[ IP ] The Sea Wall

I was along the middle road of my life when I suddenly got lost. I had fallen to some sort of enchantment and had fallen asleep for a long time. I eventually woke up on a long beach. Its sand was soft like silk but still got into every orifice in my pants. I looked at the surging waves that tumbled onto the beach in achingly beautiful droves with sounds that reminded me of younger days. The waves were glassy blue like watered plum juice. The horizon was a ring of fire. It was crowned with clouds echoing their daytime whiteness. Out of the slowly shifting clouds our setting sun grinned sleepily as it began its descent. I stood up and began to walk straight ahead. 
 
 The beach was beautiful but there was nothing to do. I could only walk. My eyes drifted to the tiny seashells that sometimes broke up the sandy tapestry. I thought I saw a small crab scuttle into a burrowed hole. But I am sure that that was my imagination. Somehow I knew I was the only being alive on this beach. 
 
 Suddenly my legs began to weigh heavily. They felt like I had put ten ton weights on them. With every step I felt as if my heart would break. My whole body strained but I kept moving forward. Soon I saw another figure in the distance. Although every step seemed to grow all the more difficult, the sight of another man encouraged me and I kept going forward. 
 
 But when I reached the figure I discovered he was not a man. It was only a frozen, dead man. He was wearing contemporary gym clothes. He looked like he was out for a morning jog. He person and stature were perserved impeccably. I felt I could touch him and feel his chest rise with every breath. But he was dead. The man exuded death like a rotten fruit exudes a stench. I could feel his decay, although his body was immaculate. 
 
 I tore my eyes away from the frozen man. It required great difficulty to even focus now. I could barely move my legs. My eyes creaked and groaned as they focused on a new spectacle. The beach had risen up and formed some bizarre wall. It was as if forward had become down, and gravity had shifted to accommodate this change. At one moment the waves lapped next to my feet and the sand tickled them. Only a meter away though the waters rose up sharply along the wall as if there had been no disturbance to the laws of physics, and the sand remained unperturbed and totally packed, glistening with absorbed sea water. I thought that I was in some sort of cube, and every plane was its own realm of gravity. I was stuck on this plane. 
 
 Then a voice rang out in my head. It split my skull with its authority and loudness. But at the same time, though the voice rang like thunder, it was also like the spring shower that follows. I was comforted, too. 
 
 `` You have done good.'' the voice said solemnly, `` And this beach, this land, is your just reward.'' I supposed then that I had died, and this was to be my eternal resting place - a bit dull, but I guessed that I could work with it. Then the voice continued, `` But come hither through this wall, and achieve rewards you do not deserve.'' That seemed fair enough. I began to step to the wall. It was only about five paces away. 
 
 But my legs did not move. 
 
 Neither did my head, neck, or arms. I was stuck. My thoughts began to swirl, but even they began to slow and become sluggish. Eventually my mind drifted to the frozen dead man. I was gripped with utter terror and realisation. I turned my thoughts to retreating and going back to the beach. I found my legs began to move. I began to think to go to the wall. My legs halted immediately. The wall was death. It was a ploy! The voice was sadistic. Well, I would not fall for its trickery. 
 
 I began to turn away from the weird wall. But as I did so a sun flare got in my eye and I instinctively looked away. Then I caught sight of the frozen figure. Curiosity overcame me. As I was still intending to leave the wall, I found my steps difficult but manageable as I made my way to the frozen man. I slowly touched him. Instead of feeling frozen, or even rotten, flesh, I felt grains of sand. The figure melted away into the beach. His immaculate detail revealed to be mere illusions played by the dunes. 
 
 So I would not die. A wild curiosity struck me again. I pushed forwards to the wall. I was totally stuck. Or was I? Was I stuck, or was a moving forward ever so slightly? I had time, since I thought I was dead, and so I decided to wait and see if I moved forward. 
 
 I did. Ever so slowly. For every millimeter almost a century passed, it felt. I knew that I could quickly go back to the rest of the beautiful beach. But that would undo all my work. Doubts crept in as I made my impossible way forward. What if the wall was a lie? What if I was punished. What if the voice was a terrible sadist? 
 
 But the beach was pretty. And I thought that the voice created the beach, and so could n't be too terrible. I kept moving forward. 
 
 I think no time passed. It was still a burning sunset by the time I reached the wall. I had only felt like an almost eternity had passed. My hand had come to the point where I practically felt the grainy texture of the wall. I was so close... 
 
 Then the points touched, between wall and hand, I felt a nudge and then a leap in my stomach, from my feet upwards a cackling energy and power. Like a ball of electricity had been dropped in my heart and suddenly empowered everything I did. I shoved my hand through the wall. It absorbed my entire arm like a ghost would. A portal. With this immense power inside me, I quickly and easily made my way through the wall. A swirl of dazzling colors. Music, I thought, pounding from, in, and throughout the very drums of my ears. Planes of light almost crashing like galaxies dancing but never touching - a polite waltz of innumerable stars. Then I found myself along another world. But it was not very like a world. It was more than a world. An infinite planet - no - a planet, a universe, so massive and wonderful even infinite could not describe it. I felt as if I had been knocking at a closed door, bolted and double bolted, for my entire life. I felt as if I had been knocking on the door of a house with no lights. I felt as if I thought there had never been lights before. And suddenly the windows flicker gleams of yellow and the doors breaks open with a massive clatter. The master comes out of the home and he is happy to see you. He laughs and laughs and brings you into a feast prepared for you since the oldest days. And you question why you ever questioned, because of course it was this way. It could only have been. 
 
 Oh, what wonders I saw beyond the perfect beach. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

