Bollulo Bay

A short story that I wrote in December. Heavily influenced by Hemingway, it’s only a couple of thousand words so give it a go and let me know what you think in the comments - would be great to get some feedback.

The young boy was alone as he paddled out into the bay. It was early morning and the clouds hung low, masking the mountaintops of Bollulo behind him, bathing the beach in a dull, grey light. The waves were biggest early in the day and he swam furiously, each stroke dragging the boy and his board further from the shore, and further from his problems.

“Why must my mother remarry at all?” the boy wondered aloud. She has my sisters and me for company, do we not give her the love that she needs? We love her more than ever, for she is all that we have now.

When a small wave came, he would kick hard and roll over the top of it. But when the bigger waves hit he took a deep breath and plunged through them, his board like the tip of a spear, slicing an opening into the roaring wall of water.

The night that his father’s fishing boat had returned without him weighed heavy on the boy’s heart. It had limped to the shoreline just down the coast from their home - an empty shell, the hull had taken on much water and was barely afloat. The boy’s father was nowhere to be seen, lost at sea to the calm beneath the waves. No man is an island… unless he’s a buoy, his father used to joke. “Well father, I am only a boy and since you were lost I truly feel like an island”.

As he entered a wave, he felt its great weight roll over him, pushing him downward until the great roar became a muffled rumble. Then, as it passed, the buoyancy of his board beneath him would spring him back towards the surface, slicing out of the wave’s spine, re-emerging into the world above.

His mother’s lover knew nothing of the sea. He owned a yacht down at the marina that his construction company had built, but he knew nothing of the sea. The marina was four concrete limbs, perfectly formed with the clean, brutal edges that only a man could relish. Straight lines are man’s invention, his father said – the only straight line in nature, is that where the sea meets the sky. The distant horizon, a definitive divide between the Earth and the Heavens. God’s own boundary.

The black sand beach behind him was empty and a gentle wind blew, carrying the sound of a distant church bell out across the bay. The boy counted 8 strikes before he entered another wave. When he resurfaced, the ringing had stopped. “No matter”, he said to himself, it will surely still be an hour or so before they discover I’m not there, and even then he doubted that they would care. That bell will be ringing later for the wedding, he thought. “Let it ring, I care not”.

Some of the best waves on the island had been lost when the marina was built. First they came with diggers, then cement mixers and cranes. They cut the coastline deep. The bay, sculpted by thousands of years, and millions of waves, had been carved with precision to God’s own design, yet now it was altered by a man. The waves didn’t go to the bay at Puerto De La Crus after it was butchered. It was a godless place where men in yachts worshipped only themselves. The island was wounded and bled into the sea.

The boy’s father had taught him to surf in the bay at Puerto De La Crus, but after the marina was built there and the waves there were culled, the family came here to Bollulo Bay instead, a place where his mother and father had courted in their youth. The boy and his father would surf while his mother and sisters sat on the beach and read. His mother always brought bowls of rice and fresh fish and would wave from the shoreline when it was time to eat, but since his father died she could no longer bear to visit Bollulo.

The big waves always carried the boy slightly further back than before he had entered them. He knew he must paddle as hard as any man could in the lull between, allowing them to pass over him, before crashing onto the beaten shoreline - leaping and licking at the land’s jagged teeth.

His sisters loved him very much, but they were older and had their boyfriends to love them in return. When his father did not return, he became the man of the house and he was strong through the months that his mother wept at night.

His father had always told him that he should keep close to the bay’s left wall as he paddled out so that when the waves entered from that side, which they always did, they would carry him away from the sharp rock outcrop that stood in the centre, delivering him safely to the shallow waters. And so he followed the line of the cliffs to the left of him, edging further out, toward the open sea.

Many months after his father was lost, his mother stopped crying. She seemed as healed as could be. She told the boy that she had met a man. She said that she liked him very much and that he made her happy – but no one would replace his father. It made the boy pleased to see his mother strong again and he even heard her laugh for the first time in many months.

As a small child the boy had cried when he saw the diggers. His father had told him to be brave. There were many more bays on the island and the waves would go there stronger and in greater numbers. Bollulo Bay was the last refuge of the sea, and now the waves approached with great fury in their heart. First marching, then charging.

Surfers, his father told him, were the matadors of the sea. Charged down by a powerful beast, you must face him and know that he possesses a thousand times your own strength and then, at the very last second, you must turn and use his own might against him. Always remember, his father said, neither the bull nor the sea is your enemy for neither beast knows what he does; this is how you will conquer them. Remember that they are your brothers.

One night he awoke to his mother returning from the man’s house, her gentle sobs once again coming from the other room. Mama, what is wrong? he asked, but she did not reply. He went to console her but she flinched and pulled away, and in the dim light the boy saw her face, a faint purple bruise across her left cheek. The boy stood behind her, placed his arms around her neck and held her close. She did not see him cry. He asked no more questions that night.

On the surface of the sea his mind was awash with worry, his shoulders tense as he heaved still further from the land. It was only beneath the waves, his mind felt truly clear, free from the stress of the land, bathed in the solitude of the sea.

In the months that followed that night his mother seemed changed, bruises came and went, and she was distant from the boy and his sisters, often gazing solemnly toward the ocean. Her sobs woke the boy regularly. “Why must she marry this man?” asked the boy.

The wind came stronger now, and so too did the waves for a while. A fine drizzle descended from the clouds above, but the air was still warm and neither the boy nor the sea bid the rain any attention.

He stopped paddling as he neared the edge of the bay. Now he must wait for his wave of choice. Many waves rolled by beneath him before he sensed a big one coming. He braced as it approached him, breaking rank and charging him down. As its swell began to lift him, he paddled a hard right, turned around and began to stand. He felt the wave slip from beneath his board and he lay back down. “He was not the one”, he muttered, as the wave rolled on toward the shore. The boy continued to wait.

At Bollulo Bay the waves roll in at steady intervals, forming and breaking as the beating of the Earth’s heart - a crest of delicate white foam at their head and a powerful back with the strength to hurl a man many feet into the air.

His mother would be readying for the ceremony now. He glanced at the sun and saw it was nearly above the outcrop of rocks in the centre of the bay. Then he heard the bells peal. Was it that time already? Is it so late that mother is on the way to the church? “Come on wave”, he uttered. “Come with all your might”, but only small waves came and as he drifted over them, nothing would drown out the sound of the bells. She is almost there now. Perhaps even at the aisle, he thought.

Several minutes passed as the boy bobbed on the ocean. He held fast, waiting for the wave, waiting for the bull. He felt the wind pick up and saw the sea begin to swell, sending many small waves in quick succession and then they began to grow. He ducked under wave after wave, washing the ringing from his ears. And then he saw it. A wave as dark as the volcanic sand approached, the sea gave way beneath it and the boy felt his board sink low in the water. ““Come to me Monstro, come to me. I will tame you my brother”, murmured the boy, “I will ride you to your death”.

It was upon him. He felt the board begin to lift and he braced. “Hold fast”, he said, “Hold, hold, hold”. If he turned too early it would roll him over, too late and it would swallow him whole – and so he held. Up and up it lifted him, roaring and frothing around him. And then, he turned, spinning his back to the wave. Moving quickly now, he shot forward, gripping his board tight. His arms, though tired from paddling hard, were ready and he pushed himself carefully and determinedly to his feet.

The board slipped and writhed under him, throwing him left and then right as the wave took hold, but he stood strong. The beast bucked and fought beneath him as, head down, the boy began to weave beneath its crest. Faster and faster he rode, whipping from side to side, the wind whistling hard in his ears. “You are mine Monstro”, whispered the boy.

The wave was strong and battled hard beneath him. He countered its throws over and over, at last glancing up from his board, only then realising that he was perilously close to the rock outcrop in the middle of the bay. “Must I lose the wave or lose my life?” he demanded. “It matters not to me Monstro, you are mine either way now”.

Closer and closer he sailed to the jagged outcrop of rocks, forcing his back foot harder and harder to the board, desperately trying to drive himself away from them. The distant bells still rang, and then the wave began to barrel. Glancing upward, he saw its white hood above him as it fell. He ducked lower and lower as the roaring wave bore down upon him, and still he pushed his back foot hard to try to keep himself from the rocks.

As his foot slipped, the wave bit down upon him. He plunged deep into the violent waters and then the roaring ceased, lost in the calm beneath the waves.

Coughing and gasping for air, the boy dragged himself up onto the black sand. Rubbing his eyes from the salt and still dizzy from the throw of the wave he sat for a while to catch his breath.

In the distance, the church bells rang out, and across the beach the boy saw a lone figure watching him. By her side was a bowl of rice and fresh fish, and that morning, somewhere up in the church on the hillside, a cruel man finally learnt how it felt to be an island.