EVERY NOW AND THEN BY THE PIER
In the waning light, the sky bloomed a bright vermillion, with deep orange hues that spanned the skies. The sun was a warm, bright ball of soothing fire whose rays seemed to wrap the world in a last embrace in its slow retreat below the horizon.
The gulls screeched overhead, fleeting shadows that danced in the auburn sky were joined by the monotonous whirring of the small boats venturing out to sea, echoing as they left the pier, cutting through the rippling azure form. Tiny fishing boats dotted the horizon line. In the distance, a ship's horn blared, echoing in waves that left a faint ringing in her ear.
The crickets and frogs from the foliage behind now joined the symphony, their voices a soft melody that balanced the crying gulls above, an accompaniment to the repetitive lull of the waves that lapped up against the pier's pilings.
A metal chime sliced through the air and resounded from the clock tower that stood proud and tall in the centre of the park. 6.30 p.m. A figure in silhouette made his way through the park rapidly emptying of people, passing the tower through the trees and towards the crashing waves. The planks of the pier creaked under measured footsteps and she didn’t need to turn to know it was him.
They would meet on the 15th of every month – at the same place by the sea, on the pier, at the fifth lamppost, always fifteen minutes before twilight. He would stand on the right, she on the left, both leaning against the rusted railing whose paint was flaking to form petal-like peels. He would be in his usual dressed down garb – a plaid flannel shirt and signature panama hat – and she would have a white cotton shawl dotted with tiny pearls dulled with age, wrapped loosely around her tanned, slender shoulders as a screen against the chill of the evening air. And they would talk – the topic of choice didn’t matter – till the dwindling sun had sunk and was succeeded by the old lamps that would flicker to life.
“Do you like dogs?”
“Love them. German Shepherds especially.”
“I prefer them retrievers. Always smiling they are. Makes me happy.”
“Tea makes me happy.”
“Chamomile reminds me of my dead grandmother.”
“Rose reminds me of mine. What’s your favourite fruit?”
Both their friends thought the monthly meetings to be strange. They usually strayed from personal topics, opting for light conversation instead of deep questions that probed some sort of self-reflection. His girlfriend had noticed the routine meet-ups, which were often a cause for quarrel between the two whenever he gave vague answers, and her friends thought him to be a potential creep waiting to stalk her home.
He appeared in her periphery, mimicking her posture and leaned against the peeling railings as their usual pleasantries were exchanged. The rolling waves and crying gulls filled the ensuing silence – one that was rarely uncomfortable. It was a customary routine that he would start the conversation, telling all that had happened to him the past month, while she chimed in every now and then. She hadn’t looked his way, but there was a biting chill that rolled off his being and filled the air with suffocating silence.
“The gulls are particularly jittery today,” she commented, glancing up as the loud squawks overhead seemed to grow stiflingly close. He didn’t so much as glance her way. She frowned. By now, he would have made some snide comment on the irksome noise, like;
“Now if only I could fly right up next to those beasties. That’ll shut ‘em up and scare ‘em off real proper, won’t it?”
She hadn’t even known she had spoken it out loud, even more befuddled that she could mimic his tone and choice of words. Yet all she received was a simple “hm”. His frosty demeanor was unfamiliar, the usual laidback calm and warmth he exuded nowhere discernible. This was not the same man she had started to grow fond of sharing an evening of her mundane life with every month.
She cleared her throat.
“How’s Marriot?”
“Good.” Arching a brow, she turned her attention to the sun half swallowed by the ocean line. She pretended to not have seen him stiffen.
“Are you two good now?”
“I’m getting married.”
The waves ceased their crashing against the pier, the gulls were now silent and the breeze had shifted away, pausing the whispers and gossips amongst the needle thin leaves of the willows.
Now he turned to look at the woman beside him. Body bent leaning over the railings that propped up her thin frame, blond waves glowing in the warm light that shielded most of her face though he could still see her jaw had gone taut, her shoulders stiff. The gulf of silence that had wedged itself between them upon his arrival amplified, and he hoped she would mistake the wild thrum of his heart for one of the motors out at sea.
She let out a breath, and the world returned to living, albeit mutedly. The waves skirted around the pier, tentative; the leaves murmured and the gulls all but blinked at the scene unfolding before them. He heard her let out a soft laugh, and he felt an unfamiliar ache in his chest.
They hadn’t seen a need to exchange names. Or numbers or addresses. Any personal information for the matter. As if it was a mutual promise set in stone, a game to tide them through the humdrum of their lives – one a promising author and the other a struggling actress. And the pier was their sanctuary, where they could be completely cut off from their worlds, where they could be nobody and anybody, even if that somebody was temporal.
“To Marriot I presume?”
“The one and only, I suppose.”
“Well.”
A breeze brushed them carefully from behind, stirring the few dry leaves that had fallen from their perch to circle past their feet and join the undulating azure in a rippling dance. He caught a whiff of her rose perfume that he was sure by now would be able to recognise anywhere.
“How long has it been?”
“What?”
“We first met on the 15th.”
“May. It was May 15th.”
She hummed, eyes lost in the swirling waters, watching as its hues changed the further the sun retreated. The horizon line was almost clear aside from the few stray boats, and the symphony of the pier now a soft hum.
“It used to be warm.”
He shifted to face her, head tilted in question. “Pardon?”
“It used to be warm…” she trailed off, eyes glazed as she looked ahead, fingers playing with the frizzy ends of her curls. His fingers twitched, and he clenched it into fists to prevent its venture towards hers. He drew a sharp breath when she finally turned to him.
“It’s for my spoken word showcase. What do you reckon? I have a few months left, and I’ve been trying to get past this line but nothing’s coming.”
“You’ll think of something.”
“I thought of describing some place as a person. Would be interesting, won’t it? Just imagine –”
He didn’t know exactly what drew him towards her on that particular day. A slim, willowy woman donning a white sundress and hat, blond curls framing a freckled face so mournful her eyes seemed to reflect a tortured soul that churned in chorus with the blue depths circling the dock’s pilings, lost in its sapphire abyss.
“You alright there, Miss?”
The wind carried his voice to her, deep and perhaps a tone of worry. She broke her gaze away from the water to find a young man before her. Tall, rather dashing if she were to admit, his grey hoodie hiding what she imagined to be a muscular frame beneath. His shaggy, black hair seemed to glint in the light and he had a short beard that shaped a sharp jaw. But his eyes were the ones that struck a chord within her – grey eyes crystal clear that convinced her she could trust this man.
He came to learn she was a delicate flower. A flower whose dainty petals had been ripped and scratched, barely hanging on to its centre. She had shown him the scars and marks that littered her otherwise flawless skin, and he had tactlessly joked at least she wouldn’t need paper to play tic-tac-toe. Her laughter filled the air like tinkling bells, a sound that warmed the otherwise lifeless pier as the waves jumped to join her and the leaves would chuckle behind them.
He was startled out of his reverie when she turned to ask when the wedding was. Her ramble had stopped long ago, and expectant eyes that were a stormy blue now turned to him in question.
“This weekend.”
“Oh.” An unyielding silence fell again, and this time she took him in. Dressed in a collared white shirt with ironed sleeves rolled to his elbows, black slacks and polished shoes, beard shaved and hair neatly combed back – a far cry from the usual hoodie and sweatpants he wore.
There was a loud flapping to their side, and a pair of shadows passed over. They looked up to the gulls that flew into the fading light, their shrieks joined by the distant chime of the clock tower making known twilight was ending. He kicked himself away from the railing the same time she pulled away slightly.
“I would like to be that someday. You know? Someone like Marriot. Pretty, smart, efficient, she beautiful too ain’t she? You’re good for each other. The two of you.”
“Thanks.”
She shuffled away from the railing. He kicked an invisible pebble.
“Till next time? Maybe?”
“Same place.”
“Same time.”
“Till then.”
As he turned to leave, he heard a murmured waver of “heartiest congratulations”. Refusing to look back, he mumbled some quiet thanks, and left. As he walked through the trees back to the park away from the border’s ensemble, he could almost hear the crumpling of a withering flower – petals with lost fragrance shriveling to furl back into an empty shell.
He would later learn that the next time they met would be months later, with him looking up at her on stage. Fall had descended upon the Windy City, and the streets were dotted with an array of muted colours as people bundled in coats and scarves made their way through the hustle and bustle of the evening rush hour crowd. His hands were tucked deep into his trench pockets, and she had her arm wrapped tightly around his, the ring glinting proudly for all to see. The couple strolled along the sidewalk, satiated after a congratulatory dinner to celebrate the success of his recent publication. They passed shops that washed the streets with their warm light, inviting early Christmas shoppers in with their bright stock of decorations and offering refuge from the chilly gusts sweeping the sidewalks. It was then they stumbled upon the quaint red theatre, and Marriot was intrigued by the poster plastered outside.
“Oh I do enjoy good poetry. Shall we have a listen, dear?”
“Anything you say.”
He would pay for their tickets and they would get seats in the front row. It wasn’t till he was seated that he would make the connection, briefly remembering his wife’s ramble about some literary performance she had seen earlier in the year and how much she enjoyed it, and some spoken word showcase mentioned before by –
And then he saw her, steps light and dainty as they made her way to the centre. Her eyes were still the same stormy blue, blond curls still frizzy at the ends and she would still radiate the same melancholic aura that rippled about her just like when they first met, just like the way her shawl billowed around her willow figure in the sea breeze, just like the waves that churned beneath the pier.
“Oh! She was at the last performance too! Her piece wasn’t the best but it was one of my favourites, something about wilting flower,” Marriot gave a hushed cry and gripped his hand tighter. He could all but give her a tight smile, and drew a breath as the woman on stage cleared her throat.
“It used to be warm,” she began, and his heart tightened.
“It used to be warm. And sunny, and bright. And it still is – the rays enrapturing you in its warm embrace, before it draws back slowly, reluctantly, to sink below its horizon home. You could lie upon the cool sand all day, welcoming the morning dew as it slid from its suspended perch on the leaves of the weeping willows towering above, their tears tickling your face. And at twilight, the stars would begin to peep, twinkling like giggling pixies, their laughter tiny chimes carried by the soft breeze to caress your ears. And it would stroke your face, teasing the stray curls hanging down in soft tendrils to frame your pale face. It was peaceful, it was happy, it was an oasis.”
He could see her now, standing alone by the railing at the pier, watching the tiny motors cut through the waves, the gliding gulls and their boisterous cries, embracing the wind that cocooned her in its cool embrace. The sun would begin its slow retreat, and she would welcome the salty spray of the waters below that jumped up playfully against the pier. She had started to look better. Her face had a glow, her features not as gaunt, and she looked healthy. And he remembered with a start how beautiful she looked then, how beautiful she looked now.
“But an oasis no more.
Now, there was no sun, and the winds no longer just cold, but harsh and biting, charging through the churning waters that glinted with the moon’s cold light to rip through the clothes, the shawl you wore bound to your body. And like ravaging wolves, it would throw you off your feet far, far away into the abyss of the night. It screamed, no longer teasing, but taunting as it whipped through your hair like how it stripped the willow behind of its leaves, whirling towards you in a flurry to slice fragile skin, creating anew a patchwork of red cuts you thought you’d be rid of evermore. Summer was no more, and even when it came again, it would never be the same.”
He clenched his fist to his chest in what he knew was a futile attempt to relieve the growing ache ballooning in his chest. Marriot turned to him perplexed. She didn’t see how the sad, blue eyes of the woman on stage were fixed upon her husband, piercing through his being.
“Is it so wrong to feel loved again?”