There’s a diving board in the middle of the ocean that I want to climb up and dive.
If I squint from my chair, I can see it, I swear.
The silver rails go up high, and the board looks just like a line.
The top half of my swimsuit is dark, but it’s dry. Royal blue meets washed ocean. Salt streams down my nostrils, and the nozzle of our sunscreen bottle is facedown in sand nearby. I sigh.
This is the worst thing that can happen at the beach. I laugh. Lai and Reid are still asleep. Bucket hats hiding their faces. Chests red as can be. I’d wake them, but that’s not what we do at the beach. It’s okay to be a lobster on the sand. You’ll still survive.
Muffled hip hop streams from my knapsack. The lyrics say “lay it on me, lay it on me,” and I mouth them with the beat. Two girls in black and white bikinis walk by and smile at me. I pick up the bottle of sunscreen and brush off the nozzle, then think about nudging Reid’s shoulder to see if he’ll wake. “We were up late,” I mumble, then drop it on his lap and walk towards the water.
Young girls in onesies laugh and cry where water meets the sand. Parents smile, and lift their kids up and over crashing tides. Water sprays everywhere, and kids decide how they’ll react this time from that time. But I smile every time — even when they cry.
My mother used to do that with me, I think. I can’t remember my time at the beach as a child. When she was young and kept together. When he sat there, locked in his chair, surrounded by silver cans and browning ales.
I look down and keep walking, on the lookout for pointy shells that’ll cut my toes. I use one leg to jump between clumps of clams and dried seaweed. I hate when that stuff gets stuck in my feet, all crunchy and slimy.
I keep walking and see a jellyfish flipped upside down — or right-side up. I can never tell. These jellies don’t have tentacles. At least not ones I can ever see. They just look like translucent hockey pucks to me. Kinda squishy when you pick them up too, but fickle enough that they’d break if a little boy skimmed one out into the water…not saying that’s I did…but maybe. So I watch a young boy throw one, and his parents yell “Hey! James. No!” Like he’s a dog or something. But James doesn’t look like a dog. His head looks like my thumb toe with blonde hair.
I keep walking until the water touches my toes. Then look back to the life guard stand. She sees me. The guy next to her too, and they laugh. They must think my suit looks dumb. Or my hair’s too long. Or that I’m too skinny. Or that I look like a child in a teenage body. No, that’s just me thinking about me. And I know they haven’t been thinking about the diving board, way out there where there isn’t a single wave or a single scream. Zinc shines against the life raft by their knees. “Who cares,” I think.
The tide rolls up to my ankles. The saltwater pushes me back, and my body sways. I clench my core, and hold firm and tall.
Now my thighs are in the water and the moment I hate the most is about to come. I stop and wait. But before I’m ready, a wave builds in front of me, curling white over blue, higher and higher until I can’t see the sky. So I dive.
The water feels cool against my skin. It’s cold, but not too cold. It’s never too cold to be home. The current pushes my hair in front of my eyes, but I don’t mind. I swim like a frog. I push water behind me, and dive. I push so far pressure builds in my ears, so I arch. Up and to the sky. I push more and more water behind. My lungs feel tight.
Tight.
Tight.
And then, I emerge, leaping from depths to the surface like a dolphin, and splash down. Saltwater pours from my nose, and my eyes sting. I wipe the salty tears away, and then I see it.
The diving board in the middle of the ocean.
The silver rails go up high.
The board that looks just a line. Just above where the water meets the sky. So high, I just want to climb up, and dive.
If you enjoyed this piece, you can find more of my writing at jinhoi.art