Tides Of Tomorrow

By Nishka Chaube

With a gasp of air, I break free from the pearly white egg I’ve called home for the last fifty-nine days. Tears spring to my eyes, threatening to fall on the fuzzy crimson sand and indent shadowy puddles, as from my peripheral vision I see muted dabs of green being stolen from the nest by angry talons. Before they could even experience the sense of sight, my siblings were pierced through the heart. But I have no time to ponder that.

While my blurry eyes try to get used to the wide world in front of me, I see an iridescent, pale sheen. I don’t know how, but something in my fragile body compels me to follow its glow, and my limbs reluctantly oblige. It feels like home. But wait. There’s another light there, tinged with a warm phosphorescence, and there’s one so brain-piercingly white I am blinded, barely missing a savage attack by an eagle’s claw. Countless lights warp my sense of vision into a limbo, and for a second, I think this is it.

My life is over, just when it started. Weirdly, I’m not scared of death. I understand that we, as turtles, are destined to die deaths in a matter of seconds.

As I get ready to surrender what mere seconds I’ve had, a pair of warm, soft hands grab me by the inside of my shell, and in a trice, the salty ocean breeze accelerates around my form.

The next few moments go by slowly. I know no gravity. I fly amidst the clouds. Land in the ocean with a silent plop. With a gasp for air, I frantically flail my aching limbs, and I do this until my joints become numb and I no longer feel them. Until the only sounds are the muffled, mysterious warbling emanating from the deepest trenches of the ocean. Until the metallic lights that scratched at my eyes become one with the horizon, except for the original orb that hangs in the air.

What is that light? Am I safe now? Where do I go? Now it was questions that attacked my mind. So I attempted to ground myself—ironic, judging my position in the middle of the ocean.

What can I see? A blue sky, obviously. But the main attraction is that light, the one that stirred every drop of blood. A remarkable sight that doesn’t try to steal the show. It’s not blinding, eye-numbingly bright. It’s more like a twilight sheen that hypnotically shifts the attention of all towards its glow. It feels as if low, rumbling vibrations are sounding through the core of its luminosity, enticing not only my young soul but also the ancient oceans.

This light—it’s called the moon.

The next few weeks, months, years—I’ve lost count—are unreal. Dreamlike. It feels like I’ll awake from this false reality anytime soon, except, of course, it’s completely true. Now that I’ve escaped from the precarious birds and whatnot, away from their domain on the scalding crimson sands, I tried to search for seaweed mats or any sargassum patches in which I could shelter, as well as food.

Occasionally, a deep, numb sadness washes over me. Loneliness I’ve tried to keep hidden for the sake of moving on. The prismatic fishes, whose scales gleam in the golden rays, always have one another, and the dolphins always seem to travel with the calf nuzzling its mother's back. Even the coral thrive in clusters so bright—a kaleidoscope set on the ocean floor. All the things I could have done with my siblings, with my mom and dad, all the endless possibilities, shattered to a million irreparable pieces. I’ve been running my whole life—and my family’s memories run on with me.

As a family, our favorite meal would have been jellyfish—which, unfortunately, is also the rarest in these waters. Pleasant to chew, the ideal balance of salty and sweet, and the way every catch has its own flavor. I haven’t had jellyfish for a few days now, but mercifully, crustaceans aplenty roam the seas, just the right size to fill me and not pose too much of an attack. It’s as if I am being rewarded for my daring and intrepid escape.

And that’s when it hits me. Am I really alive? I really, truly, made it out? Had it not been for the pair of comforting, fleshy hands that hurled me to the aquamarine seas, I would have been nothing but leftover entrails lying on some mountaintop.

Although I feel alone sometimes, I’ve noticed that the moon never really abandons me. It returns after a while to check on me and all the other little creatures cowering and shivering. Like the caramel pistil nestled in between the draping petals of a flower, or like a child burrowed in fluffy warm blankets, a new sense of protection washes over me. Here I am, coated with algae, with all the food I could ever ask for, wading in the mystifying reservoirs of sapphire water.

There’s just one confusing thing that muddles my mind. In occasional patches of water or scattered through the wildlife are strewn pieces of items of some sort, I presume. They range in size, shape, and color, but the more you come across, the more similarities you spot. A lot more of them were visible in the sands, but I didn’t pay much attention at that time. Bottles, polyethylene, containers, all tangled up with each other. And one more thing—they’re fatal.

A few weeks ago, one of these anomalies was floating around, astray from its original clump of litter up ahead. Owing to its minuscule coin-sized shape, I chewed it and attempted to swallow it in my desperation for food. It had been a part of one of those bottles floating around, I think. Gnawing and gnawing it piece by piece, it was slowly being eroded off by my flat teeth.

Unexpectedly, another bird flew by up ahead, inches away, but not one that would hunt me. Smaller in size, it was one you’d expect to find in a blooming and ornate garden dotted with jewels, sipping the nectar of exotic and tantalizing flowers. The hues on its body merged seamlessly in a gradient of green to purple—polished emerald to radiant amethyst. The beady black eyes that dotted its perfect head shone with an intensity so bright, it matched the shine of the sun!

With a jolting horror, I realized that the intensity splayed across its eyes was not one of pure brilliance, but one of terror. My eyes flitted down to its body, and oozing blood was dripping out of a jagged line on its body, with something clear and pliable dangling off the cut. It was one of those littered items—in fact, like the one I was chewing right now! The bird's wings darted from here to there. Blood the shade of rubies poured out of the otherworldly bird, and with a final, tremulous cry, its black eyes shut as its figure silently fell from the skies—a fallen angel plummeting from the glittering ethers. And just in time, a miniature version of the bird gazes up as its mother drops, the little creature’s heart falling with her.

The item had butchered a living thing.

Once my awe and dread wore off, I immediately spat the round disc of blue out of my mouth. No matter how hungry I was, never would I consume something that kills so cruelly or so easily.

Over the next few days, I came across more and more dead creatures with ‘items’ on their corpses, the fatalities occurring in unique ways every time. Some had see-through bags knotted around their necks—ultimately choking them—while others flaunted jagged cuts similar to that of the hauntingly beautiful creature. Some possessed crumbs of the ‘bottle-caps’ they had eaten, dotted around their mouths—a sure sign of death by consummation of these mysterious objects.

Tonight, I close my eyes and feel the wind brush my ears, smell the clearing salty waft that accompanies the ocean. The stars are clearly visible, looking like someone spilled a bag of gleaming silver beads across the picture-blue sky. Grains of sand here and there bob around the foaming surface, and I conclude that I should leave behind my resentment of sand, no matter how much it burnt me. Another conclusion, it seems, hangs in the air, waiting for me to unveil its true meaning. A conclusion, I realize, that will identify me. A name.

Think. Think. Think. What is something you’ve seen that has inspired you? My thoughts race with electric possibility, fizzing at the excitement of this new prospect. The moon? Hmm… maybe. What about the ocean itself? Surely that’s deserving of an epic name? I guess…? That’s when it comes to me—an object forged deep below, in shallow pools of darkness, where uncertainty lies at every turn, and where light never graces the sea beds with its gentle shine. Despite the murkiness of its birthplace, this object gleams with a brilliance so valuable, its very existence is famed all over the world. Perfected through pressure. Shaped through sheer effort. Small but surpassing limits. A metaphorical testament to thriving no matter what the world throws at you. A pearl—or in Arabic, Lulu.

A beaming smile instantly lights up my face as the word rolls easily off my tongue. Now I’ll have a connection to the seas no matter where life takes me.

Speaking of the seas, structures begin to slowly materialize along the shoreline, with their see-through panels and ultra-modern stature. The tops of geometric spires and glass-supported beams of gargantuan sizes dawn upon me, and as my eyes trace their pointed peaks all the way to their strong bases, white tents on terracotta sands begin to form, their fabrics flapping with salt-laden breeze.

The further my flippers take me, the more sights become apparent to my vision. Pools of dark-blue waters are situated near the tents, with labels identifying the wildlife being held there. Rays of golden sunlight filter through and illuminate the blue depths—revealing a hidden fantasy—just like pulling the curtains to a dazzling show. Stringy bunches of algae dance with grandeur in some tanks, while in others, rainbow coral thrive galore. Some pools contain glistening fishes bursting golden with sunlight, and some of the biggest ones have larger aquatic mammals such as dolphins, rings of bubbles floating and disappearing above their muzzles. Birds squawk and chirp with glee, soaring the heavens and blocking the rays of a light for a fleeting moment up ahead. Just as I crane my neck to see more, the world below me is lifted, and my flippers leave the foaming, sparkling sands as I am lifted higher and higher through the air. Here, the water didn’t threaten to wash me away or roughly toss me from side to side. It encircled the tips of my legs in gentle circular motions.

This familiar sensation—warm, nuzzling hands, with their doughy flesh and soft skin—is one I’ve experienced before, and one I’ve cherished countless times. I should be frightened, agitated that I am being lifted off the ground. That I might be dropped and forgotten, left isolated to die alone. But the caress of the cupped palms that shelter my underside soothes me, melting away all my worries. When I was a younger turtle, I was rescued by a guiding touch—a golden, warmth-emitting lantern in the darkness—and I am yet again found by these very hands. I squinted my eyes to read the large sign stationed on the shore. It reads: “Dubai Ocean Wildlife Sanctuary.” I sigh. It all falls in place now: the chattering of workers clad in glowing white suits, the lapping of the glittering waves, the satisfaction playing on every single one of the creatures’ faces, the sunlight glittering with an effulgent smile. In times of darkness, the only thing stronger than fear is hope.

Hope is like the glowing moon, which exists and has existed since time immemorial. The moon waxes and wanes, just as hope seems to be gained and lost—even though it never really disappears. Hope is like the bird, seeming to be delicate or frail, and yet it endures harsh weather and lengthy migrations—like hope vanishes and returns. Hope is like a pair of warm hands, sheltering against the hazards of the journey and nurturing the essence of life.

By Nishka Chaube