still a boy.

The woman never understood why he had left her alone in the ocean and he never understood her pain. Nonetheless the beauty of her soul shined through dwarfing every star in the universe combined and she did what great gods of old and men of new would always fail to do. This is what made her master the man’s world because above all time, logic, sense and resistance. She forgave him.