Break, Break, Break...

 The two fishermen pushed the boat into the frothing sea,  challenging the sudden rise of ambitious waves, as well as us, a bunch of  urbanites, novices in the art of befriending the elements, and embracing the wild. It had begun to drizzle, and the winds were picking up. 'There is a storm warning", one of them casually uttered, to no one in particular. I immediately fetched some homeopathic pills  out of my bag and passed them around to our party of five. "Just two pills under your tongue, folks, and it should do the trick!", The wanna-be-expert in me chirped, trying to sound ridiculously professional. Bryonia, as these pills are called, were  meant to help us cope with sea-sickness, in case we were to fall prey to it. 

Cresting the waves in a small trawler,  we were an excited lot, albeit a bit cold, in the middle of September. Tasting the  brackishness of the spuming spray on my lower lip, and the nectarine sweetness of the rains on my upper, my intoxication mounted as we left the shores far behind. The fearful amassment of paranoia, isolation, confinement, and depression I had been harbouring during nearly five months of lockdown, just deconstructed itself and dissolved into the vast expanse which surrounded us. No more a 'mere mortal', threatened by the pandemic, but a part of this rolling, rumbling, exuberant infinity...

This is it....This is what I had purposefully let slip into oblivion: my age-old camaraderie with the ocean. Images of myself jogging on, and on, in the lashing rain, by the tumultuous sea and its stud of crashing waves,  galloped past me, with a sweet fury. 

I was in my element then, as I was in it now...Being rocked by the turbulent sea, the  anchored boat kept us entwined in some sort of daydream. We gazed at a colony of gulls as they drifted on invisible  thermals, now, hugging the misty air, and now...skimming over the wrinkled face of the ocean:  fish slithering in their pale yellow beaks. The resounding crash of the distant surf sought to drown out the shrill wailing and squawking of these animated birds.  "I think I am gonna puke," Bella's strained voice broke the spell, woven by the violent yet rhythmic movement of the heaving waters. I attempted to offer her a couple of more sugar pills from my supply, but she refused. "I just wanna go ashore," she insisted. So, with a few quick movements the anchor was retrieved and stowed away. The motor rumbled to a start, and we took off...A fleet of fishing boats passed by, and we waved at them. They returned our wave with a stoic stare. To them perhaps, we were just a bunch of pampered picnickers. While they had a long day ahead, with hours of arduous work, we had a netful of memories to feast upon, and share them with our friends on Instagram, blog, whatsapp... twitter, and what not!