Song of the Sea

Slightly chilled spring rain beats against my face, as the wind plays with my hair, teasing and whispering and carrying the moans and groans of the bay far beneath. Pavement bends and morphs, shaking in the wind, but reality holds it steady and firm through the suspended chains and cables that stretch for miles in each direction. Eerie hums, whistles, and tunes echo through the open air, sung by the creatures deep down in the navy blue waves of the ocean bay, as navy blue shadows longer than anything you've seen in this world migrate back and forth underneath that long bay bridge.
I look back the way I came, through the light mountain fog, to see rolling hills and giant peaks, the road curving around the bend and disappearing from somewhere else. I don't know how I got here, though I imagine it was by that road. A resonating call from below brings my eyes back to the dark shapes moving and swaying and swimming as if everything was as is should be. Their calls bounce off the hills and mountains, echoing into the sleepy town at the other end of the bridge. It feels as if I've always been here, as if this is where I truly belong, not that other world or dimension where we are the slaves and yet the masters of earth and sky.
I find myself walking slowly down the bridge, never really taking my eyes off the creatures or the horizon beyond them, now fringed with golden light, breaking against dark rain clouds. The town before me seems extremely familiar, though I don't know why. Glancing once more at the deep blue, I sigh, and think “Is this my home?” The calls of the sea still echoing all around me, even the laps of water on the shore are audible as I step into the town.
Here the rain is just a pitter patter, dribbling down windows and into gutters, more of a mist from the sea, then the battering on the bridge—although neither were quite unpleasant, just shades of their own time. There are people here, walking around like people do, or sitting in coffee shops and delis on the corner. It's familiar but it's all new, yet it's all the same. A woman with a red umbrella, red heels and matching lipstick, golden shoulder-length hair and a shiny red dress stands at the bus stop that I somehow migrated empty backstreets and random street corners to get to. She checks her golden wristwatch, then turns her head to the ocean...and sighs. I find myself unable to speak or even look her in the eye—not that she'd notice me anyways, but it was like a wall of water separated us, as if we were standing in different realities that just happened to be side by side. When the long navy-blue bus came, she got on first. I didn't mind.
I don't know where we were going or what compelled me to get on or even how I payed my fair, although I don't think anyone payed per say. There were a lot of seats open, so I chose one by the window, and watched a rain-wettened world drift by. The lights of the night glowed like Chinese lanterns on black water, flickering in the night as the sky shook off its cover with the morning light. Through the city, up and down the hills, over cliff-bends and down past rocky beaches, around sharp corners, and past the howls of the sea we went. No one spoke a word, just listened to the sounds of the sea.